The Progressive Democracy of James M. Cox Part 3

"In the fact of an efficient leadership during the war, and of constructive, progressive, economic service in peace, the Republican leaders developed a smoke screen, behind which they seek to gain their objective, the spoils of office. For years the best thought and the humanitarian impulses of civilized countries have been applied to the high purpose of making war practically impossible. The League of Nations became the composite agreement, and now the senatorial oligarchy meets it with the absurd plea that it increases the probability of armed conflict. It not only reveals unworthy intent, but a very poor estimate of American intelligence as well."

Taking the issue to the people, and free from what he termed strait-jacket restrictions, the Governor said at Columbus, when he talked to the Ohio Democratic Convention:

"I carefully reviewed the platform adopted at Chicago, and studied its principles, but I know as much about it now as when I started to read it. I gave intensive thought also to the speech made by the Republican candidate, the purpose of which was to interpret the meaning of that historic doc.u.ment, and after long and vigilant labor I found two p.r.o.nouncements. What was the first? The statement that staggered the sensibilities of the civilization of the world, the unthinkable, monstrous proposal, that in the midst of the uncertainty of the hour, a separate peace ought to be made with Germany. I want you to go back with me just a year and a half, to the time when victory was son; to the time when our boys maintained their vigils on the banks of the Rhine, standing there in solid formation with 2,000,000 great lads behind them. Germany signed the peace doc.u.ment on the dotted line. What has happened in the united States Senate to prevent its acceptance by the upper branch of the American Congress? I need not recall, because every child knows about it. But the soldiers came back home; they were demobilized; they entered into their several walks of life believing that their victory had been complete, and that the offending powers had been brought to terms. And now, with the armies disbanded, and now, with our military strength no longer holding together, it is proposed by the candidate of the Republican party that he will prove false to the boys who stood by when that peace was made. He will destroy the pact and enter into a new covenant.

"Six hundred thousand French died at Verdun defending the slogan, 'They shall not pa.s.s.' More than a million English and Canadians died on the Somme, reforming their ranks, and hurling back the challenge, 'They shall not pa.s.s.' They were possessed of the crusading spirit; they were preserving the Democracy of the world, the very Government of the earth. And now another menace is threatened, and it is proposed that some one, acting in behalf of two millions of soldiers and the one hundred million people of this Republic, shall perform a perfectly perfidious act. Standing at the head of the hosts of the great army which opposes the hosts of reaction; standing at the head of the hosts of Democracy, at the head of the hosts of progress; at the head of the hundreds of thousands of independents of this Country, I give to you this a.s.surance: That this dishonorable deed will not be perpetrated--for two very important reasons.

First, Warren G. Harding will not have a chance to do it; and second, I will not insult two million soldiers by doing it myself.

"And then proceeding to the second stage of these proceedings, the Republican candidate says that after he shall have made a separate peace with Germany, he will then a.s.semble the conscience of the civilization of the world and form an entirely new relationship. If, for the sake of argument only, we are to a.s.sume that a separate peace with Germany were made, I believe that the Government of the United States of America would be so unworthy in the eyes of the nations of the world that none of them would have anything to do with us at all.

"This one question will remain in the public mind. After all this is the crux of the whole situation. The Republican candidate and the reactionaries now in control of the Republican party, promise you nothing whatsoever except a proposal which at is best will involve months and probably years of delay. On the other hand, we promise you this, that after the 4th of March, 1921, with the least amount of conversation possible, we will enter the League of Nations of the world. Our Democratic platform adopted at San Francisco gives us full license and opportunity to enter the League upon terms which will need no defense. Our position is not unbending; it is not captious. We proclaim that we will accept any conditions that interpret, that call attention to the limitations of our Const.i.tution; that serve full notice now upon the powers of the earth that we can go so far and no further.

"In other words we have the opportunity of concluding this, the greatest movement for righteousness in all the history of the world, and then the loose ends of civilization will be put together. The opportunity for exchange will have been restored.

America will proceed upon an era of prosperity and peace without precedent.

"I shall address no audience in America this year without puncturing the smoke screen of hypocrisy and insincerity which has been raised, in order that the reactionaries might creep in behind it and claim their main objective, the spoils of office.

That smoke screen now is the statement that the League of Nations increases the probabilities of war. It would have been just as absurd to have said to the boys at the time our fathers won their freedom, that if you proclaim your independence you are going to have war, because you will have to fight to retain it.

Every school boy in Ohio understands there are three branches of Government, Judicial, Legislative and Executive, and when war has been brought to an end, the head of the Executive Department, the President of the United States, makes the treaty with the power with which we have been at war, and then we find that limitation of power. The President can go no further. He submits it to the Senate for ratification. The President of the United States has very definite power, and there are also very specific powers reserved to the Congress of the United States.

The Congress can do nothing contrary to the Const.i.tution; the President can do nothing contrary to the Const.i.tution. The Const.i.tution provides that war can be declared by Congress, and Congress only. In order to give point and truth to what the reactionary leaders are now contending for, it would be necessary to change the Const.i.tution of the United States. This would require a two-thirds' vote of the House and Senate, and then a three-fourths' vote of the states of the Union. Our machinery was so adjusted that no matter who might be the Executive Officer of this Republic, he did not possess the power to declare war. The power was placed as near to the people as it was possible to place it. It was placed with their Representatives in Congress.

"Now--the Republican leaders in contending that four or five potentates, four or five distinguished statesmen over seas, sitting in the council of the League of Nations, can order our soldiers anywhere, are speaking a deliberate and a willful untruth. Presidential proprieties require that I do not characterize it in stronger language. You know it is very hard to please the opposition, although we are under great debt to them for having made the gauge of battle in this campaign. The proposition to disgrace America by making a separate peace with Germany was simply opening their front lines. I have already entered that opening with the hosts of Democracy around me.

"About three months ago a well-meaning Republican business man was driving through Clark county. His soldier boy was at the wheel, and he looked over into a field and saw a hundred trucks lying there; and he seized upon the circ.u.mstance to attack the Administration at Washington. The son had heard enough of it, and he stopped the car and said: 'Father, you have got to stop talking that way. When we were in the front trench we had warm food, no matter whether we were in the midst of h.e.l.l's fire or not. We had all the ammunition we needed. It was ten times better to have more trucks than we needed than to have fewer trucks than we needed.' And then there is another reason for it all. Need we be reminded that the opposition said that it would require Secretary Baker and President Wilson eighteen months to take 600,000 soldiers over seas, and, recognizing that it would require in all probability more than 2,000,000 soldiers to win the war, that the war would then last, under this Democratic Administration, four times eighteen months. Any child in this country can have the facts presented to him and he will have the mentality to grasp these outstanding circ.u.mstances: President Wilson and Secretary Baker, at the head of the military forces of the nation did not send 600,000 soldiers over in eighteen months' time. They sent 2,000,000 soldiers over in eighteen months' time, and won the war without the loss of a single troop ship."

CHAPTER V

HOW HE HAS DEALT WITH LABOR TROUBLES

No subject furnishes so good an index to the entire record of an executive as the manner in which he has handled the affairs growing out of industrial disputes. Touching, as they often do, a zone of disputed claims, and involving, as they often do, the social rights of workers no less than the rights of property, and entailing, as they frequently have, the duty of maintaining public order, the conflicts between capital and labor test to the utmost the abilities of the Executive Officer of a great industrial state like Ohio. Within its borders are toilers from every land and every clime. In her cities dwell as laborers men and women from every known country and representative of every race--a modern Babel of tongues with a greater variety, were it possible, than those upon whom fell confusion of speech in the ages gone.

And the period during which Governor c.o.x has held away has been one of profound upheavals. There have been strikes brought forth by "hard times," strikes occasioned by efforts at organization of workers, and strikes whose distant origin lay in the economic overturn incident to war inflation with its topsy-turvy of values and its jumble of the normal status. These conditions, then, supply a complete and ample test of the effectiveness of the policy which has been followed. The results of this policy are told in a brief statement by Mr. Oscar W. Newman, a.s.sociate Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court. He said: "Not a soldier was brought to the scene of a single strike (although they were in readiness for emergency); person and property were preserved; and above all, the dignity of the law was maintained."

Nor has capital been offended by the methods pursued. This fact is attested by statements of those who speak for invested industrial wealth. Thus, W. S. Thomas, of Springfield, says that the policies pursued have made "Ohio an oasis in the widespread area of industrial turmoil during and since the great war."

There are cited, too, the conclusions reached by Thomas J.

Donnelly, Secretary of the Ohio Federation of labor, who has written:

"Labor has confidence in James M. c.o.x because the laboring people feel that he understands their needs and is in hearty sympathy with the progressive aspirations of those who earn their bread by the sweat of their brows. As governor, he accomplished more in the interest of the laboring people of Ohio and is held in higher esteem by them than any other governor in the state's history.

"He has done much to avoid and to settle labor troubles. He believes that more can be accomplished through reason and common sense than through force and intimidation; and whenever called upon to send the militia to deal with striking workmen, he always found a way to prevent violence and preserve order without using soldiers for that purpose. During the big steel strike when violence and disorder were rampant in some states where the right peaceably to a.s.semble had been denied to the striking workers, in Ohio, where there were equally as many strikers involved, there was no sign of violence, and the right of workers peaceably to a.s.sembled was not interfered with. If his policy had been followed by other public officials throughout the nation, there would be less unrest and the people would have more confidence in the fairness of government authorities."

It is only necessary to get a comprehensive view of Governor c.o.x's record with respect to labor troubles to tell the plain story of what he has done. He had scarce taken hold as Governor in 1913 when a strike broke out in the great rubber plants of Akron. It seemed to have been fomented by members of the Industrial Workers of the World, but it drew in its train thousands upon thousands of other workers until the great plants were practically idle. In Akron, where a heterogenous collection of industrial workers dwell, idleness was a potent factor in fomenting disorder. The normal course of affairs would have been an attempt to operate the plants with strike breakers under guard, provocative acts upon both sides, and finally, recourse to an armed militia to quell the disorder after the inevitable bloodshed had ensued. Although new in executive experience, Governor c.o.x took another course. He sent trained and trusted investigators to Akron who learned the facts and reported to him accurately upon the situation, including also the grievances of the toilers. At the same time he gave warning to the local authorities that they preserve a strict neutrality in their dealing with the contending forces, and he uttered a solemn warning that the laws must be respected, a.s.suring those of both contending factions that public opinion within the city would speedily ascertain the right and wrong of the controversy. And so it proved to be. But learning there were abuses in the plants that needed correction the Governor gave his a.s.sent to an investigation by a legislative committee through the helpful publicity of which all interests were induced to redress certain grievances. It gave an object lesson not only to Akron but to all the state. It taught even the turbulent element that only harm could come through infraction of the law and through disrespect for rights of person and property. The remainder of the story is that I. W. W. disturbers have more sterile soil in Ohio to cultivate than in any of the states about it.

A startling comparison two years later at East Youngstown, during the administration of Governor c.o.x's successor, disclosed by contrast the value of the peaceful plan. Through a policy of uncertainty and wavering, a riot was allowed to start and military were needed to put down the disorder, life being lost in the process.

The details of the incidents of similar nature to that of Akron need not be recounted here, but the invariable policy pursued was the collection of all the facts, so far as possible, by a representative of capital and one of labor. Of this course, the simple statement can be made that it was eminently successful.

This recital has been made as a preliminary to the narrative of the great steel strike of 1919 on which the Governor's fame as an administrator in troubled times largely rests. The same policy of investigation and research was pursued. Solemn warning was given that freedom of speech and a.s.sembly must be respected rigidly but that neither must become the instrument of license nor of subversive speech or conduct. At the time when the situation reached a critical stage the Governor issued this statement:

"To the Mayors of munic.i.p.alities and County Sheriffs of Ohio:

"I am impressed with the importance of a statement to the mayors and sheriffs as to a policy which should serve as a guide to government, both state and local, in the matter of turbulent conditions which have developed in many communities, from pending industrial disputes.

"We have inquiry at the executive office from local officials clearly indicating that no rule of action has been developed in the face of present emergencies and further that none is in prospect. The const.i.tution imposes upon the Governor the very definite responsibility of law enforcement. While it is the duty of the mayor of a munic.i.p.ality and the sheriff of the county to execute the laws, the founders of our charter of government gave to the state executive, not only the right to keep vigilant eye on conditions in every community, but his oath imposes the obligation so to do. Therefore, in no part of the state must a public officer permit the violation of the law. The mayors and sheriffs seem to have proper concept of their duty in the abstract. The purpose of this statement is to deal with specifications.

"The sections of the state which give the greatest concern have large ma.s.ses of alien residents. Thousands of them do not speak the language. They are not familiar with our laws but it is safe to a.s.sume that the individual conscience tells every man that violence is both a moral and a legal wrong.

"Officers of companies whose manufacturing plants are closed by strike or other cause have expressed to me the intention to resume operations. At the same time they have asked for 'protection.' Inquiry develops this fact--that some employers believe it the duty of government to transport their employees into and out of the plants in question. This is not a function of government. Throughout the years, the policy has been not to make use of soldiers nor policemen to man street cars, for instance, nor in any way to make of them the instruments to bring a strike to an end. If either state or local officers provided safe conveyance of workmen into or out of a manufacturing inst.i.tution, then government would be making of itself the agent of one of the parties to the dispute. If, however, the plant resumes, and disorder of any sort ensues as the result of employees going into or out of the factory, then that becomes an affair of governmental concern and the mayor of the munic.i.p.ality or the sheriff of the county, as location within or without the munic.i.p.ality largely determines, must suppress violence and arrest those who violate the law. I shall exact this from all local officers.

"Picketing as we understand it is neither prohibited by law nor condemned by public sentiment, but it must go no further than moral persuasion. Organized society cannot continue without government, and government will not live unless the laws are respected. They not only express what experience has taught us, but they are the official mandate of the will of the majority, and after all, that is a fundamental principle in a republic.

"All officers must act with care. It will be found that trouble can often be avoided by an open, frank and firm contact of public officers with both the representatives of the employers and employees. No call that I have ever made upon either side of these controversies has ever gone unheeded.

"We are in the midst of unprecedented conditions, but if we devote ourselves to the single thought of making government the agency of justice and the instrument of bringing swift punishment to those who violate the laws of this commonwealth, we will pa.s.s through the storm safely.

"No man must be permitted to define the rules of his individual conduct. The law is supreme. I shall expect its enforcement by local officers. When they have rendered their utmost effort and failed to meet conditions, then the state will act promptly."

In every city in Ohio, save one, this warning was sufficient, but in Canton it became necessary for the Governor to remove the mayor. His successor speedily re-established the peace.

CHAPTER VI

HOW HE HAS DEALT WITH INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS

The story of the result of Governor c.o.x's treatment of industrial issues is told in his parallel of statements from Thomas J. Donnelly, Secretary of the Ohio Federation of Labor, and W. S. Thomas, a leading manufacturer.

Statement by Donnelly:

"Before Ohio had a Workmen's Compensation Law, only twenty per cent of the injured workers, or the widows and children of deceased workers, were paid any compensation or damages. Eighty per cent got nothing whatever. When c.o.x was first elected governor, about five per cent of the workers of Ohio were covered under an optional Workmen's Compensation Law. His first move as governor was to insist upon the pa.s.sage of a Workmen's Compensation Law that would benefit all the workers. In this he met with powerful and bitter opposition. But through his determined efforts the opposition was overcome and the law was pa.s.sed. To-day the Ohio State Insurance Fund is the largest carrier of workmen's compensation insurance, public or private, in the world. More than a million dollars a month is being collected by this fund, all of which is paid out for compensation and medical treatment for the injured workers or the dependents of those who are killed in the course of employment. This law supplied such an urgent need in the state that the employers and the laboring people of Ohio now look upon it as an accomplishment that outshines any other achievement in the state's history.

"The report of the legislative agents of the Ohio State Federation of Labor show that fifty-six laws in behalf of laboring people were pa.s.sed during c.o.x's three terms as governor. Among these were laws forbidding the exploitation of women and children and limiting their hours of labor, providing for mothers' pensions, providing for safety codes to protect life, limb and health and numerous other beneficent measures."

Statement by Thomas:

"His strong sense of right and wrong, and the exercise of an unusual common sense, together with his frankness and courage in expression, have been the controlling factors in his successful relationship with the business interests of the state.

"A single example of his wisdom will ill.u.s.trate this. For years organized labor and organized capital in Ohio have met during the sessions of the general a.s.sembly in what seemed to be a necessary antagonism. This was evidenced by the opposition of each to the proposed measures of the other. The result was ill feeling and little accomplished for either. It was Governor c.o.x's suggestion that these organizations, represented by the State Federation of Labor and the Ohio Manufacturers'

a.s.sociation, through their executive officers, should meet together and discuss pending legislation relating to the interest of either. Finally this plan was adopted, and it is the testimony of those partic.i.p.ating tat it did much to avoid misunderstandings, and contributed a great deal towards sane and safe legislation. There is not known any instance of this plan being adopted in any other state of the Union. The fruit of this sensible procedure is that there are no laws in Ohio that hamper industry, impede business or endanger property interests, and at the same time the state is foremost in legislation that promotes social welfare, gives labor its due, and helps the weak and needy.

"A man who has occupied this position without interruption during three administrations would be a failure at the very outstart if he resorted to devious conduct or political duplicity. He has but one master--the people at large. To reach this position he had to have courage, be truthful, exercise sound and practical business judgment, and at the same time have a vision looking to the betterment of the condition of his fellow-man."

The cornerstone of the labor legislation is the Workmen's Compensation Law, the story of which is told in the state archives, in the messages to the Ohio General a.s.sembly. At the beginning of his first term as Governor in 1913, Governor c.o.x said:

"It would certainly be common bad faith not to pa.s.s a compulsory Workmen's Compensation Law. No subject was discussed during the last campaign with greater elaboration, and it must be stated to the credit of our citizenship generally that regardless of the differences of opinion existing for many years, the justice of the compulsory feature is now admitted. Much of the criticism of the courts has been due to the trials of personal injury cases under the principles of practice which held the fellow-servant rule, and a.s.sumption of risk and contributory negligence to be grounds of defense. The layman reaches his conclusion with respect to justice along the lines of common sense, and the practice in personal injury cases has been so sharply in conflict with the plain fundamentals of right, that social unrest has been much contributed to. A second phase of this whole subject which has been noted in the development of the great industrialism of the day has been the inevitable animosity between capital and labor through the ceaseless litigation growing out of these cases. The individual or the corporation that employs on a large scale has taken insurance in liability companies, and, in too many instances, cases which admitted of little difference of opinion have been carried into the courts.