2. Return of railroads to private ownership with a rate increase. 3. Government ownership and operation of railroads.

4. The Plumb Plan, with its equitable safeguarding of all interests.

The first plan is so contrary to American thought and practice that it does not merit serious consideration.

The second plan is also objectionable and injurious, since it contemplates a general increase of commodity prices that will eventually re-establish the identical conditions that exist today.

The third plan finds favor with a very limited number of Americans, because there is a grave fear that political management will be little, if any, improvement over private management.

The Plumb Plan, alone, then, remains as meriting the attention of those who sincerely desire a correction of intolerable conditions.

It removes from discussion all talk of subsidies, higher rates and political manipulation. It offers a scientific, equable, business-like arrangement for the operation and development of the nation's transportation system on democratic principles.

Its adoption will usher in an era of industrial stability, prosperity and well-being that will influence favorably all industries and so contribute to the welfare of every citizen.

CHAPTER XVI

Political Programs of the American Federation of Labor and of

the Farmers

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON POLICIES AND PLATFORM, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE, AND REPLIES BY PLATFORM COMMITTEE, NATIONAL NONPARTISAN POLITICAL CAMPAIGN, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR.

WASHINGTON, D. C., March 29, 1920.

Mr. OGDEN L. MILLS, Chairman, Executive Committee, Republican National Committee, 19 West 44th Street, New York, N. Y.:

DEAR SIR:- Recently there was received at the headquarters of the American Federation of Labor copies of a questionnaire "on industrial relations and the problems of capital and labor, in the hope that the answers will define a proper governmental policy and will suggest remedies which the government and those most directly interested may profitably consider," the whole being predicated upon the thought of their possible incorporation in the platform of the National Republican Convention to be held June 20, 1920. Your questionnaire was also sent to representative labor men throughout the country and the undersigned have been communicated with regarding the same.

Believing that you should have as comprehensive answers as possible we respectfully submit your questions and our answers as follows:

1. How far is "good-will" inside the plant a valuable economic factor in production and how can it best be secured?

Good-will inside the plant not only is a valuable economic factor in production, but it is an indispensable factor if production is to be maintained at a proper rate. Good-will is not something to which the employer has an inherent right. It must be earned. It can best be earned by the establishment of just conditions in the plant and by agreements between employers and the duly authorized representatives of the worker in the industry.

2. Can the permanent interest and "good-will" of those of us who are wage-earners be developed by, and how relatively important are, any or all of the following methods?

(a) Technical training to increase production efficiency, wages, chances of promotion, etc., without making the work attractive.

less

(b) Systematic information concerning, and better understanding of the problems and point of view of business management.

(c) Training managers, foremen and superintendents in better understanding of problems and point of view of employees.

(d) Joint conferences of representatives of the management and of the workers to carry out such mutual understandings. (e) Collective co-operation through

(1) Trade unions.

(2) Shop committees.

(3) Combination of 1 and 2.

(4) Comprehensive organizations of both employers and employed.

(f) Welfare work— medical care, sick benefits, unemployment benefits, invalidity, retirement, old age, and the death benefits provided and administered by

(1) Employers' organizations.

(2) Employees or trade union organizations.

(3) Joint organizations of those associated as employers and employees.

(g) Profit sharing, bonus distribution, gain sharing, parity of wages and profits, etc.

Answering this question, with its various subdivisions, a better result can be achieved by treating the question as a whole. First of all it must be said that permanent interest and good-will of the wage-carners in industry can be developed to the fullest degree only when the wage-earners are free to follow their own judg ment in the matter of organization and then only when the employers confer freely and on a basis of equality with the authorized representatives of the workers so organized in the industry. There can be no question as to the manner in which American wageearners wish to organize when left free to act in accordance with their own judgment. The American trade union movement, with more than five million members, is sufficient answer in respect to that. In modern industry shop committees and other similar devices as substitutes for trade union organization do not meet the needs of working people. The movement toward the formation of shop committees is a movement which has its inspiration and

inception among employers who aim to prevent or circumvent practical organization of the workers and is in no sense the result of the study and judgment of the workers themselves. Technical training is always desirable. No movement in America has done. more to secure proper technical training than the American trade. union movement. Such training, however, when improperly administered or when so administered as to carry with it a spirit of antagonism toward trade union effort, defeats its own purpose and must be unreservedly opposed. Workers always manifest a deeper interest in processes over which they have complete mastery.

The training of managers, foremen and superintendents in a better understanding of the problems and viewpoints of employees is, of course, important. What is more important, however, is that the employees should at all times be free to express their viewpoints and to exercise a determining voice in the solution of shop problems and the determination of all questions affecting their relation to their employments. Joint conferences of representatives of employers and workers in the industry are indispensable.

In some American industries the employers still seek to maintain the ancient concept that the employee is not to be consulted upon any question at any time. Those who are familiar with industry understand fully that a day is near at hand when this concept will have disappeared entirely. Two things are to be gained by its complete banishment: First, it is unjust to the workers and until it disappears the workers can never manifest a proper interest in their employment and can never feel a sense of justice. Second, production can never be maintained at its highest and best. Comprehensive organization of employees along lines which they themselves deem most effective is equally desirable and must be had.

Welfare work, when administered by employers, the tendency or purpose of which is to buy the submission of the workers, is utterly out of keeping with the American spirit and has never proved worth the effort to employers who sought to utilize the idea. The points covered under the description of welfare work in the questionnaire may safely be left to the trade unions.

Establishment of proper conditions in the place of employment, the payment of a proper wage and the having of a proper regard for the well-being of the employees, while at work, will do away

with the necessity of general consideration of most of these points. Proper organization of industry and the proper efficiency in management will go still further to eliminate any such need.

At

any rate the initiative in all such matters should rest with the organized employee.

Profit sharing, distribution of bonuses and similar schemes are usually used as a means of holding employees in subjection and preventing trade union organization. If employers can afford to pay bonuses then let them do so in the form of a higher wage and better conditions rather than in the form of gratuities. Such schemes are, at best, makeshifts and can by no means be regarded as a panacea for industrial ills.

Employers are free to pay to employees as high wages as the services performed warrant. What the trade unions insist upon is that they shall pay not less than a minimum wage which is sufficient to maintain the workers in a proper standard of living. 3. Should trade unions and organizations of employers be incorporated with right to sue and be sued?

Trade unions should not be incorporated. Trade unions are voluntary associations of working people organized not for profit but for the mutual protection and advancement of the workers. The only object in the minds of those who wish to enforce trade union incorporation is the destruction of the trade unions. They seek to bring about a condition under which trade union treasuries can be mulcted in the hope that such confiscation will destroy the organizations. This question has been fully dealt with in the "American Federationist," and the following paragraphs set forth fully and concisely the position to which American labor is committed and which it feels to be the only just position and the only position consistent with American democracy:

"The great majority of the unions are simply voluntary associations, organized for lawful and proper purposes. They have no special privilege of any kind, and claim no rights which do not, under the laws of the country, belong to all citizens.

corporation.

a trade union is neither a partnership, nor a

"One unionist is no more responsible, legally, for the action of another than one church member is responsible for the actions of another. The attempt to impose liabilities and burdens on unions without regard to settled principles