Iowa Wesleyan College - Croaker Yearbook (Mount Pleasant, IA)

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THE PURPLE AND WHITE PARADE contented laboring people. Man is pitted against man, human hands are crimsoned in fraternal blood. Had you visited Lawrence two years ago you would have seen class hatred incite the people to a mad riot and stain the streets with the blood of little children. You would have seen hordes of rebellious wage earners pour out of the factory doors demanding a living wage. You would have seen women, forced by the withered hand of want to beg in the very streets for bread. You would have seen relentless Capital answer their pleas with a storm of brutish bullets. Visit any large industrial center during a strike and you will discover that the rich scoff and scorn the poor; the poor despise and detest the rich. Behind every comment that is written, back of every angry word and oath that is uttered, back of every bit of exploded dynamite is this spirit of class hatred, which if not checked will sooner or later burst into the consuming flames of anarchy. This is the ominous cloud that looms above the horizon of America’s future. Here is a problem, nation wide in its significance, whose solution affects the whole industrial world. How shall we avert a catastrophe, not only imminent but inevitable ? For want of a better solution, a vast host of dissatisfied laboring people are turning their faces toward Socialism. The supporters of this movement, numbering only two thousand several decades ago, polled at the last election, nearly a million votes. This alarming increase in the Socialist party indicates. and measures the growth of this industrial friction. But let us not allow the industrial pendulum to swing too far in this dangerous direction. We must not permit the Socialist to dictate the course of our industrial evolution. We must preserve intact a republican government which is our heritage. There can be but one final solution of this vital issue. Its principles may be summarized in one fundamental idea—Cooperation. Capital and Labor must cooperate. It is not our task as Americans to attempt the mere conciliation of Capital and Labor. We must do more than conciliate! We must do more than establish compulsory arbitration! We must burn into the hearts of Capital and Labor the great and lasting principle of Cooperation. In this program of cooperation, Capital has a mighty task to perform. Capital must say to the laborer: Show us that you are interested in our business and we

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' V % ■'O Once it was believed that the mere organization of labor would in itself solve the problems of industry. Economists declare that if a combination of money brought about high prices, then a monopoly of labor should bring about high wages. If capitalists have succeeded by controlling the supply of wealth, then the laborer should prosper by commanding the supply of labor. Monopoly of labor is the insistent doctrine of the hour. Does a man not belong to the Union? He shall not work! Does an employer not hire union men? His workmen shall be struck down and his wares boycotted! Monopoly of labor must be preserved at the expense of convenience, at the loss of production, even at the sacrifice of human life. Because of these conditions we are tending toward an era of lawlessness. Unionism sounds her mighty trumpet and in stentorian tones demands a better wage for the working man, forgetful of the tragic law of industry, and unmindful that when labor forces a higher wage, capital retaliates by setting a higher level of prices. Higher wages—higher prices, these are the upper and nether millstones between which labor is ground to dust. “But more tragic still, labor striving blindly to free itself, proposes, not freedom from bondage, but merely a higher price for its bondage. This is the cruel paradox of industry.” Important as it is, this question of wages and prices is not the dominant issue in the labor situation. A spirit of class hatred is abroad in the land. The great mass of toilers are filled with bitterness toward the rich. The professional organizer has poisoned the mind of the laborer until he counts all employers, just or unjust, his bitter foes. This suspicion breeds distrust between employers and laborers, and a malignant spirit of class hatred threatens our country’s security. The bitterness engendered by the struggle between Capital and Labor is more dangerous to America than a foreign army encamped within her borders. On the day when the poor entrenched themselves on one side of the street and the rich barricaded themselves on the other, Athens was at the zenith of her splendor. After the battle the city, once the pride of civilization, was a waste of ruins. Class hatred partitioned Poland and dashed to pieces the promise of a mighty empire. Today in America class hatred has reached a crucial climax. Beneath the outward calm of society may be heard the deep toned muttering of a dis- A YEAR AGO

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!' 1910 will raise your wages. Show us that we can trust you and we will make you a financial partner in the business. Convince us that you have the interest of your employer at heart and we will use the joint profits in making your lives fuller and happier. This must be the attitude of Capital. On the other hand the labor union must revolutionize its methods. “The motive of the union is right, the principle seeking improved conditions is right, but the method is wrong. In the union, every man obtains membership on a common basis, seeks a common employment, at a common wage. As a result the man of great ability and superior personality becomes simply a unit in a mass where the unaspiring are greatly in the majority.” The toilers of today are supremely powerful yet vastly ignorant. But it is not the power of the union, it is not the ignorance of the laboring class which is bringing down upon our industrial centers such an avalanche of strikes and labor disputes. It is this dead level scale of union wages, it is this distribution of power in the labor union among ignorant and educated alike which is rocking the very foundation of our whole industrial system. Now if the union would ever exercise its true purpose it must cast off this communal yoke. A scientific scale of wages must be established. The laborer must be paid according to his efficiency. Labor must be able to say to Capital: Give us cooperation in the regulation of wages and prices, make us a partner in the business and we will give you sober, intelligent and efficient workmen. Capital must meet Labor on this broad platform of cooperation. Thus did Henry Ford of Detroit. There is no alternative. This reform must come. We must not wait and compel the workingman to take his rightful dues by force or dynamite. We cannot coerce the laborer; he is a man, a citizen, one of the common brotherhood of Man. We may order a stone from the quarry or iron made into an arch, we may command a brute and whip it into submission, but from men, fierce, tumultuous, rebellious, we must obtain mental and moral assent. We now invite the political cooperation of the laborer, consult him in matters of public policy, appeal to his patriotism in national crises; we must likewise secure his industrial cooperation. The LEAVING THE STATION WITH OUR HERO laborer is now a co-partner in production ; we must educate him to dignity, honor and cooperation. Cooperation will effect a marvelous transformation in the field of industry. Make the laborer financially a partner in the product and you will make him a man. He is no longer a machine working blindly for a mere living wage. When tall 1 (.'Vl'W'WWWVWWWWWW