John Rogers Commons and Edward Thomas Devine and Lilian Brandt and Thomas Sewall Adams and Ellery Channing Chilcott and Davis Rich Dewey and Albert Bushnell Hart

“ The immigrants were not the only burden on the State. Millions of American-born, many of them descended from the old colonial stock, were poor and ignorant and criminal. The southern mountaineers, the frontier farmers, the loggers and the miners, included a host of men and families who lived a rough life. Parts of the rich United States were infested by tramps and vagabonds. In the wealthiest cities there was grinding poverty and degradation in the slums. The situation was saved by general prosperity and the American spirit of cheerfulness, and of confident waiting for things to come right. ”

“ A politician in any party may present himself as a “friend of labour.” Moreover, the system of checks and balances of the Government offers resistance to change, and the division of sovereignty between state and Federal Government makes legislative reform measures difficult of passage. More can be accomplished with equal effort by trade-union methods. What part the American Federation of Labor has taken in politics has been to advise the working men to reward their friends and punish their enemies at the polls. ”

“ Legally, the responsibility for the relief of the poor in America rests ordinarily upon their immediate relatives. Children and in some states grandchildren, parents and in some states grandparents, even brothers and sisters, may be compelled by law to furnish, if able, the necessaries of life to the indigent. The laws in American states do not uniformly recognize what in England is called the “right to relief.” In New York, for example, an able-bodied man who has no visible means of support and no regular occupation is not, under the law, a “poor person,” but is a “vagrant.” ”

“ The smoothness and efficiency with which the credit machinery worked during the World War particularly in contrast with its inefficient management during the Civil War indicate that in essentials the credit policy of the Government was sound and its administration remarkably efficient. The response of the people to the call for bond subscriptions, the cheerfulness with which the heavy war taxes were borne, and the absence of even a temporary breakdown in the credit mechanism with which the war was financed, were all admirable. ”

“ Political Reform.—When Roosevelt left the presidency the position of President was at the highest point of authority that it had ever known. Most Presidents are obliged to strive with Congress in behalf of their policies, inasmuch as their only means of officially proposing legislation is through public messages, and their heads of departments work directly only through Congressional committee hearings; American tradition is against the framing of bills by the executive, and the President's initiative is limited. ”

“ Though the breach with Germany was initiated by a Democratic President and passed by a Congress in which the Democrats had a small majority, it was a spontaneous national action representing the practically universal belief that the United States could no longer live in peace with such a nation as Germany had become. In a succession of brilliant speeches President Wilson had developed the idea that it was the duty of the American people to make the world “safe for democracy.” ”

“ Hence a tendency to look to laws and political devices to correct the ills of popular government. Millions of voters believed that if they could only get laws enough, they could break the power of the “bosses” and chain the corporations. They overlooked the fact that the real evil was the party managed by men who made politics a business, who were responsible for “getting out the vote,” and always got out the votes of their friends, who knew from long experience that the weary and listless voter at last would cease to protest. ”

“ Thus a factory employing a thousand hands might be compelled to stop work because it directed two or three non-union men to clean a truck, or because it bought machinery built by non-union labour hence boycotts and perhaps ruin for employers who had no difficulty or quarrel with their own workmen.
Never in the history of the United States had there been so many and so violent strikes as from 1913 to 1917. In New York 150,000 garment workers were unionized and they struck. In May 1916 nearly a million men in various states were out of work because they or some other union had struck. ”

“ Social Movements, 1913-7.—These struggles between the railways and the courts, between the trusts and Congress, between labour and state Governments, between strikers and the President of the United States, are part of American history, because they were vital to the welfare of the country. Combinations, both of capital and labour, were too large to be dealt with by any kind of private organization, or by the local and state Governments. Neither the capitalist nor the labourer respected the restraint of state legislation. ”

“ The reconstruction programme of the American Federation of Labor included actual universal education, for all ages, in all communities, for which public schools and universities were to be developed. The programme stated: “It is also important that the industrial education which is being fostered and developed should have for its purpose not so much training for efficiency in industry as training for life in an industrial society.” ”

“ As the idea of prevention gained ground, those who were engaged in the relief of the poor found their task growing more complex. In particular, they found themselves obliged by the logic of their new knowledge to examine into the health of each member of the family, to see that physical defects in children were corrected, that the family diet was suitable and sufficient, that the home was decently sanitary, that incipient physical and mental troubles were properly treated; to make it possible for children to stay in school at least as long as the law required, and preferably beyond that age ”

“ In order to secure the constant support of the Government by American wage-earners, the conference urged the adoption of trade-union standards for all war work, equal pay for equal work regardless of sex, the representation of organized labour on all committees which fixed policies for war work, and provision that special exertion of workers in war emergencies should not benefit chiefly the employers by increased profits. ”

“ The majority of American working men and women have as their aim the attainment of these standards: not ownership or control of business. The labour movement is a struggle for power to gain control of the “job” not the business adequate wages, short hours, security of employment, and sufficient responsibility to command respect and sustain interest in the work to be done. ”

“ The referendum system furnished a mechanism, usually imbedded in state constitutions, by which a statute on the demand of a sufficient number of voters could be held back from effect until submitted to a vote of the electors. The state of Oregon was one of the earliest and most thorough-going in this reform.
What was to be done if the Legislature refused to enact a statute demanded by the people? How could this negative force be overcome? By the initiative, through which a designated number of voters could unite on a measure, which must then be submitted to the electors for their suffrages. ”

“ Education in the Labour Movement..—In recent years there has been developed in the United States a movement on the part of working people to further their education, with a double aim: to give to working people a share in the culture which has been largely the possession of the propertied classes, and to fit them to understand and meet the problems of the modern industrial order. The leaders are trade unionists and socialists who resent the control of education by the class that also controls industry, and who wish to teach their own view of society ”

“ Indeed, the ultimate object of all social work, from the American point of view, is to make social work unnecessary; and every social agency which is efficiently accomplishing its immediate purpose is more or less consciously working for its own extinction. Social work, therefore, is constantly changing. ”

“ Unless the prices of what the farmer must sell could be brought into proper relation with prices of what he must buy—commodities and labour—agricultural production would necessarily be so greatly reduced as to bring about a serious shortage of food and textile products, for farmers cannot continue to produce crops at a loss not only of their time, but also of their money. ”

“ Farm Labour.—Mention has been made of the changes in farm wages during and since the World War. The changes in the price paid per day or per month, or in the index numbers, ought to, but do not, fully represent the changes in the costs of units of labour performed. Before the war most farm labourers were willing to give 10 hours of faithful work for a day's pay. The migration of labour during and after the war, by reason of enlistment or employment in cities or in large manufacturing plants, brought many farm labourers into contact with men who preach inadequate work as a duty. ”

“ As social agencies multiplied, competition became so intense that protests from harassed contributors led to the idea of financial federation, viz. that all the agencies in a community which depended on voluntary contributions for their support should form an association, agree on a joint budget for the next year, throw into a common pool their contributors' lists and other information about sources of income, present their united needs to the public in a single campaign, and share in the results in proportion to their budgets. ”

“ These court trials accented the labour controversy and led to violent strikes. In the midst of them sprang up a new labour organization, the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.) , which was an attempt on a large scale to organize the unskilled labourers, and also to reach the goal of one big union for all trades. The movement was unwelcome to the unions of skilled labour, because the unskilled were so much more numerous that they could always outvote the skilled, and were sure to insist on an equalization of wages, which would reduce the rates of the highly paid. ”

“ Few Americans could bring themselves to realize that equal opportunity was denied to those who chanced to be outside the advantages of education and of contact with their fellows; that the personal liberty of workers in mills, mines, or cotton-fields was much restricted; that some 10,000,000 negroes were subject to legal and social discrimination; that the public schools failed to reach at least one-fourth of the children who needed enlightenment and instruction ”

“ The road for recruits was blocked for the Germans and their allies, but open for the English, French and later for the Italians, Serbians, Greeks and Armenians. No neutrality proclamation could prevent these men from believing in their native countries, defending them by argument, and going over to fight for them if possible. For the first time in a hundred years the United States found within its own borders the sharpest division on questions of foreign policy. ”

“ In many instances welfare activities have begun with a restroom, a lunch-room, first-aid appliances. From these modest beginnings they have expanded to include everything which might directly or indirectly increase the efficiency of the workers. Their home life, savings, investments, education of children, and social opportunities have been included. Industrial goodwill between the management and the workers has come to be looked upon as an asset to be cultivated. ”

“ Included in the statute was an income-tax, at last made possible by the adoption of the 16th Amendment (Feb. 25 1913) , which was expected to supply any revenue which might be lost by the reduction of duties (see Income Tax, United States) . The tax was low: 1% on incomes from $3,000 to $20,000 a year, and a sliding scale on larger incomes, with 6% as a maximum. A Tariff Commission was created to make researches into the workings of the Act and try to find out what was the actual difference between the cost of labour in the United States and in foreign countries. ”

“ The agriculture of the United States had been and in 1921 still was an extensive, rather than an intensive, agriculture, and properly so. So long as land was plentiful and men were scarce the extensive system was to be encouraged. But as land began to become scarce and men plentiful there came almost unlimited opportunities for the intensifying of agriculture. While this need for closer farming was being discussed the World War brought with it a new set of problems that engaged the attention of the farmers as well as other citizens. ”

“ Trusts and Transportation.—During the 20 years ending with 1910 it had become clear that the most difficult question before the U.S. Government was the regulation of the vast aggregates of capital, commonly called trusts, which were combined into corporations and aimed at the control of particular lines of business, and also of the railways, which, as general transportation agencies, were of great importance in connexion with every kind of industry and trade. ”

“ Experience has shown that the load of responsibility placed upon the voters by these new measures was sometimes more than they were willing to bear. The scanty primary votes, and the inattention to some of the referendum and initiative questions put on the ballots, were seized upon as showing that the voter was interested only in men. On the other hand, the ballots of most cities, towns and states were loaded down with long lists of officers to be chosen at each election, so that the “vote for men” was in many cases a vote in the dark. ”

“ The educational social movements, through their research, their programmes, their publicity and their propaganda, have to a large extent enlisted the interest of the other factors, determining which questions should have precedence, and how they should be presented to the public.
“Welfare work” in mercantile and industrial establishments has an obvious historical association with those kinds of social work which deal with health, housing, recreation, and the standard of living. ”