Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 227, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1916 — Labor Warfare Destroys Industry Which Gives Life to Employers and Workers [ARTICLE]

Labor Warfare Destroys Industry Which Gives Life to Employers and Workers

By ETHELBERT STEWART

Chief Statistician, U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistic#

There can be no industrial peace until both sides to a labor argument want industrial-peace,and whetr hoth sides really want peace, and: not a fight, a settlement is bound to come. There must be concession on, both sides and a willingness on Ipoth sides to abide by a settlement. But, unfortunately, in America it seems that there is a large class of men, bv no means confined either to the laboring or to the capitalistic classwho prefer fighting, for its own sake, to industrial peace and all that such peace means. Back in 1886 the Stove Foundrymen and the Iron Molders’ union locked horns with the manufacturers in the stove industry. It began with the Bridge Beach strike in St. Louis, and soon involved the entire country. They fought until both sides were utterly exhausted and each had barelv a single breath left. Finally both sides used that last breath to say, “Let us forget it.” They saw that if they did not stop then and stop forever, the stove industry would go to pieces, and for the salvation of the industry tp which they all owed life they came together, settled their differences, appointed committees of arbitration from both sides, and established machinery for the settlement of all disputes that might possibly arise in the future. Each year since that time these committees have met and adjusted amicably all the differences in the stove industry. However, that is the only industry in the United States which has been at peace for thirty years; the only industry which apparently has learned that warfare is destructive, not so much to the individuals who participate in it, as it is destructive to the very industry itself. W hen that fact is once firmly grasped by all strikers and by all lockers-out, the labor disturbances will depreciate astounding!;.’.