The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1919-12-26

] ana TOT IndI TedoOi tiiS 49,
movement believes that it will not
he recognized by such corporations
&c obovo referred to until the same
process has been gone through tha'
has brought about its just recogni-
tion elsewhere.
This is the great burden that the
organized labor movement has al
ways had to bear-years OF Sa'ri-
flee. conflict, condemnation an"
abuse. before the great sound ana
constructive principles for which II
has always stood have come to De
accepted and appreciated by those
who. in the beginning had been
loudest in their condemnation.
The eight-hour day, workmen
compensation, free textbooks IN
schools. and a thousand other meas
ures by which the progress ana
value of our present progressive
government can be measured, are
the result of this unending struggle
and sacrifice on the part of labor.
lust as these measures were mis-
understood and misrepresented in
the beginning, so are many OF the
things that labor is now struggling
for misunderstood and misrepre-
scented, but just as We point with
pride to these tokens OF progress
and advancement, so will we come,
in the near future, to accept as Just
the things labor now contends for
and which have always brought
universal advancement for all OF
the people: but again it will be for
gotten that it is labor that has paid
the heaviest price for this advance
ment,
Your illustration of the situation
existing among the railway en-
ployees is not at all apt and bears
no relation to the question of open
or closed shop. The railway en-
plovees have always functioned
through their organizations, thus
securing at all times recognition OF
the union shop, while the advocates
of what is termed the open shop in
sist on dealing with their employ
n1ir11 n
the union shop. This, of course,
will be quite generally denied by
those who advocate the so-called
open shop, although careful anal
vsis of the full-page advertisements
that have appeared for some time in
the daily press of this city, paid for
bv the organized movement to bring
the open shop, will clearly reveal
this motive-a motive, of course,
that union labor has, through bit
ter experience, realized for many,
many years, and without the assist
ance of the additional emphasis of
| this ultimate result now reNealeu
in the present campaign.
No one desires industrial peace
more than | do. No one recognizes
better the economic waste to both
sides. resultant from this constant
strife, but experience has taught
me that peace can only be estab-
lished in the degree that justice is
applied in any conflict, and the
present unrest and conflict on the
industrial field can be traced di-
rectly to the extortionate profiteer-
ing that has been practiced
throughout the entire nation, with
no serious effort made by those in
a position to make it, to curb the
same, while almost every effort OF
labor to increase its wages to meet
the ever-increasing cost of living
has met with the most violent op-
position, with the result that what
IL DIS dl GS , DSGh lGNOSlllLCh Ah'
American standard, has not il
many cases been maintained.
Industrial peace can and will b'
! restored just in the degree that the
employers of labor desist from any
further effort to break down the
workers only protection, his trade
union, and agree to sit at the table
and honestly work out the many
problems that now confront the
wage-earner, as well as industry
itself,
This is the important ingredient
missing from the elixir for indus
trial peace, and just as soon as il
is restored the cure for most of oui
Industrial ills will begin to take
effect and the need for legislation
which in the last analysis rarely
contributes much towards the cure
will have passed.