Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 141, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1918 — Arbitrate! [ARTICLE]

Arbitrate!

By BOOTH TARKINGTON

Of 71b* Ffeikmter

In wartime the strike is not the remedy for profiteering. Publicity and action by the government are the remedies for profiteering. Profiteering that brings on a strike is, in effect, not better than treason; but a strike may itself be an attempt to “profiteer” and therefore hot better in result than treason. Every sensible person, however, understands that workmen are entitled to as high wages as they can get Without interfering with the utmost possible efficiency of industry engag-. ed in the prosecution of the war. A etrike does interfere with such efficiency, and therefore means a larger casualty list and increased danger to the country. That is to say: if lam a war. industry workman on strike I am prolonging the w’ar and adding to the risk of America’s defeat in the war. This means that I cause death and wounds to a certain number of American boys who would Have come home safe and sound to tfieir mothers if I hadn’t gone on strike. That is the simple truth; and if I am impeding a war Industry by going on strike, I might Just as well have torn and tortured the bodies of those boys myself. The responsibility Is so terrible that no workman who understands it would take it, except to avoid a greater amount of torture and death at home through starvation wages. Arbitration will give him what he needs and w’hat he justifiably wants. The whole country understands that a workman cannot live today on the wages of ten years ago. Wages have got to advance, of course, as the price ‘of commodities advances; and the price of commodities advances, of course, as wages advance; though it is to the advantage of the workman to let the price of commodities begin to advance first. But his wages must take account of higher prices, and permit him not only life, liberty and the pursuit of Jiappiness, but allow him to save, as well. That is all that any man on this earth is entitled to whether he be garbage man or kaiser; and it is all that is worth getting; and the ideal of this country is that every man shall have it This is what we are fighting for; that no man shall take away this right from another man, that no man shall make another man his slave,’ as the Germans have made conquered labor their slave and as they would make slaves of us If they conquered us. Now such is the temper of our country that the responsibility for a strike which means more death, more crippling, more blinding, more shot away faces, for our young men, sons of workingmen and sons of capitalists, fighting side by side and comrades “over there,” as they will be over here when they come home —the responsibility for such a strike is an infinitely heavier and more dangerous thing than those who .rashly assume that responsibility can know, and no decent human being could be so selfish and so treacherous to his country as knowingly to bring about such a strike. And the temper of the country in these days is to know causes as well as results. Where the greediness of a profiteer has caused a strike, his money will not be envied him for he shall not have it, nor his liberty either. And it is unthinkable that American workmen, or workmen who are human beings, for that matter —it is unthinkable that they will strike, even for mere Justice, without having to the last utmost atom of their energy pressed for settlement by arbitration. The syndicate service, founded by Samuel Gompers and representing the point of view of the American Federation of Labor, reports an address by William Mosses, president of the Pattern Makers’ Union of Great Britain. Mr. Mosses was speaking in the Labor Temple in San Francisco. He said: "We were requested to abrogate our working rules and agreements .' • • to give up everything that tended to restrict output . . . Being convinced that this was necessary, unless we desired to see the entire world subjugated by German autocracy, we recommended that our unions submit to the request made by the government . . This meant that there was to be no stoppage of work during the war. It meant the acceptance of compulsory arbitration. . . . We have secured better results through arbitration than by resorting to the strike, which should be used as a last resort after all else has failed. If this is done, the strike weapon will rest in its scabbard.” And Mr. Mosses said another thing worth thinking about “Today labor in Great Britain is more prosperous than ever before In its history. . . . Our influence is greater than ever before and our workers are enjoying wealth beyond the dream of avarice.’ Not only is arbitration necessary, but it pays!