60 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 471. 



which you or I exercise our legal rights 

 and privileges, and in the face of it we may 

 be driven to act otherwise than as we would. 

 This pressure is legitimate, and when the 

 public is not led astray by prejudice or 

 wrongly instructed by demagogues the com- 

 pulsion of its intelligent opinion often has 

 salutary results. There can be no objec- 

 tion to this sort of compulsion, and if it 

 leads to the arbitration of individual dis- 

 putes, which would otherwise have caused 

 prolonged and bitter strikes, it probably 

 leads to the choice of the least evil of the 

 available ways of escape from a condition 

 too evil in itself not to result in some more 

 or less permanent inconvenience. The dif- 

 ference between the compelling pressure of 

 public opinion and the exercise of govern- 

 mental authority is wide. If such au- 

 thority is used by officers of a government 

 to which power to compel arbitration has 

 not been delegated, then that government 

 has undertaken to over-ride its own laws, 

 and regard for the law by the officers of 

 government constitutes the whole difference 

 between a despotic government and one 

 which rests on the will of a free people. 

 The humblest American citizen and the 

 wealthiest American corporation are alike 

 entitled to exercise every right which they 

 possess under the laws which the people 

 have made, and when any particle of the 

 power or; the prestige attaching to official 

 position is used to ciirtail the liberty of 

 either that of both is endangered. Public 

 opinion may condemn a particular act 

 which is not in violation of any law and, 

 if unanimous and strong, it will usually be 

 obeyed; but the hand of government must 

 never be lifted to hasten the compliance. 

 So long as the act is legal, government and 

 the officers of government have no business 

 with it. If the popular respect attaching 

 to the most exalted office in the land has 

 lately been made a means of compelling 

 men to submit to arbitration the manner in 



which they shall exercise the rights which 

 no one denies are theirs, there has been a 

 misuse of official position and a precedent 

 has been established which, if followed, wiU 

 sooner or later seriously impair the quality 

 of American liberty. Compulsory arbitra- 

 tion has been rejected by organized labor, 

 and when Americans generally comprehend 

 what is meant by that term they will have 

 none of it whether through statutory enact- 

 ment or by the unauthorized action of even 

 the highest officer of their government. 



THE OUTLOOK. 



But if voluntary arbitration is no more 

 than a temporary and rather dangerous 

 makeshift, and compulsory arbitration is 

 utterly to be condemned, what can be done ? 

 The answer has been given — men must 

 learn to bargain together reasonably. The 

 remedy ought to appeal to us more because 

 it is a process and not a panacea for all the 

 ills of industrial conflict. That men can 

 learn to settle their disputes over wages 

 without outside aid, and that unions can 

 make and keep collective bargains, has been 

 abundantly proven during the recent in- 

 dustrial experience of the United States. 

 All tliat is required is that there shall be 

 more of this reasonableness and much less 

 of its opposite. That this will come with 

 the growth and spread of intelligence there 

 need be no doubt. When workingmen and 

 employers scrutinize more thoroughly the 

 conditions by which their relations are fixed 

 they will appreciate the wastefulness of 

 friction and will know that reasonable deal- 

 ing and the observance of the Golden Rule 

 constitute the best of all policies. In at- 

 taining this state of higher intelligence 

 organizations of employees and of employ- 

 ers will bear an important and useful part. 

 Whatever evils may be discovered in the 

 current practices of either class of organ- 

 izations, however absurd the doctrines or 

 crude the practices of some of them, no 



