ORGANIZATION OF EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYEES l6l 



D. M. Parry, of Indianapolis, and was first pushed by the manufacturers' 

 association of that city. The movement has spread quite rapidly from 

 state to state. All these organizations are combined in a grand national 

 association which is to include, as the New York Commercial says, "all 

 the great manufacturers of the country, the railroads, great retail inter- 

 ests, and the majority of banking institutions. Nearly all the existing 

 organizations, local in scope but with the same object in view, will be 

 affiliated with the national body." The competitive interests of the 

 employers are forgotten in their effort to utilize their united strength 

 against what they regard as their common enemy — the unions. They are 

 clear and definite as to their program. "There is to be no single-handed 

 warfare against labor unions, but a concentrated effort. It will be a 

 war in which the employers will stand united." This was the remark 

 of a member of the railroad association. A representative of the manu- 

 facturers' association said: "Every time a sympathetic strike is used 

 as a weapon against the employers, the employers will strike back with 

 a sympathetic lockout. Arbitration is a farce. It simply means splitting 

 the difference." The employers have organized into a national asso- 

 ciation, and their platform demands : 



Freedom of contract. No discrimination against non-union labor. 

 No sympathetic strikes to be tolerated. 

 Enforcement of law. 



DEMAND FOR GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION 



In addition to the idea of fighting the unions in such matters as 

 strikes, there is another and somewhat newer feature in the movement. 

 This is the growth of the feeling that some power of the government 

 should interfere in the settlement of strikes. The power of organized 

 labor is beginning to make itself felt in legislation. This was seen in 

 the recent agitation in favor of the anti-injunction and eight-hour bills. 

 The coal strike of 1902 was a strong influence in favor of public owner- 

 ship of the coal mines. There is no question but that the general effect 

 of that strike was to influence public opinion in favor of the workers as 

 opposed to the capitalists. Recent legislation shows the influence of the 

 laboring class, and it is to counteract this influence in legislation, as well 

 as to resist the demands of the union for higher wages, that the employers 



