teach it; the physician's to keep it in health; the lawyer's to inforce justice in it; the merchant's to provide for it. The duty of all these men is on due occasion to die for it. On due occasion namely the soldier, rather than leave his post in battle; the physician rather than leave his post in a plague; the pastor rather than teach falsehood; the lawyer rather than countenance injustice; the merchant-What is his "due occasion" of death? It is the main question for the merchant as for all of us. For the man who does not know when to die does not know how to live.John Ruskin, "The Roots of Honor."

Statesmanship in business has come to be adjudged worthier of a real man's mettle than philanthropy outside business. A business man's public service is seen to consist not so much in a number of benevolent chores taken on after office hours as in the way the business of the world is carried on during office hours.-Glenn Frank, "The Politics of Industry,” p. 50.

The Social Obligation of Industry

It makes it peculiarly important to insist that industry is before all things a social function, and that those engaged in it ought not to seek their own advantage at the expense of the community by unduly limiting the output, raising the prices, or deteriorating the quality of the services. which they offer.-"Christianity and Industrial Problems," p. 59.

A Cooperative Effort for Industrial Peace

Class rule, whether in an autocracy, a monarchy or a republic, is always and everywhere fatal to brotherhood and peace. The material relations that men and nations bear each other determine largely their social and ethical relations. If their material relations are mutual they will be friends; if antagonistic they will be enemies. The capitalist class and the working class can never be friends and brotherhood and peace can never be realized until the war between them is ended by the abolition of class rule and the establishment of the cooperative commonwealth.— Eugene V. Debs, in New York Call, June 15, 1920.

CHAPTER VIII

WHAT SHARE SHOULD LABOR HAVE IN THE MANAGEMENT OF INDUSTRY?

I.

1. Has an employer a right to "run his own business" without the participation of those he employs? Why, or why not?

2. What share in management does the worker want? Should he have it? Why, or why not?

3. If some method of joint management is considered advisable, what is the comparative merit of the following?

a. Collective bargaining and trade agreements.

b. Works' committees, industrial councils, etc.

c. Arbitration and conciliation.

Will increasing the workers' voice in industry be detrimental to the rights of the owner?

5. What weight should the employer give to industrial efficiency in deciding his labor policy?

6. Should the public be represented in industrial management? If so, how? If not, why not?

7. Is participation by the workers in the management likely to lessen industrial efficiency? Why do you hold your opinion? If it should, would human considerations still make it desirable?

8. What should be the determining factor in deciding who should manage industry?

CURRENT OPINIONS ON THE QUESTIONS AT ISSUE

I. How Much Voice Do the Workers Want in Industrial Management?

Testimony of Eminent Employers

Cyrus McCormick, Jr., is quoted as saying lately:

"What the workingman is asking for, and what we are trying to give him, is a voice in the control of the business in which he is a co-partner.

This demand has taken on various forms in different places. In Russia and elsewhere on the European continent it is known as Bolshevism; in England they call it the Whitley plan; elsewhere it may be called employes' representation, and somewhere else co-partnership. Under all of these, however, it is the basic fact that the relationships between employer and employe must be founded on something else than a cash bond. With every one of our hitherto most guarded ledgers open to these men, we believe that they would see the facts as clearly as we saw them."-The Dial, July 12, 1919, p. 8.

I believe that the greatest task to which American employers must address themselves is the devising of practical ways in which labor can be given the full recognition to which, as an equal partner, it is entitled. I make this statement with absolute confidence in the fairmindedness of the American workingman, when he is fully informed and is entirely free to act. If I did not have this confidence, I should despair of the future of our free institutions. I believe that one of the first steps necessary to inspire the workmen with confidence in the sincerity of the employers' recognition of the proper status of labor, is the adoption of a fair system of collective bargaining.-William B. Dickson, Vice-President, Midvale Steel and Ordnance Company, in Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, September, 1919, p. 24.

The question which now confronts the student of industrial problems is how to reestablish personal relations and cooperation in spite of changed conditions. The answer is not doubtful or questionable, but absolutely clear and unmistakable. It is, through adequate representation of the four parties in the councils of industry. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., in Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, January, 1919, p. 171.

Too Little Attention to Labor Policy

In the past it has been customary for the chief executives to deal only with the production, finance, and sales problems. Labor was left as an incidental matter for production superintendents and foremen to handle. Only when labor difficulties arose was labor considered important enough for the directors to handle and at such times subordinate officers had already committed the company to a policy that the directors were bound to uphold. Only by determining the labor policies in the board of directors' meetings, where they can be considered in conjunction with production, finance, and sales policies, can a proper system of labor relations be devised and kept in constant operation.-Wm. M. Leiserson, in Monthly Labor Review, October, 1919, p. 208.

An Elemental Right Denied

Above all, his (the worker's) representatives cannot enter the council chamber where policy is determined. Yet that policy concerns him vitally, for on it may depend his standard of living, his chance of employment, his safety from or subjection to that excessive driving which wears out life.-R. M. MacIver, "Labor in the Changing World," p. 53.

In these days when the condition throughout the world is what it is, any man or group of men, who are unwilling to enter into conference for the sake of avoiding strife-I do not care who the party or parties may be any man who is unwilling to enter into conference for the sake of helping to make a position rightfully understood is a public menace and should receive no consideration from society. I say that equally of any leader of labor or any captain of industry. The greater the man the greater the offense. Conference does not necessarily mean meeting all demands, or obtaining all demands, but it does afford opportunity for the statement of a position, and of giving to the public, the fourth party to industry, an intelligent appreciation of what is fundamental in differences between contending parties.-W. L. Mackenzie King, in Report of National Industrial Conference of Canada, p. 16.

Employes Intimidated

A highly paid employe of the corporation refused even to see me. I had been at his house, and finding that he was out, I left word that I would return at a specified hour. Returning at the time named, my ring brought the housewife to the door, who told me that her husband was at home, but that he would not see me or talk to me because the company had forbidden its employes to talk with strangers about mill work. Repeatedly I interviewed men who answered my questions guardedly, evidently in great perturbation of spirit, as if they feared that my visit boded them no good. One man, of long experience as a steel worker, who gave me a better insight into mill conditions than any other one person, remarked: "I used to write for labor papers a great deal, and sometimes I fairly burn to do it now-to declare before the world over my own signature, the facts about working conditions in the steel industry. But I can't. It wouldn't be safe."-John A. Fitch, "The Steel Workers," p. 215.

The Workers Thought Indifferent to Joint Management Plans I know of no case in which the workers have asked for or initiated any form of industrial representation, or have received the representation other than with suspicion. Workers do not yearn for democracy; they commonly know nothing whatsoever of the processes of industry and

always they will more readily receive an untruth than a truth. There is nothing strange about this. They have been firmly grounded in the notion that the employer will cheat them if he can, in which view they are more often right than wrong. It is a remarkable tribute to the fundamental fairness of the average man, to the fundamental fairness of the American worker, that he receives every clearcut plan for industrial representation with far better grace than the employer would have received such suggestion.-Samuel Crowther, in World's Work, December, 1919, pp. 191, 192.

The Limits of Democratic Control

Democratic control, in the present stage at any rate, does not involve a demand for control over what may be called the "commercial side of management," the buying of raw material, the selling of the finished article, and all the exercise of trained judgment and experience that are brought to bear by business men on these questions. It is a demand for control over the conditions under which their own daily work is done.-A. E. Zimmern, "Nationality and Government."

"Participation" Considered Inimical to Labor's Rights

My immediate advice to labor would be to stick to its strict rights of combining and striking; and certainly not to sell them for any plausible and partial "participation” in management. I distrust the latter because it is in line with the whole oligarchic strategy by which democracy has been defeated in detail. The triumph of capitalism has practically consisted in granting popular control in such small quantities that the control would be controlled. It is also founded on the fact that a man who can be trusted as speaking for the employes often cannot be trusted for long when speaking with the employers.-G. K. Chesterton, quoted by Glenn Frank, "The Politics of Industry," pp. 143, 144.

What Participation Means

Representative negotiation is defined as that form of collective bargaining which provides for negotiation between an employer and duly accredited representatives of his employes, regarding hours, wages, and all other matters properly affecting their relationship. Employes' representatives should be duly accredited, should be chosen by the employes from among their own number, unless otherwise agreed by employer and employe, and be empowered by the employes to negotiate for them. Such negotiation should be under the control of the parties immediately concerned, and should they fail to reach an agreement the employer and the group of employes' representatives should each have the option of choosing, without restriction by the other party, a reputable and