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SUBTLE DISTINCTIONS

making out the list of invitations, but left all such details to the managers of the affair, who were largely Southern clergymen. Among those who responded were a negro archdeacon from North Carolina, with his wife, and the negro rector of a flourishing parish in Maryland. All met on an outwardly equal footing under the President's roof; all joined in partaking of the refreshments spread for them, eating from the same set of plates and drinking from the same set of glasses, some sitting and some standing, but with no social or race lines apparently drawn between any classes in the assemblage. Yet the Southern ministers and bishops did not seem to be at all disconcerted, and not a Southern newspaper raised its protest at their share in this crime against Caucasian civilization!

Is it wonderful that even so discerning a mind as the President's is unable to grasp the subtle distinctions which his social censors have tried to force upon him?

CHAPTER XIV

CAPITAL AND LABOR

Combination in both fields-Labor unions and the civil service— The Miller case-Overlooked facts in the coal arbitration— -Things a demagogue would not have done.

IT is no uncommon thing to hear Theodore Roosevelt denounced as a demagogue because of his attitude toward what is known as the labor problem. Now, the term demagogue is rather hard to define. To my mind it seems to mean a man of higher intelligence bending his judgment hypocritically to the passing whims of the mob in order to win its favor. Mr. Roosevelt's views on labor questions, however, are a necessary outgrowth from his fundamental opinions on economics and politics at large. This statement, which seems only his due, I offer with the greater cheerfulness because there is no subject of difference between us which makes the sparks fly more actively when we get into a discussion of it.

I have already spoken of Mr. Roosevelt's

EQUAL RIGHTS

unqualified belief in combination and organization as a means of accomplishing results in public fields of activity. What he believes in for politics, for religion, for trade, for legislation, he believes in equally for labor. He has never discouraged combinations among capitalists except where they have violated the law, and has advocated no laws of repression except such as would prevent inhumanity in the treatment of some helpless class; by parity of reasoning he not only has not discouraged, but has freely encouraged, combinations among wageworkers, though always drawing the line sharply at the point where, in his opinion, they tended to substitute tyranny for fair play or lawlessness for honorable self-assertion. The difficulty of locating that point in certain cases leaves a considerable margin for ethical debate and criticism. To that extent Mr. Roosevelt has sometimes laid himself open to attack on the score of misjudgment; but I have never heard his sincerity of motive successfully assailed.

Take the case of the typographical unions and their kindred organizations for an illustration. As Civil-Service Commissioner, it was his constant endeavor to have the Government

Printing Office brought under the merit system. A good many opponents of the plan reminded him of the difficulty of dealing with a mechanical trade, so largely governed by combinations, in the same way as with clerical labor, which was unorganized. Mr. Roosevelt brushed these objections aside. The unions, he declared, ought to be the best possible friends of the merit system if their claim were honest that they existed for the improvement of their craft. The requirement of a merit test for admission to the Government Printing Office would tend to raise the standard of public service in the typographic and allied arts, and he should ask the most expert craftsmen to help him in his effort, even to the extent of preparing the rules for examining applicants. When warned that this meant the permanent control of the office by the unions, he answered that, if the Government obtained better service as a consequence, he could not see what question could be raised as to the element in control; but that if an attempt were ever made-which he did not expect to exercise such control improperly, it could and would be checked at

once.

An appeal was accordingly made to the best

MİLLER CASE

practical printers within reach to lend a hand at the organization of the office on a merit basis. It did not succeed at once, and the formal classification was delayed till Mr. Roosevelt had been some time separated from the Civil-Service Commission. When the change was made, however, it was on the lines he had laid down. The first effect, as had been predicted, was to establish the unions firmly as the dominant force in the office. Practically this made no difference in existing conditions, for the printers, binders, engineers, etc., who in the past had been appointed to places there as a matter of political favor, had always been either members of the unions or candidates for membership; no politician of influence enough to command such patronage had dared go outside of the unions and their waiting lists in choosing its beneficiaries.

Matters went along smoothly enough till the Miller case came up last summer. William A. Miller, assistant foreman in the bindery branch of the office, was a non-union man. He had formerly belonged to the union, but had been expelled because, in defiance of the rules of the union, he had pointed the way for the Government's use of cheaper methods of manu

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