﻿Why Arbitrate With Thieves For Carfare?

On the whole the country is not ready for arbitration. There is too much difference between the havealls and the have-nothings. Compulsory arbitration is wholly out of the question because the employers are 100 per cent organized and labor is less than 10 per cent organized.
In addition the employers have their first, second, and third line of trenches organized for offense and defense. There was no holler for arbitration as long as labor took it lying down, but when labor sat down and said it wouldn’t take it, then it was that the mouthpieces hollered “Arbitration.”
God! How they hate to see labor get anything!
Let ‘em holler.
Compulsory arbitration is the boss’ game. Somehow it conflicts with democracy and fits in with autocracy (out-talkracy) . . . there’s no occasion for arbitration in fascism and “communism” as practiced today.
We could not expect labor to arbitrate the question of letting a large part of their production go to swell the medicine chests of the Pinkertons, could we? Of course, not.
The corruptporation might argue that the millions didn’t come from production, but from the customers. Ah, as I see it, the customers are paying a premium to maintain detectives over the workers, is that it? . . . The public . . . H’m . . . That is’nt so hot either, and still I don’t see any cause for arbitration.
But I’m game, although I’m not the whole cheese. If arbitration we must have, let us have it with the understanding that the first question to be taken up shall be: Shall the majority vote of all hands in the industry decide all questions pertaining thereto, and that no other questions shall intrude interim.
If the answer ‘be “yes,” all other questions automatically suffer compulsory non-suit, and their substance suddenly grows nil, null and void . . . extinct.
Should the answer be “yes,” the artitrators come under the head of anti-trust law violation, and arbitration will be forever discredited as a shapeless form of no premise and less promise.

After the employers have everything but our Sunday pants they say, “boys, let’s arbitrate.” They are past masters in the art of pouring oil on troubled waters: a few greasy words from them, and a double chin oscillates on labor’s breast. There are among them men who draw fortunes from six or seven corporations. In other words, they are doing the grabbing for six or seven, and the percentage of unemployed grabbers here is 6 to 1—that isn’t fair. How many billions those employers weed out of the production of labor is still a mystery after all these years. I’ll give you a conservative figure — $40,000,000,000 a year. It seems to me that that is pretty heavy cream and leaves but little bluish milk for labor in the bottom of the bottle.
Aw, government, come and tell us the precise amount our forty thousand thieves get away with and — shall we arbitrate the matter? Would you arbitrate with thieves for carfare? I’d walk; if they have my jack I ain’t going no place nohow. (Moral: Always use carfare before, not after.)
The verdicts are always according to the usaged of paratisitism. (Noting there to arbitrate except the verdict.ó

Trade Secret: ( Millionaires Must Go)
There i* hysteria among the legal sharks because their profession is overcrowded. One lawyer to each 783 of U. S. imputation, including babies. Ten per cent of New York county bar professes pauperism and demand a place in the sun. New lawyers are passed over their head in swarms—a regular flood. “Oi, oi,” the Blackstonians wail, “is there no way to stop this flood?”
Colleges are the source of lawyers and they have curtailed production (mild sabotage) and that leaves too many professors. Oi, oi, oi—to the wailing wall.
Why not amputate the hysteria and re-organize the “economic dingus—so that 763 can support more lawyers and less millionaires? What say, barristers?
Increasingly it becomes plain, we cannot live in the same house with this present raft of emolunaires—they have their fingers in every pie, and that’s twice too many. (I know of a leading barrister who draws fortunes from half a dozen leading corporations yearly—wrist deep in the pie, some say elbow deep.) Thus it is, industrial gazabos are considering the swapping of industries across the ocean (hands across the sea) and create a condition wherein lords and masters would go over there, and show their stuff, and those of over there (who had played out their hand) would come over here—a sort of exchange of talent, and it is figured, the novelty of the thing would go over big with the proletarians. I hope I have not given away any secrets, and rather than air a secret, I’d cut my throat with a dull razor blade.

“Incorporate the unions,” howls Mr. Hearst. William must still be sore about that small affair on the Seattle P-I?
Wouldn’t it be just as good, Bill, to copperplate them and put on a glaze finish?
Heh, heh, heh — first arbitrate, then incorporate. Hot Dog, that’s a good one!
Let me give you a piece of advise, Bill. If you don’t lay off of unions, the balance of your ricketty power will fritter away. Recall, brother, when you holler “incorporate” it is only Maine and Vermont talking.
Most respectfully I suggest therefore, it is damn good politics for you and your Chamber of Commerce to paddle your own respective canoes, and keep your respective noses out of labor union business. Compulsory arbitration would throw the country into a general strike. I’m opposed to it because the boys ain’t organized and because I’m not interested in furthering Hearst’s constituents.
What the State laws would do to incorporated unionism in front of blue ribbon juries, is scandalous.—T-bs.