The labor standard., 1922-02-15

will always have to be autocratic an,
 not denocEstic; thirdly, that the Ia
 borers in any works or factory hav
 no right to know anything about tn
 accounts, sales, profits or prospects O. essential contribution, their sole righ being to receive their stipulated
 wages; and fourthly, that the em
 ployer is not called upon to interes
 himself in the general welfare of hi
 employees, in their protection iron
 disease and vice, or in the promotion
 among them of education, recreation
 and comfort, and that the employer
 does his whole duty when he keeps hi:
 business running year after year al
 a profit, so that he continues to bt able to pay the markets wages to his
 employees.
 New Attitude of Labor
 Having thus recalled the traditiona
 and commONest states of mind of abol
 on the one hand and capital on the
 other, we are now ready to ask if
 there are any signs that both sides in
 the industrial strife are getting some
 new light on these traditional habits
 of though&~ This is one of the critical
 questions of the day in respect to in
 dustrial prosperity arfd social progress
 under democratic government.
 It would be quite possible to infer from the recent strike vote in the rail
 road brotherhoods, the current strike
 in certain building trades, the partial
 success of the prolonged strike in the
 clothiers' trade, the effort of the
 unionized coal mining counties in West Virginia to compel the non- union counties to become unionized, the ex- hortations steadily addressed by the President of the American Federation of Labor to the affiliated unions that they resist all reductions of wages, and the recent denunciation of the Ma tional Government as "merciless" employer because it has discharged some thousands of navy yard work CTS in execution of the agreement on the reduction of naval armament just made at the Washington conference, that the aims and policies of organ ized labor are unaffected sby the pro- digious events of the last seven years and that the labor unions are still bent on higher wages, shorter hours and complete control of the principal American industries and of the Ma tional Government. = On the other hand, certain changes in the mental state of organized labor seem to have occurred or to be in progress. Thus, organized labor seems to have appre- ciated the effect on the American peo- pie of the police strike in Boston and to have accepted in good measure the rule-no strikes in any public service, national, State or municipal.
 Again, organized labor sees clearly, in spite of frequent advices to the con-, trary from their leaders, that numer- ous corporations and partnerships are conducting their factories, mines, mills or machine shops as open shops to the satisfaction of their employees as we'll as of the consuming public. Furthermore, reductions of wages are being accepted in many trades or occu- pations, though by no means symmet-, rically or universally, extra charges for overtime are being abandoned, and r"going slow" is being voluntarily renounced by both union and non- union men, or it's abandonment is accepted as the fundamental condi- tion of employment. In many com munities scattered about the country building operations are being resumed in a moderate way with only slight prices of materials, but on an under standing with the unions involved that there shall be no "going slow,' and that the contractor may dismiss slack CTS on his own judgment. The success of such arrangements suggests that the self-respect of American working men has not been destroyed by gen. erations of labor union medication of limited output and "going slow" The old feeling that "to come on the town"- the State-is the uttermost still survives; and the New England "town meeting" spirit still animates innumerable American communities far distant in time and space from it's original home.
 The railroads afford a good field in which to study these tendencies. The railroad employees are a good type of American labor, skilled and unskilled. In the recent abandonment of a strike by the railroad brotherhoods they showed themselves capable of their traditional policies in order to bring them into accord with the interests and needs of the immense majority of the American people. They apparently learned that the American people would not support the strike, or submit to the domination at which it aimed. They apparently learned that in the opinion of the American public the 12 per cent. re- duction in wages authorized by the Railroad Labor Board to be effective July l, 1921, will not enable the rail- roads to serve the public efficiently, put their neglected properties into good condition, and make significant reduction in rates. They apparently learned that the, public interest re- quires further reduction in the wars railroad wages.
 Altogether the outcome of the railroad strike in 1921 sug- gests strongly that the American pub lie, the railroad brotherhoods and or. ganized labor in general have learned something since the Adamson law was forced through Congress in 1916 by a stopwatch threat of the brotherhoods to tie up all the railroad transporta- tion of the country. ..
 Efforts to Reduce Living Costs
 The argument in favor of return to something like the cost of living which prevailed before the war finds ready acceptance among all sorts of roo,1o ;,oo1,,I.orr To bo,. orroni1oI o,od