UNCERTAIN ASSURANCES

Elbert H. Gary finds American industry returning to sound conditions. He recites that "Labor conditions are generally quiet Money is plentiful and interest low."

This summary is evidence that labor has thrown no fright into the capitalists of the United States. This is undoubtedly well. If labor bas ends to attain, the less social scission provoked, the better. But there are these to whom a siesta of American labor agitation would not seem so salutary as it does no Mr. Gary. They are the people to whom the Passable strike is a revelation They are concerned in Mr. Gary's later and more controversial dicta.

The steel magnate affirms his belief in the "open shop". Nor does he grant that employees have any right whatever to share in industrial management. "It would not be logical," he argues, "for workers to claim...the right to manage or that liability or obligation for results." It is here that many part from his opinion. Mr. Gary assumes that employees have no pecuniary interest in the business in which they are employed, because they have no invested interest. But others maintain that wages and fear of unemployment constitute an interest seen enough to allow workmen voice in management. The obstacles to schemes of Industrial democracy are many. But the blanket condemnation Mr. Gary offers rings as hollow as the Quixotic demands of socialists.

Nor is it probable that the labor movement in America is really as static as the steel king suggests. Passaic argues otherwise. And it is men with more interest in the state of society than in particular profits who will be needed whenever the little and big crises arrive.

Nor is it probable that the labor movement in America is really as static as the steel king suggests. Passaic argues otherwise. And it is men with more interest in the state of society than in particular profits who will be needed whenever the little and big crises arrive.