sponsible for planning the curricula of technical schools will take cognizance of the situation. We believe it deserves their most serious attention. May I also suggest that it is of the greatest importance that where such courses in industrial training are introduced, they be not treated by either faculty or students as fads but as very practical and essential parts of the students' preparation. Those of us who are employers can give positive assurance that such an addition to the equipment of graduates will have definite value to them in dollars and cents. But what is of more importance is that the attention of the faculty of our technical schools to this matter would mean much in the modernization of the handling of our labor problem. Above all let it be kept in mind that this subject is not a technical problem but a human one. Not only the mind but also the heart of the prospective manager should be trained and he should be imbued with a thoroughly human and liberal attitude. Only thus will he be able to understand and reach the heart as well as the mind of labor. [222] ADJUSTMENTS OF WAGES AND CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT I V. EVERIT MACY Chairman, Shipbuilding Labor Adjustment Board ASSUME that the purpose of this conference is the same as that of many conferences now being held, namely, to see if any of our experiences during the war will be of service to us in peace times, and whether any of the administrative machinery that was established to carry on the war would be of benefit to perpetuate after the war is over. Relating to the situation as it existed in regard to labor adjustments just prior to our going into the war, as you know, the Council of National Defense was established a few months before our entry into the war, and shortly after that the advisory commission of the Council of National Defense. On this advisory commission Mr. Gompers was appointed as the representative of labor to deal with labor matters. In his usual farsighted way he called a meeting at the office of the American Federation of Labor to form a labor committee to act as advisors and assistants to him in the situation. He had some one hundred and fifty people at that meeting, large employers of labor, organizations of employers frequently formed to fight trade unions, and in addition some fifty or sixty or seventy leading labor leaders of the country. As a result of that meeting an executive committee was appointed on which were representatives of employers organizations and labor organizations, and a certain number of men representing the public and having no direct connections. One of the first acts of that special committee was the drafting of certain general principles. These principles were submitted to the Council of National Defense, and were issued by them as guiding principles in relation to labor and labor conditions to govern the country during the time of the war. The two important principles then announced were, first, that the conditions of labor, conditions of employment and standards of living should not be reduced unless the nation was forced to such an extreme measure; that so far as possible without interfering with the conduct of the war we should maintain all of our previous standards of living. Second, that the conditions that labor had been able to establish in regard to closed shops and open shops, were to remain during the war. In other words, that neither labor nor capital was to take advantage of the situation created by the war to change the conditions as they then existed. These two principles have been of the greatest assistance to the various boards established to adjust wage matters and industrial relations. At the beginning many people did not realize the importance of these labor questions and the necessity for providing for their proper adjustment. As I was saying the other day at a meeting—and I will repeat it here simply to show the situation-we had not been in the war more than two months before a great many small difficulties arose, and the Department of Labor was pushed to the utmost to find a sufficient number of conciliators. The appropriation for conciliators therefore ran out before the end of the fiscal year on July 1. Certain members of Mr. Gompers' labor committee appeared before the committee in Congress having charge of deficiency appropriations, and asked for a supplementary appropriation to enable the Labor Department to continue the same number of conciliators that they then had as otherwise some of the conciliators would have to be dismissed. I happened to be a member of that committee, and we saw the chairman of the committee in the Senate. We told him of the necessity of the additional appropriation, and tried to lay emphasis on the importance of providing for proper adjustments and conciliation of these questions. He gave us about two minutes and ended up by saying that if he listened to all the fool propositions brought before the committee the bill would amount to several billions rather than several hundred millions as it was, and that the matter of labor disputes and settlements was purely a private matter in which the government had no interest whatever at that time. We tried to show him that if strikes resulted in interruption of production it was a very serious war question and one in which the government was vitally interested, but we were unable to convince him. I think that was somewhat |