Government Coercion in Labor Disputes

INDUSTRIAL peace will become a present fact when those who are engaged in industry desire it and have the vision to take the steps necessary to its realization. It is primarily the workshop and not the legislature which has the opportunity and the capacity to make an end of the strife between capital and labor. In attempting, therefore, to suggest measures that the government may take to help avoid industrial disputes, as I shall do later on, I do not wish to be understood as thinking that it is the government which has the greatest part to play in bringing about industrial peace. I recognize, however, that the contribution of government to this question is very important and I am deeply concerned that when it is made it shall promote and not defeat the end that we all desire. Demands for the compulsory arbitration of industrial disputes in the United States have been numerous, but they have not always come from the same people. Back in the eighties the Knights of Labor in New York tried to get the legislature to enact a law providing for compulsory arbitration. They wanted such a law because they could not get the employers to meet them for the discussion of grievances, and they wanted the state to compel them to listen, and to submit to a judgment other than their own. In the same way, and for the same reason, the workers of Australasia asked for

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