i STEAM COAL - Clpdigital.org

30 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.
PRESIDENT ELIOT, OF HARVARD, ON EM­ and the same hours of daily labor over wide
PLOYERS' ASSOCIATIONS AND LABOR areas of our vast country. It is clear that an
UNIONS.
almost indispensable mode of conducting one industry
may be entirely inapplicable in another in­
By C. W. Eliut. L. L. D., President Harvard University.
dustry, and that such diversities
EXTEND TO RATES OF WAGES,
The most striking fact in the development of the
to the number of hours which count as a day's
industrial combat during the last two years is the
work, and to the distribution of the hours of
extensive and firm organization of employers.
labor through the twenty-four liours of the day.
They were compelled to form compact and trust­
Some industries, like a blast furnace, for instance,
worthy associations by their experience of the
must be carried on incessantly, day and night.
force which could be exerted by the large organiza­
and month after month; others, like a cotton-mill,
in ordinary times run steadily a definite number
tions of labor against any single employer. They
of hours out of each twenty-four, and have no
found that their only safety was in the organization
of trustworthy associations of employers in
difficulty in stopping over night or over Sunday;
others, like a bakery, are necessarily spasmodic
each of the principal trades or occupations, and
in their operation, with hours of unseasonable activity,
and regular daily periods of comparative
inaction. Some trades are active at certain seasons
of the year and dull at others. In some
trades the effort of the worker is steady and
monotonous; in others it is intermittent and
various. In some trades all the labor is heavy
and hard; in others it is all light and easy. I
expect therefore to see the employers' associations
resisting, and resisting successfully, uniform legislation
affecting either wages or hours of labor.
The employers having organized strong associations,
it has become highly important to find
some tests which may be applied to the policies
of these strong and numerous associations to distinguish
the good and safe policies from the evil
and dangerous ones. The efforts of the emp'.overs'
associations are beeomirg very strenuous,
pnd are encountering equally strenuous efforts on
the part of organizations of labor; so that it is
all-important that the emp'oyers' policies—and,
PRESIDENT KI.10T, OP HARVARD.
indeed, the unions' policies also—in all their diversity
should deserve public coTfidence and approval.
Some of the fundamental policies of the
labor unions, such as the closed shop.
also of comprehensive associations which represent
the employers in a great variety of industries.
These trade associations are, of course, various,
because the interests and needs of the different
trades and manufactures are various. A single
uniform policy is not to be expected in all employers'
associations except on the main lines of
action. The effort after a uniform policy in regard
to wages and hours, which characterizes the
federated trade-unions, is. in my view, a dangerous
one, whether for the trade unions or for the employers'
associations. The diversities in the industries
and occupations of the country are so
great, and the conditions under which the same
industry is prosecuted in different places differ
so widely, that the public may reasonably distrust
efforts at universal legislation or universal policies—that
is, legislation or policies which are
supposed to cover a great variety of trades, or
are intended to produce the same rates of wages
THE LIMITATION OF OUTPUT,
and the effort after a monopoly of the labor in
each trade or occupation, certainly do not now
command public approval. What tests or criteria
can we apply to the policies of the new employers'
associations to discriminate the selfish
from the unselfish policies, the policies which will
prove acceptable to the community at large from
those which will prove unacceptable?
In the first place, whenever an association of
employers shows that its effort is, after all, directed
to the attainment of a monopoly, like the
habitual effort of every labor union, it will certainly
fail to command public confidence. Mortopo
lies are no more welcome to the free people of the
United States to-day than they were to our English
ancestors four hundred years ago. The contest
against monopolies granted by the sovereign