Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1924-02-08
INDUSTRY MUST
GOVERN ITS OWN
COURSE-WOLL
In American Pfoto-Engraver)

industrial Ofdef-haEfng round It's
inception in the discovery and develop
ment of the power Of steam, followed
by the discovery of other natural
powers and forces subject to human
direction and ipulatiOn-there has
come the urgent need of a readjust-
ment of economic principles undefly
ing our present industrial fabric and
social organism.
The discovery of these natural
forces and the putting them to use
to serve mans neds gave rise not
only to the development Of the fac
tory system of production but inn
PEELED the creation of large industrial
and commercial organizations com
monty known as corporate enterprises.
These corporate enterprises have
grown from small combinations into
gigantic and powerful organizations
which, in the eyes of the law, are
recognized as perosn despite the
fact that this man-created person is
vested with powers greater than those
given TO man by his Creator.
This artificial, industrial and COM
mercial person has grown to such i'm
mensities that all former economic
concepts and legal principles, intended
for the safeguarding of freedom,
equal opportunity and mutually of
industrial relationship, have been
swept aside. Only the form and not
the substance remains.
The American wage earners and
the American Trade Union movement
do not seek the destruction of the
development of collective production
or of group or corporate enterprise
neither do they hope to destroy the
concept of private property and the
device of freedom of contract as in
strumentalities to promote progress,
encourage individual initiative, stimu-
late personal adventure and safeguard
the principles of freedom and liberty.
Labor does hold, however, that unless
a like form of organization is devel-
oped and encouraged on the part of
the wage earners, who cannot deal
effectualy as individual workers with
corporate enterprise-that these in
strumentalities for freedom will be-
come weapons for economic oppression
and enslaYement. Hence the neces-
sity for trade unionism and collective
bargaining In furthering this col
lective power of the workers the trade
union movement is performing a truly
patriotic duty and an essential econo-
mic and social work.
While organized labor is struggling
for equal opportunity with all other
industrial factors and forces and is
demanding its proportiOnate share in
the rewards that come by joint indus
trial enterprise, it also views with
considerable apprehension, the con-
slant tendency of political government
to intrude itself upon our industrial
life and altogether too often on mat
ters purely economic and industrial
and in which field it is not compe-
tent to function. History demonstrates
that economic laws and developments
go on in spite of the dictum of politi-
cal government and that economic
laws are stronger than political laws.
An unbiased study of our economic
and industrial development and the
attempts of political government to
regulate them will lead to the ineyita-
BILE conclusion that economic laws and
tendencies spring from the under
standing, aspirations and needs Of the
people; that they are subject to con-
slant change and follow channels that
may not receive the ready sanction
and approval of political government.
They are not subject to the whims of
political government. They are sub
iect to the forces, powers and iniiu-
ences underlying the growth Of our
economic and industrial life.
1t is labor's hope that all factors
within industry will recognize the inn
portance of this fundamental truth
and respond to it. 1t is hoped that
ultimately there will come into exist
ence an economic and industrial cham
Der, in which all factors in industry
will be fairly represented, and which
will determine the rules and regula-
tons that industries will impose upon
themselves, thus confirming political
government to the special functions
for which it is best qualified and best
suited. By such an arrangement as
sociated capital and organized labor
will be enabled to work out the rules
and regulations of industry based
upon an intimate understanding and
knowledge of industrial facts and de-
velop industrial and economic prin-
ciples which will serve to direct the
whole of our industrial and CONNER
cial activities into channels where the
ultimate goal will be one of service
to all mankind rather than as now
mere individual selfishnesS and mate
rial gain.