THE WAR AND DEMOCRACY

...the ill will of the evil landlord and of the self-seeking politician and gambler...

...War makes labor scarce and therefore dear...

...Service in government factories and private establishments, in transportation agencies, all should conform to trade union standards...

...In many places throughout the address is this exalted sentiment given expression...

...This can only come by social service and social work is such dirty work...

...It is a sentiment peculiarly calculated to appeal to American hearts and, when accompanied by acts consistent with it, is certain to receive our support...

...It means contact with bad smells and filthy sights, disease, crime, injustice...

...They said: "Organized labor has earned the right to mako these demands...

...Submit the question to the people, you who support it...

...And the nation's strength, both in war and peace, will suffer...

...He says that this is a war "for the things which we have always carried nearest to our hearts—for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own government...

...Previous wars, for whatever purpose waged, developed new opportunities for exploiting wage-earners...

...In making these demands as the "indispen-fable basis," the officers of labor organizations spoke in no uncertain voice...

...it means the opposition of the loan shark and the employment shark...

...I am not talking now of the merits or demerits of any government, but I am speaking of a profession of democracy that is linked in action with the most brutal and domineering use of autocratic power...

...Th,e time to begin labor conservation is NOW...

...In any eventuality when women may be employed, we insist that equal pay for equal work shall prevail, without regard to sex...

...His expression is that "Prussian autocracy was not and could never be our friend,'' and repeatedly throughout the address the suggestion is made that if the German people would overturn their Government it would probably be the way to peace...

...If protective standards for labor should be mistakenly set aside, as a war measure, it may require a struggle to regain them with the coming of peace...

...Will the President and the supporters of this war bill submit it to a vote of the people before the declaration of war goes into effect...

...You who support it dare not do it, for you know that by a vote of more than ten to one the American people as a body would register their declaration against it...

...Wage-earners in war times must, as has been said, keep one eye on the exploiters at home and the other upon the enemy threatening the national government...

...This declaration sums up "the indispensable basis for national policies" upon which organized labor offers its service "to defend, safeguard, and preserve" our country...

...But the President proposes alliance with Great Britain, which, however liberty loving its people, is a hereditary monarchy, with a hereditary ruler, with a hereditary House of Lords, with a hereditary landed system, with a limited and restricted suffrage for one class and a multiplied suffrage power for another, and with grinding industrial conditions for all the wage workers...

...The attitude of organized labor toward War and Militarism, and its "demands" in case of armed conflict, as expressed by this big conference of responsible leaders, were not regarded generally as "news...

...but I venture to say that the response which the German people have made to the demands of this war shows that it has a degree of popular support which the war upon which we are entering has not and never will have among our people...

...Not only was there failure to recognize the necessity for protecting rights of workers that they might give that whole-hearted service to the country that can come only when every citizen enjoys rights, freedom and opportunity, but under guise of national necessity, Labor was stripped of its means of defense against enemies at home and was robbed of the advantages, the protections, the guarantees of justice that had been achieved after ages of struggle...

...A Look Ahead I TNDER war conditions, a great army of pro-ducers become suddenly an army of nonproductive consumers...

...Until we are willing to do that it illy becomes us to offer as an excuse for our entry into the war the unsupported claim that this war was forced upon the German people by their Government "without their prewous" knowledge or approval...

...It means a constant struggle against the current of tradition, experience and practice.—D& Otto P. Geier...

...In order to safeguard all the interests of the wage-earners, organized labor should have representation on all agencies determining and administering policies for national defense...

...Organized Labor Speaks "THE GUARANTEES of human conserva-tion should be recognized in war as well as in peace...

...It is the agency that, in all countries, stands for human rights and is the defender of the welfare and interests of the masses of the people...

...The President has not suggested that we make our support of Great Britain conditional to her granting home rule to Ireland, or Egypt, or India...

...We rejoice in the establishment of a democracy in Russia, but it will hardly be contended that if Russia were still an autocratic government we would not be asked to enter this alliance with her just the same...

...A pledge was given "in peace or in war, in stress or in storm, to stand unreservedly by the standards, of liberty and the safety and preservation of the institutions and ideals of .our republic...

...but in this same connection, and strangely enough, the President says that we have become convinced that the German Government as it now exists-—"Prussian autocracy" he calls it—can never again maintain friendly relations with us...

...One hundred officials of national and international unions gathered in Washington, when war appeared, imminent, to formulate their policy toward war...

...THE ONE-HALF must know how the other half lives...

...Is it not a remarkable democracy which leagues itself with allies already far overmatching in strength the German nation and holds out to such beleaguered nation the hope of peace only at the price of giving up their Government...

...Are the people of this country being so well represented in this war movement that we need to go abroad to give other people control of their governments...

...Italy and the lesser powers of Europe, Japan in the Orient, in fact all of the countries with whom we are to enter into alliance, except France and newly revolutionized Russia are still of the old order, and it will be generally conceded that no one of them has done as much for its people in the solution of municipal problems and in securing social and industrial reforms as Germany...

...For these reasons workers have felt that no matter what the result of war, as wage-earners they generally lost...

...Constructive social work includes not only helping the unfortunate, but fighting those who prey on the miserable...

...It is an agency that has international recognition which is not seeking to rob, exploit or corrupt foreign governments, but instead seeks to maintain human rights and interests the world over, nor does it have to dispel suspicion nor prove its motives either at home or abroad...

...Who has registered the knowledge or approval of the American people of the course this Congress is called upon to take in declaring war upon Germany...

...Significantly enough, the war-crazed metropolitan newspapers reported this declaration of loyalty, with laudatory expressions, but without telling the real story...

...Yet these leaders declared: "War has never put a stop to the necessity for struggle to establish and maintain industrial rights...

...We hold that if workers may be asked in time of national peril or emergency to give more exhausting service than the principles of human welfare warrant, that service should be asked only when accompanied by increased guarantees and safeguards, and when the profits which the employer shall secure from the industry in which they are engaged have been limited to fixed percentages...

...The espionage bills, the conscription bills, and other forcible military measures which we understand are being ground out of the war machine in this country furnish the complete proof that those responsible for this war know that it has not popular support and that armies sufficient to satisfy the demand of the entente allies cannot be recruited by volun-tary enlistments...

...This labor conference made specific demands...

...Such exploitation made it impossible for a warring nation to mobilize effectively its full strength for outward defense...

...Conservation of human resources becomes a very vital matter, not only to endure the strain while war is in progress, but also to withstand the readjustment, both international and domestic, that will follow...

...In the sense that this war is being forced upon our people without their knowing why and without their approval, and that wars are usually forced upon all peoples in the same way, there is some truth in the statement...

...So true is this that the dispatches from London all hailed the message of the President as sounding the death knell of Germany's Government...

...And the historical meaning of War to Labor was set forth in these words: "We maintain that it is the fundamental step in preparedness for the nation to set its own housa in order and to establish at home justice in relations between men...