That might be elucidated by the commission.

I feel confident that

any President of the United States would appoint a commission like this from nonpartisan men, and we have a great many men capable of doing this kind of work, if we pick them out a great many, and we need them, too.

Mr. FURUSETH. There are some questions that I would like to ask the reverend bishop.

Bishop SPALDING. All right, sir.

Mr. FURUSETH. Are not trade disputes indicative of an effort on the part of the wage-earner to realize, practically to materialize, some higher standard of life which he has intellectually and morally evolved? Bishop SPALDING. I think so. That is, taking it in the large sense. I agree with that question, I answer it affirmatively.

Mr. VREELAND. He wants more money.

Mr. FURUSETH. Money is never aimed at for itself; it is a means to something else.

In the sympathetic strike is he not endeavoring to put into practical application the instruction of the Master, "To bear each other's burdens," "To be thy brother's keeper?"

NOT BELIEVER IN SYMPATHETIC STRIKE.

Bishop SPALDING. I will say that I am not a believer in the sympathetic strike at all. I think the sympathetic strike is a misplaced sympathy. It works more harm than it does good. Experience is that the sympathetic has generally failed to accomplish anything for the laboring man, and I think that the great weight of opinion among labor leaders is in opposition to the sympathetic strike. It is a foolish sympathy. Sympathy may be a dangerous thing to deal in, Mr.

Chairman.

Mr. FURUSETH. Are strikes, if they be an indication of growth toward higher ideals, something to be suppressed?

Bishop SPALDING. Well, that is the question of war. I suppose we come to higher things through all sorts of battles and contentions. Strikes are the causes of innumerable evils and we ought to do as far as possible with the causes.

away

I think that the growth toward the higher ideals could be accomplished in other ways; I think that if you teach men to trust one another, to feel kindly toward one another, to cooperate with one another, to cherish a conciliatory disposition toward one another, you bring them much more rapidly forward than by teaching them to fight one another, and a strike is a bitter fight.

Mr. FURUSETH. I was looking at it from the point of view as an indication of something else underlying, as an indication of that which underlies the strike.

Bishop SPALDING. I believe that most efforts of human beings

Mr. FURUSETH. As a force that may be for good or for evil; in other words, that it depends purely upon its use, that in itself it is only a force.

LABOR UNIONS COULD HAVE ACCOMPLISHED MORE WITHOUT STRIKES.

Bishop SPALDING. I think that labor unions have accomplished a great good for the world, and I think the labor unions could have accomplished nothing without the strikes.

Mr. FURUSETH. That answers my question.

Bishop SPALDING. But the effort and the tendency ought to be to outgrow that condition. I know that strikes are a great evil, but so is a battle

Mr. HUGHES. A necessary evil?

Bishop SPALDING. No; I would not say a necessary evil. They have been necessary at times, but they would not be necessary if men were wiser and more kindly and conciliatory.

Mr. FURUSETH. In other words, Bishop, men have the right to strike?

Bishop SPALDING. I would not deny the right to strike.

Mr. FURUSETH. You would have the right to strike kept intact, but you would minimize as much as possible the interfering with fundamental rights

Bishop SPALDING. To deny the right to strike would be practically to deny the right to organize; there is no doubt about that; it would practically amount to that; but the strike nearly always is accompanied by things that a wise and good man can not approve of. Nearly always crimes accompany strikes. They ought to minimize those things and strike as little as possible; that is it, they ought to settle things without strikes. The loss to the laborers is as great or greater than it is to the capitalists.

The labor leaders claim that 50 per cent of the strikes have been won. I do not know whether that is so or not, but even if it is so the employers, while they lose money, do not lose as much as the strikers. The strikers lose their morality, their sobriety, their virtues. They suffer in the vital things; the others suffer in the accidental things. That is the advantage the rich have over the poor in all things.

Mr. FURUSETH. The difficulty, then, is in arriving at these higher ideals of life, and better conditions of life; and to reach them we are compelled to go through sufferings?

NOT COMPELLED TO GO THROUGH CRIME.

Bishop SPALDING. Yes; that is the law of nature and of God, it But we are not compelled to go through crime.

seems.

Mr. FURUSETH. Standing for something new--the growth of new ideals, the assimilation into the mass of the higher moral principlesshould it not be permitted to grow freely, would not such tribunal reflect the more general concept, and is not the inherent conservatism of society a sufficient check upon that which society looks upon as dangerous because untried?

Bishop SPALDING. It seems to me that that is expressed in a somewhat confused way. You mean to say that the natural tendency is toward higher things, and if left alone society will evolve in that direction?

Mr. FURUSETH. Yes; and this tribunal is an interference with natural evolution, that society's business is to keep the peace purely?

IT CAN NOT KEEP THE PEACE.

Bishop SPALDING. It can not keep the peace, it does not keep it wherever these strikes exist. Society's particular business is to prevent crime and to prevent men doing wrong to one another, to make

the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness more and more easy and successful.

Now, as I look upon it, these continuous strikes not only hurt our business affairs, our financial prospects, but they tend to weaken our faith in our Government, in the rule of the people by the people, and to make men believe that nothing will be right until there is a radical revolution, until private property ceases to exist, until the State owns everything, which I do not believe in at all.

Mr. FURUSETH. I am not a believer in that.

Bishop SPALDING. I am not.

Mr. FURUSETH. I have a few more questions here: Is it well that the moral concepts which underlie such efforts should in any way be hindered, guided, or otherwise interfered with?

Bishop SPALDING. If you define those moral concepts, and if they are the moral concepts upon which we agree, I would say that this tribunal, far from hindering that, would help their development, would be an educational force.

Mr. FURUSETH. In the question arising about the division of profits from industry, what rules are to govern; the rules laid down in the decalogue or the ordinary rules of business?

Bishop SPALDING. I suppose the ordinary rules of business are in theory founded upon the decalogue, founded upon honesty. Do you not think so?

Mr. FURUSETH. I might be inclined to dispute that.

Bishop SPALDING. I like to suppose that, anyway.

Mr. FURUSETH. In the ordinary business rules, is capital to have its share first or labor have its share first? In either case, how much is going to each?

Bishop SPALDING. I think I have answered that in reply to a question from the chairman.

Mr. FURUSETH. Very well, then, I will ask my next question. If the rules of the decalogue-what are they, how are they to be construed? Bishop SPALDING. Well, the rules of the decalogue, I suppose, mean "Thou shall not steal." Is that it?

The CHAIRMAN. It is to be supposed that all the members of the committee are familiar with that.

Mr. FURUSETH. And "Thou shalt not be stolen from" is a part of it. Bishop SPALDING. If nobody steals nobody will be stolen from.

CAN PUBLIC OPINION COMPEL OBEDIENCE!

Mr. FURUSETH. Do you believe that public opinion concentrated upon any party who shall refuse to grant jurisdiction, or having granted it shall refuse to abide by the award, will be strong enough to compel obedience?

Bishop SPALDING. Well, I think it will grow to be strong enough. I do not say that it will compel obedience in every instance, or the first instances; but I think the more public opinion is brought to bear upon any kind of human interest the more will that human interest conform itself to public opinion. I think that the efficacy of law comes from the support of public opinion. Law is simply the declaration of men's beliefs as to what is right and just and well and profitable, and where the public opinion is lacking the law lacks vitality, and where the public opinion concentrates itself sufficiently and it becomes

sufficiently strong it enforces the law, and the more enlightened a people is the more they should trust themselves to public opinion. That is the idea of the American Government.

Mr. FURUSETH. Do you base this belief upon the conviction that any force inherent in public opinion is a moral force which, if concentrated, would be irresistible?

Bishop SPALDING. Yes; I have said that.

Mr. FURUSETH. Do you believe that a tribunal as made up as provided in this bill could concentrate or focus the moral force existing in the community in the way contemplated in this bill?

Bishop SPALDING. I think so; not all at once, but little by little. Mr. FURUSETH. Is not this making the tribunal the judge of religion as well as of morals?

RELIGION AND MORALS INSEPARABLE.

Bishop SPALDING. I contend that religion and morals are inseparable, and everybody who passes on questions of right and wrong is passing upon a question of religion as well as morality; there is no doubt of that in my mind. I know there are some who deny that.

Mr. FURUSETH. Do you believe that it would be safe to vest the power which you claim exists, and which you claim this tribunal could focus, in the hands of a committee of men, who, having families, might be influenced through their love of an apprehension for them?

Bishop SPALDING. I have the greatest faith in honest, intelligent, strong men, and I believe it is safe to trust anything to a body of six or seven men rightly composed. I believe it would be better to trust this power to them than to the human race. If you can not trust seven men rightly chosen, you can not trust the human race.

Mr. FURUSETH. Even if influenced in that particular way?

Bishop SPALDING. You must take in every influence. They won't be influenced to do wrong in any way, in my opinion. Of course the same objection you suggest applies to judges and Senators and Congressmen and to every human being; but, in the end, after all, the sense of justice rises superior in the better sort of men.

Mr. FOSTER. Mr. Chairman, Bishop Spalding referred without explanation to compulsory investigation and left it at that. I think it well to bring out from the bishop his concept, which of course would include "after agreement of the parties." We have some friends here that are looking for any statements not made quite clear, complaining that we have some compulsory elements in the bill.

Bishop SPALDING. The bill does contemplate compulsory arbitration. What I would say is this: Suppose in the anthracite coal strike neither party had appealed to the President; that they had both been willing to stay there and fight it out. In the meantime the people were freezing in Philadelphia and New York and Washington. There would have been mobs. Ought they to have been let alone there, neither appealing to any tribunal? Ought they to have reduced several million of people to the condition of freezing and suffering because of the lack of coal?

IN BITTER STRIKES ONE PARTY WILL ALWAYS APPEAL.

Bishop SPALDING. I suppose it is not necessary to modify the bill, perhaps, because in these bitter strikes there will always be one party or

the other which will appeal. According to this bill they could not go there at all if not invited by one party or the other.

Mr. FOSTER. They would have to be invited by both parties.

Bishop SPALDING. The arbitration board in Massachusetts has the right to go in without being appealed to by either party. It settled that great railroad strike without being appealed to.

Mr. FOSTER. That was a commission of investigation?
Bishop SPALDING. Yes.

SATISFIED WITH BILL.

I am satisfied that with the bill as it is, without putting that other clause in (although I believe under the proper conditions compulsory investigation is a good thing) those conditions would rarely arise; I think that one or the other party would appeal to a board like this.

Mr. HUGHES, of New Jersey. You do not think that intimidation, this mild form of coercion-not referring now to overt acts of lawlessness-is confined peculiarly to labor people?

Bishop SPALDING. Oh, no; I think there is strong pressure brought upon all sorts of people occasionally.

Mr. HUGHES, of New Jersey. For instance, a member of Congress gets out of line with his constituents.

Bishop SPALDING. Yes.

Mr. HUGHES, of New Jersey. He is perhaps afraid of the capitalists. Bishop SPALDING. Some few, not many, of them, in my opinion. We are all human, of course, and we are subject to all sorts of influences.

I heard Mr. Mitchell say often in the investigation that he was opposed to all kinds of intimidation and terrorism, and that he continually counseled his men not to go into that sort of thing.

NO NEED OF INTIMIDATION.

There is no need of intimidation unless the tramps of the country are brought in to take the place of the strikers. The professional strike breaker is the man they have the great hatred against. Do you represent the labor unions?

Mr. HUGHES, of New Jersey. No; I am a member of Congress.
Bishop SPALDING. Oh, excuse me.

Well, as far as I know, the bitterness of the union men is against what they call the professional strike breaker. It seems that there are a lot of men ready to jump in and take the place of strikers, and naturally the strikers feel bitter against that class of men. Mr. HUGHES, of New Jersey. That is natural-yes.

Bishop SPALDING. I suppose they exaggerate that, too.

Mr. FURUSETH. When you speak of intimidation what do you really mean? Would it be intimidation, for instance, if I were to go to see a man who was about to go to work in a shop and say: "John, we have left this shop because the employer has been unwilling to deal fairly with us as we see it, and we ask you not to go into this shop, and we say to you, in addition, that if you do go into this shop we will not speak to you again, and will not associate with you in the future;" do you consider that intimidation or unjustifiable?

Bishop SPALDING. No; I do not consider that intimidation. You are not bound to speak to a man or associate with him, and you have

NA B-04-8