Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-11-01
Public Opinion as Factor
In Industrial DISPUTES
TvHE darkly imminent rail strike, al
though happily ayerted, has served to

TTHE darkly imminent rail strike, al
| though happily ayerted, has served to
| emphasize anew and most cogently
| the need Of continued effort toward the es-
| tablishment of means that will insure an or
| derby and equitable adjustment of every such
issue in which public interest is paramount.
| Every" be it granted, is a large word. But
the national stake in these controversies Is
so immense and the human distress to which
they can lead, so acute and far-reachlng, that
no patience should be spared to keep them
in every instance within bounds OF pacific
procedure. Nor is the task disEearten1ng,
M. I less hopeless, when viewed in the light
of what already has been accomplished, and
undertaken with faith in the public's enlight-
ened will
1t was fully a generation ago that an arbi-
tration measure applying to interstate car
riers was first placed among federal statutes;
but so listless If not dead letter did it
prove, that it's existence was well-nigh for
gotten. In 1898 came the Erdman Act, pro-
viding that sin case Of a dispute between
carrier and its employees either party might
request the chairman Of the Interstate Com
merce Commission and the United States
Commissioner of Labor to offer mediation"
and if both disputants gave assent, these two
officials were Ito use their best endeavors to
adjust the difficulty ears passed, with
only one resort to this loose device. But as
the bearings of transportation upon the COM
mon Interests KEPT widening and deepening,
to be recognized, so that between 1907 and
1918 it was invoked for sixty-one cases, for
ty Of which it settled. In 1912 it's provisions
proved effective in adjusting wage dispute
between the Brotherhood of Locomotive En-
gineers and the railroads, fifty-two in num-
Der, Of the Eastern district. Under the New
lands Act, designed to meet the more OBJ
vious limitations of the Erdman measure,
which it superseded, there was adjusted be-
tween July, 1913, and October, 1915. to-
tai Of sixty-one controversies. OF these, for
ty-six were, settled by mediation, and eleven
by arbitration; in four, there was both
mediation and arbitration. 1t is worthy of
note, moreover, that in fifteen cases the rail-
roads and in twenty-one the employees ap-
piled for the good offices Of the Board which
the Newlands Act created, while in seven
teen cases they made joint application. Still
another substantial step forward in the pro-
gressive effort to prevent wasteful strikes
was made in 1913 when the Secretary of the
Department of Labor was empowered ''to act
as mediator and to appoint commissioners OF
Cancellation in labor disputes whenever in
his judgment the interests of industrial
peace may require it to be DONE" OF the
success with which this authority was en-
ployed, DR.. Frederic Austin Ogg observes in
his NATIONAL PROGRESS: "In the fiscal
year 1916 two hundred and twenty-seven
cases. representing almost every important
branch of industry, were handled by the De-
partment; and hardly more than a score
proved beyond It's power to ADJUST.
These make not unimpressive cloud of
witnesses for the feasibility of arbitrating
even the most veXed and entangled of such
disputes-especially when the latest instance
is added. The Railway Labor Board, the es-
tablishment of which under the Escn-Cum-
Minis law constitutes the most recent advance
in this field, has succeeded somehow in avert
ing a strike that threatened to paralyze rail
transportation the country over. 1t has sue
ceedeu despite limited powers and despite the
assumption that it's decisions are not legally
enforceable Reduced to it's bare yea, yea
and nay, nay, this Board may have little if
any more authority than that conferred I'M
der Newlands or the Erdman Act; but it has
behind it much more articulate and potent
body of public opinion than formerly func-
toned Whenever by any means the larger
controversies of the industrial realm can be
brought fairly within the court of public
opinion and adjudi1ated upon basis OF the
common interests, then there is likely to be
peace-and, what is more important, there is
likely to be justice. Abstractly, it is true
enough, as critics of arbitration point out,
that capitalists cannot be compelled to hire
men, and men can ot be compelled to work"
But given a concrete situation, where the
facts are, broadly known, the community's
sense of what S reasonable and right will
rarely fail to compel respect. 1t is upon this
line, perhaps, that further advances in effect
i've arbitration will be made