I might answer you that the rights of society and the progress of civilization demand it. It would be a captious answer and yet it would tell the truth. Since the dawn of civilization the laws have been written to protect the rights of property. Courts have been established to interpret the law and determine what man's rights were under the law. No one questions that a dispute about property should be finally settled in the courts. Should either side to such a controversy resort to force instead of the law the strong arm of the government would intervene and punishment would swiftly come to the party at fault. Centuries have piled on centuries without the law's recognizing the right of labor in the aggregate to have a court determine what was a fair and reasonable wage, with the resultant effect that when labor was dissatisfied with the wage paid, its only recourse was to quit work. When there were few men employed and there was opportunity for other employment, this was not a serious hardship to the employer or to labor itself, nor did it endanger the peace, happiness and prosperity of the public at large. But when hundreds of thousands of men are enaged for work under the same terms and the same conditions, and are paid the same wage, then it is practically impossible for one of the men employed in such a service to secure a raise of wages, on his individual merits, as long as he remains in the service because the individual equation is lost in the necessity for uniform hours of service and rates of wage, and if he is not satisfied with the terms of his employment he can only separate himself from his occupation. 229
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Mar 1, 1939
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