In form and purpose the War Labor Board was a new departure for even a democratic nation to take. It had no precedents behind it and no body of law with which to enforce its decisions. To make its work effective it depended upon the general sense of justice and fair play, the confidence of workers and employers in the justice of the policies by which it was guided and the loyalty and patriotism of both the opposing sides of industrial controversies. Its purpose was to secure maximum production of all war necessities by preventing strikes and lockouts, and also proper conditions of labor and of living that would aid in making possible that maximum production. With regard to labor unions the Board based all its procedure upon the right of labor to organize and to bargain collectively with employers, but forbade any coercion by labor unions or their members of either employers or employees. Employers were not allowed to discharge workers or to penalize them, directly or indirectly, for attempting to organize, although shops were to be continued as closed or open, on their existing status, for the period of the war. In open shops the union standard of wages and conditions was to be maintained. The Board would not use its power to compel open shops to become union shops, but employers agreed to recognize the right of the employees of a shop to form a full organization of their own members if they chose. The Board recognized the basic eight-hour day as applying in all cases where required by the existing law and in other cases it pledged itself to settle the question with due regard to the welfare of the workers and to governmental necessities. In the case of women workers it insisted upon equal pay for equal work and said that their tasks must be proportioned to their strength.
The National War Labor Board called to its aid a large number of men and women trained in the investigation of labor problems and when its services were necessary the case was studied by several of these agents, the sides respectively of labor and of management being investigated each by those sympathetic with its point of view. They studied each case on its own merits, listed the grievances, collected evidence and selected witnesses to appear before the Board. In some cases, in order to expedite the work, trained examiners conducted hearings at which both sides were represented and then reported to the Board with an analysis and summary of the case.
At the date of October first, 1918, the offices of the National War Labor Board had been invoked in 531 controversies involving the employment of more than 2,000,000 workers, of which 266 were still pending. Awards had been made directly in forty-four cases, others had been referred to other governmental agencies or settled in other ways, and others had been withdrawn or dropped. In only four cases had the members of the Board failed to come to unanimous decision concerning the award and in only three instances had there been refusal to accept its conclusions. In two of these cases the result was the taking over by the Government, in one, of telegraph and telephone lines, and in the other of a munitions plant, while in the third, also a munitions plant, the striking workers decided, upon appeal to their patriotism, to accept the award and to resume work.
The work and the decisions of the National War Labor Board had a profoundly beneficent influence upon the war production of the country, reducing to a minimum the deterrent effects of labor troubles. The policies to which it pledged itself and the general confidence in its purpose to deal fairly with both sides greatly decreased the probable number of cases of serious trouble, as in many which otherwise would have grown into strikes or lockouts the opposing parties found they were able to settle their differences between themselves. The work of the Board raised the wages directly of approximately a million workers and of perhaps twice that number indirectly and it strongly influenced for the better the relations between wage earners and employers.
The just and scientific management of labor problems in connection with the war resulted in a minimum of labor trouble, an enthusiastic and patriotic response of labor to the needs of the nation and an enormous and very slightly interrupted production of all goods needed for war purposes.
CHAPTER XXXI
BIG-BROTHERING THE FIGHTING FORCES
Never in all the history of wars was an army so big-brothered, its welfare so lovingly and efficiently cared for, as were the fighting forces of the United States in the world war. To the whole nation, from President down to street gamin, they were “our boys,” seldom spoken of by any other term, and whatever the nation thought they wanted and could have it gave with full heart and overflowing hands. At the very beginning of our war effort, the desire of the War Department that the men should be so environed and trained on this side the ocean and so cared for on the other that they should be not only better soldiers but also should return to their homes better men than when they left, with no scars other than the honored ones gained in battle, and its initial undertakings toward that aim won instant and whole-hearted response from end to end of the country.
Various organizations, to the number of a dozen or more, some of them newly created and others of long life and experience, were soon working, with their hundreds of thousands of members, for the health, the comfort, the welfare, the happiness of the men of the fighting forces. The twin Commissions on Training Camp Activities for the Army and the Navy entered at once upon their program of activities in all the cantonments and camps for the training of soldiers and sailors. Their athletic directors, boxing instructors, song leaders, theater managers, dramatic entertainment coaches were all experts in their several lines and took up with enthusiasm the work of furnishing entertainment and recreation and of training the men to provide entertainment for themselves. These two commissions were appointed by the War and Navy Departments and were a part of the system of training for war. They have been described in the sections dealing with the Army and the Navy and, except for the approval and support given to them by the whole people and the coöperation with them of civilian agencies, do not rightfully belong in an account of how practically all the nation stood on its tiptoes behind the fighters in its zeal to serve them and care for them. These two commissions, while they were similar to the other agencies in methods and spirit, were of governmental origin, support and direction, while the others were civilian.
The activities of the civilian societies gave expression to the heart of the whole people. At first they worked separately, each supported by its own members and followers, but after a time smaller societies merged themselves in or coöperated with larger ones and the seven chief organizations which finally comprised the bulk of the effort so arranged their work as to avoid duplication and overlapping and so eliminate waste. These seven were the War Camp Community Service, the Young Women’s Christian Association, the Salvation Army, the Jewish Welfare Board, the Knights of Columbus, the Young Men’s Christian Association and the American Library Association.
Supplementing the work of the Commissions on Training Camp Activities for the Army and Navy, the War Camp Community Service operated in the regions immediately surrounding or near the training camps. It bettered moral conditions in camp environments, provided sleeping quarters, baths, canteens, information booths, clubs, reading rooms, arranged dances and theatrical entertainments, served as a medium through which the hospitable desires of the community might reach the men, thus making possible their entertainment in hundreds of thousands of homes. Its work was established in one hundred and twenty-eight cities, in every state in the Union, and two million men registered at its clubs. In the work of the Service in New York City alone one million men in uniform were provided with beds and baths, it had 9,000 beds available every night, it served meals to more than 50,000 men, 75,000 soldiers and sailors attended its dances and almost as many were taken on Sunday sight-seeing trips through the city, while hundreds of thousands enjoyed the theatrical entertainments it furnished.