A Serious Situation by L. A. S.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 23, 1902

A Serious Situation

By L. A. S.

As everybody knows, the whole northern section of the country is wrought up over the situation produced by the strike in the anthracite coal mines. Tremendous forces are arrayed against each other in this conflict, and tremendous influences are being brought to bear in favor of some action that will end the strike. On the one side is the coal trust, backed by its ownership of railways and its millions in gold. On the other side is the miners’ union, backed by the powerful influence of organized labor, and by the sympathy of the large majority of the people. Added to these is the great American public itself which is compelled to face a coal famine on the verge of winter, and is calling loudly for relief. Politicians and statesmen are afraid to grapple with the situation, and in their fear of offending and arraying against themselves some one or more of these powerful political forces, it is not impossible that they may be willing to sacrifice some principle of republican government if it should appear expedient to do so. They may excuse themselves under the plea of the necessity of the situation. Already republican principles of government have been sacrificed in this country under such circumstances, and it is not improbable that a further departure from republican government may be the outcome of the present crisis in the industrial history of this country. This is a fact which adds greatly to the significance and the seriousness of the situation.

“A surprisingly large number of newspapers and public men,” says the Literary Digest, “have been brought to the advocacy of remedies sometimes considered socialistic, by the long duration of the coal strike. State or federal ownership of the anthracite mines has been suggested by a number of conservative journals. Now a drift of opinion is seen in favor of compulsory arbitration.” Among the newspapers mentioned as advocating such a remedy is the Chicago Evening Post, which says: “Evidently the representatives of ‘the third party,’ the great public, are losing faith in the ‘economic harmonies’ of free contract, and in the ‘let alone’ policy embodied in the American system of government. A few more bitter and violent conflicts of the kind we have witnessed—and endured—within the last year, and public opinion will be ready for radical legislation in relation to capital and labor.”

After quoting from persons who favor legislation in the matter, the Post continues:—

What can this mean if not compulsory arbitration? There is no half-way house between the right to strike and to lock out—concomitants of free industry—and state regulation of wages, hours, and conditions of employment. . . .

Let the coal operators and other employers seriously ask themselves whether they prefer complete loss of freedom to voluntary arbitration. . . . Blind, heedless, and futile opposition to “recognition” and to conciliation and impartial mediation, will lead, not to the destruction of the unions (that is neither possible nor desirable), but to the rough intervention of the state, and to the abolition of that freedom which has made the United States the first industrial power of the world.

Thus in these battles between capital and labor, the thing that will be destroyed will be, not the trust, nor the labor union, but some principle of republican government—some measure of individual freedom. And as this process goes on, the power which under a free government resides in the individual, will be more and more transferred to the state, and the state will more and more intervene between employer and employed to regulate “wages, hours, and conditions of employment,” until the will of the individual will count for nothing, and the government will become a monarchy in fact and a republic in name only.

The New York Times, speaking on the same subject, mentions that a compulsory arbitration law has lately become operative in New South Wales, Australia, and that one decision of the arbitration court having gone against one of the most powerful and domineering of the labor unions, the court, to save the system, “has sustained the claim of the union for a recognition of its right to use its funds for the publication of a newspaper to advocate socialism, and to require every member to subscribe to it, whether he approves it or not.” (Italics ours.) This shows how far the judicial branch of the government is willing to go, in that country, in showing deference to a powerful labor union at the expense of civil liberty.

When matters shall have progressed to the point where the State shall be vested with authority to step in and regulate “wages, hours, and conditions of employment,” then, when these are affected by religious belief, as in the case of Sunday labor, it will be deemed proper for the state to prescribe the day of rest for all, and there will be a revival of Sunday legislation and the enforcement of Sunday laws, which will bring the speedy fulfillment of all that is written in prophecy concerning the oppression to be suffered in this land by observers of the Bible Sabbath. This may be plainly read to-day in the signs of the times. L. A. S.