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