REGULAR EMPLOYMENT VITAL

Speaking before the Business School Club yesterday afternoon, Mr. Whiting Williams, vice-president of the Hydraulic Pressed Steel Corporation, graphically and forcefully but before his audience the working man's point of view when he told them of his six months experiences as a day laborer in steel plant and coal mine.

"The most important, the most vital thought in the mind of the worker is "Will I work tomorrow?" I will never forget my first night in a "model" mining town outside of Cleveland. The hour was approaching five and I noticed that children on the street ceased to play, the women on the door steps stopped talking and awaited in terrible silence. Then, at five exactly the mine whistle began to boom.--One, two and then, three. The tension was over. There would be work tomorrow. Smiles came back to the faces of the women and the children began to play again."

Thus did Mr. Williams depict the uncertainty as to the next day which the laborer had to suffer. This uncertainty he declared was at the bottom of all labor trouble. It explains sabotage and discontent. "If we are to settle the labor problem," he said "we must make employment more regular."

Two other things that must be remedied, according to Mr. Williams, were the fatigue caused by too long hours and the ignorance of the worker about the company for which he works.

"A few days ago," he narrated, "I was talking with one of my employees. 'I tell you, the man said, 'this country is going to the dogs. We'll have a revolution before the year is over.'"

"I asked him how long he had been working. He told me that he had worked 14 hours a day for 6 days.

"A week later I saw him again, after he had had a week of more moderate hours and I asked him how things were going. 'Fine,' he said, only Mr. Williams, I think you'd better look out for these here agitators 'round the plant. They don't trouble me, but they 're liable to start something."

"By this you can see the different points of view which a laborer has when he is tired and overworked. Agitators have no chance to preach their gospel to men who are in a healthy state of mind.

"Finally we must make the laborer understand that he has an opportunity to improve his station. We must destroy the conviction now universally held by the laboring classes that 'hard work don't pay; it's only pull that gets the good jobs the only way to advance is to marry the boss's daughter.'"