T

HE country is interested in what may be called the most prominent manifestation of America's response to the stimulus of the world's war.

Prior to the breaking out of the war we had concerned ourselves for a great many years with purely economic and industrial questions. We had uneasy questionings about the recall of judges, there was much agitation about the initiative and referendum, we were quite sure that our financial system needed readjustment, we were awakening to a realization that the sources of our National strength were being sapped by our inattention to the depressing effects of modern industry unrestrained by wise laws and regulations. But to these things we gave thought only as matters to which we should attend ; our prevailing state of mind was that in America there was a spontaneous, upward tendency. We knew that we were growing rich, and we were not selfish about it. We saw that our friends across the sea were rivals in commerce and in industry who summoned the best in us to competition. And then the war came, taking away the foundations of all our thinking, substituting horror and dread where complacency had once been. We began asking ourselves if there is any fortification against this disaster. When we asked it of others, we came to ask it of ourselves, and there grew up in America, when the first shock was over and our ability to think was restored, the question: Are we prepared should our turn come to whirl in this fearful vortex ?

At first this question revolved around mere military preparation in the narrowest sense— the number, weight, and armament of our ships; the length of the guns of our coast defenses; the amount of ammunition of various kinds in store; the number of trained men to officer impromptu armies. But as the war developed in Europe we learned that these things are but a part of preparation, and a relatively useless part, unless they are based upon other things very much more difficult to secure-things which must be secured long in advance of a crisis or else be then obtainable only with peril and fearful unnecessary loss. We have witnessed the nations of Europe preparing as they fought, and have come to realize that perhaps the

most important kind of preparedness is a kind which is equally available and useful in times of peace, and which, if secured, will not only render our military preparation more effective, but will steady and strengthen and inspire the Nation when engaged in peaceful pursuits.

The war in Europe is teaching us many lessons. For one thing, we have learned that the whole art of war has changed in character. The forces concerned are more extensive, the instruments used more deadly, their preparation involves more time. The spectacle in Europe to-day is that of millions of men fighting underground—a war in which machinery is king. The ingenuity and the inventiveness of these people have been long busy with its preparation. And one lesson for us is that any degree of preparation requires more forethought than was formerly necessary. If America should ever be called upon to defend the rights of her citizens in any such contest as is now being waged, it would mean either our destruction or the summoning of every vital energy of our people to our defense.

I have no hysterical notion that war is like the plague, and that we are going to catch it from mere proximity; nor have I the slightest fear that the great people of this Nation are going to lose their heads and embark upon a career of combat and conquest out of a mere desire to be heroic or to attain glory. As a matter of fact, the glory of war has largely disappeared, and the magnitude of the sacrifices entailed makes of it a stern business, to be entered upon only as an alternative to impossible conditions of peace. This Administration has taken note, however, of the fact that this is an age in which the principles of mechanics, the output of the workshops, and the preparation made by industry and commerce are a part-a necessary part preparation for National security.

of the

The Congress has now passed an army reorganization bill, creating no great standing army, enforcing by no compulsion a universal sacrifice from the manhood of the Nation of years out of careers devoted to industry and commerce, but providing a first-line of defense. The bill will give us a National force large enough to maintain order in those outlying places where we have assumed responsibilities and to protect our own borders against any aggression. It provides an ex

against any aggression.

the rest of the people in the country towards the preservation of the Nation.

The third mobilization that is necessary is spiritual. In order to make sacrifices for America we must be sure that our stake in the country justifies it. Our institutions must be so just, our arrangements so fair, that every man in this Nation will realize how completely his opportunity and that of those who come after him rest upon the continuing prosperity of the Nation as a whole.

The military mobilization will take place easily and need not be upon a magnificent scale in advance. The industrial and spiritual mobilization ought to be constant and as wide as the country.

Upon the foreign policy of the Administration I must be brief. There are two elements of it which need a word of discussionMexico and the European war.

The Republic of Mexico, lying south of us, was for years ruled by a dictator who operated the country in the interest of a class and left ninety per cent of the people of the nation unable to read or write. The concessions of the rich were largely privileges to enslave the poor. And finally, as in France at the time of the great Revolution, the plain people of Mexico resolved that there was nothing divine about the order which fattened the few at the cost of the many. They revolted. Deprived of education, untrained in the arts of government-making, the people of Mexico have struggled to express in institutions their idea of the rights of man. It has been very disordered, sometimes very wrong-headed, frequently characterized by counter-revolution, its leading spirits apparently suspicious of one another. But no great revolutions of the kind there in progress can be unattended by these misfortunes. Our misfortune has been that between us and these struggling people there was a border eighteen hundred miles long. Some American owners of Mexican mines, some American proprietors of Mexican concessions, some Americans who look with longing eyes on Mexico as Naboth's vineyard, have urged that we should intervene, that we should add the destructiveness of our force to the desolation which has gone on there for years. Sometimes there has seemed to be no stable government in Mexico to which we could turn to maintain the peace of our border cities; and at present an armed force of American soldiers is on Mexican soil solely to protect the people and property of the

United States from lawless aggressions until the Mexican Government can perform that duty which it owes as a neighboring nation. I cannot tell what the future may bring forth in this situation, but, for my part, I shall be most happy if the necessary security of our people can be obtained without the killing of another Mexican man, woman, or child by American arms. And those who criticise the Mexican policy of the Administration must be prepared to accept the alternative and say that their choice is to make war upon these people who have willed no act of aggression upon us, to invade their country, and to spend years in the occupation of a foreign soil, and in a toilsome effort, expensive of life and treasure, to impress our alien civilization upon these people.

Upon the European situation I shall say that it is better for the people of the United States not to be involved in that vast destruction if it can be honorably avoided, and better for humanity for the United States not to be involved, in order that when the end of the struggle comes there will be one great and persuasive Power in friendly relations with all of the belligerents, inspired only by high motives of humanity and friendship, to aid as adviser and counselor in the terms of readjustment necessary.

The course of any Administration in such circumstances would be difficult. Not only is this the greatest war in history, but it is a war involving new agencies of attack and defense a war in which one set of countries are isolated and not unnaturally seek new means to equalize the disadvantages of that isolation. Our situation is further changed by the fact that our own relations to foreign countries, industrial and commercial, are infinitely more intimate and complicated than they were at any previous time, and our traditional isolation from European systems of politics is less insured by geographical considerations than it used to be.

The course of the Administration has been to regard itself as, in the nature of the case, a trustee, for the time being, of the rights of neutrals. It has, in the language of Senator Root, refused to concede that the invention of new ways of committing forbidden acts changed the law with relation to them. And so where mere property was involved every violation of the rights of neutrals has been followed by protest; and where life was involved the life of our citizens-a firm demand has been made for immediate recognition of our plain and undisputed rights.

I'

F the Supreme Court of the United States upholds the Oregon law which limits all labor in all industries to ten hours a day, the principle that any trade becomes a dangerous trade under excessive hours of labor will stand incorporated as part of our Constitutional theory of government. Other States may be expected to enact similar laws; but, while in the courts the judges and the lawyers are debating and determining the nice points of legal doctrines, along comes a stupendous fact, like the great war in Europe, and, without fiat or force, places the shorter working day within the eager grasp of American labor.

"If the war lasts another year, the big industries of this country will be run on an eight-hour day," so the Commissioner of Labor, Mr. Wilson, is reported to have said.

Such a prophecy is little less than astounding to those familiar with the bitter industrial struggles of the past. If such a change has come, or even if it be very near, the most startling thing about it is the quietness and ease with which it has made its way. Remember that the eight-hour day has been the bone of fiercest contention for more than a generation. Corporations have sworn, and still swear, that they will die if subjected to it. Labor has waged bloody warfare to get it-in vain. Remember that in 1877 the eight-hour men ran a locomotive forty miles an hour into the Pittsburgh roundhouses where the Pinkertons slept; that in 1885 the Chicago Haymarket tragedy resulted from urging "eight hours." And now industry is being eight-houred as peacefully as if the land were having a change of climate. Already Alaska and thirteen States have the eight-hour day in all mines, and eight States and Alaska have legislated for it in reduction works, smelters, and the like. Last year's report of the New Jersey Department of Labor showed that over 25,000 workers in twenty-four factories received for the first time the eight-hour day. The four brotherhoods of railway operatives, 450,000 men, have made a concerted demand for the standard working day; the anthracite coal-miners, 175,000 of them, made eight hours" ne of their recent demands. Munition factories throughout the country are mostly running on a three-shift, eight-hour basis. All with as little bloodshed

and violence as though a half-degree of heat had been added to the temperature or an inch to the year's normal rainfall.

If the whole land should come to the eighthour day, it will be a very good thing or a very bad thing for these United States, which need not concern us here; but, good or bad, the growing sweep of the shorter day needs to be understood. For such study a town where the schedule is in general operation makes the best laboratory. Bridgeport, Connecticut, is such a town. For nearly a year its workers have earned their daily bread in eight hours. This is how it came about:

In 1914, when the great war broke out, Bridgeport was a typical New England manufacturing center. With the exception of the Union Metallic Cartridge Company, a branch of the Remington Arms and Ammunition Company, its industries were mainly those of peace. Corsets and machinery were its staple products. staple products. For these labor was never in stringent demand, and employers could always count on surplus workers to stiffen requirements and lower the wage scale.

A year later conditions were overturned. America was flooded with war orders, and Bridgeport awoke to find itself the munition center of New England. The "Arms Company," as the Remington Corporation is called, hastily completed and put into operation there one of the greatest arms plants in the United States, the largest single factory of any kind in Connecticut, under the same general management as the Union Metallic Cartridge Company, its allied branch. On the pay-roll of the Metallic Company in 1913 had been 3,200 men. In 1916 it and the Arms Company together employed over 12,000. The town's population jumped from 102,000 in 1910 to 150,000 in 1916, with another 10,000 expected during the coming year.

With the Arms Company as pacemaker, every machine shop in the city, corporate or private, has increased its working force. The Bridgeport Brass Company, formerly busy with hub caps for automobiles, has doubled its capacity in order to fill war orders. Mills formerly urning out parts of machinery, door-knobs, or musical instruments are rushed with work on war supplies. All of Bridgeport is either making munitions, making parts. of machinery to manufacture munitions, or

making money feeding, housing, clothing, and amusing the army of laborers that overflows the town. The whole city is blown big with a war order boom. Land, houses, food, and, most of all, workers, are at a premium. Near the big factories houses are being completed at the rate of one a day. Dormitories for 4,000 women have been built by the Remington concern, and dwellings for 500 married men. It is estimated that homes for 7,000 families are needed at once.

Furnished rooms are almost impossible to obtain. Rents have increased proportionately more than wages. Machinists are most in demand and have the strongest union. In two years their membership has jumped from five hundred to three thousand, and their pay from thirty cents an hour to fifty cents. Still unsatisfied, their slogan now is for "a cent a minute "-sixty cents an hour. Unskilled labor, formerly glad of a steady wage of $10 a week, now puts on airs and swaggers off to find $15.

Full credit for this state of affairs is taken by organized labor. Employers are inclined to admit that without labor's concerted action the gains to the workers might not have been so quick or so large, but claim that such a steady succession of victories could have been brought about only by the pressure of the law of supply and demand. The full power of that law and its application to the Bridgeport situation make interesting reading.

Trouble started on July 12, 1915, with the iron-workers in the up-going Remington Arms plant, who struck against being classed and paid as carpenters. The millwrights joined them, and on July 20 the machinists in both the Arms Company and the Cartridge Company's shops voted to join the strike for increased pay, the eight-hour day, time and a half for overtime, and double for holidays and Sundays.

The general manager of the Remington plants had little means of knowing the true state of affairs—that the union leaders were doing the tallest bluffing of their careers, that hardly more than five per cent of his machinists were organized. But he did know the immense volume of the company's contracts, that millions hung on his ability to deliver the goods, and that he could not afford to haggle with his workers. On July 24 the Remington concern granted its workers the fortyeight-hour week, an increase in wages, and the three-shift, day and night, schedule.

By this time the Locomobile Company was

staggering under orders for three-ton trucks for England. Unlike the Remington companies, it belonged to the local branch of the National Association of Manufacturers, an association which had publicly announced its opposition to the forty-eight-hour week. Flushed with earlier success, the machinists decided to try for victory over the Locomobile Company in order to break the solidarity of the manufacturers. To frustrate a strike, the company's managers put into operation on July 31 a profit-sharing scheme said to advance wages about thirteen per cent. Union leaders rejected this, and insisted upon eight hours with ten hours' pay. Refused by the company, it was then up to the leaders to incite and organize the men. As part of their cam

paign they printed and distributed free to machinists all over Bridgeport ten thousand copies of a little newspaper entitled “The Labor Leader," which carried across its face verses like these:

"We mean to make things over, we're tired of toil for naught,

We haven't enough to live on, nor even an hour for thought.

We want to feel the sunshine, we want to smell the flowers,

We know that we are worth it, and we mean to have eight hours."

These jingles, together with the arrest of three leaders for attempting to address their men at noon in a vacant lot rented by them, fired the employees of the Locomobile Company so that they organized their membership nearly one hundred per cent and went out on strike. On August 9 the company offered a choice between the bonus plan and the eight-hour day with ten hours' pay. On August 13 the men voted for the eight-hour day and returned to work.

With these victories came the capitulation of Bridgeport so far as the munition factories were concerned. True, the Manufacturers' Association met on August 14 and voted almost unanimously for the fifty-hour week, but when the Arms Company announced its willingness to employ all men blacklisted or dropped by other factories the end was in sight. Isolated strikes but served to tighten the workers' determination as, one by one, the employers went down in defeat. A partial outline as given in the "Survey " of December 4, 1915, sums up the daily strife as follows:

August 20-Six hundred Bryant Electric Company workers strike for eight-hour day and