South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1919-08-31

make just as big fool of itself as the next al
most none having the breadth of mind and depth
of soul essential to the exercise Of power without
abuse.
By Fighting the devil with his own tongs," one
becomes likewise devish In the act-and that is
bolShevk Russia.
"
A MERICA will never boIshevize. Democracy
n is too utopian to admit of It. However, this
Labor Day is a good time to stop for the mo-
ment and contemplate the menace-the minia-
ture example that we have here, an inheritance
of the ages as political democracy has refined
it, of the Russian condition that has driven boil
shevism to its horrible extremes.
Study the evolution of the workingman, fight
ing his way, peaceably he can, forcibly where
he must. His has been an incessant struggle with
poverty.
At first he did not even SOW crops and breed
animals, but Subsisted roots, wild fruits, the
beasts of the woods, and fish from the rivers and
seas.
Then came the socalled pastoral age, next the
agricultural stage, and finally this industrial age,
but through it all it has been a struggle for the
millions while favored few have along IN
ease.
At certain stages, where the demands for con
sumption have exceeded production tribes found
it easier to take than produce more, and such was
the beginning of war-a primal purpose that has
followed il to this day
Rival communities battled with each other for
the means of subsistence the victor levying trib-
ute, making slaves of his captives,-and with
each new grist of slaves there developed an en-
larged mobility" among the conquered, to feast
upon their toll.
Slaves were traded back and forth and sold
like cattle; at times had no rights which freemen
were bound to respect. Servitude maintained as
matter of course, after which came serfdom, a
slight evolution, In which the serf was not exactly
slave, but attached to a certain piece OF soil
that its transfer carried with it the instruments
of tllage
He became more or less free in his private or
domestic relations but worked conditions pre-
scribed for him, not by hm--a system of pater-
nalism IN which custom, law and religion
bined to hold him In subsection.
Free workers, occasionally emancipated by
humane masters, TO ward off open revolt now
and then associated themselves into bodies, but
nothing In the nature of modern organized labor,
with its potentially of regulating conditions and
remuneration by concerted action, could possibly
have existed.
You catch the line of what labor has been
fighting through the ages, to get away from.
Well, today it has its jaw firmly set, and its heels
braced IN the sand, and is taking its stand after
manner that it never has before; insisting upon
the right of collective and protective bargaining,
exactly Its employers bargain-this on the one
hand, and that the system of prohteering upon
their collective wage shall be checked to prevent
its eating up again ali the wages that it brings
them.
VII
THAT is the new awakening. American labor
is coming to realize that its dignity depends
not half so much on the high wages that it is paid
upon the conditions under which it is employ
ed, and that there must be limitation of profits
thereon that will hold the employer to a juster
acceptation of his share Of the rewards.
To eliminate the class consciousness for which
those excess profits responsible, the day, it Is
determined, must eventually come, when the en-
ploying class cannot live on one side of city in
more or less palatial mansions, while the men
who do their work live the other side, IN homes
more or less akin to the hovel.
1t is not the workngman that has created this
class consciousness. 1t is the profits upon the pro-
ducts of labor and capital combined, with such
excessive proportions accruing to the employer,
that have created il; consciousness that has be
come self-classiied in the minds of both.
Eliminate the prohts-all excess of a
reasonable proht,-and you Will eliminate the
consciousness-equalizing standards Of living and
making better American citizens Of employer and
employe both.
Indeed, no, the Transformation isn't beautiful
for the prohteerng class to contemplate it
might not be necessary had not greed pressed It's
prohteering privileges far beyond the limit
to approach the altitude of the intoerable
Labor is seeing the light. Congress IS seeing
it. Some process of limiting profits IS bound to
result whether it be by some such avenue as the
proposed Kenyon law, some other measure.
Nobody cares to see a Notwithstanding or
prce-hxing bureaucracy established IN Amer
ica,-but it might be better than revolution,
which is evolution gone mad.
1t can all be avoided by the proprietors of
greed giving up such portions of their grab Will
rosf Of LIVING 70