National Civic Federation 
 Will Consider Industrial 
 wet and Military Problems 
 7» Growing Out of the War 
 
 AT ITS 
 
 ANNUAL MEETING 
 
 The seventeenth annual meeting of The National Civic 
 Federation will be held in New York City, at Hotel Astor, 
 on Monday and Tuesday, January 22-23, 1917, the luncheon 
 of the Woman’s Department occurring Monday, and the 
 annual banquei 61 Tuesday evening. 
 
 In addition to the resumé of the year’s work by Presi- 
 dent V. Everit Macy at the opening session, departmental 
 reports will be made by L. A. Coolidge for the Welfare 
 Department, August Belmont for the Workmen’s Compen- 
 sation Department, Warren S. Stone for the Social Insur- 
 ance Department, John Hays Hammond for the Industrial 
 Economics Department, Miss Maude Wetmore for the 
 Woman’s Department, Alton B. Parker for the Department 
 on Reform in Legal Procedure, Jeremiah W. Jenks for the 
 Department on Regulation of Industrial Corporations, 
 Louis B. Schram for the Industrial Accident Prevention 
 Department, and A. J. Porter for the Minimum Wage 
 Commission. 
 
 The other sessions of the meeting will be devoted to 
 the consideration of some of the larger economic and mili- 
 tary problems confronting the American people during and 
 at the close of the European war, such as: 
 
 ‘The lesson from the mobilization on the Mexican border’; 
 
 ‘The indifference, if not positive opposition, of the wage- 
 earners and farmers to all preparedness programs’; 
 
 ‘Will there be a flood of immigration or a flood of emigra- 
 tion ?’ 
 
 ‘Must this country, to secure military efficiency, copy the 
 paternalistic social program of Germany?’ and 
 
 ‘Can the great forces of production, of labor, and of 
 finance be cemented into one big force to grapple with the on- 
 coming problems?’ 
 
 Commenting upon the subjects to be considered at this 
 meeting, in a statement issued to the members of the 
 Federation, Ralph M. Easley, Chairman of the Executive 
 Council, says: 
 
 “Whether the present move to end the great inter- 
 national conflict proves effective or abortive, it vividly 
 suggests the economic disturbance that is bound to occur 
 in this country when peace does come. With our business 
 to-day at such an abnormal tension that panicky conditions 
 are as readily created by a threat of peace as by a threat 
 of war; with the plants of the munition and kindred indus- 
 tries shutting down in case of peace and throwing out 
 thousands of wage-earners; and with the probable can- 
 celling of war bonuses and lowering of abnormal wages in 
 other lines, resulting in a possible unemployment situation 
 similar to the one experienced in the winter of 1914-15, is 
 it not time for the leaders of production, of labor and of 
 finance to prepare to meet co-operatively that inevitable 
 
 army would necessarily come from these classes. A com 
 paratively small percentage of the members of our Nationa 
 Guard to-day is drawn from the wage-earning or farmin; 
 population. If any arguments are needed to emphasiz: 
 the absolute necessity of having the hearty co-operation o 
 these two preponderating forces, they can be supplied by 
 the discussions in the parliamentary bodies of all the war 
 ring nations. Little chance will there be for compulsory 
 military service or even a compulsory military training bil 
 to become a law in this country, if they are required, unti 
 these problems are solved and also the great Middle Wes: 
 comes to feel that it is as directly concerned in the defense: 
 of the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts as are the seaboar¢ 
 states. It is true that foreign fleets cannot as yet climt 
 mountains or throw their shells 2,000 miles, but the 
 Zeppelins and aeroplanes, the navies of the air, can react 
 Chicago and Topeka as easily as New York or San Fran 
 cisco. But even were the Middle West secure from direc 
 attack, the paralysis of its industries and the stoppage o* 
 the movement of its farm products would be just as great 4, 
 the seaboard states capitulated to an invading force.” 
 
 SOME REASONS FOR PACIFISM 
 
 “It is not surprising that there should be such pacifism 
 among people who had settled down to the conviction that 
 civilization—religion, art and the sciences—had made wars 
 a thing of the past. But there are some curious phases oi 
 the situation that are not so clearly understood. For 
 instance, at a time when, in all the great countries of 
 Europe, the working men are pouring out their life’s blood 
 and the working women are making untold sacrifices to 
 save their countries from destruction, we have in this 
 country the spectacle of a body of professedly anti- 
 patriotic people, composed of radical preachers, radical 
 college professors, socialists, anarchists and extreme 
 pacifists, viciously denouncing all proposals to prepare our 
 nation for defending itself against threatened attacks from 
 either without or within. And this they are doing in spite 
 of the generally recognized fact that our country is to-day 
 almost equally hated by the people of the Entente Allies 
 and those of the Central Powers, and that, while to-day we 
 might have to prepare for attack by the Central Powers 
 should they win, to-morrow such attack might come from 
 the Allies should they be victorious; or the next day we 
 might have both groups to fight in case they should arrive 
 at an adjustment of their differences, and should feel 
 that our gold and great wealth might be needed to pay some 
 of their staggering war debts, or that South America might 
 be a good country to divide up. In connection with this 
 fact it has been asserted that a high official in Germany 
 said to the American Ambassador last fall, when the Sussex 
 controversy was at an acute stage: “Do you realize, Mr. 
 Ambassador, that we have 500,000 trained and armed sol- 
 diers in your country?’ At that the Ambassador re- 
 torted: “Do you realize that we have 500,000 lamp- 
 posts in our country?’ This was a splendid retort, but 
 hardly an adequate answer, although it was the only one 
 he could make. But this alarming fact, if a fact, the pacifist 
 might say, is more than offset by another statement from 
 an officer of the Entente Allies’ army, who pointed out that 
 Canada would, at the close of the war, have a million 
 trained soldiers on our north, who might have some sug- 
 gestions to make to us about the conduct of our internal 
 
 affairs. In that event the 500,000 trained German reseryists 
 
Y 
 
 National Civic Federation 
 eS Will Consider Industrial 
 Sve and Military Problems 
 Growing Out of the War 
 
 AT ITS 
 
 ANNUAL MEETING 
 
 The seventeenth annual meeting of The National Civic 
 Federation will be held in New York City, at Hotel Astor, 
 on Monday and Tuesday, January 22-23, 1917, the luncheon 
 of the Woman’s Department occurring Monday, and the 
 apnual banquet on Tuesday evening. 
 
 ‘In addition to the resumé of the year’s work by Presi- 
 dent V. Everit Macy at the opening session, departmental 
 reports will be made by L. A. Coolidge for the Welfare 
 Department, August Belmont for the Workmen’s Compen- 
 sation Department, Warren S. Stone for the Social Insur- 
 ance Department, John Hays Hammond for the Industrial 
 Economics Department, Miss Maude Wetmore for the 
 Woman’s Department, Alton B. Parker for the Department 
 on Reform in Legal Procedure, Jeremiah W. Jenks for the 
 Department on Regulation of Industrial Corporations, 
 Louis B. Schram for the Industrial Accident Prevention 
 Department, and A. J. Porter for the Minimum Wage 
 Commission. 
 
 The other sessions of the meeting will be devoted to 
 the consideration of some of the larger economic and mili- 
 tary problems confronting the American people during and 
 at the close of the European war, such as: 
 
 ‘The lesson from the mobilization on the Mexican border’ ; 
 
 ‘The indifference, if not positive opposition, of the wage- 
 earners and farmers to all preparedness programs’; 
 
 : oe there be a flood of immigration or a flood of emigra- 
 tion?’ 
 
 “Must this country, to secure military efficiency, copy the 
 paternalistic social program of Germany?’ and 
 
 ‘Can the great forces of production, of labor, and of 
 finance be cemented into one big force to grapple with the on- 
 coming problems ?” 
 
 Commenting upon the subjects to be considered at this 
 meeting, in a statement issued to the members of the 
 Federation, Ralph M. Easley, Chairman of the Executive 
 Council, says: 
 
 “Whether the present move to end the great inter- 
 national conflict proves effective or abortive, it vividly 
 suggests the economic disturbance that is bound to occur 
 in this country when peace does come. With our business 
 to-day at such an abnormal tension that panicky conditions 
 are as readily created by a threat of peace as by a threat 
 of war; with the plants of the munition and kindred indus- 
 tries shutting down in case of peace and throwing out 
 thousands of wage-earners; and with the probable can- 
 celling of war bonuses and lowering of abnormal wages in 
 other lines, resulting in a possible unemployment situation 
 similar to the one experienced in the winter of 1914-15, is 
 it not time for the leaders of production, of labor and of 
 finance to prepare to meet co-operatively that inevitable 
 shock? Already, in one of the nations at war, a joint com- 
 mittee of employers and employees is at work trying to 
 arrange an industrial truce to operate for three years after 
 the termination of the conflict. In another nation co-opera- 
 tive schemes of almost every description, backed by the 
 Government, are being formed in preparation for the 
 economic war that is sure to follow the military engage- 
 ment. Can the great industrial forces of the United States 
 be brought into a more harmonious relation that they may 
 give the best that is in them to meet these grave problems, 
 is the question which the Federation hopes to be able to 
 have answered in the afhrmative, at its annual meeting, by 
 leaders of these forces. 
 
 MILITARY PROBLEMS 
 
 “Not only is there need for such co-operation to grapple 
 with economic problems, but there is also as great a need 
 for co-operation among all elements in the nation to guard 
 against possible military complications that may arise 
 during this war, should it continue indefinitely, or it, at its 
 close, a peace should be established that only means an 
 armistice of longer or shorter duration to be followed by 
 a greater war which the President predicts the United 
 States will enter. ; 
 
 “Reterring to the military situation, there will be 
 trank discussion at the Federation’s meeting upon two dis- 
 turbing phases which our people must face to-day. 
 
 “The first of these is that our military and naval 
 schemes for preparedness are in chaos—and this not due to 
 want of patriotism on the part of any particular administra- 
 tion, but to a lack of foresight on the part of all administra- 
 tions since the Spanish War. ‘This again is nothing but a 
 natural situation growing out of the belief of our people, 
 thanks to the activities ot the peace societies of the world, 
 that all wars between civilized nations had been made 
 impossible and that the development of armies and navies 
 was rapidly becoming supertluous: that we were 3,000 miles 
 from anybody who could possibly think of attacking us, and 
 that it would take so long tor any nation to get troups over 
 here that we could equip an army of a million men in ample 
 time to ‘eat them up,’ so to speak, as they landed. It is 
 unnecessary to say that these illusions have been dispelled, 
 the latter one by our recent attempt to mobilize 100,000 men 
 on the Mexican border. It is generally agreed by experts that 
 that mobilization, whatever the expense, and even if there 
 had been no military necessity to justify it, was worth many 
 times what it cost in enabling us to discover the utter weak- 
 ness of our uncoordinated federal and state military 
 systems, and the utter futility, not to say injustice of 
 depending on the National Guard as constituted to-day for 
 a first line of defense. 
 
 “The second fact which stares us in the face is that in 
 all movements for preparedness—defense leagues, security 
 leagues and so forth—there are enrolled neither the work- 
 ingmen nor the farmers of the country. On the executive 
 boards of these organizations, not one representative of 
 either of these classes can be found, while they are found 
 without number in all of the anti-preparedness and various 
 brands of peace organizations. This is an alarming element 
 of national weakness, as in any war eighty per cent of our 
 
 if 
 
 {9 
 
 f 
 army would necessarily come from these classes. A com! 
 paratively small percentage of the members of our Nationa 
 Guard to-day is drawn from the wage-earning or farming 
 population. If any arguments are needed to emphasiz? 
 the absolute necessity of having the hearty co-operation 4 
 these two preponderating forces, they can be supplied b} 
 the discussions in the parliamentary bodies of all the war 
 ring nations. Little chance will there be for Sal peae 
 military service or even a compulsory military training bil 
 to become a law in this country, if they are required, until 
 these problems are solved and also the great Middle Wes} / 
 comes to feel that it is as directly concerned in the defenses 
 of the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts as are the seaboarc 
 states. It is true that foreign fleets cannot as yet climl! 
 mountains or throw their shells 2,000 miles, but the 
 Zeppelins and aeroplanes, the navies of the air, can reacl 
 Chicago and Topeka as easily as New York or San Fran, 
 cisco. But even were the Middle West secure from direc 
 attack, the paralysis of its industries and the stoppage o! 
 the movement of its farm products would: be just as great 2 
 the seaboard states capitulated to an invading force.” 
 
 SOME REASONS FOR PACIFISM 
 
 “It is not surprising that there should be such pacifism 
 among people who had settled down to the conviction that 
 civilization—religion, art and the sciences—had made wars 
 a thing of the past. But there are some curious phases of 
 the situation that are not so clearly understood. For 
 instance, at a time when, in all the great countries of 
 Europe, the working men are pouring out their life’s blood 
 and the working women are making untold sacrifices to 
 save their countries from destruction, we have in this) 
 country the spectacle of a body of professedly anti- 
 patriotic people, composed of radical preachers, radical | 
 college professors, socialists, anarchists and extreme 
 pacifists, viciously denouncing all proposals to prepare our) 
 nation for defending itself against threatened attacks from 
 either without or within. And this they are doing in spite | 
 of the generally recognized fact that our country is to-day 
 almost equally hated by the people of the Entente Allies 
 and those of the Central Powers, and that, while to-day we 
 might have to prepare for attack by the Central Powers) 
 should they win, to-morrow such attack might come from) 
 the Allies should they be victorious; or the next day we 
 might have both groups to fight in case they should arrive 
 at an adjustment of their differences, and should feel | 
 that our gold and great wealth might be needed to pay some | 
 of their staggering war debts, or that South America might 
 be a good country to divide up. In connection with this_ 
 fact it has been asserted that a high official in Germany | 
 said to the American Ambassador last fall, when the Sussex 
 controversy was at an acute stage: “Do you realize, Mr. 
 Ambassador, that we have 500,000 trained and armed sol- 
 diers in your country?’ At that the Ambassador re- 
 torted: “Do you realize that we have 500,000 lamp- 
 posts in our country?’ This was a splendid retort, but 
 hardly an adequate answer, although it was the only one | 
 he could make. But this alarming fact, if a fact, the pacifist | 
 might say, is more than offset by another statement from 
 an officer of the Entente Allies’ army, who pointed out that 
 Canada would, at the close of the war, have a million | 
 trained soldiers on our north, who might have some sug- 
 gestions to make to us about the conduct of our internal 
 affairs. In that event the 500,000 trained German reservists 
 in this country would come in handy. In fact, they woula 
 be the only people whom we would have to defend us from 
 the million Canadians. But this brings the more disturbing 
 thought that they might combine to make some suggestions 
 to us. What would the pacifists answer? It goes without 
 saying that if there are 500,000 trained German soldiers in 
 this country they to-day naturally belong to the anti-pre- 
 paredness movement, and while the Canadian million is not 
 within our gates at this time it probably has friends who are | 
 also making themselves felt in the anti-preparedness move- 
 ment. These anti-patriots also choose calmly to ignore the 
 possibilities on our immediate south and on our west. 
 
 “Even the schoolhouses are being turned over to some 
 of these radical anti-patriots, who are calmly debating the 
 question, ‘Is this country fit to be defended?’ the ‘debate’ 
 being participated in only by those who answer the ques- 
 tion in the negative. In these same schoolhouses, as well 
 as in certain pulpits, there is heard their bitter denuncia- 
 tion of everything that savors of patriotism, even the word 
 acting as a red rag. This hatred of patriotism is taught to 
 the children in the Socialist Sunday schools, the word being 
 placed on banners in the form of an acrostic, as follows: 
 
 Powder 
 
 Asinity 
 
 Trouble 
 
 R 
 
 I 
 
 O 
 
 ay 
 
 Idiocy 
 
 Suffering 
 
 Murder 
 
 Instead of patriotism they are taught “international- 
 ism,” that being their fad of the hour notwithstanding the 
 fact that internationalism has been shot to pieces in every 
 country of Europe by the very socialists whose pre-war 
 antics these people are now aping. 
 
 “Tt will not do to belittle the effect of this propaganda 
 on the ground that the Socialist Party, which has been 
 largely leading this movement, fell back over 40 per cent in 
 its votes at the recent election, because the significance of | 
 the socialist sentiment in this country cannot be based upon 
 its votes, most of the socialists remaining aliens, and boast- 
 ing of the fact. Besides, there are several thousands of 
 them in colleges, in pulpits, and in magazine and news- 
 paper offices, where they can exercise a sinister influence. 
 Again, the socialists’ fight against preparedness is not at 
 all from the same standpoint as is that of William Jennings 
 Bryan, Henry Ford or Jane Addams, who base their pacif- | 
 ism on their beautiful ideals of universal peace and the 
 brotherhood of man. The socialists do not want the Gov- | 
 ernment to have back of it an effective army and navy, 
 because they are trying to speed the day when they can 
 overturn it and confiscate all the productive industries of | 
 the country. In so doing naturally they do not want to 
 have to meet an efficient military force. 
 
 “The frank purpose of the socialists was voiced in an | 
 editorial in The New York Call, the semi-official mouth- | 
 piece of that cult at the beginning of the war when it said: | 
 
 You Are Cordially Invited to Attend. If You ne 
 
 ee 
 
 “We have not started this thing (the war) and we hope 
 that our correspondents will comprehend us when we say 
 that, now that it is started, the most cold-blooded calcula- 
 tion on our part at the present moment is that they should 
 all bleed each other to exhaustion so that the coming social 
 revolution may have an easier job of sweeping out the 
 stinking fragments. We are through with protesting, 
 
 ourning and deploring. THAT TIME HAS PASSED 
 AND NOW WE STAND FOR DESTRUCTION—THE 
 DESTRUCTION OF CAPITALISM.” 
 
 IMMIGRATION 
 
 Another problem growing out of the war which will 
 be discussed and which seems to baffle any attempt at 
 solution is the question of immigration. Those who con-- 
 tend that, at the close of the world conflict, we shall have 
 a flood of immigration and those who contend that we 
 Shall have a flood of emigration have equally strong argu- 
 ments. So likewise have those who predict that when 
 peace is restored we shall have so many thousands of men 
 thrown out of work in the munition and exporting indus- 
 tries that the unemployment problem again will confront 
 us ; and, in the same way, those who claim that the demands 
 abroad for all our products, excepting war supplies, will 
 be so great that these extra workers will be more than 
 absorbed, resulting again in a serious shortage of labor. 
 
 _ “Is our nation helpless in this situation, and must it 
 wait until the end of the war to see who is right? Cannot the 
 Government deal with the admission of aliens similarly as 
 It expects to deal with the admission of foreign products? 
 Should not the importation of wage-earners be regulated as 
 certainly as should be the importation of manufactured 
 products? If we are going to lodge in the Government an 
 elastic power to protect our manufactures in this country, 
 should we not also lodge in this same Government an 
 elastic power to regulate the dumping of an oversupply of 
 wage-earners upon our shores? 
 
 “There are many organizations dealing with the immi- 
 gration question from various standpoints. Some would 
 make this country an asylum for all the oppressed of 
 Europe; others see in free immigration only the demands of 
 the employers for an oversupply of labor to hold down 
 wages; some would shut down the gates of Ellis Island 
 completely for ten years; and strangely enough this demand 
 comes both from trade unionists and certain employers, 
 while others have developed such elaborate schemes to 
 educate and improve the lot of immigrants that it prac- 
 tically amounts to a discrimination in favor of the foreign 
 born over the native, and has the effect of dangling before 
 the poverty-stricken of Europe the alluring promise of an 
 education and a job. 
 
 “That these international humanitarians in our midst 
 will have abundant material to work upon, unless prevented 
 by our Government, is stated by Judge Henry Neil of 
 Chicago, who recently returned from a visit to England. 
 Judge Neill is the author of the Mothers’ Pension system, 
 and his trip to Europe was in the interests of that proposal. 
 In an interview he stated: 
 
 ‘The Salvation Army in England is collecting large 
 sums of money for the advertised purpose of shipping the 
 war widows and orphans to other countries on the plea 
 that England will not be able to care for the millions made 
 dependent by war.’ 
 
 “The proposal to give the Government a free hand in 
 dealing with the admission of aliens, just as it will doubt- 
 less be empowered to deal through the Tariff Commission 
 with the admission of products, having in mind the interests 
 of this nation alone, will be considered at the annual meet- 
 ing, and if peace, whether temporary or permanent, should 
 come out of the present efforts the United States might 
 have to face this vital problem very soon. 
 
 PATERNALISTIC PROPOSALS 
 
 “A doctrine that is gaining considerable headway in 
 this country, and one that will be discussed at the Federa- 
 tion’s meeting, is that the great efhciency of Germany, as 
 shown in her phenomenal military triumphs, is largely due 
 to the humanitarian interest of the government in the wel- 
 fare of the working classes, evidenced by its provisions for 
 old age pensions, sickness and unemployment insurance, 
 death benefits, so-called model housing schemes, and so 
 forth. It is claimed that these measures have abolished 
 poverty and pauperism, and have produced a contentment 
 of mind unknown in this country. 
 
 “The argument is made, therefore, that if the United 
 States is ever to be efficient in a military sense, it must 
 adopt these same policies, and there are organizations de- 
 voted to the promotion of such schemes which make a 
 powerful appeal to those who realize the real need to mini- 
 mize conditions of poverty. 
 
 “Tt is claimed by many writers that even individualistic 
 England will emerge from the war as a socialist state be- 
 cause of the taking over by the Government, under military 
 necessity, of the direction of all private industries pro- 
 ducing war supplies. 
 
 “These ideas do not all emanate from socialists and 
 
 _ other radicals, but can be found in the utterance of many 
 
 men in the so-called world of capital. The military suc- 
 
 | cesses of Germany in the war have so impressed the Ameri- 
 
 can public that anything that is stated in reference to her 
 successes along industrial lines is accepted without question. 
 
 The absurdity of comparing the conditions of the work- 
 ing people in Germany as well as in England with the 
 working conditions of wage earners in this country is too 
 
 | apparent to merit serious consideration. It is asserted that 
 
 the official figures in 1914, for instance, showed that Berlin 
 had more paupers per thousand than New York City, 
 while it is stated on good authority that over 50 per cent 
 of the families in Berlin live in two-room apartments, a 
 kitchen and a living room—not a very wholesome housing 
 situation. While in the matter of the prohibition of child 
 labor, this country is in advance of any other in the world. 
 And yet, a campaign of misinformation on the alleged 
 advantages of the foreign workingman over the American 
 is being conducted in this country without any challenge 
 from those who are qualified to deny its soundness. But 
 even if these measures referred to succeeded in abolishing 
 poverty and making the workingmen contented, is there not 
 a larger question in the background which would impel the 
 
 ' American people to pause before adopting the same 
 
 policies? It is the evil effects of a paternalistic government 
 
 on the moral fibre of the people. 
 “This objection is well versed by that veteran labor 
 leader, Samuel Gompers, President of the American Fed- 
 
 be Present, Kindly Reply on the Enclosed Card 
 
 eration of Labor, who stated recently with reference to the 
 contemplated legislation for compulsory health insurance: 
 __ ““Compulsory social insurance, in the countries in which 
 it has been established, has taken the red blood out of the 
 labor movement and out of the activities of the working 
 people, and they have looked to the Government to do the 
 thing for them that the men could do for themselves. It 
 is a reversal of the whole policy and the historic develop- 
 ment of the Anglo-Saxon race, and every movement of that 
 character for the introduction of compulsory social insur- 
 ance will simply take away so much of the self-reliance, 
 the self-assertiveness of the men and women, and instead 
 of their being red-blooded men and women who would 
 present their claims upon their employers and society in 
 assertion of their rights, they would look to Government 
 to take care of them—not to themselves; and think that, 
 in casting their votes once every two or four years, their 
 destinies would be determined, and that in the periods 
 between they would have nothing to do. As to the relative 
 merits of what is proposed, we have done so much in 
 improving the physique, the health, the mind of the workers, 
 that, although it is all too slow, our voluntary system 
 presents the only natural and rational movement consistent 
 with freedom. We have learned to know what freedom is 
 and what it means.’ 
 
 “The position taken by Mr. Gompers on this matter is 
 the same as the official position of the American Federation 
 of Labor at its last two annual meetings, and also the posi- 
 tion taken by the railway brotherhoods. 
 
 “This subject will be discussed at the Civic Federa- 
 tion’s meeting. 
 
 THE RAILROAD CONTROVERSY 
 
 ‘Since our last annual meeting, the most serious rup 
 ture threatened between capital and labor, so-called, was 
 that between the railway brotherhoods and the railroad 
 systems. It grew out of the demand by the 400,000 mem 
 bers of these brotherhoods for an eight-hour day, with 
 time and one-half as overtime pay. If that threatened 
 strike had occurred, it would, in its magnitude and fright 
 fulness of results, have borne the same relation to any 
 previous industrial disturbance in this country as tha) 
 borne by the present world war to any previous military 
 conflict. This controversy was adjusted by an almost 
 revolutionary legislative measure which, if it remains on 
 the statute books, is likely to result in a number of evils 
 only less harmful than the alternative of the strike. 
 
 For years The National Civic Federation and all friend: 
 of what is termed ‘the labor movement’ have been pro 
 moting collective bargaining as the most intelligent anc 
 humane method of dealing between employers and employ 
 ees. And yet, when put to the most crucial test, the high 
 est type of collective bargaining utterly failed between the 
 largest and most intelligent organizations of wage earners 
 and of capital. Does that therefore argue the inadequacy 
 of collective bargaining? The National Civic Federatior 
 had been responsible for the drafting of the so-called New 
 lands Federal Mediation Act which replaced the Erdman 
 Act. Congress had passed the Newlands Act at the re- 
 quest of the railroads, the brotherhoods, and of the Civic 
 Federation, all having declared their belief that its enact- 
 ment into law would almost certainly prevent further large 
 labor disturbances upon railroads, and yet in the recent 
 crisis it proved totally ineffective. In view of this shatter- 
 ing of some of the illusions of the friends of arbitration, 
 mediation, and collective bargaining, the Federation’s com- 
 mittee on Mediation Legislation began at once the 
 drafting of a proposed substitute measure to present to 
 Congress which it hopes will prove more effective in the 
 future. This bill and the reasons for it will also be dis- 
 cussed at the forthcoming annual meeting of the Federa- 
 tion. . 
 
 INTERNATIONAL PEACE PROPOSALS 
 
 A question that looms large on the public horizon at this 
 moment is, ‘‘What part shall this nation play in any interna- 
 tional program looking toward the prevention of future wars?” 
 
 The most widely advertised movement is that which seeks 
 to secure a league of nations to enforce peace. This organiza- 
 tion is led by some of our most distinguished publicists, headed 
 by Ex-President William Howard Taft. 
 
 Another movement, which is led by former Secretary of 
 State William Jennings Bryan, is promoting the principles of 
 what are termed the Bryan Treaties, which have already been 
 entered into between the United States and nearly all the prin- 
 cipal nations of the world excepting the Central Powers. 
 
 There is a third movement looking to the establishment of 
 a World Court, which is to be organized jointly by all nations, 
 and to which all matters of dispute are to be referred. The 
 aims of the first two movements are so diametrically opposed 
 that their respective leaders, Mr. William Howard Taft and 
 Mr. William Jennings Bryan, have announced a series of joint 
 public debates to discuss their differences, 
 
 There is a fourth view, however, which is not crystallized 
 into an organization, but which is radically opposed to the 
 first two proposals and is not enthusiastic over the third as a 
 practical proposition, although, being a voluntary movement, it 
 does not arouse the same criticism as the other two. 
 
 The part of the program of the League to Enforce Peace 
 which most excites opposition is the proposal that the United 
 States shall use its naval, military and economic forces, in 
 conjunction with other nations, against any nation that goes 
 to war without first having submitted its case to a judicial 
 tribunal for hearing and judgment, both upon the merits of its 
 case and upon any issue as to its jurisdiction of the question. 
 Or, if the tribunal decided that it is not a justiciable question, 
 “it shall be submitted to a council for hearing, consideration 
 and recommendation only.” 
 
 It is contended by the experts in dealing with industrial 
 strife that the principles underlying international and indus- 
 trial disputes are identical and that the same reasons that cause 
 compulsory industrial arbitration to fail will render nuga- 
 
 tory any attempt at compulsory international arbitration. 
 
 All these viewpoints will be presented at the annual meet- 
 ing of The National Civic Federation. 
 
 WOMAN’S DEPARTMENT 
 
 The annual meeting of the Woman’s Department will 
 be held coincidently, and among the subjects which will be 
 considered are the national policy on prison reform; coun- 
 try lite and rural betterment problems; the general sub- 
 ject of immigration as it affects woman; endowment funa 
 for chair for rural nursing, and woman’s part in the 
 development of the idea of universal service to the State, 
 especially dealing with physical training in the schools.