Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
The establishment of the principles regarding labor laid down ill the
covenant of the League of Nations offers us the way to industrial peace and
conciliation. No other road lies open to us. Not to pursue this one is
longer to invite enmities, bitterness, and antagonisms which in the end
only lead to industrial and social disaster. The unwilling workman is not a
profitable servant. An employee whose industrial life is hedged about by
hard and unjust conditions, which he did not create and over which he has
no control, lacks that fine spirit of enthusiasm and volunteer effort which
are the necessary ingredients of a great producing entity. Let us be frank
about this solemn matter. The evidences of world-wide unrest which manifest
themselves in violence throughout the world bid us pause and consider the
means to be found to stop the spread of this contagious thing before it
saps the very vitality of the nation itself. Do we gain strength by
withholding the remedy? Or is it not the business of statesmen to treat
these manifestations of unrest which meet us on every hand as evidences of
an economic disorder and to apply constructive remedies wherever necessary,
being sure that in the application of the remedy we touch not the vital
tissues of our industrial and economic life? There can be no recession of
the tide of unrest until constructive instrumentalities are set up to stem
that tide.
Governments must recognize the right of men collectively to bargain for
humane objects that have at their base the mutual protection and welfare of
those engaged in all industries. Labor must not be longer treated as a
commodity. It must be regarded as the activity of human beings, possessed
of deep yearnings and desires. The business man gives his best thought to
the repair and replenishment of his machinery, so that its usefulness will
not be impaired and its power to produce may always be at its height and
kept in full vigor and motion. No less regard ought to be paid to the human
machine, which after all propels the machinery of the world and is the
great dynamic force that lies back of all industry and progress. Return to
the old standards of wage and industry in employment are unthinkable. The
terrible tragedy of war which has just ended and which has brought the
world to the verge of chaos and disaster would be in vain if there should
ensue a return to the conditions of the past. Europe itself, whence has
come the unrest which now holds the world at bay, is an example of
standpatism in these vital human matters which America might well accept as
an example, not to be followed but studiously to be avoided. Europe made
labor the differential, and the price of it all is enmity and antagonism
and prostrated industry, The right of labor to live in peace and comfort
must be recognized by governments and America should be the first to lay
the foundation stones upon which industrial peace shall be built.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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