1. "Modern large scale industry has effectually destroyed the personal relation between employer and employee—the knowledge and coöperation that come from personal contact. It is therefore no longer possible to conduct industry by dealing with employees as individuals. Some form of collective relationship between management and men is indispensable. The recognition of this principle by the government should form an accepted part of the labor policy of the nation.
  2. "Law, in business as elsewhere, depends for its vitality upon steady employment. Instead of waiting for adjustment after grievances come to the surface there is needed the establishment of continuous administrative machinery for the orderly disposition of industrial issues and the avoidance of an atmosphere of contention and the waste of disturbances.
  3. "The eight-hour day is an established policy of the country; experience has proved justification of the principle also in war times. Provision must of course be made for longer hours in case of emergencies. Labor will readily meet this requirement if its misuse is guarded against by appropriate overtime payments.
  4. "Unified direction of the labor administration of the United States for the period of the war should be established. At present there is an unrelated number of separate committees, boards, agencies, and departments having fragmentary and conflicting jurisdiction over the labor problems raised by the war. A single-headed administration is needed, with full power to determine and establish the necessary administrative structure.
  5. "When assured of sound labor conditions and effective means for the just redress of grievances that may arise, Labor in its turn should surrender all practices which tend to restrict maximum efficiency.
  6. "Uncorrected evils are the great provocative to extremist propaganda, and their correction would be in itself the best counter-propaganda. But there is need for more affirmative education. There has been too little publicity of an educative sort in regard to Labor's relation to the war. The purposes of the government and the methods by which it is pursuing them should be brought home to the fuller understanding of Labor. Labor has most at stake in this war, and it will eagerly devote its all if only it be treated with confidence and understanding, subject neither to indulgence nor neglect, but dealt with as a part of the citizenship of the state."

ADVISORY LABOR COUNCIL

In order to prevent lack of coördination in the government's handling of the labor situation an advisory council was created to help the Secretary of Labor to organize the new war work. The field of this advisory council is indicated in a series of memoranda presented to him in January, 1917.

  1. "An Adjustment Service which will have to do with the adjustment of industrial disputes according to policies and principles arrived at through the deliberations of the War Labor Conference Board.
  2. "A Condition of Labor Service which will have charge of the administration of conditions of labor within business plants.
  3. "An Information and Education Service which will devote itself to the establishment of sound sentiment among both employers and employees and to the establishment in individual plants of the local machinery (e.g., employment management) and policies necessary for the successful operation of a National Labor Program.
  4. "A Woman in Industry Service which will meet the problems connected with the more rapid introduction of women into industry as a result of war conditions.
  5. "A Training and Dilution Service which will administer such training and dilution policies as may be agreed upon.
  6. "A Housing and Transportation of Workers Service whose duty it will be to provide the housing facilities to meet the nation's needs.
  7. "A Personnel Service whose duties it shall be to assemble and classify information concerning appropriate candidates for positions in the war-labor administration and make recommendations for appointment.
  8. "A Division for the Investigation of Special Problems which would be a part of the Secretary's office force and would conduct investigations in the placing of contracts, in priority of labor demand, in powers of the Department, in problems of reconstruction, and would assist in formulating the national labor policy.
  9. "An Investigation and Inspection Service to provide the field force of examiners and inspectors required by the other services."

After various stages of experience the War Industries Board secured something more than an advisory position. This was done only after a year of warfare. The final situation was explained by Mr. C. M. Hitchcock in the Journal of Political Economy, June, 1918:

"When on March 4th of the present year the President appointed Bernard M. Baruch Chairman of the War Industries Board and defined his duties he did not, as certain press reports have implied, create an industrial dictator. His action did clear the way for Mr. Baruch's assumption of the duties of a director of industrial war strategy, of an industrial Chief of Staff—for the present position of the War Industries Board in the American Government is comparable in its relation to national industrial policy to nothing so much as the functions of the General Staff of the Army in its jurisdiction over military strategy. After a year of war the direction of industrial policy is placed in single hands, and a central planning board is established for dealing not only with the problems of production and purchase but with the whole attitude of the government toward the mobilization of business resources for the prosecution of the war. Leadership has been focused and an administrative channel opened for the inauguration of a studied and inferentially constructive industrial policy.

"From the present trend of events the War Industries Board promises to become the sole directing agency between the government and industry. Backed by the power of the President to commandeer, to withhold fuel, and in other ways to force the halting into line, it can mold the country's industrial system almost as it will—whether in organizing the nation for war or in directing the lines along which it shall return to normal conditions when peace comes. In a system of government such as ours, where the responsibility for directing the war rests almost exclusively in the hands of the President, and where his power ultimately becomes almost absolute, the Board has been shaped into a very potent instrument.

"Yet powerful as it may become, subject only to the jurisdiction of the President, it is well to remember that in a comprehensive national war plan it cannot stand alone. Its policies must be subject to the administration's general strategy in the war—for instance, to the amount of munitions in comparison with the number of men or the amount of food that it wishes to send abroad at any given time. The munitions program and the conversion of industry to war purposes must be governed by the ultimate end in view. In addition, one of the great factors in production—the labor factor—is being administered by another government agency, and it is obvious that priority in the labor supply must go hand in hand with priority in materials."

WORK OR FIGHT

Military men were as keen as business men in realizing the industrial factor as a powerful contributory cause in winning the war. General Crowder's famous "work or fight" alternative was a sufficient witness of this fact. He said: