The union times., 1944-05-27
Must Eliminate Jungle Practices

the address delivered before the conference of the Inter- national Labor Organization in Philadelphia by Robert J. Watt, international represent alive of the American Feder- atiOn of Labor and American workers delegate to the I.L.O:
 We meet here, to shape the mechanism of economic lnterna- tionalism for the advancement of men and women in your home town and mine. Can we learn from the errors of the past so that we can accomplish our ob- jective?
 I believe we can. l know we must: The cost of failure will be great. We cannot afford to fail this time. Mankind must master the tools of modern industrialism and commercial life. Unless we do, political patterns for peace are useless and futile.
 Ours is the duty to help ordin- ary people to earn a better living by helping nations to civilize their standards of business.
 Ours is the duty to make com petition an incentive towards better living and not a barrier in the faces of the masses of workers. Ours Is the duty to prove that cooperation among nations and employers and workers is healthier than the law of the jungle. Ours is the duty to safeguard the rights of the many and the few, to develop capacity and resources so that all may benefit from more of the better things of life.
 Ours is the duty of finding the way to keep industry and labor and agriculture in balance while we seek bigger and better achieve ments for each for the greater welfare, of all. Ours is the duty of enabling people everywhere to work in peace to provide plenty for all.
 Ours is the duty of teaching na- tions and individuals that poverty is plague against which none can be quarantined by isolation, but against which all can be protected by com mon effort
 Once this war is over, the nations of the world must rebuild their economic systems. The old workshops have largely gone, under the burst Of explosives or through the demand for explosives. Europe is filtered with the rrbble of factories and farms, while the United States is glutted with arsenals which must some day be dismantled or converted.
 Millions of men have been killed or maimed in battle while scores of millions have been trained tr destroy and to kill. The prospects for peace would be gloomy indeed except that the very achievement of destruction testify to the sacred ness with which the free nations hold to the right of individual liberty. They could have purchased peace with slavery, but they knew that they could not afford that price nor endure the consequences. They chose instead to mortgage life and possessions to hold peace with freedom.
 If we could and did stake SO much to hold peace and freedom from inter national gangsters, can we not be equally ready to invest as much to protect and expand the fruits of the peace and freedom we are preserving in the ordeal of battle?
 I say we can. I say we must I say 1t Is our job here to dran1atize to the world that what is worth risking life and possessions to defend from an armed foe is worth all possible ef- fort to protect from ignorance and indifference.
 As the United States Workers delegates and one of your elected members of the workers group on the governing body, I am confident that the ideals of Samuel Com pers, to whom the American labor movement and the ILO owe so much, will continue to inspire the responsible leaders and members of trade unions represented at this conference.
 But none of us here can depend