Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-10-11

DllHClplCSs hluB lNlNiioiN - ''NN
rebels and strove to patch things up with
a particularizing panacea. OF course, II
was worthless. Both sides went too far.
The government crushed the strikers and
then recalled its hasty promises. And
yet, by evolution, justice did prevail.
The machinery of the law, grounded in
sane general principles, was equal to ac-
compishing the reforms. The courts
passed upon violation of codes, adopted
in the interest of society as whole,
and the executive authority punished
offenders.
The most wholesome influence which
the present labor conference could exert
upon the nation would emphasize the
need for keeping the provinces Of our
democratic machinery separate and
avoiding the folly of special legislation
in which Congress and state Legislatures
chroncally indulge.
Upon the legal fundamentals in this
republic it is perfectly logical to super
impose consistent principles covering in
dustrial cases. They must be clear and
comprehensive. To indulge in details
covering Il variety VI tlJCb SOllGllBS
is to step into a morass. Just as the
criminal law does not specify the color of
the possible infractor's hair, so the legal
labor fundamentals should avoid handi-
caps concerning specific wage rates and
the incidental trade rights of particular
classes of employers and workmen.
Given the guiding groundwork, which
it should be the aim of the Washington
convention to suggest to Congress for
enactment as an industrial policy or code,
it will lsbe up to the courts or other COM
petent bodies created to reason specif-
ically upon the broad principles and to
apply in the particular case the particu-
lar remedy most beneficial to society.
The individual offender, capitalist or
worker, is in a sense incidental, as he is
in causes before our courts today. Pro-
lection to the public, which indorses old
laws and shares in the making of new
ones, is the first concern of democracy
worthy of the name.
1t is imaginable that if Congress
avoids the special legislation swamp,
such, for example, as that into which,
under severe provoCation, it tumbled in
the railroad-wage acts, its formulation
of sound, sweeping principles regarding
labor, its rights and the public's, may
call for some new legal machinery.
Industrial courts may be evolved.
If the notion is startling, think how
astonshed Alexander Hamilton would
have been at the idea of Department
of Labor in the American cabinet! And
yet it conflicts in no way with hiS basic
conception of government 1t merely
amplifes and develops it along lines
which strain the constitution in not the
slightest degree. That instrument is
broad enough to cover industrial causes,
as it has done a prodigious host of un-
foreseen cases. The labor recommended
tions now in process of formulation will
have to be similarly elastic to further the
ends of justice.
The task of framing comprehensive
principles is formidable. With the best
of intentions, the delegates in Washing
ton will be unable to embrace the whole
problem. They can, however, make
transcendently important beginning. They
can keep our democratic machinery, with
its tenets on behalf of the rights of life,
liberty and pursuit of happiness (Which
does not mean license, oppression or
crime), in motion on a standardized path.
Notwithstanding detours and collisions,
civilization has followed it to some fine
accomplishments. Some have been
slowly gained Capital and labor and the
public are doomed to disappointment if
they expect an instant antidOte for all the
present ills.
The conference has an unexampled op-
portunity to renounce quackery in favor
of treatment by general principles, which
will permit of genuine cures for specific
diseases when they break out. The whole
course of American history indorses this
procedure.