An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker by Cornelia Stratton Parker
page 147 of 164 (89%)
page 147 of 164 (89%)
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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 |
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