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THE FOES OF OUR OWN HOUSEHOLD

CHAPTER 5

A   SQUARE   DEAL   IN    LAW   ENFORCEMENT

THERE has been much talk about compulsory arbitration, on either the Canadian or New Zealand models, as a method of hereafter averting the danger which it is alleged menaced us at the time of the threatened railway strike in the summer of 1916. As a matter of fact, that threatened danger was due entirely to the character of the men we had in public office, and to their actions in view of the pending political campaign, and no plan will ever permit us to escape such danger as long as we have such public servants. I doubt the possibility of any mere law eliminating the chance of trouble in a great strike. I doubt even more strongly whether a law modeled on the Canadian or New Zealand plans will have this effect. But I think something can be done to lessen the danger of strikes, and to give us a far better chance, than at present, of averting them, and of dealing wisely with them if they come.

Before considering the plan, it is necessary that we get clearly into our heads two facts as to which our people are apt to be a little misty— the wage workers being especially misty about one, and the capitalists about the other.

In the first place it should be accepted as axiomatic that the country will never resort to any policy aimed at reducing the effectiveness of the police power, or at preventing it from becoming more effective. This is a point, which I am sorry to say, the labor unions need specially to remember. It is both regrettable and discreditable that they should so often antagonize efficiency in the police force. It is regrettable and discreditable for example, that they should oppose the Pennsylvania State Constabulary System, and should object to its being introduced in New York or Colorado. There can be no possible justification for such opposition; and it speaks ill for any person who becomes a party thereto. There is every possible reason for seeing that the efficiency of the police is not impaired, for such impairment is always at the expense of law-abiding and upright men, whether rich or poor. There can be no possible justification for seeking to impair this efficiency. If the police power is used oppressively, or improperly, let us by all means put a stop to the practice and punish those responsible for it; but let us remember that a brute will be just as much of a brute whether he is inefficient or efficient. Either abolish the police, or keep them at the highest point of efficiency. To follow any other course is foolish. A bad man in a uniform may perhaps use his weapon to evil purpose; but it would be childish because of this fact to insist that all policemen, instead of having automatic revolvers, be armed with flintlock pistols. We must give the individual policeman the best arms possible, in order that he may not be at a disadvantage when pitted against a criminal; and then see to it that under no circumstances are these arms used unless the need is imperative, and the justification complete. Exactly the same rule applies as regards the efficiency of the police force as a whole.

But while this feeling against the police is entirely improper, it is perfectly natural; because in labor disturbances the action of the police, when it has been called out, in nineteen-twentieths of the cases is against the interest of the wrong-doing wage worker, and not against the interest of the wrong-doing capitalist. The wage worker is right in resenting this fact. But he is wholly wrong in failing to see where the trouble comes in. He makes his attack on the wrong point. The trouble is not that the Government represses the wrong-doing of one side. The trouble is that it does not also repress the wrong-doing of the other side. The protest should be not against the efficient use of the police power but against the failure to use it with equal efficiency against both sides. The trouble is not in the use of the police force to restore order. No Government has any warrant for existing, if it cannot keep order, and suppress disorder and violence. This is the first step to take and until it has been taken all further progress is impossible. The trouble is that the Government is apt to confine itself to keeping order, whereas it ought by rights to treat keeping order, not as in itself an end, but as a means for securing justice. The old-style Bourbon capitalist was fond of insisting that the Government should do nothing except keep order; that it was its highest duty by force to interfere with violence, which was the weapon of the misguided or criminal wage worker, but that it was an abhorrent wrong for it to interfere with the greed, cunning, trickery, and ruthless indifference to the welfare of others, which were shown not only by evil capitalists, but by many well-meaning capitalists who simply did not think and did not possess foresight and vision. In so far as this view still prevails, it is evident that the police power of the Government is a power exercised only in the interest of the capitalists. But where Government exerts in favor of one class a power vital to the welfare of that class, it has the right to lay down conditions which must be complied with by that class in order to warrant the exercise of the power. Those who invoke governmental aid must submit to governmental regulation.

As a matter of fact, while the tasks of securing justice from the wage worker to the capitalist and from the capitalist to the wage worker differ widely as regards the ease of execution, they are morally on the same level of justifiability and necessity. For example, the disturbances in connection with a mining company in one of the Rocky Mountain States in 1914 reached a pitch that made it necessary for the army of the United States to go into the state. It was entirely proper to send the army into the state. It was entirely proper to deal as sternly as was necessary with riot and murder; for whoever condones riot and murder is an enemy of the commonwealth. But when once the United States Government had sent the regular army of the United States into the state in question, to put a stop to violence which was wholly or partially due to the conditions of work and living created by the action of the mining company, it was clearly the duty of the Government also to step in and deal with the conditions which called forth the violence. In other words, the Government should have dealt impartially with the wrong-doing by both sides—and there can be no question of the gravity of some of the wrong-doing by each side. The Government should have insisted upon its right, and its duty, to take action so thoroughgoing as to remedy both the immediate and the ultimate wrongs done by both sides, and to guarantee straight and clean dealing by both sides for the future. As a matter of fact, the Washington authorities did nothing to remedy the conditions which had produced the outbreak of homicidal anarchy; they took no steps to guarantee that justice should come as the sequel to establishing law and order.

Any one with any knowledge of labor troubles can point to instance after instance during the last few years where the fault has lain almost wholly with the labor men, and also to instance after instance in which the fault has lain almost wholly with the capitalists. The man is a thoroughly bad public servant who declines to face the truth as regards either set of cases. Many employers, individual and corporate, have been shamelessly and brutally arrogant toward labor, and the Government should fearlessly interfere against them. But many employers have learned wisdom which makes them, in a sense, rival the unions by sedulously providing for the workers the very things the unions demand (sometimes to the chagrin, instead of the pleasure, of the mere agitators among the labor leaders) ; and where this is the case the Government should in its actions recognize the fact just as fearlessly as it recognizes the opposite fact when the conditions are reversed.

Where, as in the case above referred to, the company is not only the man's employer, but the man's landlord, and owns the streets and public buildings of the town in which he lives as well as the land on which he works, and controls absolutely the public officials, the condition of affairs created is one which not merely justifies but requires the interference of the Government. The Government should interfere in such manner as to encourage and not harm the business in so far as the business is carried on with just regard for the rights of the wage workers as well as for the rights of the general public; but in addition to encouraging the business it should also control it and see that the rights both of the wage workers and the public are really conserved. In the case in question the soldiers wearing Uncle Sam's uniform did well, as usual. They were for many months supreme in their control of the situation in so far as their powers were permitted to extend. They not only put a stop to all excesses by the strikers and by the armed employees of the operators, but they also very wisely prohibited all organized importation of strike-breakers from other localities. The Federal Government, however, took no efficient steps to secure a just and permanent solution of the difficulties; and the withdrawal of the army left conditions precisely as they formerly were. This was not right. The Federal Government should in all such cases unhesitatingly interfere to police disorder; but it ought not to rest content with this. It should also police the causes of disorder. It is necessary first to deal with the dreadful situation caused by the results up to which these causes have led; but the only final solution is to deal with the causes themselves. If the state will not deal with them, and if it nevertheless takes the view that the Federal Government is bound to interfere in order to enforce the law which the state is powerless to enforce, then the Federal Government should be given and should assume, as a necessary corrollary to its power of intervention to restore order, the further power to establish the reign of justice in such manner as to prevent a recurrence of the causes which inevitably lead to disorder. There must somewhere be governmental power to deal with both sides. Violence must be vigorously repressed; but the law must be enforced by lawful methods. This means that the Government must supply the police, and must not only eliminate the mob on one side, but must eliminate on the other the private mine-guard and imported thug. Moreover, the police power should always be exercised in conjunction with a thoroughgoing and impartial governmental inquiry into the causes of the strike; and until this Government commission has had time to investigate the facts and make its findings, it would be wise to forbid the importing of strike-breakers—for the imported strikebreaker stands on an entirely different footing from the non-unionist (or unionist) who refuses to go on strike.

   In any labor disturbance of a size or character to jeopardize the public welfare, there are three parties in interest—the property owners, the wage earners, and the general public. I refuse to assent to the view that either the owners of the property, or the workers, have interests paramount to the general interest of the public at large. This position was formerly taken by the owners, who insisted that the property was theirs, and that the Government had nothing whatever to do with their management of it, except to furnish them protection if they were threatened by lawless violence on the part of the workers. I then declined to accept this view. In exactly the same way I now decline to accept any claim put forth in their turn by the workers that they must not be interfered with by the Government, and that the public has no rights which it can assert—as against the will of the workers—to do whatever they choose in the premises. One view is precisely as untenable as the other. The public servant who is worth his salt, will do what is right, no matter which side is hurt, and will pay no heed to the threats of either side when the question is one affecting the public interests.

Having in view the considerations above set forth, it seems to me that the following course should be adopted by the nation in dealing with those exceptional labor disturbances where the national as distinct from merely local welfare is menaced, and where the national interest is so greatly involved that the custodians of the greater welfare are not warranted in refraining from action. In such cases the representatives of the Government should thoroughly investigate all the facts, and all the claims advanced by both sides, and decide exactly what the rights and wrongs are, and what ought to be done in the premises—deciding for instance, if necessary, any such question as what ought to be the proper maximum hours for labor, or minimum rates of wage, or conditions of labor, or methods for safe-guarding lives, or, in short, any or all the questions at issue. They should then make an award which will be binding upon the capitalists, the property owners. The award would be in the nature of a decree. The Government would see that the terms were strictly complied with; failure to comply would mean that the Government itself would take hold and run the business until the orders were carried out. The Government would not say that the wage earners would have to return to work on the conditions laid down. It would not interfere with the right of the wage earners to strike, or by entirely peaceful methods endeavor to dissuade other men from taking their places. But, if the employers, or capitalists, carried out fully, and in good faith, the Government's directions, the Government would guarantee, by the exertion of the entire police power of the nation, that there should be no violence against them, no lawless interference with their running the business according to the terms laid down.

Many men, who do not think out the matter, will doubtless feel at first glance that such a system would bear more heavily against the capitalist than against the laborer. Such is not really the fact. On the contrary, the method would work substantial justice to both sides. It is the capitalists who need the protection of the police power, and who cannot exist without such protection. There are, of course, exceptional instances (under conditions such as existed in connection with some of the Rocky Mountain Mining Companies), where there is also violence on the part of the capitalists by the use of hired fighters; and in this case the governmental police power would be used promptly to suppress violence on both sides. But violence by capitalists through the use of fighting mercenaries is exceptional. Ordinarily, the misdeeds committed by the employers against the laborers are not of a character that can in any way be affected by the armed force of the Government. This force therefore is called out only to help one side in the dispute. It is emphatically proper that it should give this help, and that it should put a stop to any misdeeds of the other side. But it is no less emphatically proper that at the same time the Government, which thus furnishes protection to property against the lawless violence of labor, should also, just as effectively, deal with any wrongs committed by the owners of the capital, or property, at the expense of labor.

In short, it is the business of the Government to find out the causes that have resulted in the outbreak and see just where wrong has been done. If the wrong has been committed by the capitalists, it must correct this wrong. Then, having acted on behalf of the rights of the workers, and inasmuch as the capitalists have complied with its orders, the Government must in turn furnish full protection to them in their rights, by guaranteeing them against any form of lawless disorder and violence.