Brazil Celebrates Independence

November 28, 2009 By

GREETING TO BRAZIL

BRAZIL celebrates her one hundredth anniversary of independence on September 7. The nations of the world will join with her on that date in making the occasion worthy of such a historic event. The United States, which has always enjoyed a close and growing friendship with the great Republic of South America, will be ably represented at the opening of the Centenary commemoration by a special mission headed by Secretary of State Hughes. When the United States celebrated its Centennial in 1876, Brazil sent her Emperor Dom Pedro II to convey her message of good will and congratulations. He was the only chief of state present on that occasion and this Government and people have not forgotten the high tribute which it implied. President Harding expressed a desire to return in person the visit of Dom Pedro, but was unable to leave the country at this time; and so sent his chief Cabinet adviser to express for him the interest which this country feels in all that pertains to the welfare of this Republic of the South.

Along with the Brazilian centenary exercises there will open also in Rio de Janeiro on September 7 an international exposition, at which the principal countries of the world will have extensive governmental as well as industrial displays. This Exposition will continue until March 31 next, and possibly for some months longer. It is believed that this will be one of the most interesting and most attractive world expositions which has ever been held.

With wonderful natural opportunities to start with, located in what is concede by all travelers to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world, where a spacious bay of unsurpassed grandeur with a surrounding wealth of tropical color and richness of verdure adds greatly to the setting, the Brazilian Government has done everything possible to make the coming Centenary Exposition one that will be unique and worthy of lasting remembrance. In the generous preparations which she has made for celebrating her hundredth anniversary she deserves the praise of the world. In making these plans she has shown an energy, a determination, and a progressiveness which must call forth highest commendation.

To all that nature has given Rio de Janeiro as a show place par excellence for exposition purposes, there will be added magnificent lighting effects, the latest that electrical artists can supply; and for this purpose alone the Brazilian Government has made a large appropriation. Those who recall what was done at San Francisco and at some of the previous world fairs in this country in the way of brilliant illumination may be prepared to see new and even more striking results at the Brazilian Exposition. Reduced steamship rates, which have been put into effect by the United States Shipping Board vessels, have made it possible for thousands of persons from the United States to make the trip to Brazil, and there seems to be no doubt but that those who make the voyage will be well repaid.

Source: The Outlook, 13 September 1922

Filed Under: South America Tagged With: ,

Strikes and the Nation – Part 2

November 27, 2009 By

HAS PRIVATE OWNERSHIP LOST GROUND?
Has private ownership of great public utilities been strengthened or weakened by the contest? “As concerns the coal industry,” says Mr. Roberts, “a considerable proportion of the correspondents and editorial writers incline to favor something like Nationalization, perhaps temporary, perhaps partial, though recognizing that when coal mining has once become the Nation’s business it may stay so. One editorial writer remarks that ‘as an independent, self-regulated industry, old King Coal is having his last chance.’ However, I detect little, if any, enthusiasm in the effort to find a substitute for private ownership. The effort appears to spring from what might be called emergency opinion. Then, too, it is offset by an effort to keep us from ‘seizing things.’ How should we manage them after they were seized? You notice that the Grand Rapids ‘News’ remarks: ‘The Government represents all the people. If it takes control of the coal mines, it will not pay without question the wages the miners demand. The Government would be concerned first of all in securing a steady supply of fuel for everybody. There would be no right to strike against wages or conditions then. Strikes would be little short of rebellion.’ On those terms, where should we obtain miners? That difficulty is not overlooked by the press. In the case of the railways, you remember that the New York ‘Times’said lately that, ‘even if Congress should authorize the President to commandeer the roads, it could not give him power to compel men to work on them if they were unwilling to do so.’”

HAS NATIONALIZATION GAINED?
The Outlook asks if the contest in the coal and railway industries has tended toward or away from Government ownership of public utilities. “Among the railway employees,” says Mr. Roberts, “there is a pronounced leaning in that direction. See how the New York ‘Times’ puts it: ‘Their view is that Government operation of the railroads would permanently erect the unions into a privileged class, recelving higher wages than their fellows and given a political power which could be used to terrorize Congress and intimidate the Administration.’ But popular opinion, as reflected by the press, is radically opposed to such a measure. People have not forgotten our war-time experience with Federal control, and, for that reason partly, they oppose Government ownership of the coal mines. However, one recognizes a general demand, summed up in the sentence I have marked in this cutting from the New York ‘Herald,’ that the coal industry ‘be put on a sound economic and solid business basis, under private ownership and management but at the same time under Government sanction and regulation.’ That nothing short of thorough reorganization can prevent trouble is fully appreciated. See what the ‘Survey’ has shown in an article signed by two Government geologists. That during the last thirty years the, bituminous mines have lost three working days out of ten. That, although the most that has ever been burned or exported in a year is 550,000,000 tons,’ our mines ‘are developed to an annual capacity of 750,000,000 tons’-the ‘chief cause of intermittency.’ As Messrs. Tryon and MeKinney, the geologists I have quoted, tell us, ‘the over-development is the result of free competition playing on a resource so widely distributed as to be almost a free gift of nature.’ So it is not the managers fault. ‘Without concerted action of the kind forbidden by the anti-trust laws, they cannot control the economic forces that surround them.’ And now let me read you a few paragraphs from an editorial in the New York ‘World:’

“‘Bituminous mining in the United States hardly deserves the name of a business. It is a chaos, and a bloody one. Because of seasonal production and uneven demand, there are nearly twice as many men in mining villages as are needed. Because there are too many for the jobs on hand and because they are isolated from communities that might furnish other employment, the miners can’t enforce their demands under normal conditions. With surplus labor keeping wages low, the pits will show a profit in a good year even when run without modern machinery.

“‘They are so run, and according to the Federal Trade Commission, they do show a fair profit. At the same time a majority of the men are poorly paid upon an annual income basis and often desperate. When they strike, they are met by the solid facts that there is not enough money for higher wages and that there are not enough orders to run more than sixty per cent of the mines. They are met also by the autocracy of the mine-guard system, established to handle desperate employees.

“‘There is no final solution except a complete reorganization of bituminous production. Until that is done it will be necessary to restrain both sides from violence in a dreary series of conflicts ever menacing civil warfare. One after another, strikes will recur, bringing violence with them if continued, so long as coal is mined in this country as it is mined now.’

“Have I made my point clear? What the people want is not Government ownership, either of railways or of coal mines, but successful, because scientific, Government regulation. They approve when such a paper as the San Antonio ‘Express’ declares that, coal being ‘just as essential to National life as the transportation system, further Federal regulation is inevitable.’ ”

MONOPOLIES OF MONEY AND MEN
The Outlook’s question, “Has this contest tended toward or away from monopoly?” seems to Mr. Roberts somewhat vaguely worded. “You mean the One Big Union?” he asks. “And a corresponding unionization of capital? Then a fight between the two, with no mercy on the consumer? In that case, I may say that it is a question not at all widely discussed in the press. However, on its labor side, there are labor journals that deal with it more frankly than is usual, and they have been led to do so during the strikes, though not wholly because of them. Over the announcement of the Supreme Court’s decision making labor unions suable there was deep resentment. The New York ‘Call,’ a Socialist paper, termed this ‘the most staggering blow ever aimed at the organized working class: Though declaring it would be ‘as futile as was the crucifixion of Christ,’ the Minneapolis ‘Labor Review’ saw in it an ‘attempt to abolish the unions.’ The Seattle ‘Union Record’ said, ‘It is pie for the direct actionist who preaches that Government is designed solely for the purpose of keeping the working class in a state of subjection to employers.’ It was then that the Indianapolis ‘Union’ asserted: ‘The Reds and Bolsheviki will thrive on such decisions. They say triumphantly, “Didn’t we tell you the courts were against the worker? Join the One Big Union and kick the bucket over. Seize every-thing.” , But observe. Even here the point is made indirectly. There is nothing like ‘Who says so? We do!’”

THE GOVERNMENT AND THE PEOPLE
Has the policy of the Government under this Administration shown weakness or strength in our Governmental structure? “There has been criticism of the President,” says Mr. Roberts, “but not of our Governmental structure except by Socialists and Radicals. And when critics of the Administration assail Mr. Harding the Democratic New York ‘Times’-I had the cutting in my hand a moment ago, let me take it up again as I was saying, the New York ‘Times’ remarks: ‘Those who accuse him of hesitancy and weakness should in fairness point out what warrant of law he has for doing otherwise than he has done. The fault lies, not in him, but in the happy-go-lucky spirit in which Congress has permitted the country to drift into seeming helplessness in the presence of a Nation-wide strike. There ought to be remedial and safeguarding legislation. But it is foolish in the extreme to fancy that this can be framed overnight or put into effect in a panicky state of mind.’”

THE CURE
This brings us squarely in front of The Outlook’s concluding question: What legislation, if any, does the situation call for from Congress and the States? In reply, Mr. Roberts quotes the very general assertion that we must provide the Labor Board with “teeth.” It has none whatever at present. The “New Republic,” he reminds us, has been saying: “The law grants the Board no power to enforce its decrees. Public opinion is its only police, and publicity its only weapon of punishment.” Also, he reads aloud from an editorial in the Philadelphia “Evening Public Ledger,” which declares: “The Transportation Act is working badly, and in its labor provisions it is working very badly. The Labor Board which it created is based on the mistaken principle that the wages problem can be artificially segregated from the general financial problem. Experience has now confirmed what was freely predicted in 1920, that since wages are so large a part of costs, wage policies must be regulated by the authorities that regulate the other aspects of railway finance. The immediate trouble has arisen through failure to recognize this fact.” When discussing the President’s demand for legislation to make the Labor Board’s decisions binding, Mr. Roberts takes up a clipping from the Philadelphia “Bulletin,” which contends that what the Board should have, in order to prevent strikes, is “the power to compel arbitration of railroad labor disputes”-a concrete suggestion, but offset by the Norfolk “Ledger-Dispatch’s” remark that “no decision of the Labor Board could compel a man to work.”

The President demands “a National investigation of the coal industry, so as to provide constructive recommendations for legislation to govern its conduct,” and Mr. Roberts tells us that, while the Brooklyn “Eagle” predicts that “the factfinding commission will amount to nothing,” a number of influential papers warmly approve. Among them is the Philadelphia “Public Ledger,” which, so Mr. Roberts points out, believes that “the proper sort of commission would in the end do more than prevent labor troubles at the mines; it would put coal mining and distribution upon a scientific basis, and at the same time bring down the price of bituminous and anthracite coal.”

But perhaps the most important step toward the prevention of strikes in both the coal and the railway industry has already been taken. Recalling once more that the Supreme Court’s decision in the famous Coronado coal-strike case pronounced “such organizations suable in the Federal Courts for their acts” and declared that “funds accumulated to be expended in conducting strikes are subject to execution in suits for torts committed by such unions in strikes,” Mr. Roberts quotes an attorney for the American Federation of Labor as admitting that, accordingly, if the railway unions strike, they will be liable under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act for conspiracy in restraint of trade.

It is not surprising to find that Mr. Morris Hillquit calls the decision “a serious blow to organized labor,” or that Senator La Follette complains, “It is most ominous in what it foreshadows.” From their point of view, both gentlemen are right. Labor has enjoyed special privileges hitherto. Under the Clayton Act it has been free to conspire in restraint of trade, whereas capital could not. At last we have arrived at something “ominous” -namely, one law for all. From a file of clippings Mr. Roberts selects an editorial that recently appeared in the Ohio “State Journal” and concludes with this brief but significant sentence: “If Government has the right to exercise control over organizations of capital, so has it over those of labor.”

Filed Under: Industry Tagged With: , , ,

Herrin Mine Murders

November 26, 2009 By

THE HERRIN MURDERS

Two months after the atrocious wholesale murder of workers in and about the Herrin mines the course of justice has proceeded so far as to obtain from a Grand Jury one individual indictment, that of Otis Clark, a union miner, charged with the murder of Mr. C. K. McDowell, superintendent of the Lester Mine-a crippled man who was first beaten up and then deliberately shot after surrender.

What really happened in Herrin was the result of a conspiracy to murder entered into by a considerable number of men. If possible, indictments should be procured on this basis. Inadequate as the results so far attained seem, it is a tribute to the courage and insistence of the Illinois Attorney-General, Edward J. Brundage, that even one man faces trial. He has been threatened with political ruin for insisting that Illinois should free itself from the disgrace of letting lawlessness and murder go unpunished. Whatever happens or fails to happen, he at least has done his duty.

The head of the Illinois miners’ union, Frank Farrington, declares that the union will defend all members indicted by every possible means and that he appreciates the “magnitude of the agitation which is Nation-wide for convictions.” No one is “agitating” for conviction of innocent men, but otherwise Mr. Farrington is right. The country is watching Herrin; it knows that a great crime was committed; it will not be content until the guilty are brought to justice.

Source: The Outlook, 13 September 1922

Filed Under: Law and Order Tagged With:

End of the Anthracite Coal Strike

November 26, 2009 By

THE ANTHRACITE STRIKE ENDS

AFTER five months of diplomacy and conference, an agreement has been reached between the hard-coal miners and operators. Final confirmation by a tri-district convention of the United Mine Workers remains to be secured, and almost surely will be before this is read.

The terms of this treaty are satisfactory to both the contracting parties; to the miners because they retain their old wage scale, will have plenty of work, and have had their way in that the agreement affects the whole hard-coal industry, pushes forward the date for new contracts to August 31, 1923, and rejects any outside arbitration; and to the operators because they can now easily sell all the coal they can put on the market at high prices-and they have duly warned consumers of a high price era by asking for a “mandate” (apparently by silent consent) approving the settlement on a high-price basis.

But how about the third party to this controversy-the silent bystander, upon whose shoulders the war cost is to be dumped? One estimate puts the cost of the strike at two billion dollars. The shortage of anthracite is about 40,000,000 tons. The resumption of actual coal production and distribution will be slow. It looks as if the consumer pays in two ways-in money and in discomfort. He is to get his coal on a hand-to-mouth basis, to use unfamiliar and undesirable substitutes, perhaps to endure actual suffering. Organized labor claims a great victory; the coal operators, hard and soft, see a fine selling season before them; neither side has made much of a pretense of caring for the public interest.

The time to make such a ruthless labor war impossible in the future is while indignation is still hot. Congress should push the legislation before it, so as not only to provide a fact-finding commission which should put the hidden things of the coal industry into the light and, if possible, curb profiteering at the expense of home and factory, but should also provide a permanent National Coal Commission. The last (with the important omission of the word “permanent”) is included in the terms of the strike settlement. Such a Commission should have effective powers, as should also the Railroad Labor Board. The lesson of this summer’s strike is that Governmental regulation must prevail if Government ownership is to be avoided.

Source: The Outlook, 13 September 1922

Filed Under: Industry Tagged With: ,

The Railway Strike of 1922

November 26, 2009 By

THE RAILWAY STRIKE AND THE FEDERAL INJUNCTION

NATURALLY, great commotion has been caused in labor circles by the issuance of the sweeping injunction by Judge Wilkerson, of the Federal District Court in Chicago. It restrains the striking railway shopmen, their unions, and the labor unions affiliated with them in the American Federation of Labor, from interfering directly or indirectly with the operation of the railways. This of course is a temporary injunction, and arguments to make it permanent are to be held this week. This action of the Government, taken at the instance of the Attorney-General, brings up anew the often-debated question of the application of court injunctions to labor questions, or, as the labor leaders call it, “government by injunction.”

There is no question that there have been acts of lawlessness and violence against railway property, and therefore against interstate commerce, and it is probably true that acts of intimidation, violence, and threats have been used against railway workers who would not strike or others who have taken the places of strikers.

It might be said that the criminal law should be sufficient to restrain and punish these acts, but it has been well established that where such acts amount to conspiracy the use of injunctions is lawful and right. This was clearly shown in the Chicago railway trouble of 1894 by President Cleveland, who declared that abundant proof had been found that there had been resistance to Governmental functions both as regards the transportation of mail and the operation of inter-State commerce and that “conspiracy existed against commerce between the States!’ The conviction of Debs for disobeying a Federal injunction issued on just these grounds was unanimously sustained by the United States Supreme Court.

The present injunction is attacked by the labor leaders, not merely because they are bitterly opposed to the application of the injunction to strikes, but also because, as they allege, it forbids things that are not illegal. They would argue that where the acts forbidden are criminal under the law the restraint should come through the ordinary criminal procedure, so that this injunction would duplicate existing powers to deal with crime. They would further argue that, if things not now illegal are forbidden by the injunction as illegal, we should have what they call judge-made law. In this case their complaint rests chiefly on the fact that, in addition to forbidding violence, intimidation, and the like, the injunction practically forbids strikers and unions to induce others to strike or to refrain from taking strikers’ places by “entreaties,” “arguments,” and what is generally known as “peaceful picketing!’ Whether this exceeds the proper function of injunctions remains to be seen when the matter goes before the higher courts.

Broadly stated, the argument against excessive use of the injunction is that it puts the power in the hands of individual judges to define what is illegal and to inflict punishment under the guise of penalties for contempt of court and without the intervention of district attorneys or juries. Under this view it is declared that in cases of acts committed outside the court-room the accused should have a jury trial. The sound view of this matter seems to be that injunctions have their proper uses in criminal as well as in civil cases, but that by their nature they are also subject to abuses and should be carefully guarded by definition and law. Years ago, when this question was under active discussion, The Outlook stated editorially: “It is an abuse of the injunction to use it for the purpose of preventing a body of workingmen from doing an act which they have a legal right to do, such as to unite in leaving their employer’s employment or to persuade by peaceful means others from entering that employment.” And in another instance The Outlook remarked: “Power should not be denied to the courts to prohibit and prevent wrong-doing; that power should be rather increased than diminished; but it ought not to be exercised without previous notice and hearing, save in very exceptional cases!’

What the practical effect of the injunction will be on the present strike is a matter of some doubt. So far as it tends to prevent intimidation, interference with the mails, attacks on any employees (strike-breakers or not), or threats of any kind, it will receive the approval of all good citizens. It has lately been claimed by the railway executives that the places of the strikers were being filled and that many of the strikers were coming back to work. If this is so, the injunction may prove a hindrance to an early settlement rather than otherwise. At all events, the country at large is practically unanimous in believing that the shopmen should have followed the example of the maintenance of way men and have shown a willingness to resubmit the questions involved to the Railroad Labor Board. And it is equally true that such steps should be taken by Congress and the Government as would make it impossible for the country to face every little while the threat of a general railway strike which would tie up the business of the country and produce almost inconceivable conditions of liv-ing, traveling, and carrying on of work.

Source: The Outlook, 13 September 1922

Filed Under: Industry Tagged With: ,

France wants Gold – not Paper Money

November 26, 2009 By

With the firmness of the money market the only disturbing factor in the present financial situation. Wall Street has been somewhat concerned over reports from Paris that the Bank of France will convert a material portion of its enormous holdings of foreign exchange into gold.

Withdrawal of the metal from this country immediately narrows the credit base since a dollar’s worth of gold is the basis for from ten to fifteen dollars of credit. This means that, unless offset by other influences, the credit supply in the United States would be reduced by from $2,000,000,000 to $3,000,000,000 if France were to buy $200,000,000 in gold here and take it home.

French banking authorities have no wish to embarrass other countries but if business in that country continues to expand the conversion of some of their exchange holdings into gold is inevitable. The Bank of France’s reserve ratio is now about thirty-nine per cent, only four per cent above the legal limit.

It is reassuring to know, though, that our Federal Reserve authorities could prevent any serious damage as a result of gold loss by purchases of Government securities. Such purchases have exactly the same effect on the credit market as gold imports.

Any business man and almost any Wall Street speculator is fairly well aware of the importance to him of the volume and price of credit. American industry and commerce are more efficient than they have ever been before and not the least important element in this efficiency is their economical use of credit. By skillful merchandising, by buying only to fill their immediate requirements, they are borrowing less in proportion to their turnover than at any time in their history. They have not, however, arrived at a state where they can progress without borrowing—and they never will. Plants and equipment must be expanded to meet the country’s growing consumptive capacity. Usually this expansion must be accomplished by the use of borrowed money.

Some able bankers and other practical economists are fond of saying that money rates never checked business prosperity or relieved depression. This is pure hyperbole. If pinned down, they would admit that their assertion is true only within limits. An advance from four to five or perhaps six per cent in the commercial paper rate probably would not have much of an effect but it would be absurd to deny that an advance to eight or nine per cent would not block expansion that might well be carried on in an easier credit market. In other words, business responds to wide fluctuations in money rates but not to small ones.

Christmas demands for both currency and credit are largely responsible for the current stiffness of the call money market but the fundamental rates are due chiefly to four causes—the activity of business, the loss of gold since the beginning of the year, Federal Reserve policy and the demands of the market.

Source: Outlook, 2 January 1929

Filed Under: Finance Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Strikes and the Nation – Part 1

November 25, 2009 By

An Interview with the American People on Strikes

THE OUTLOOK asks: “Is the settlement of the coal strike merely a temporary armistice, and will the battle break out again? If so, when? Have the unions in the coal and railway industries strengthened themselves or weakened themselves? Is the public more sympathetic now or less sympathetic than it was before the strikes with the trade-union idea in all industries? Are the trade unions as a body, as William Allen White says, a parcel of fools in this contest? Have the coal operators and railway managers shown a disposition to deal fairly with leaders and to compromise on reasonable terms? Has private ownership of great public utilities been strengthened or weakened by the contest? Has this contest tended toward or away from Government ownership and operation of public utilities? Has the policy of the Government under this Administration shown weakness or strength in our Governmental structure? What legislation, if any, does this situation call for from Congress and the States?”

In order to answer these questions, it has been necessary to interview the American people -a thing less difficult than might appear.

They speak through their 2,500 newspapers. All those papers come regularly to the editorial rooms of the “Literary Digest.” There all reports and editorials bearing on the labor problem are brought to one desk. For a dozen years and more they have been examined by one man, Mr. William Carman Roberts-a brother, by the way, of Charles G. D. Roberts and a cousin of Bliss Carman. During the absence in Europe of Mr. W. S. Woods, Mr. Roberts is serving as editor-in-chief, though added responsibilities have not prevented him from continuing his patient, thorough, and wholly unprejudiced study of public opinion regarding the strikes. I have interviewed Roberts and, through Roberts, the 2,500 newspapers which am I not right? -speak for the American people.

IS IT AN ARMISTICE?
Is the coal-strike settlement merely a temporary armistice? “The best informed observers,” says Mr. Roberts, “expect the battle to break out again. At no distant date, either. Run your eye over this clipping from a trade paper, the ‘Black Diamond.’ Although that paper seemed to welcome the strike, as it ‘was going to bring many miners to their senses,’ we now read, ‘The public can look for a repetition of the struggle next year. A temporary surrender to the miners’ union was thought best. to prevent our population from freezing next winter and to avoid industrial paralysis that was slowly but surely being felt in all parts of the country. He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day.’”

THE STRENGTH OF THE UNIONS
Have the unions gained or lost strength? “It is too early to judge of the effect on the railway unions,” says Mr. Roberts, “but-in point of morale, at least-the coal miners appear to have gained. Let me quote you a, sentence or two from a labor journal published in Minneapolis: ‘The union has won one of the most notable labor triumphs of the United States. In view of the previous power, pride, and arrogance of the employers, this result is remarkable. Nothing has happened in a generation so calculated to inspire and strengthen organized labor.’”

THE VOICE OF THE PUBLIC
But what, meanwhile, of the sympathies of the public? Mr. Roberts answers: “Never in my whole experience have I known strikes to be so generally condemned. As a rule newspapers are inclined to side with the ‘under dog.’ This time, with the exception of the labor press. they have been almost unanimous in denouncing the strikers, as the strikes appeared selfishly inopportune, coming just when a return of prosperity was in sight. The railway strike especiallv invited censure. The railway unions, so the papers have been declaring, assumed that ‘the sacred right to ‘strike’ was greater than ‘the sacred right of the Government to act for the greatest good of all the people.’ For instance, here is the Washington ‘Post’ telling us that ‘in flouting the efforts of the Labor Board to avoid a strike the shopmen have flouted the Gnvernment of the Unlled States for whom it speaks and the American people whom, as an agency of the Federal Government, it represents.’ And here is the Philadelphia ‘North American’ declaring: ‘A circumstance that has had a powerful influence in turning sentiment against the unions is that they fully recognized the jurisdiction of the Labor Board when it increased the railroads’ pay-rolls to the extent of $600,000,000 a year, and repudiate its authority only when it reduces wages on the same principle on which it raised them.’ The public still believes in unionism, still thinks trade unions necessary to keep the balance. Moreover, the public recognizes that in the recent struggle they have shown remarkable restraint. The Herrin affair was an exception, of which the unions bitterly repent. The ‘United Mine Workers’ Journal’ said at the time, ‘God knows the miners’ union would not have had this thing happen for a- million worlds.’ And yet it is clear that, however steadfast fhe public’s belief in trade-unionism on general principles, both the miners’ and the railway unions have lost ground.”

ARE THE UNIONS FOOLISH?
As to William Allen White’s assertion t hat the trade unions were a parcel of fools in this contest, Mr. Roberts resists a natural temptation to recall that Mr. White recently inaugurated a new series of the “Martial Adventures of Henry and Me” by posting placards announcing his daily percentage of sympathy with the strikers and forcing “Henry” (Governor Allen, of Kansas) to order his arrest for so doing. Disregarding all that, Mr. Roberts says: “On the whole, the press has been too busy reckoning with the seriousness of the strikes to consider their folly, Mr. White’s remark was called forth by the ‘cruelty and cowardice’ with which trainmen ‘left helpless people at Needles and Seligman on the desert in midsummer without food or shelter save the little mite the wayside towns provided.’ Like the Herrin affair, this was an exceptional case. Like the Herrin affair, though in a lesser degree, it invited condemnation and received it.”

THE STAND OF THE MANAGERS
Have the coal operators and the railway managers been fair? Have they shown a readiness to compromise on reasonable terms? Not all of them, apparently. “Certain papers have thought they were a little too conscious that the strikers lacked the support of public opinion, a little too anxious to ‘smash’ unionism, and, in certain instances, too outspoken in their refusal to yield ground. Here is a clipping about President Loree, of the Delaware and Hudson, who said the other day: ‘Reports that peace is coming in the railroad strike are all bunk. You can quote me as saying I stand where I have stood from the start, solidly against any surrender, and it would be a surrender on the part of the roads to give back to the strikers their seniority.’ This same cutting tells us that W. W. Atterbury, of the Pennsylvania, said Mr. Loree expressed the views of all the Eastern roads. “He speaks for the bunch,” were General Atterbury’s words.’ Moreover, Mr. Loree is said to have said, ‘Peace talk has done the roads more harm than good.’”

Source: The Outlook, 6 September 1922

Filed Under: Industry Tagged With: , ,

1922 Coal Strikes

November 25, 2009 By

THE DUAL COAL STRIKE OF 1922

As with the railway strike, so with the dual strike of the United Mine Workers in both bituminous and anthracite fields-the difficulty in reaching a settlement seems more and more not to be so much on the question of wages, the nominal cause, as in fixing the method of deciding that and other questions now and in the future. It is because the disputants in the soft-coal field have partly yielded on the latter point that district or local agreements have been signed and that soft coal is being mined in increasing quantities.

In brief, the miners want National agreements, the operators district agreements; the miners want contracts renewed from time to time after bargaining between unions and operators; the operators want to provide a method of arbitration in which outsiders should take part.

When the unions struck five months ago (technically speaking, the anthracite men did not strike, but stopped work during conferences), the issue was whether wages should be cut, kept as they were, or raised. The demand for a raise was preposterous; the men didn’t expect to get it. The argument for reducing was that coal industries must take their share in the general deflation needed to put business on a sound basis. The public generally accepted this belief; the men insisted that present wages were not beyond a fair living wage. The soft-coal men laid weight on the unsteady conditions of work. To many miners 150 days was a year’s work. The public agrees that over-production and over-manning has produced a bad industrial state in the soft-coal field.

Conferences, suggestions, pleas from the President, have not yet brought settlement into view in the anthracite field. Meanwhile anthracite is not being mined, cold weather is near; the condition of things is alarming.

The Cleveland agreement, which has helped the bituminous situation, allowed operators to open their mines on the wage scale of April 1 and to make contracts up to next April 1. The United Mine Workers in this field abandoned their contention for National collective bargaining. Only 60,000,000 out of 400,000,000 tonnage was actually covered by the agreement, but the movement has spread. It provides for resumption of work at the old wage scale of March 31 last, with the check-off of union dues and the appointment of an advisory fact-finding commission at a joint conference in October to report on a new contract to another joint conference in January, 1923, which will endeavor to settle finally the basis for agreement for April 1, 1923.

Well-informed judges of coal conditions believe that the soft-coal dispute has been broken. They attribute the spread of-the Cleveland agreement idea to the eagerness of operators to sell coal at high prices instead of letting the nonunion coal producers get the top of the market. They believe that the mine workers were influenced in this settlement by the hope that it would lead to unionizing coal districts now non-union.

The worst feature in the history of the strike in the soft-coal district has been the planned and cold-blooded slaughter of strike breakers at the mines in Herrin, Illinois, regarded callously by the people of the place, and as yet unpunished. President Harding, in his address before Congress, spoke of this as “a butchery of human beings wrought in madness.”

The anthracite situation has baffled all attempts of settlement up to near the end of August. Both sides seem indifferent to the issue of humanity. One caustic critic avers that the men are interested in high wages, the operators in high prices, that both will probably get what they want and “Mr. Peter Public will pay.”

The latest failure to agree was the breaking off of a conference between miners and operators at Philadelphia on August 23. The operators proposed to use the present Anthracite Conciliation Commission as a body with arbitrary powers to determine the wage scale, with provision for three outside umpires to decide in the event of deadlock. This was rejected by the miners in pursuance of their fixed policy of rejecting any outsiders as arbitrators, as that would commit them against the ultimate use of the strike as an economic weapon. Even “recommendatory arbitration” was refused flatly.

The settlement in the bituminous field was helped by the fact that the nonunion bituminous – coal mines were in operation and the owners and miners were profiting by the high prices due to the strike in the unionized mines. The continuance of the strike in the anthracite field, on the other hand, is made possible by the fact that the whole anthracite field is organized, and that practically all men whom the law allows to mine the coal are members of the union, so that there are no men who can legally take the strikers’ places.

Congress is moving quickly on some at least of President Harding’s coal measures. The House on August 23 passed a “fact-finding bill” in accordance with the President’s wishes, including the exclusion of miners or operators from the proposed commission, all of whose members should stand for the general public interest. It then took up a bill that, if passed, will give the Government power to buy, sell, and regulate the sale and distribution of coal. Already Secretary Hoover, the InterState Commerce Commission, and the Government authorities generally, have taken measures to control (so far as the laws allow) the priority of coal shipments and its fair distribution, and to prevent profiteering in the desperate emergency that will be on us in a few weeks. Homeowners have been advised to arrange to use bituminous coal for fuel when possible. A Federal Distributer, Mr. H. B. Spencer, has been appointed.

There has been a growing and now urgent call from the public for the establishment of a permanent National Coal Commission to take up the work of any “fact-finding” commission and to provide such regulation of the industry as will prevent such strikes and disputes as those still going on. The Outlook has long advocated such a step. Bills by such men as Senators Calder, Frelinghuysen, and Borah and ex-Senator Kenyon have been introduced and “shelved.”

The coal business is the people’s business. The joint telegram from five State Governors to the President suggesting that the Government might find it necessary to seize and operate both mines and railways is a sign of the tlmes. Twenty years ago President Roosevelt planned, but did not threaten, to do that very thing if the coal quarrelers did not listen to reason; he had a General selected to command the troops and to operate the mines like a receiver in bankrupt proceedings.

If we are to have normal economic conditions, there must be recognition of the fact that the people’s interest in fuel is basic and must not be ignored. Two months ago President Harding summoned fifty operators and miners to the White House. He said to them: “You should settle this matter in frank recognition of the mutuality of your interests. If you cannot do that, then the larger public interest must be asserted in the name of the people, for the common good is the first and highest concern.” We italicize the last clause and commend it to the earnest attention of all disputants and wranglers. We repeat what we said a month ago. “Supreme over every other interest is the interest of all the people.”

Source: The Outlook, 6 September 1922

Filed Under: Industry Tagged With: , ,

1922 Railway Strike

November 25, 2009 By

THE RAILWAY STRIKE OF 1922

The railway strike resulted from a decision of the United States Railroad Labor Board by which a wage reduction was ordered, while, on the other hand, the practice of sending repair and construction work into shops not owned by the railways was disapproved. It is odd, at this distance of time, to note how completely these two issues have gone out of the discussion, which now turns almost solely on the question of seniority. The reason is that public and press were so strong in their declaration that the proper course of the railway men was not a strike but a request for a new hearing that the unions soon showed willingness to resubmit the question of wages to the Railroad Labor Board.

Their claim was that the wage cut was not fairly arranged; that the total reduction of wages (put at about $110,000,000) was excessive in comparison with the cost of living, and that particularly the minimum wages for some classes of shop work and maintenance work were below the needs of American workmen-some of the maintenance-of-way men under the schedule arranged would receive less than twelve dollars for a normal week’s wages. The labor members of the Railroad Labor Board declared that the majority report was made “with no consideration of human needs.”

Whether the decision was fair or unfair, it was the outcome of the work of a Governmental board authorized to deal with the questions which had been submitted to it. The Railroad Labor Board, established under the Esch-Curnmins Transportation Law of 1920, has nine members, three each representing the railways, the workers, and the public.

The recognition of the fact that the shopmen were on the wrong track in striking rather than attempting to reopen the case and the apparent probability that peace would be reached at an early date held the maintenance-of-way men from carrying out a strike which the vote of the local unions had authorized.

The fact that the strike affected only one large class of railway workers, the shopmen, has made the strike a peculiar one, in that the general service of the roads has continued. It has not been perfect by any means, but freight has been carried and passengers have been taken care of. This is one more reason why public exasperation has not led to an early settlement.

The claim that was made by some local railway unions, that their members were in danger because of bad equipment and that others were endangered by the presence of guards in the railway yards, has never been sustained. Its object was to force the great railway brotherhoods into the fight. There never has been evidence of any serious danger or annoyance to the union men from these sources.

One result of this agitation, however, aroused the country to indignation and denunciation. President Harding, in referring in his recent address before Congress on the labor question -to this matter, declared that the desertions of transcontinental trains in the desert regions of the Southwest “have revealed the cruelty and contempt for law on the part of some railway employees who have conspired to paralyze transportation.”

The single proposal made by the President in his recommendation to Congress which applied to the railway situation was that of asking that Congress should give power to the Railroad Labor Board to enforce its decisions. In view of the power exercised by the InterState Commerce Commission and the recent decision of the Supreme Court which makes unions responsible for failure of their members to obey the law, it is hoped that relief from future railway disputes between the men and the executives may be found in such legislation.

For the last month the conflict in the railway strike has waged almost solely over the question of seniority. The decision of the Board did not touch upon this. point. But the railways at once gave the strikers warning that they were in danger of losing their seniority privileges, and thereupon the unions refused to consider any settlement which did not secure to old workers those privileges. The pensions and retiring payments by the roads to old employees were not involved, with a few possible unimportant exceptions. The seniority rights relate to the men’s relative standing in the distribution of desirable and profitable positions.

Logically, the railways are clearly right in holding that when the men deserted their work they were bound to take the consequences of their acts. The roads also clearly have a duty to those employees who have retained their positions during the strike and to those newcomers who have proved efficient and loyal.

President Harding at first tried to in; duce the railways to restore seniority rights unimpaired to returning strikers, but without success. He then withdrew that effort and urged both sides to submit the matter to the decision of the Railroad Labor Board. An interesting resume of public and official opinion on this question of seniority will be found in the issue of The Outlook for August 16, in which, in reply to the request of The Outlook for an expression as to public sentiment, a number of Governors of States and editors of influential journals in various centers discuss the points involved. The Outlook itself commented: “The strikers felt that the wrongs they were suffering were so great that the only remedy was war. When a man makes war, he must take the consequences of his act.”

As the discussion continued, it became evident that the solution sought must be something which would take into account both the strong feeling of the strikers that their experience and skill should count in the grading of men for promotion and also the just feeling of the railways that the non-strikers and new men should be protected. It certainly does not seem beyond the power of common sense and tolerance to come to an agreement on this point.

But effort after effort has been made, and up to the time of this writing in vain. The leaders of the brotherhoods took a hand in this effort to reach a compromise settlement, but on August 24 the proposal made by them was rejected almost unanimously by a conference of railway executives. The brotherhoods peace plan would allow the Railroad Labor Board to adjust the relative standing of employees when a dispute arises and to provide that all strikers should be “reinstated in the position of the class they originally held,” except those guilty of violence. The executives point out that the phrase just quoted, in their opinion, would imply acknowledgment by the railways that the men returning to work should be senior to those who remained and to the new employees, and that the Labor Board would be bound by the meaning of the quoted phrase. The result was that the railway executives unanimously rejected the proposals of the brotherhoods, and the dispute near the end of August is to all appearances no nearer settlement than before.

Source: The Outlook, 6 September 1922

Filed Under: Industry Tagged With: , ,

Railroad and Coal Strikes

November 25, 2009 By

History of the Strikes of 1922

THE strike of the coal-miners began on April 1; the strike of the railway shop men on July 1. In the first case, therefore, five months have been spent in argument, debate, and attempts at an agreement; in the second case two months have elapsed. As August ends in neither case does there seem to be immediate prospect of com-plete or satisfactory settlement. From week to week and month to month we have had proposals, counter-proposals, public remonstrances, Governmental urging, and yet the public, which, after all, is the party most deeply involved in the injury, has been fed upon hopes only. As Don Marquis in his “Sun Dial,” remarks of the anthracite strike: “Every paper we pick up we see that the miners and operators are still hoping for peace. We hope that hope will warm a house next winter.”

The cost of this summer of labor troubles to the workmen, to the railway and mine owners, and to business at large has mounted into hundreds of millions of dollars. So far as business and the household are concerned, the prospective loss in the coming fall and winter will continue indirectly even if the strikes are now settled promptly. Probably one reason why the public have until recently been somewhat apathetic about the conditions is that they have not been directly injured seriously as much at this time of year as they would be in the full tide of railway business and when a supply of coal is absolutely necessary for business as well as for the home. Lately, however, the people and the Government have realized that action is needed, but are still debating as to what must be done. It is a good time to recall what Mr. Roosevelt said to the leaders of mine strikers and operators in 1902: “The evil possibilities are so far-reaching, so appalling, that it seems to me that you are not only justified in sinking, but required to sink for the time being, any tenacity as to your respective claims in the matter at issue between you. The situation imperatively requires that you meet upon the common plane of the necessities of the public.”

Source: The Outlook, 6 September 1922

Filed Under: Industry Tagged With: , , , , ,
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