Topic 25 
ROOSEVELT ON LABOR

COLONEL ROOSEVELT'S position on labor was peculiar in that in some respects he was more radical than Samuel Gompers.  Like Gompers he had no use for a "Labor Party" as such, and to the extent that he favored old age and health insurance he went farther than Mr.  Gompers had ever done.  To the extent that he believed labor would get the best results by working with the existing parties, he and Gompers were agreed.

"The difficulty with the Labor Party idea," he declared, "is that it is based upon a false premise.  It is based on the theory that the interests of so called labor are different from the interests of the community as a whole.  That is a foolish doctrine, just as foolish as it would be to try and maintain that the interests of the manufacturer or other employer are different from those of the rest of the community.  It is entirely a selfish and wicked doctrine, and, if successful, would work hardships on labor more than on any other group in the community."

Colonel Roosevelt made this observation while he was "mulling over" a speech on after-the-war preparedness he proposed to deliver in Bridgeport at a "bye" Congressional election in the fall of 1917.  The death of Ebenezer J.  Hill, long in Congress from that district, a likable old "stand patter," had left a vacancy for which the Republicans had nominated Schuyler Merritt, a banker and manufacturer of Stamford.  The Colonel was asked to speak there and he accepted, with the idea that the speech might be the "keynote" or a "keynote" for the Congressional elections a year later.

"We have got to get ready for after the war," he told me.  "We might as well begin now.  I am going to speak up there on industrial preparedness as much as anything else.  I may shock some persons up there, but we might just as well recognize now as at some later time that something must be done for labor.

"There are a great many business men who seem to be of the opinion that once peace arrives, pre-war conditions will return overnight as it were.  These are as short sighted as the labor radicals who are declaring that abnormal wages, to be expected in time of war, will have to prevail when peace comes.  Both are wrong, and are paving the way for some very serious misunderstandings.  The employers must be fair and reasonable; the reactionary employer is no better than the extreme radical among the union men."

"The shrewdest of the labor men," I told him, "are now preparing against that sort of thing.  For example, William H.  Johnson, head of the machinists, one of the ablest of them, whose trade has probably been affected more than any other by the war, is privately bending every effort to get his organization into as good shape as possible for the reconstruction period."

"Johnson is right.  He has keener foresight than a lot of employers.

"There are going to be disturbances, but these will be minimized if we can get what is commonly called labor and what is commonly called capital together in a realizing sense that their interests are identical, and that the problems of one are the problems of all.  The employer has no more right to hog all the profits than the union has a right to insist upon wages that will permit of no profits.  Unless the business man does well, the laborer won't, because there won't be labor for the laborer to do.

"Sooner or later we have got to come to some system of old age pensions, proper protection against accident and disease, more particularly the occupational disease, and we have got to insure good living conditions.  So far as these are arranged by common consent of both sides and the community, well and good.  Where they cannot be thus arranged, the State will have to do it.  This will not appeal to some of our friends among the so called employing classes, but we may as well face the facts squarely

"Unless all history is valueless as a guide, we are going, sooner or later, to have to pay for the enormous destructions of capital in this war.  We cannot hope to evade some period of depression.  How severe that will be depends largely upon ourselves.  We cannot avoid it, but we can make it less severe than it otherwise might be.  In this labor and capital must work together — must realize that their problems are alike, and that unless the employer is prosperous, the employee cannot be.  Equally so, unless the employee is treated fairly, the employer and the community cannot be prosperous.  The partners in the enterprise must realize their responsibilities to each other and act accordingly."

Developing this thought, Colonel Roosevelt went to Bridgeport where the local reporters were mystified by his failure to say very much about the candidate.  Some tried to read into this lack of interest in Merritt.  A few of the New York papers spoke of it as a "national speech," or as "the opening gun in the 1918 campaign."

"That," he said, "is reasonably accurate."

Later, when the speech was taken up in discussion, I said my talks with labor men had shown it was rather favorably received, at the same time expressing doubt as to how some employers, largely in Merritt's district (he being elected meantime) would like it on mature thought.

"Well," he said, "Gompers will not quarrel with anything I said there, and the others cannot.  Most men not directly interested will approve of all I said.

"Here is the speech sent out.  Except for what I said about Merritt in opening, I followed this closely as you know.  Who can quarrel with this or deny my accuracy? 'The conditions (of business) must be such that the business man prospers or else nobody will prosper; and yet, unless the prosperity is in a reasonable degree shared by the men who work with him and by the public for which he works, it is of little or no worth to the community.  In other words, we must insist upon business prosperity, because otherwise there will be no prosperity at all, and we must insist upon reasonable equity in passing the prosperity around, or it will not be worth having.

" 'The demagogue who inveighs against and seeks to interfere with business prosperity is really the same kind of an enemy to the common weal as his nominal foe, the reactionary, who refuses to acknowledge the duty of the Government to see that there is measurable equity in the distribution of the fruits of this prosperity.  Our aim must be not to damage successful business, but to insure good conduct in business.

'"We wish to secure as a matter of right for the worker among other things permanency of employment, pensions that will permit the worker to look forward to old age with dignity and security; insurance against accident and disease, proper working and living conditions, reasonable leisure, and as high wages as are compatible with giving to capital the return necessary to induce it to invest and giving the public proper service.

"' So far as these needs can be obtained by private agreement, well and good; it is preferable that they should, where possible, come in this manner; for the most important thing is to secure a mental attitude that will secure a hearty recognition by all engaged in a business that each must treat all the others as partners, that all should render the very best service of which each is capable and that both the obligation and the reward shall be mutual.

"' In addition to this good will, there must be the sanction of law.  The State must require and guarantee the well being of the workers as the essential part of its policy in promoting the welfare of the business.  What the individual can do by.  himself or in connection with others should be left to him or them; the State should deal with what cannot thus be left to private individuals.

'"But the welfare of the workers cannot be obtained unless the welfare of the business is assured and the Government should work steadily toward that end.  The demagogic effort to break up or destroy a business, merely because it is big or because it is prosperous, is mischievous from every standpoint.  The aim should be to encourage business and control it, to secure cooperation among all engaged in business so far as is possible, and to supervise large scale business so as to insure its good behavior, but not to penalize it while it renders proper service.'

"Do you see anything to quarrel with in that?" he demanded.

I explained that I did not, but added that he went farther in some respects than Mr.  Gompers had, notably in the matter of old age insurance or pensions.

"I understand that the unions are not in agreement on the desirability of this," he said, "but I am inclined to think they will come to it eventually.  It is, perhaps, as well that they make haste slowly in this respect.  As I understand it, their position is that it will interfere with their progress in other ways.
"I have heard since I saw you last that some of Mr.  Merritt's friends regret that I brought labor into this thing.  I do not.  I told one man who spoke of this that I am not at all concerned in pleasing everybody.  That is something I have never tried to do.  I do not propose to do it now.  I am too old to make that change.

"The greatest liberty in doing all these things I have advocated should, within due limits, having regard for all interests, be left to the employer and employee.  There is a limit, however.

"One of the greatest dangers I can imagine, however, is a combination, an agreement of shortsighted employers and unscrupulous union leaders, to fleece the public between them.  This is possible in highly organized trades.  In such an event both sides should be punished with the greatest severity.

"I have always been for labor within reason and the law.  I have had many friends since my days in the Assembly among the cigarmakers.  I have always been for healthy working conditions, just as when I was Police Commissioner I believed the unions should be allowed to picket, so long as they did not use their fists or clubs to pound home their arguments.  Where they tried that I was for locking them up.  That was fair play and a sane way of looking at the matter.  That is all I advocate now."

I raised a question as to what he meant by permanency of employment — if by that he meant a worker should have a vested interest in his position.

Before he could answer, the Chinese gong hanging in the hallway sounded the signal for him to prepare for dinner.

"No," said he rising, "not exactly that.  I will take the matter up with you some other time.  There is too much of that to dispose of it in a minute.  But we can say this: a good deal of consideration should be given before any old employee, whether he be superintendent or day laborer, is thrown out of employment."

This phase of his labor programme, I regret to state, we never took up again.