Concurrent resolution

“ If, when the people, being furnished with adequate information, held its deliberations, the citizens had no communication one with another, the grand total of the small differences would always give the general will, and the decision would always be good. ”

“ If it is agreeable for two partners in a business to run through their accounts without dispute, so now as partners in an argument it will be no less agreeable to sum up the points under discussion, as you say, with unanimity. ”

“ Single Control Must Give Way to Partnership If industry is to cease to be the battleground of rival factions, each selfishly seeking its own interest, regardless of the interests of the others, its government must cease altogether to be a matter of single control by one of the parties, or of contending controls by the several parties. The parties to industry must be brought into a relationship of partnership, with a recognized community of control. ”

“ Neither could the external stimulations to reflection ever be stronger and more insistent, for surely he whom these present conditions do not arouse has lost all feeling. You have been called together to make a last, determined resolution and decision—not by any means to give commands and mandates to others, or to depute others to do the work for you. ”

“ When a sufficient number of men are prepared to take the initiative, and educate public opinion to the desirability of a superior method of control in the common interest, then I believe it will be done, not all at once, but gradually. ”

“ While discussion and dispute are taking place, we will simply pass the measures we desire and present them to the public as an accomplished fact. Nobody will dare to demand the rejection of measures thus passed, and the more so as they will be interpreted as an improvement. ”

“ As I tell my NIMs, you should be seeking to create conversations that are uncomfortable but necessary. What you want to do is to create some tension in the system, to get to the heart of the decision-maker’s problem. ”

“ Instead of arising by dictation or by agreement, which would imply the preestablished organization required for making and enforcing rules, they arise by modifications of acts performed for personal ends; and so prove themselves to grow out of individual conduct before social arrangements exist to control it. ”

“ A Conciliation Committee, having the confidence of the community, and composed of men possessing practical knowledge of industrial affairs, can therefore aid in mitigating this antagonism, in preventing avoidable conflicts, in bringing about a truce ”

“ In the final judgment of the public upon a conflict or an issue, we expect, to be sure, some sort of unanimity of judgment, but in the general consensus there will be some individual differences of opinion still unmediated, or only partially so, and final agreement of the public will be more or less qualified by all the different opinions that co-operated to form its judgment. ”

“ I am sure everyone is aware that the building of consensus is not an easy task; fortunately, both sides are ready to listen, willing to compromise, and willing to reach a meeting of the minds. We know, too, the consequences of impatience and haste. ”

“ They're looking for consensus. They're looking for common sense. Most of all, they want action. I intend to deliver for them in my second term, and I expect to find willing partners in both parties to make that happen. ”

“ But the only way of mitigating factiousness and misunderstanding is by means of some machinery of mutual consultation, which may help to remedy grievances and whose decision shall determine the political action taken in the name of the whole community. ”

“ The power to compel, beforehand, co-operation, and thus, it is believed, to make a failure unlikely and a general panic almost impossible, must be recognized, if government is to do its proper work, unless we can say that the means have no reasonable relation to the end. ”

“ The existence of the machinery makes it difficult for either party in a serious dispute to refuse to employ it; the prestige of the government behind the conciliator enables him to deal freely with each party, and to throw the full light of day upon the real condition of affairs. This done, the full strength of the system of voluntary conciliation comes into play. ”

“ In many committees, boards and commissions we see now a reluctance to take action until all agree; there is a feeling that somehow, if we keep at it long enough, we can unify our ideas and our wills, and there is also a feeling that such unification of will has value, that our work will be vastly more effective in consequence. ”

“ Of course, you have already heard that in many areas where people are bargaining or trying to make optimum decisions such as in the World Nations Organization, in the World Court, and in local, federal, and world legislative bodies, there is now serious consideration being given to convincing opposing factions to try to agree on a program and having once agreed on it, the contract or legislation or judgment or decision produced with the program would be accepted as optimum for both sides. ”

“ Some measures have singly an immediate and sensible operation; others again depend on a succession of well connected schemes, and have a gradual, and perhaps unobserved operation. If, therefore, there be but one assembly, chosen for a short period, it will be difficult to keep up the train of proper measures, or to preserve the proper connection between the past and the future. ”

“ At all times, and under every regime, when a decision of the Chambers had been required in connection with some great enterprise, had not the natural and legitimate tactics been for one to do what might be needful to secure that decision? ”

“ Apparent concessions may be made by the favored interests and the advocates of the policy which benefits them, but the existing system is likely to be maintained for the present in its essential features, unless the people manifest their desire for a thorough reform of that system in so emphatic a manner as to make resistance impossible. And here again it is eminently desirable that those who think alike should make their influence felt by intelligent and energetic cooperation. ”

“ In a survey of the forces making for self-government in industry, the Conference considered that definite encouragement must be given to the principles of collective bargaining, of conciliation, of arbitration, but that such forces could not develop in an atmosphere of legal repression. ”

“ Decision and action, everywhere blunted, delayed, or curtailed by talk and the processes of discussion, are brought forth only after the difficult, tumultuous assent of several discordant wills.2314 Elective and collective as these powers are, measures are still taken to guard against them. ”

“ Our system does not profess to make human judgment infallible; it professes only to provide that our deliberative assemblies shall decide according to the best of their judgment, and shall neither retain nor reject anything, without a full opportunity at least being given for the exercise of deliberate reflection and mature discussion. ”

“ If, as we see, co-operative parts do not vary together, even when few and close together, and may not therefore be assumed to do so when many and remote, we cannot account for those innumerable changes in organization which are implied when, for advantageous use of some modified part, many other parts which join it in action have to be modified. ”

“ A refusal to meet in conference until the figure proposed is acceptable rules out discussion between parties as a means of coming to terms on the main question in a dispute.
I have taken part in the settlement of probably more industrial differences than most politicians. In every case I have started with an impasse. The [Pg 197] first meeting of the parties always revealed an apparently unbridgeable chasm between their respective positions; but perseverance and an honest endeavour on both sides to find a solution usually ends in agreement. Goodwill can bridge any abyss. ”

“ And even on a broader field have we not seen conflicting directions and abstinence of necessary interference, precisely because the issues were seen in different quarters from different angles. So, a united plan of action which is so absolutely necessary for efficient work cannot be obtained without consultation and exchange of ideas. ”

“ The dynamics of state government in the federal system are to allow the formation of consensus respecting the way the members of a discrete community treat each other in their daily contact and constant interaction with each other. ”

“ There has never been a complete panacea to all human relationships so far in this world. The best we can do is to take short steps forward, to align each step to the tried ideals that have carried us thus far. The Conference has endeavored to find a plan for systematic organization of the forces that are making for better relationships, to encourage the growing acceptance of collective bargaining by providing a method that should enable it to meet the objections of its critics and to aggregate around this the forces of conciliation and arbitration now in such wide use. ”

“ All other questions, when compared to this, sink into insignificance. The present is no time for palliations. Action, prompt action, is required. A delay in Congress to prescribe or to recommend a distinct and practical proposition for conciliation may drive us to a point from which it will be almost impossible to recede.
A common ground on which conciliation and harmony can be produced is surely not unattainable. ”

“ And when we find this persistence manifested throughout all ages in all departments of the regulative organization—when we see it to be the natural accompaniment of the function of that organization, which is essentially restraining—when we estimate the future action of the organization in any case, by observing the general sweep of its curve throughout long periods of the past—we shall see how misleading may be the conclusions drawn from recent facts taken by themselves. ”

“ I know that to some this scheme of distributed power and disintegrated rule seems a very excellent device whereby we are enabled to escape a dangerous “one-man power” and an untoward concentration of functions; and it is very easy to see and appreciate the considerations which make this view of committee government so popular. ”

“ Advisory and executive functions, and a quasi-representation, seem to be three essentials in any experiment Till the principle has been generally accepted, detailed schemes are simply a waste of time, but it is worth while to get our minds quite clear on the necessary elements of any plan. ”

“ But the function of passing a deliberate opinion on past measures, and laying down principles of future policy, is a business which, in the estimation of your petitioners, admits of and requires the concurrence of more judgments than one. It is no defect in such a body to be double, and no excellence to be single, especially when it can only be made so by cutting off that branch of it which, by previous training, is always the best prepared—and often the only one which is prepared at all—for its peculiar duty. ”

“ It is too well established to require extended discussion that due process is not an inflexible concept. Rather, its requirements are determined in particular instances by identifying and accommodating the interests of the individual and society. ”

“ The Board also feels that unless both parties coöperate in good faith and in the right spirit to make the experiment a success, no mechanism of preferential organization, however cunningly contrived, will survive the jar and clash of hostile feeling or warring interests. ”

“ And if any inference be drawn from this resemblance of relations, as, for instance, that obedience or affection is due from colonies to the mother country, this is called reasoning by analogy. Or, if it be argued that a nation is most beneficially governed by an assembly elected by the people, from the admitted fact that other associations for a common purpose, such as joint-stock companies, are best managed by a committee chosen by the parties interested ”

“ And even if it were otherwise, is it more consistent with principle, that the agent should control the constituent, or that the constituent should control the agent? These view of the subject, however, are worth nothing. We cannot judge of the practical operation of the Government, by any such extreme case. ”

“ It must form either a new machine of a distinct character and function, or produce a result due to the joint and co-operating action of all the elements, and which is not the mere adding together of separate contributions. ”

“ There can be no good company where the capacity for general agreement is carried too far in any quarter. Unity of aim, difference of opinion—those are the elements that make men's conversations valuable. ”

“ Conciliation aims solely to secure internal peace in a department of industry. To avert strikes or reduce their duration is all that it can do and all that the parties directly interested wish to have it do. ”

“ Hence, in the early days of the world's history we discern the principle of association and co-operation, with plans and systems embodying its practical application. Organizations came into being, obedient to the summons of necessity. ”

“ As the one or the other might prove the stronger, consolidation or disunion would, inevitably, be the consequence; and which of the twain, no one who has paid any attention to the working of our system, can doubt. An assumption, therefore, which would necessarily lead to the destruction of the whole system in the end, and the substitution of another, of an entirely different character, in its place — must be false. ”

“ The foregoing discussion accepted for the purpose of argument the majority's statement of the interest involved here. But as so often happens in balancing cases, the wrong interests are being balanced. ”

“ Such an appeal, if it is wary, is an appeal to the present situation as undergoing that reorganization that will confer upon it the unification which it lacks; to organization as something to be brought about, to be made. ”