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Boys' School, 72d St. & West End Ave. Girls' School, 301 West 72d St. New York City Boys' Country School, Preston Park Lodge, Pa. A School Where Records Are Made Union Theological Seminary Broadway at 120th Street The charter requires that "Equal privileges of admission and instruction, with all the advantages of the Institution, shall be allowed to Students of every denomination of Christians." Eighty-fourth year began September 24, 1919. For Catalogue address The Dean of Students. NEW YORK St. John's Riverside Hospital Training School for Nurses YONKERS, NEW YORK Registered in New York State, offers a 3 years' course-s general training to refined, educated women. Require ments one year high school or its equivalent. Apply to the Directress of Nurses, Yonkers, New York. E VERY man who has a home should have a revolver-just as he should have a life insurance policy to protect his loved ones; and a fire insurance policy to protect his property. Some men do not have revolvers in their homes, for two reasons. Either they will not admit that there is danger of burglars, or they are afraid to have a firearm about. If you belong to the first class, we can only say that to be consistent you should drop your fire insurance policy. Burglars do exist just as fires will break out-you never know when one or the other will visit your house. If you are of the second class, you evidently do not know about Iver Johnson Revolvers. They are free from any danger whatever of being accidentally discharged You can drop an Iver Johnson on the floor. You can throw it against the wall. You can "Hammer the Hammer." It will not go off until the trigger is pulled all the way back. Why not carry out the home protection idea to its logical conclusion? Remember, the only thing that will discourage a burglar is the knowledge that the man of the house has a revolver handy. Meantime go to an Iver Johnson dealer and see how modern invention has made a revolver that can't go off by accident. Choice of three grips: Regular, Perfect Rubber, Western Walnut. Iver Johnson Shotguns, too, are perfectly balanced, accurate, dependable and conscientiously made throughout. Examine the entire Iver Johnson line of firearms at your dealer's. Three Booklets Free Indicate which books you want: A-"Fire- If your dealer cannot supply the Iver Johnson, send us his IVER JOHNSON'S ARMS & CYCLE WORKS 99 Chambers Street, New York 717 Market Street, San Francisco HAMMER It can't go off by accident OCTOBER 29, 1919 THE LABOR CRISIS AND THE PEOPLE WHAT DOES THE THE PRESENT INDUSTRIAL CRISIS MEAN? I-THE PRINTERS' STRIKE FTER a month's suspension of publication this issue of The Outlook for October 29 reaches our readers a little delayed and without the usual cover. Its publication is possible, not because there has been any yielding to the revolutionary and outlawed pressmen's unions of New York City, whose leaders have rebelled against the authority and explicit instructions of their National organization, but because it is manufactured by trade-union workmen who are loyal to their contracts and agreements and who have the authority and approval of their National body. The story of this strike of the local pressmen's unions of New York City, which is primarily a strike not against their employers but against their superiors in organized labor, is briefly as follows. Through demands for the substitution of a forty-four-hour week in place of a forty-eight-hour week and a large increase in the wage scale (the reduction of hours and the increase of wages imposing an addition of about sixty per cent in the cost of manufacture), two large and important local unions, Pressmen's Union No. 51 and Franklin Union No. 23, came into conflict with the National tradeunion organization which is their superior authority. The National organizations agreed with the employers that the forty-four-hour week is to be introduced on May 1, 1921, and that the increased wage scale is to be a matter either of further conference or of arbitration. Although the employers have made two substantial increases in wages during the past two years to meet the pressure of the high cost of living, they offered to make an immediate increase of six dollars a week in all scales of payments, on the forty-eighthour basis, with provision in the contract for readjustment of the wage scale each six months on the cost-of-living basis. The pressmen's local unions, No. 51 and No. 23, refused to acknowledge the authority of their National organization and persisted in their demands. There "L upon the National leaders advised the employing printers to have no further au dealings with the local pressmen until they reinstated themselves in their National body under other local leaders in new local unions which the National body is now organizing. The employing printers had no choice but to accept this situation, and on October 1 refused to deal with the local pressmen until they complied with the requirements of the National organization. The strike is therefore not a contest between employers and workers on the question of antagonism to trade unions, but is a struggle between revolutionary radicals in local bodies who are flouting the regularly constituted trade-union authority of a National organization which is affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. The Outlook was compelled to suspend publication under these conditions. It could not do otherwise if it would. It would not do otherwise if it could. For, as it has often said, collective bargaining —that is to say, agreements and contracts between employers and organized labor under the principles of arbitration and conference must be the very foundation stone of American industry. The leaders of the local unions, Pressmen's Union No. 51 and Franklin Union No. 23, have denounced arbitration, contracts, and agreements on the ground, which they have publicly professed, that arbitration and contracts prevent unions from striking at short notice on whatever pretext they choose; and have themselves been denounced as enemies of organized labor by the National unions, including the American Federation of Labor. The National trade-union leaders in the printing trade, Major Berry and Mr. Scott, have said that the leaders of the rebelling local unions will never be taken back into the National organization, because they are trying, not to help but to ruin industry and to substitute soviet methods of government for the American principles of loyalty to contracts and obe dience to properly constituted representative authority chosen by majority vote. There can be no such thing as industrial democracy until the democratic principle of majority rule and respect for administrative authorities chosen by a free ballot is adhered to. The best and clearest-thinking tradeunionists recognize this. Two recent instances in the printers' strike in this city confirm this statement. Although as a body the publishers and employing printers of New York City have made great sacrifices in this struggle for principle, two large firms recently yielded completely to the demands of the outlawed local pressmen's union. In one case, when the striking pressmen returned to work after having their demands granted, the electrotypers walked out because they refused to work with pressmen who were violating trade-union agreements. In the other case, that of a firm doing a large amount of work for the New York City Government, the International Printing Trades Council told the firm that if it persisted in employing the rebelling pressmen the firm's union. label would be taken away and the city would be in the position of having its printing done by non-union labor. In other words, the action of the local pressmen has been repudiated by their fellow-workmen. The Outlook wishes to record here its sense of appreciation of the sound Americanism of such trade-union leaders as the President and Vice-President of the National Pressmen's Union, Major Berry and Mr. McHugh, who in this struggle are championing the fundamental principles of democracy in the field of labor. Inasmuch as the conflict between the local unions and their National officers is not yet settled, The Outlook cannot guarantee that there may not be further delay or interruption in its publication. But it will do its best to carry out its contracts and agreements with its subscribers and advertisers. II-AMERICAN INDUSTRY IN A STATE OF WAR OOK over the country to-day. What do you see? Strikes! Strikes! Nothing but strikes! You are on strike. The steel workers are on strike. The expressmen are on strike. The lumbermen are on strike. The bricklayers are on strike. The carpenters are on strike. The tailors are on strike. Every industry is tied up with strikes. The coal-miners will have a general strike on November 1. The railway workers may break out any day against the Government anti-strike law." This is a vivid and substantially true picture of the industrial condition in America as it has developed while The Outlook itself has been kept from publication by what amounts to a strike. That picture is none the less vivid and none 223 the less true because it has been drawn by one who thinks it is beautiful. It is from a "proclamation" addressed "to the striking longshoremen" and "issued by the Communist party of America." Everywhere strikes. One member of The Outlook's staff engaged in the preparation of facts for the statement here read found the restaurant to which he went for luncheon picketed by striking waitresses. It is a common sight in New York to see men walking up and down the sidewalk with placards bearing the word" striker" stuck in their hats, as if it were something to be proud of. The strike has become an epidemic. Men strike without knowing why. The strike fever is in the air. At the very period of the world's history when production is needed as never before men and women in scores and hundreds of industries are seized with a sort of industrial paralysis and stop producing. Of course there are reasons for this epidemic of strikes, just as there are reasons for other epidemics; but thousands of those who are victims of the epidemic do not themselves know the reason. The Coal Strike. Of all the strikes that occurred or have been threatened none has aroused such alarm, none seemed so likely to involve such suffering, as that of the bituminous-coal miners. Not only are the households of many sections of the country dependent on a supply of bituminous coal, but also the industries and the railways throughout the land. It is estimated that supplies of coal now in reserve could be made to last from thirty to forty-five days. After that, if no more coal were mined, railways would cease running, factories would shut down, and thousands of households would be without the fuel to keep people warm during the winter. If, therefore, mines were idle for more than a month, the effect would be worse than that of the most terrible war in history upon invaded France. To permit such a thing to hap pen because of an industrial dispute would prove the Nation incapable of self-government. It is not likely to happen; but it is not impossible that there will be widespread inconvenience, and even suffering, unless the dispute between the mine owners and the mine workers is promptly adjusted. Until this strike was called, to begin on November 1, the miners were working under a wage agreement made with the sanction of the United States Fuel Administration. This agreement was to continue in operation during the war, with the proviso that it was not to extend automatically beyond the first of next April. The miners, in a convention held on September 23, declared that all contracts, including of course this agreement, were to be considered as expiring November 1. They made demands for an increase in wages of about sixty per cent and a reduction of the week's working hours to thirty. They furthermore instructed the officers of the United Mine Workers of America, which is the miners' union, to call a strike to begin on November 1 unless satisfactory agreements with the mine owners were secured in the meantime. In taking this action the miners have laid themselves open to the charge of breaking the agreement they have made. Until the Peace Treaty goes into effect and peace has been promulgated the state of war continues. The mine owners have offered to submit their controversy to arbitration; but the miners have refused to have the matter arbitrated. It is true that the miners have declared that the war is practically over, and that therefore their agreement which was to continue during the war no longer holds; but this is at best a debatable question. By refusing to submit even this question to arbitration the miners have put themselves in the wrong. Wholly apart, therefore, from the issue raised by the demands themselves, which seem on their face altogether unreasonable, the miners have shown an arbitrary spirit and a flippant disregard of the sacredness of contracts. Representatives of the mine workers and mine owners met in Washington in conference with the Secretary of Labor, William B. Wilson, but after several days of discussion failed to reach any agreement. The miners declared themselves willing to continue negotiations, but refused arbitration. The mine owners declared that they were willing to submit the whole question to arbitration, but that it was useless to continue negotiating with men who were willing neither to keep their agreement nor even to submit to arbitration the question whether they should be required to keep it or not. So the conference broke up without reaching any conclusion. At this point the President intervened with a statement giving the facts, expressing no opinion on the merits of the controversy, but requesting "both the National and local officers and individual members of the United Mine Workers of America to recall all orders looking to a strike on November 1, and to take whatever steps necessary to prevent any stoppage of work." He directed the attention of the people to the fact that this strike occurs at a time "when the world is still in suspense as to negotiations for peace, when our troops are still being transported, and when their transport is in urgent need of fuel;" that, moreover, it comes at a time when the Government is making the most earnest effort to reduce the cost of living, and when the cutting off of the fuel supply would reduce production and increase distress. Not all the miners in the bituminous fields are organized. It is therefore possible that some mines will continue in operation after November 1; but the supply of coal from them cannot be made to meet the need of the Nation. The question is not as to the merits of the miners' demands; it is the simple and elementary question of observing agreements. The miners will not even submit to arbitration the question whether the circumstances which have arisen should relieve them of the promises they have made. The strike order is a defiance of the American public and a challenge to all the people. In arguing on behalf of the men, John L. Lewis, Acting President of the union, has blamed the mine operators because they have not offered any constructive measure. In declaring this he has ignored the fact that the mine operators have offered arbitration. He has cited facts to show that the demands of the miners are not unreasonable-that, for instance, their wages average only seventy-five dollars a month, and that the shorter working day and shorter working week will only distribute over the year the days in which men under present conditions are idle. In arguing thus he entirely ignores the real question which lies behind the demands of the miners-the question of the observance of contracts. By their acts the miners have forfeited the sympathy of the public. Attorney-General Palmer has reiterated the statement of the President that the miners' strike is illegal, inasmuch as under the Food and Fuel Control Act Congress made it unlawful for any concerted action to be made by two or more persons to limit the facilities of transportation and production, or to restrict the supply and distribution of fuel. He declares that the Department of Justice has enforced this statute in many cases, and hopes that it will not be necessary to do so in this case. The whole power of the Nation must be utilized, if need be, to see that its fuel supply is not cut off and that the men who mine the coal that the Nation needs keep to their word. The Steel Strike. Of the unnumbered, and apparently innumerable, strikes throughout the country during October there was one that stood unique as involving the major part of an entire industry. This was the steel strike, which began on September 22. Before the first week of that strike was over one point was established. The organizers of the strike declared that by calling the men out they were going to prove that they represented the workers in the industry. They have failed to prove it. Though many thousands of the steel workers quit, a large number of them quit unwillingly, and others quit because their jobs ceased when their mates left off working; and still others by hundreds stayed at home because they feared violence. The strikers claimed that from three hundred and twenty-five thousand to three hundred and fifty thousand men went out. and that the same number of men were still out over a month after the strike had begun. By no means all of the men, however, in the steel industry left work. Employers claim that some plants are running with fifty per cent of their nor mal force, some seventy-five per cent, and some with full strength. Of course the strike has crippled steel manufacturing, because in so highly or ganized an industry no part can be put |