South Bend News-Times, Volume 36, Number 243, South Bend, St. Joseph County, 31 August 1919 — Page 32

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The Day Thai:

THAT there should be such a thing as Labor Day which America observes tomorrow, is one of the most ominous of things in the present stage of the world's history. Why should labor ever have thought to set up such a day, or to demand its recognition? Why is there not an employers' day, an editors' day, a lawyers' day, a reporters' day, a clergymans' day, a bankers' day, f merchants' day, a farmers day and a dozen anc? one other days recognizing particular trades, occupations, professions and callings? The question is not asked in solicitation of such additional holidays, or in criticism of the founding of Labor Day, but why the distinction? And .vhiit is the significance of it? The world is answering that question today with grave apprehensions. For practically the first time in all history it is looking itself square in the face and it is seeing new wrinkles. They are the pathways of a class consciousness that has pushed its way down through the years, plodding, groveling, sweating, much under the yoke of injured pride, as under the weight of servitude; sensitive to the sting of a gold-plated social sentiment, well as to the toilsome tasks because of which that social sentiment has set up a system of caste. Labor will march forth tomorrow, as it has never marched forth before, feeling its oats; cognizant as never before of its rising tide; espying at the eastern horizon the sunrise of a new equality, a social democracy to keep pace with the political, and an industrial democracy that will wipe out the old distinctions In the body social. With the sunrise of that new equality, the old plague of class consciousness labors as never before to catch up with that western horizon which is to be its jumping off place. II THE history of labor is the history of the human race. From farthest antiquity, man the majority of men have eaten their bread In the sweat of their faces and have toiled Incessantly that they might live. There has never been a golden age when men have lived without working or have reaped fields that were not sown. Ali that the race has gained, the right to live and bear children, the Improvement of existence, the securing of comfort, happiness, and civilization, has been the result of an unremittent, neverending toil on the part of the millions. Neither has the reward of labor always gone to the laborer. From the beginning some have worked and other played; some toiled on and others consumed the fruits of that toil. Holidays, most of them, even the Sabbath, have been days of leisure for the leisurely, while labor toiled on producing in many instances a profit for the day sufficient to pay for the employer's enjoyment. The workers, though always in the vast majority, have economically at least, been subject to minority rule. Read your history! One might Imagine that the world was comprised of kings and nobles and that the common people had no existence. History reads like the fashion pages of the newspapers, which tell us each summer that "everyone is out of town," though hundreds and thousands of wage earners are sweltering at their dally tasks. History abounds with narratives of the doings and sayings of kings and princes, just as the newspapers do with the performances, dinners, suppers, banquets, economic vacillations, meetings and political advice of financiers and the "smart set" while the life and labor of the vast, silent, unnumbered multitude of toilers are unrecorded and unmentioned. Accordingly it was that labor, conscious, of its isolation, its lack of voice, inability to make itself heard, eventually demanded a day that was to be its da and the politicians quite as conscious of the workingmen's strength, and power at the polls, if huddled together, despite the protests of the employers who felt they could not afford to spare the workmen from the shops, acceded to the demand. Capita felt, too, that it could not afford to let labor demonstrate its strength in parades and the unbridled oratory, in discussion of workingmen's rights, that was certain to result on a day that was labor'a own, Mid when the laborer was almost forbidden to work, in some states, even if he wanted to. It was a concession and that was all. Labor has repeatedly been granted such concessions, quieting it for a season. Capital and the politicians, have been genuinely astute in their occasional adherences to the dictum of Aesop, that "it is better to bend than break." Ill A ND right there on that first Labor Day, the i workingmen began to appreciate themselves as never before; likewise the world began to appreciate them. Quite in consequence, the wage-earners of today differ, while not fundamentally, at least quite materially, from the men who in the early stages of society, performed the rough work of civilization. The ancient workman had his position fixed by custom, law, or religion; religion no less than law and custom, p .'shing him into the background. Even in the Bible we read of the goodness only of kings and princes, and of the virtues of their houses. When wickedness is condemned it is quite always the wickedness of the multitude occasional kings and princes being mentioned, but for "following after false gods." Indeed, the story of the fall of man, as Moses borrowed it from the Babylonian mythology, condensed it, and gae it to his people in language they could understand, and perhaps to better hold them in submission; particularly thos who labored with their hands, appropriates the wisdem of the Babylonian kings and puts the curse upon toil, to make it better feel its lowliness and subserviency. When Moses presumed that God, as a punishment to Adam, condemned him, raying, 'in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," he put a

Labor Celebrates! Why? It's

disgrace upon labor that might better, for the good of mankind, have been conferred upon those who would live off the fruitsof labor without performing any but, of course, Moses was not a workingman. The nearest he ever came to it was, after being reared in the family of the Pharoah, and running away to Babylon to escape a murder charge, he attended the Babylonian university for a season, and then went back to Egypt, turned "walking delegate" and led the first strike in history, back to the Promised land, where he set up a theocracy, himself at its head, no doubt regarding some kind of a curse upon the masses as necessary to scare them into letting him htve his vay. In similar vein he put the curse presumptively due Eve, upon woman, and sent it thundering down the ages, as from the Most High; "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thy desire shall be unto thy husband and he shall rule over thee," a dictum that has apologized for race suicide through all time, and that has been the Biblical text of the "antis" In every step toward feminine progress; in education, in business, the suffrage movement, you have heard it "her place is in the home," and her desire unto her husband, who should rule. Religion accordingly has in many ways been a brake upon the progress of both labor and womanhood, with law and custom, as is always the case, a sort of crystallization of what religion has Congress Faces IT may still take a long time possibly until the morning sifter election in 1920. but eventually the United States senate must awaken to the fact, now quite evident, that thinking Americans have listened long enough, and suffered enough delay and Inconvenience, due to its asinine parley over the peace treaty. It is unprofitable to quarrel over who has been responsible Tor the delay ii; the rast. Everybody knows. HesUles the public may be willing to forget the past, but it wants action now. As to the general scope and character of the treaty, there is enough agreement for practical purposes. The public, on the whole, seems satisfied with the treaty, or willing to stand for it, which amounts to the same thing. This agreement or tolerance applies to the League of Nations as It does to the other provisions. The big majority of Americans clearly favor an international federation, of some sort, and they May Mean a New MORE Issues than the League of Nations, whether it "was adopted, or whether it should, or should not have been, are beginning to show their faces in the 1920 political sunrise. Congress has fussed things up by withholding ratification of the Paris treaty in more ways than delaying the international panie that hinges upon that treaty. "While fussing over the treaty, for mere political effect, instead of attending to our internal affairs, that have sorely needed congressional attention, new issues have been forced upon us, some of which may bring the responsible meddlers much need of regret. Failure of readjustment of our domestic affairs, upon which the profiteers have kept busy, rtsulting in the present unbearablene.s of living costs, is largely to blame. It seems possible, and even probable, that one big national issue next year will be national ownership, or federalization of transportation and the

We Cannot Soar Higher And Higher And At Same Time Soar Lower

PUE.S T WILSON'S statement to the railroad men regarding the demands of the shopworkers, applies as well to the American public, labor generally, and to every Industry and form of economic activity in the country. We can't keep on soaring higher and at the same time soar lower. There must b? a high peak somewhere and it might as weil come now as later. The president said: "Any substantial Increase of wages in leading lines of industry at this time would utterly crush the general campaign which the government is waging with energy, vigor and substantial hope of success, to reduce the high cost of living. "Only by keeping the cost of production on its present level, by increasing production and by rigid economy and saving on the part of the people can we hope for large decreases in the burdensome cost of living which now weighs us down." Such a view is naturally disappointing to the men 'immediately concerned, and to even group of JEWELS AND DRINKS. The American Retail Jewelers, meeting in Chicago, acree that the cost of living is not bothering them. Their business is more profitable than ever. Thov attribute their good fortune to prohibition. "A large part of the money formerly expended for liquor," they say, "is now used in buying jrwelry.' The costliest articles are in the greatest demand. Wrist watches at 51.500 are gobbled up as fast as they can get them. Platinum, most precious of precious metals. i used more than ever, in answer to an insatiable demand. Incidentally, jewelry is being imported tc a greater extent than ever. It !." noticeable, however, that not everybody who is aving money on booze is squandering it on jewe'.ry. The emphatic demand for expensive arti:V proves that. It must be champagne money athcr than beer money that is ' going for gems. The average citizer. who was wont to indulge in alcoholic beverages before July 2 now finds his drink money readily absorbed by food, clothing and children's shoes.

taught a sort. of superstition of the ages holding progress in check, encouraging those whom it favors to make it impressive, if not oppressive, and filling those whom it would retard, with a kind of intuitive fear and awe. The Christianization of the race, under the "new dispensation," and the growth of intelligence, with the necessities of civilization, are of late years overcoming much of this fear and awe, and labor and woman are alike coming more into their own, regardless of Moses whose studentship In mythology would forever have made labor a disgrace, and womanhood a drudge. IV WOMAN economically and politically, at least, has won her proper sphere and recognition much faster than labor; won It much faster because there has not been the opposing greed to hold her back. Indeed, her advancement has been a boon to that greed in many instances; working cheaper, she has served as a competition for the aspiring working man, and therefore to capitalism has been a desirability. She is now face to face with her last big fight; her fight for the ballot and has it virtually won. But labor though possessed of the ballot for a century and more has not been able to solve its economic problem, save by short steps, and is now trembling in a balance which many fear leans toward bolshevism. Bolshevism is not a system in America as yet

a Growing Public Impatience

peem willing to accept the present plan provided they are sure that American rights have been safeguarded. There does not seem to be much popular demand for amendments, because the public realizes that any actual changes of the text of the treaty would involve submitting it again to the other powers, and would result In long delay and possible disagreement in the end. There is litUo real objection, however, even among the warm friends of the covenant, to reservations which, without tampering: with the wording of the treaty as formulated, at Paris, would make clear how the United States interprets it, and to what extent it will consider itself obligated by the various debatable clauses. Ijet the senate, then, agree on a compromise ret of "interpretations" touching the Monroe doctrine, the participation of the United States in foreign wars, the acceptance of mandates, the right to regulate immigration, tariffs and other Internal affairs, and .any other matters that are stumbling

Party And Certainly An Unnecessary Issue

industries. anticipating that these will keep wages and living costs on speaking terms. The railroad brotherhoods, in demanding the public purchase and operation of the transportation lines, have launched a movement of which no one can foretell the end. By their own admission, they have meant their efforts less for the purpose of forcing a decision this year than of paving the way for next year's campaign. They want to persuade one of the big political parties to adopt their program. Failing in that, they plan to launch a party of their own. In this they expect the support of the, federation of labor. The United Mine Workers of America, the biggest body of organized labor in any single industry, are now starting a similar drive for the jiationalization of the coal mines. They have no such detjnite s-cheme as the Plumb railroad plan, but their leaders are clear enough as to their general purpose. There is talk, too, on the part of employes of employes which has been hoping for a raise in pay. but there can be no question in the minds of men and women who take a broad view of the situation that this is the way to go about it. General wage-raises do not solve the problem; they only complicate it, because prices rise in their turn, and there is an ascending spiral of pay and prices, prices and pay, instead of a satisfactory adjustment. There are undoubtedly injustices here and there in the industrial world that need straightening out immediately, but speaking in general, the way out of rresent hardships lies along the line indicated by the president and suggested over and over again in recent months by public men and newspapers giving the question serious and dispassionate thought. It is time that the facts were faced frankly. There must be greater production and greater economy, ITALY OUR FRIEND AGAIN. Gen. Pershing has been visiting Italy, and has met with an extremely cordial reception. Most Americans may be surprised at this, remembering the ill feeling recently existing in Italy against America and all things American. Gen. Pershing is regarded as the representative of the United States, and the Italians have sought, by honoring him. to honor his nation. So quickly, then, has passed the cloud of misunderstanding and dislike which arose from the attitude taken by the United States government, and by most of the American press, against the Italian claims in Fiume and Dalmatia. The Italian government which put forth those claims and for a while won national support for them has been overthrown. Orlando and Sonnino are out Nitti, the new premier, is sensible and mod- , erate in his demands, and is supporting the spirit of democracy in which the war was fought and won and in which the most enlightened statesmen have sought to make peace. It is a happy omen for the future welfare of Europe.

An Evolution

It is only a tendency, and as usual, an appropriation of a capitalistic tendency; indeed, a capitalistic "modus operandi" The "invisible government" of the past find present, radiating from a multiplicity of capitalistic "hornet's nests;" corporations and mutual organizations of this, that, and the other thing, making their influence felt, through the channel of politics, and sometimes through bribery, is now finding competition in a growing "sovietism" largely the product of unionism and agriculture, which propose that this influence be henceforth exercised in the open, and that they have un equal show. That is as near as America has come to bolshevism as Russia knows it The soviet is the organ of its representation; a representation of trades and crafts, and different lines of business, and these owned, controlled and operated by the government not democracy, or rule by the people, but rule by a competition of cliques: sovietism. The great trouble in Russia is that as one of the fortunes, or misfortunes of war, the proletariat having forced his way to a position of control, has not been willing to start new even, but has gone mad with his sudden rise, has grown resentful, revengeful, and proposes to get even for all the ages that have past. Hence the reign of terror; the massacre of the nobility, the aristocracy and the bourgeois and of all opposition. It is the autocracy of the problocks to "statesmen," and put themselves on record as hard as they please. All these things will probably prove to be much less important hereafter than they seem now, in the super-heated atmosphere of debate, where politicians are seeking to show off. The League of Nations will evolve along whatever lines are found useful and wise, after a little practical experience Anything found unsatisfactory in the covenant can be changed. It will doubtless be amended over and over again, as our own federal constitution has been. And always any member that does not like the way things are being run can pull out. The main thing is to make peace and get the League started, and so get this wearisome discussion over with. Then congTess can turn Its full attention to clamorous domestic problems, and actual reconstruction ' can begin; that is, of course, if congress dares to tackle anything other than for destructive purposes. the telegraph and telephone lines, of nationalizing those utilities. How far will this movement go? Time alone will tell- It may seerr. lnopportuno to inaugurate it Just now, when government operation is regarded as under a cloud This view, however, seems to be that of business rather than of labor. The labor organizations seem to be pretty well convinced that government ownership will at least be good for them, and may also be good for the country. This being the case, it is just as well to have the issue fought out, as the program of one of the old parties or of a third party. As between conservative business and radical labor, the "general public." whose judgment is more trustworthy than that of either of the factions interested, will decide. However, it is an issue that might much more safely have been avoided had the profiteers in necessities been less greedy, and had congresu been more inclined to attend to Us own work curbing that greed. and producers, distributers and consumers must work together- The railroad shopmen and all other shopmen will make the mistake of their lives if they do not heed the admonition. They will lose public , favor. Any strike, by diminishing production, sets the nation backward. .Any shortening of working hours beyond the daily and weekly period which men can endure without lowering their efficiency sets us backward. Any exorbitant "wage-scale or salaryscale sets us backward. Any wastefulness or thriftlesness anywhere along the line sets us backward. Give the public authorities a chance to see what they can do toward stopping the profiteering and improving the processes of Industry and trade. They may accomplish a good deal. The producers, dealers and consumers may accomplish still more if they will keep cool, play fair and cooperate to the best of their ability. THE POOR PACKERS. Maybe the packers are as innocent of profiteering as thy profess to be. Maybe they are making a bare living instead of v.-allowing in wealth. Maybe they nre taking a mere pittance for the service they genr rously render the nation. Maybe there is no packers' monopoly, and their profits are kept down to a poverty ba?is by competition as well as by voluntary f elf-sacrifice. However that may be. Congressman Rickstts announced the other day in th-i house that 51.000 invested in the stock of Swift & Co. six years ago is now worth $20.000. and in the stock of Cudahy & Co.. $26,000; that $1.000 invested in the stock o? Armour 6i Co., five years ago is now worth $32.C0: that a similar amount invested in Morris & Co., three years ago is worth $23,000, and in "Wilson & Co., two years age, $7,000. If the packers haven't ben making a heap of money, why these enormous increases in the value of their stock? Republics are notoriously ungrateful; but Gen. Pershing, after all. is going to get the sort of welcome home that h? deserves.

From The Serf

letariat gone crazy; just a new proof that ''all men are created equal and that one claw can make just as big a fool of itself a the next, almost none having the breadth of mind and depth of soul essential to the exercise of power without abuse. By "fighting the devil with hU own tongs," one become likewise devilish in thfe act and that is bolshevik Russia. V AMERICA will never bolsheviie. Democracy is too Utopian to admit of iL However, this Labor Day is a good time to stop for the moment, and contemplate the menace the miniature example that we have here, an inheritance of the ages as our political democracy has refined it, of the Russian condition that has driven bolshevism to its horrible extremes. Study the evolution of the workingman, fighting his way, peaceably as he can, forcibly where he must. His has been an incessant struggle with poverty. At first he did not even sow crops and breed animals, but subsisted on roots, wild fruits, the beasts of the woods, and fish from the rivers and seas. Then came the socalled pastoral age, next the agricultural stage, and finally this industrial age, but through it all it has been a struggle for the millions, while a favored few have come along in ease. At certain stages, where tho demands for consumption have exceeded production, tribes found it easier to take than produce rrore, and such was the beginning of war a primal purpose that ha followed it to this day. Rival communities battled with each other for the means of subsistence, the victor levying tribute, or making slaves of his captives, and with each new grist of slaves there developed an enlarged "nobility" among the conquered, to feast upon their toil. Slaves were traded back and forth and sold like cattle; at times had no rights which freemen were bound to respect. Servitude maintained as a matter of course, after which came serfdom, a slight evolution, in which the serf was not exactly a slave, but was attached to a certain piece of soil so that its transfer carried with it the instruments of tillage. He became more or less free in his private or domestic relations but worked on conditions prescribed for him, not by him a system of paternalism in which custom, law and religion combined to hold him in subjection. Free workers, occasionally emancipated by humane masters, or to ward off open revolt, now and then associated themselves into bodies, but nothing in the nature of modern organized labor, with its potentiality of regulating conditions and remuneration by concerted action, could possibly have existed. You catch the line of what labor has been fighting through the ages, to get away from. Well, today it has its jaw firmly set, and its heels braced in the sand, and is taking its stand after a manner that it never has before; insisting upon the right of collective and protective bargaining, exactly as its employers bargain this on the one hand, and that the system of profiteering upon their collective wage shall be checked to prevent its eating up again all the wages that it brings them. VII THAT is the new awakening. American labor is coming to realize that its dignity depends not half so much on the high wages that it is paid, as upon the conditions under which it is employed, and that there must be a limitation of profits thereon that will hold the employer to a justcr acceptation of his mere share of the rewards. To eliminate the class consciousness, for which those excess profits are responsible, the day, it is determined, must eventually come, when the employing class cannot live on one side of a city in more or less palatial mansions, while the men who do their work live on the other side, in homes more or less akin to the hovel. It is not the workingman that has created this class consciousness. It is the profits upon the products of labor and capital combined, with such excessive proportions accruing to the employer, that have created it; a consciousness that has become self -classified in the minds of both. Eliminate the excess profits all excess of a reasonable profit, and you will eliminate the consciousness equalizing standards of living and making better American citizens of employer and employe both. Indeed, no, the transformation isn't beautiful for the profiteering class to contemplate and it might not be necessary had not greed pressed its profiteering privileges so far beyond the limit as to approach the altitude of the intolerable. Labor is seeing the light Congress is seeing iL Some process of limiting profits is bound to result, whether it be by some such avenue as the proposed Kenyon law, or some other measure. Nobody cares to see a business licensing or price-fixing bureaucracy established in America, but it might be better than a revolution, which is evolution gone mad. It can all be avoided by the proprietors of greed giving up such portions of their grab as will permit the cost of living to settle back to somewhere near normal admitting of some higher standard of normality, than of old, perhaps, but a standard at which the average mans income and necessary outgo are more consistenL And then, too, we need a new standard of morals, based upon character, and a new aristocracy, based upon intelligence two of the most democratic things in the world, instead of such standards based upon pocketbooks and automobiles; a realization that a man is valuable to society only in proportion to his service, crediting and receiving him accordingly which means a new social sentiment under which class consciousness, and an excuse for Labor Days, will no longer exic