Mr. FOSTER. Well, Mr. Chairman, that other arbitration organizations and other arbitrations have been accepted and they have been the means of settling disputes is certainly true, and why should not such a tribunal with better facilities for investigation and for accumulated information and access to it-why should they not accomplish what has been done, and more too?

Mr. VREELAND. Well, of course they may. I am merely bringing out the practical application of such a tribunal, as to along what lines it would proceed, and its chances of being accepted as a tribunal whose judgments would carry. Ordinarily voluntary arbitration is an agreement between two parties to leave to some third party the questions at issue. They agree to accept it whether it is satisfactory or not. It is made for that particular case. It is a series of concessions usually from each side. It could not be accepted as a standard to be applied universally to other disputes of the same nature, or at least would not be. I merely bring this out again because I had thought of it considerably along this line, as to the practical operations of such a tribunal operating along judicial lines. I do not care to take up any further time in questions, and I think we would be glad now to hear Pishop Spalding.

STATEMENT OF BISHOP JOHN LANCASTER SPALDING, OF

PEORIA.

Bishop SPALDING. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I do not know that I have anything of any special worth to say to the committee. I think, however, that your remarks concerning the duty of this permanent commission, concerning the probability that it would be called upon to declare what is a legitimate profit and what are right hours of labor, need not be considered. I do not think it will ever be the duty of this tribunal or commission to declare what are legitimate profits.

NOT DUTY TO DECLARE WHAT ARE LEGITIMATE PROFITS.

It is rather to consider whether the relations between employer and employee are satisfactory on the general principles of equity and on American ideas of what the standard of living that becomes a human being is. I do not think any tribunal could undertake to determine what profits are legitimate. If the workmen are treated satisfactorily I do not see that it should matter to them whether the employer is making a great or a small profit.

Mr. VREELAND. But does it not matter?

Bishop SPALDING. I do not think the commission would have anything to do with that; and, as this bill contemplates, the commission's duties will arise only when it is appealed to by one or both parties, where there is a dispute or a strike or lockout, and its duties then will be to take up the points in contention, not confining itself rigidly to those points, but giving its chief attention to them, and to find some way by which an understanding can be brought about. I think that the mere fact that two contesting parties are brought face to face before a dispassionate tribunal tends to disarm them of their opposition and enmity toward one another, and after the investigation has been carried on with this kind, humane, and equitable purpose both of them become more ready to arrive at an understanding and agreement. Mr. VREELAND. An understanding about what?

Bishop SPALDING. About the matters in dispute.

Mr. VREELAND. Does an interruption disturb the course of your argument?

Bishop SPALDING. Not at all.

Mr. VREELAND. We will take a manufacturer's plant, for instance. As it runs a series of years it must be running because it pays? Bishop SPALDING. Certainly.

Mr. VREELAND. It makes, we will say, a profit of 20 per cent. That is the profit out of which the capital invested must be paid. Out of that profit the wages of the laborer must be paid. In other words, that 20 per cent which I call profit is what must be divided between all parties at interest, the employers and the employees, after paying all expenses, etc. Now, is not that the very meat of the question as to what proportion of that 20 per cent shall be divided between the employers and the employees? There is a strike; the employees say that they are not receiving a sufficient amount; that they are not being properly paid. The employers say that they are paying all that they can afford to. To what does that refer? It refers to the division of profit arising out of that plant. Then, is not that the heart of the controversy that a tribunal must consider to start with-as to what is a fair and proportionate amount to give to each of the parties as profit?

FAIR WAGES NOT DETERMINED BY AMOUNT OF PROFIT.

Bishop SPALDING. I do not think so, Mr. Chairman. I do not think a fair wage is to be determined by the amount of profit a company is making. For instance, take the soft-coal mines of the West, where they enter upon agreements from State to State, the whole State. They agree to accept a certain wage, determined considerably by the conditions of the varying mines, but not at all by the profits the mine owners are making. It is what is a fair wage for the work done, irrespective of the profits.

Mr. VREELAND. By what standards do you judge that, Bishop?

FAIR WAGE IS A LIVING WAGE.

Bishop SPALDING. It is not easy to determine a fair wage. I suppose a fair wage is what we call a living wage, and a living wage is determined by what we call the American standard of living; that a man shall have a comfortable home and shall be able to provide for the decent needs of his wife and children, shall be able to educate his children and bring them up in a way suited to Christian and American citizenship, which does not require a great deal of money.

Mr. VREELAND. Shall the employer, then, pay that amount which will fulfill those conditions regardless of the amount of profit he is making?

Bishop SPALDING. That is what ought to be aimed at, what ought to come to pass, but whether in a given case or not that would be so would rest with the commission. Of course a man ought not to be obliged to do what he can not do. In my opinion if in any business the workingman or working woman can not be paid enough to live decently, in a decent way, then that business ought to close up. That is a thing for the commission.

NO PRACTICAL DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY OF PERMANENT TRIBUNAL.

I do not think, Mr. Chairman, that there can be any practical difficulties in the way of a permanent arbitration commission. Of course, as you say, it is largely a matter of compromise. It is largely a matter of overcoming minor points; but human life and human relations are of that kind in all spheres of action. My idea of the need of a tribunal such as this is not based on any consideration of that kind. I think the troubles existing and that have existed for some time, and that seem to grow more acute, between capital and labor are a great evil to the country in every way.

TROUBLES BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR GREAT AND GROWING EVIL.

They are injurious to the common welfare. They lead to enmities and bitternesses and strifes, and I think the common agreement of all men who have paid attention to matters of this kind is that a strike is a great evil.

STRIKE IS HELL.

I would almost say about them as Mr. Sherman said about war, that the strike is hell. It is a greater evil than it appears to be. It is not merely the loss of money and the loss to owners and employers; but it is the degradation of human beings. Men who have been out on strike for weeks and months do not go back to work the same men they were when they went out. They have become demoralized; they have been in a bad mood, and have listened to bad opinions. They have been made antisocial to a certain extent; it may be they have formed habits of inebriety; it may be their children have been taught to mock and to insult human beings. Upon general grounds, the strike is bad.

STRIKE IS BAD.

It is the cause of demoralization. I always place the worth of the human being above any capital worth. It seems to me that our Government and our civilization ought to aim first at the good of human beings, and not at their enrichment-not at the enrichment of any class; and I do not see that capital and labor are getting nearer together.

I believe the anthracite coal commission did a good work, and I believe incidentally it lead to a great deal of evil.

PEOPLE MORE WILLING TO STRIKE.

It seems to me the laboring people have become more restless, more willing to strike. We have certainly seen a scandalous condition of affairs in some places in the country. Take it in Colorado. Out there it has been only a little less than civil war. In Chicago there has been a state of affairs bordering on anarchy. It has been much the same way in San Francisco. This kind of terrorism comes forth here and there not infrequently in our country. I see that a woman was assaulted yesterday in Chicago, that her face was bruised and her hand mangled. I see that a mob of 10,000 gathered to receive 300 nonunion men that came out of a factory.

DISGRACEFUL TO OUR CIVILIZATION.

Now, these things are disgraceful to our civilization. They make us less zealous and less hopeful in our endeavor to build up a higher manhood. And so it is not the interest of the laboring man or of capital alone, but the interest of the American people that is involved.

Mr. VREELAND. And what would you say to first applying the laws that are already on the statute books to such violations of the law?

CAN NOT APPLY LAW CONTRARY TO PUBLIC OPINION.

Bishop SPALDING. Mr. Chairman, you can not apply a law contrary to public opinion. If public opinion does not enforce a law you can not do it. Look at our laws controlling saloons. Look at our laws in regard to houses of prostitution. Look at all our municipal laws. They are simply an agreed-upon lie. They pass a law knowing it is going to be violated and deliberately consent to it, and the police levy blackmail on the violators of the law instead of punishing them. It will be the same way in regard to the laws against picketing and intimidation and that sort of thing.

The strike is the great weapon of the laboring people and the strike can not be successfully conducted without some kind of intimidation. I am not saying that it is right or wrong, but it is the fact that there will be intimidation. There will be a demand brought upon all who do not cooperate with the strikers. The men will be terrorized, women will be terrorized, children will be made hoodlums of, and a lawless spirit will grow up in them and no law can prevent that, no law. You can not enforce the law; that is my opinion.

CAPITAL AND LABOR HAVE INTERDEPENDENT INTERESTS.

I think capital and labor have common interests that is, they have interdependent interests. Capital could not be well invested if it were not for labor, and labor could not subsist unless it were employed. And in our complex commercial and industrial age this is becoming more and more manifest. They are interdependent interests. It seems to me that reason and common human feeling and the principles on which our civilization rest must lead the employers and employees to come to an understanding little by little. We ought to facilitate that.

Mr. VREELAND. Do you not think that for the last year or two public opinion has been moving pretty rapidly along the lines of stopping intimidation and violence and strikes?

Bishop SPALDING. It has done little to stop it, I think. I think, for instance, in the great anthracite strike there was not anywhere near as much lawlessness as the newspapers led the public to believe. I think they were remarkably law-abiding people considering that there were 150,000 on the verge of starvation. But there was picketing, and intimidation, and calling names, and burning people in effigy. The whole population was very uncomfortable. And that will be the case in every strike, and in minor strikes it will be the case to a greater or less extent.

DO AWAY WITH STRIKES.

The thing is to do away with strikes, to work toward that end, to bring about a settlement of disputes, not appealing to the sword but

appealing to reason. If a tribunal such as is contemplated in this bill is established, it would have the sanction of the nation, the sanction of the National Congress, and it would loom up before a public opinion in a way that no State tribunal can loom up. It will attract the attention of the country in a way that no minor tribunal can attract it, and it would, little by little, if it were composed of the right men, win its way to the favor of both employers and employees. I think it would lead to there being very few cases submitted to this tribunal, but, instead, that they would agree among themselves to have collective bargainings, to settle their disputes among themselves and not let them come to a crisis.

MUST TEACH THEM.

That is the thing we must teach them. We must educate them not to appeal to any tribunal, but to agree among themselves, just as two sensible individuals will agree among themselves rather than go to court to settle their differences. It is said sometimes that lawyers live on fools. I do not know about that, but certainly foolish men go to law more than sensible men do.

I do not think there is in America any class of employers who deliberately do injustice to their men. There may be some sweat shops where the employees are made to work too hard for too little, but we did not find that in the anthracite coal region, which was supposed to be one of the worst parts of the country in that respect, and I do not think it exists-that is, a condition where the employers deliberately do their employees wrong.

Mr. VREELAND. Do you think strikes are sometimes brought about by employers; that is, do you think they are incited by the employers? Bishop SPALDING. I do not know any instances of the kind. Of course, in a multitude of employers a case might arise. But they have the lockouts

Mr. VREELAND. You think there is nothing done on a considerable scale on that line?

Bishop SPALDING. I do not think so. It has not come to my knowledge. I never investigated it specially, but I have no reason to think so. Do you think so?

Mr. VREELAND. I have heard it charged in newspapers sometimes that, for instance, strikes in the coal region were brought about on purpose by employers, in order to restrict the output.

Bishop SPALDING. Yes; that may have been charged.

Mr. VREELAND. And with a view to bring about a strike?

Bishop SPALDING. Yes; I heard it charged in the anthracite regions that the soft coal miners were largely responsible for that anthracite strike, because they were rival interests, and the injury done to the anthracite region by a strike would redound to the profit of the bituminous mines; but I do not believe that to be true to any extent at all-I do not believe it is true. Men are very suspicious, you know, when they think they have a wrong; where they feel that they have a grievance their suspicions are more than normally alert. I do not think that that sort of thing prevails greatly in our country.

WE HAVE GREAT GOOD WILL FOR LABORERS.

I really think that we are disposed as a people to be fair minded, and I think we have great good will, and I think our good will is