CHAPTER XVI


As soon as the I.W.W. article was done, Carl had to begin on his paper
to be read before the Economic Association, just after Christmas, in
Philadelphia. That was fun working over. "Come up here and let me read
you this!" And we'd go over that much of the paper together. Then more
reading to Miss Van Doren, more correctings, finally finishing it just
the day before he had to leave. But that was partly because he had to
leave earlier than expected. The Government had telegraphed him to go on
to Washington, to mediate a threatened longshoremen's strike. Carl
worked harder over the longshoremen than over any other single labor
difficulty, not excepting the eight-hour day in lumber. Here again I do
not feel free to go into details. The matter was finally, at Carl's
suggestion, taken to Washington.

The longshoremen interested Carl for the same reason that the migratory
and the I.W.W. interested him; in fact, there were many I.W.W. among
them. It was the lower stratum of the labor-world--hard physical labor,
irregular work, and, on the whole, undignified treatment by the men set
over them. And they reacted as Carl expected men in such a position to
react. Yet, on the side of the workers, he felt that in this particular
instance it was a case of men being led by stubborn egotistical union
delegates not really representing the wishes of the rank and file of
union members, their main idea being to compromise on nothing. On the
other hand, be it said that he considered the employers he had to deal
with here the fairest, most open-minded, most anxious to compromise in
the name of justice, of all the groups of employers he ever had to deal
with. The whole affair was nerve-racking, as is best illustrated by the