Omaha daily bee., 1920-01-20

! churchel KNOW on recent Sunua,
morning orr large mems class dis
cussed THE Relation Betweei
Wages and Productions" anothe
was studying Prof. Rauschenbusch'
book on social problems in the ligh
of Christian teaching, and a Won
ems class was considering "Th
Health of the Community"
| One great church movement ha
been spending tens of thousands o
dollars making an investigation Q
the steel strike, and one need onl,
refer to the social reconstruction
program of the Federal Council o
| Churches in America and the pro
nouncement of xhe Catholic wa
council of the United States to b,
convinced of the deep and seriou
interest of the churches in this prob
lem.
Stand Of Church.
In a recent statement the Unlta
rian Church of America says:
The claim to more cquitabl,
distribution of the profits of in
dustry is not only clamorous bu
just"
A sense that the old system i.
unjust and needs revision per
meates all groups of our society
A prominent business man tool
! from his pocket the other day anc
read to me this paragraph:
The rapid growth Of great cities
| the enormous masses Of immigrant.
(inany of them ignorant of our Ian
guaee) and the greatly increased
complications of life have created
conditions under which the provi
sions for obtaining justice which
were formerly sufficient are suffi.
cient no longer. think the true
/ criticism which we should make
upon our own conduct is that We
I have been so busy about our in
dividual affairs that we have beer
slow 10 appreciate the changes ol
conditions which to so great an ex.
tent have put justice beyond the
reach of the poor"
What bolshevik said that?" he
| inquired, and answered his owr
question, "It was Elihu Root"
He was quoting from a new and
exhaustice study of the 'presen,
denial of justice to the poor" made
by SO respectable a body as the
Carnegie foundation.
Not only public and business and
| religious bodies are awakening. bui
labor groups as we'll. Labor is learn.
ing that it has public as we'll as spe-
cial interests, that to large exten,
it is the public. heard a speech
at the convention of the Labor
party at Chicago in November by
Glenn E. Plumb, whose name is
connected with a new plan, the
Plumb plan, for railroad control. He
set forth the new situation in a way
which seemed to startle some of the
labor leaders there assembled. HI
said that in the early days Of or
ganized labor craft groups could
get together, and by organization
force up wages, the cost of which
the employers promptly passed
along to the public. But what is
the public? asked Mr.. Plumb, and
went on to show that large ma
jority of the public was made up
of wage earners or wage earners
families, SO that when strong
unlo got raise in wages most of it
was paid by other wage earners. As
more and more labor organizations
got into the field, the more wages
were forced up, the faster grew the
process by which increasing wages
tor one group chased up the living
costs OF all the other groups.
Idea of Plumb.
He might also have said, but did
not, that not only increasing wages,
but lessenlng production whether
caused by the limitation of output
by labor unions, the ineflciency of
employers or by strikes or lockouts,
had to be met by the public, a ma
jority of which was also wage
earners. In short, we are all the
public toward each separate greedy
group, whether of workers or en-
ployers.
Mr.. Plumb's idea is that there has
get to be a new deal, new ar
rangement of society; he has a
plan" for working it out, so has
the new labor party, so have the
socialists. | am not here entering
into the merits or weaknesses Of
any of these plans or proposals,
whether coming from labor or capi-
talistic organizations, or churches
or other public bodies, but calling
attention to them as evidences Of
the wide awakening to the serious
ness Of the problem and the effort to
grapple with tit.
A new note was also prominent
in the so-called bill of rights" is
sued by group OF llo uyfon lead
ers at Washington on December
II. There is clear attempt to meet
the new public criticism of labor or
ganization, especially regarding pro-
ductivity and efficiency, by the pro-
posal of new remedies for the or
ganization of industry. No group
any longer dares leave the public
out of account.
All this grouping for a better un-
derstanding of conditions, this as
sumption on all sides that there
ought to be more justice, more de-
mocracy in our industrial relation
ships--however uncertain yet of spe-
cihc applications of new remedies
is surely the most hopeful elements
in the present unrest.