24 TWENTY-FIRST REPORT. 



Optimists viewing the phenomena of the recent struggle may assert that 

 the old antagonism between labor and capital is on the road to oblivion and 

 that the necessity for unions is now largely of historical significance only. 

 Because business men were quite willing and ready to resiwnd to the call of 

 their country and to put aside personal gain in the interests of the nation, it 

 may be urged that the business men will never again be so unresponsive to the 

 broader or social aspects of business. A well-known man connected with the 

 Fuel Administration in one of the States wrote in a farewell letter to his 

 associates in that service. "You have proved that Americans can act from 

 public motives, that deep in the soul of them is power to respond to a selfless 

 ideal, that latent in the heart of the practical business man is the hunger for 

 service unbribed, unrewarded and self-compensating." Granting that during 

 the progress of the Great War many of the dollar-a-year men and other indus- 

 trial captains were converted to high ideals and excellent performance in the 

 interest of social and national good, it will indeed be remarkable if a large 

 percentage do not backslide after the pressure and the enthusiasm generated 

 during the War have disappeared and after the prosaic times of peace have 

 re-appeared. There is reason to fear that these new motives will prove, like 

 beauty, to be only skin-deep. 



On the other hand, the War unmistakably demonstrated that the support 

 of labor was indispensable to the nation in a national crisis ; and, since the 

 government intervened in the operation of so many businesses, the War has 

 also tended to depreciate the importance of the fimctions of investors and 

 managers. When the United States entered into the Great War, workers were 

 appealed to to speed up and to increase production. But the appeal was for 

 the workers to stand back of the government and the boys in the army. The 

 appeal was not made to loyalty toward employers. It is a sad commentary on 

 modem industry that it has been so conducted and so managed that incentives 

 to better work rest upon considerations entirely outside the industry itself.* 

 Now, therefore, is not an opportune time for arrogance on the part of business 

 men ; it is the time for careful, intelligent and open-minded study of the indus- 

 trial situation. We seem to be on the threshold of a new era in industrial 

 relations. The employer who can only think in pre-war terms is a menace to 

 industrial peace. In short, it is asking too much to expect labor to rest its 

 case on the recently awakened social conscience, — a war product In view of 

 past experience, it must be anticipated that workingmen will continue con- 

 vinced that union organization is essential to insure that workers will be 

 treated like men and that sufficient emphasis will be placed upon the human 

 element in industry. If the nation is on the threshold of a new era, organized 

 labor must be recognized, bargained with and given a voice in determining 



*See Marot, Creative Impulse in Industry, pp. 57-58. See also The Nation, Feb. 8. 

 1919, pp. 192-3. 



