CHAPTER VI 



I HAVE no patience with those who assert that there 

 is a natural or inherent antagonism between capital 

 and labor. For more than a century after the land- 

 ing of the Mayflower, capital and labor were, in New 

 England, in more intimate contact and more mutually 

 helpful than at any time in the history of the race. As 

 a result of these two forces, New England developed, 

 and did an hundredfold more for the uplift of human- 

 ity than any other community or nation of its size 

 that ever existed. Honest labor and honestly acquired 

 capital were never antagonistic. It was only when 

 the criminal element in the ranks of both capital and 

 labor acquired undue influence that labor troubles be- 

 gan. Because of these twin evils, American agricul- 

 ture is well-nigh paralyzed, and our nation is facing a 

 food crisis. 



If patriotic motives and impulses in this hour of our 

 greatest national peril will not induce organized labor 

 to postpone the settlement of all these controversies 

 until after the war prospects of tranquillity and the 

 hope for renewed advances in everything which makes 

 for a higher civilization, after victory is won, are not 

 alluring. At the very hour, when on the West Front, 

 the gigantic forces of freedom and oppression are in 

 a death struggle, the press announces that 35,000 fac- 

 tory operators in New England, largely engaged on 



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