The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-07-10
CONFLICT BETWEEN. CAPITAL AND LABOR. HAS BEEN BITTER.
Strikes Since the Armistice Foot Up in Days Into the Hundreds of Thousands
 Throughout Country
By RALPH BURTON
 Special to The Herald fOnurfDht TNCI hv The AC~HAr

Copyright. 1921, by The Agc-Horald)
 Washington, July s--Strikes and lockouts, the open manifestations of bor in the United Statee have since the close of the World war been marked by constantly increasing bit terness and have been contested more vigorously than ever before. Data gathered by the bureau of la bor statistics of the department of labor and made public today showed that the length of strikes increased rapidly after the armistice and that there was a great increase in the number of strikes continuing over long periods of time.
 Since the first of the present year, when the great amount of unemploy- ment in the United States began to attract attention, strikes have been less numerous, for, obviously, labor is not in good position to carry on industrial war when there are several men available for every job. Trade union tactics have changed considerably as a result.
 Sfrtkes 0f ktecFmt
 Despite the unfavorable condition from labor's point of view, however, there have been considerable num- Der of really important strikes dur ing recent months-that of the sea men. that of the paper mill employees which still involves perhaps 30,000 men-and that of the printers in number of cities. There have like wise been strikes in the building trades in number of cities, and at present the railroad mon are debat- ing the merits of strike as pro- test against wage reductions. Their hesitation in the matter--they do not necessarily determine the mat ter before September lis probably explainable as the only course open to them. since they are unwilling to accept the reduction, and feel that they cannot afford to reject 1t 100 summarily. These commitments show how grim the conflict between labor and capital is becoming
 Labor is going slow right now oe- cause 1t can do nothing else. but when strikes occur they are fought 10 a finish. Some old-time tradc unionists complain that the union ists of today have not "the fortitude tc suffer and the courage to fight" They deny that much sacrifice Is re- ouired to participate in strike bene- fits. But the figures of the bureau of labor statistics tell rather diff ferent story.
 Thousands of Days
 Tn 1916. the total duration of such strikes as the bureau recorded-and 1t can collect data only on those which reach the attention of its of- ficials through press or other sources of information--was 46.305 days. and the total duration of lock-outs 3.S7S days The war labor board and tho war labor policies board were sctive during the war, and tho conciliation service of the department of labor was stirred to unprecedented efforts. Tie first regulation laid down by the war labor board was. there shall be no strikes or lock-outs during the war" But there were in 1917 no less than 2,016 strikes and 58 lock-outs, | lasting, respectively (otal duration). c5,077 days and 1904 days. And In 19lS' the total duration of strikes was 2s.77s days. and of 1ock-outs 1.116 days. The average duration of strikes was IT days and of lock outs | 19 days
 The great change that followed 1 singning of the armistice Is reflect |
 
 of strikes in 1919 was 60.715 days more tAan double that of the pre- ceding year and . large increase over 1916, the last pre-war year. The average length of each strike was s4 days, and of each lock -out S8 days. In 1920 an even more interest ing situation developed. for al- though there were fewer strikes due to the beginning of business de- pression-their average duration was 3S days and the average iura- tion of lockouts was 69 days
 Another indication of militancy ap- pears in the announcement by the bureau that there were in 1919 no less than 125 unauthorized strikes, involving 1,o5S.256 strikers, and in 1920 twice as many-251--involvin s50,S37 strikers In 1919. 142 strikes lasted from three months to six months and 1s more than 200 days. The respective figures for 1920 were 116 and 29.
 -n.--