The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-09-23
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information, Bureau
FREDERIC J. HAsKN. Director.
Washington. d. @.
FIGHT TT OUT OR STOP FIGHTING
Washington, p. 81, Sept. s.

|
have racked the country for the last
year and threatened a crisis during
recent weeks two distinct schools OF
/ thought have developed. One is mill
tant; the other, pacifist. One Is IN
sistent that the time has come to fight
to a finish the differences between
capital and labor or between the
/ unions and the anti-union element
The other contends that the psyche
! logical hour has arrived to stop fight
| ing-to effect an armistice and nego-
| tiate a peace that will be permanent.
OF the two schools the militant has
| been more largely in evidence ana mas
asserted its views the more vehe-
mentIy. 1t would appear to be the
stronger numerically. Strangely
| enough its membership runs from one
| extreme to another, including poth
| the ultra-conserVativeS or reaction
aries who believe in the absolute capt.
talistic domination of industry and
| those immoderate radicals who would
| destroy practically all our existing
social, economic and political insti-
| tutions.
membership of this element is re-
eruited from the fighting men capital
| engages in the management OF IN
| dustry, from the ranks OF employers,
large and small, who have always been
FESTIVE under the compulsion of deal
| and from the public group that sur
| fers inconvenience or loss as result
| of the ever occurring conflicts be-
| tween capital and labor.
The ultra-conservatiyes of capital
| say that the hope of civilization lies in
| the perpetuation of the existing order
/ of things and that this means that
| the growing power of unions ana
\ unionism must be crushed, at least to
the extent of making it impossible for
l rcs~e n orr
/ so strong as to be able to interfere
with capitals absolute domination OF
industry.
The fighting men in management
are even more jealous of the rights
of capital than capital itself. More
over, they have a personal interest IN
making good in their executive posi-
tions and instinctively they resent and
resist any attempt on the part OF Ia
| Dor to assert a voice in the control OF
industry. The employers who have
| always been FESTIVE under the compuI-
sion of dealing with unions believe
that the man who has job to give
| has the right to fix the wage and con-
| ditions of work, and that labor can
| take it or leave it, as their saying goes.
Their dealing with unions has always
been a matter of concession, rather
than of cooperation, and it is human
nature not to want to make conces-
sions.
| Adverse Public Sentiment.
The public factor in the militant
school is made up of people who do
not inquire into the causes of strikes
or seek to ascertain which side is
right. They are opposed to strikes
| because sooner or later such indus
| trial upheavals interfere with business
and make living conditions harder or
more expensive. AS they see it, we
have strikes because we have unions
| They argue that to compromise or set
/ tie strikes means merely to invite
more disturbances of similar char
iacter, and they conclude that the war
between capital and labor necessarily
other is whipped to a standstill.
Hence they say the time has come to
fight it out to a finish.
| Lawless demonstrations destructive
of life and property which almost
Invariably feature all the big strikes
have unquestionably had much to do
with creating a public sentiment adj
verse to the unions. The fact that
the unions and most union leaders
are opposed to violence does not off
set in the public mind the fact that
the strikes are made the occasions for
offenses against law and order, and
the average good citizens idea of the
way to deal with such laWiessness is
to stamp it out, root and branch. And
many such a man has been betrayed
making declarations fully as incen-
diary and subversiVe of law and or
der as those things of which he COM
Iplains.
The radicals or reds" are militant
because that is their creed. They
seek to oVerturn existing forms of
| government and social organization
land they know no better way of bring
ing this about than thru finish
flight between capital and labor. They
are the ones who commit or incite
land are responsible for practically all
1.-THE lawlessness that is so inexcusab1e
land SO disastrous to the cause of
labor.
Those Who Would Stop Fighting.
The other school of thought-those
iwho would end the Industrial conflict
by invoking ways and means of set
Them out to a finish-incIudes stu
dents of the problem of industrial
trelations, employers who view the re-
latton of capital and labor in the
Tight of partnership, and govern
ment Officials who have tackled the
job of protecting the public against
1.-THE evil consequences of strikes They
are all paeifists. attic not in the sense
in which that word was made a term
iof opprobrium during the World war.
| Theodore Roosevelt was of this
school when he ended the great an
thracite coal strike of 1902 because
he compelled the miners and operators
to stop fighting and then presented q
plan for working out a peace that
continued for almost twenty years
President HGrding and Secretary
Hoover and others of his associates
have identified themselves with this
school by the efforts they have made
within recent weeks to stop the costly
warfare in the coal and transportation
ItndussFies.
John D. Rockefeller, jr., the late
Fl. B. Endicott and Henry Ford have
been conspicuous among the grea1
employers of labor who have acted
upon the theory that the way to END
the industrial war is to make it I'M
necessary and undesirable. Lord Lev.
erhulme, perhaps the largest employees
i of labor in the British empire, is an