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The Commoner
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I II
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President's Address to Labor
.Following Is the address of President Wilson
to tho American Federation of! Labor conven
tion, Buffalo, N. Y November 12, 1917:
"Mr. President, Delegates of. the American
Federation of Labor, Ladies and Gentlemen:
"I esteem it a great privilege and a real hon
or to be thus admitted to your public counsels.
When your executive committee paid me 'the
compliment of Inviting me here I gladly accept
ed tho invitation because it seems to mo that
this, above all other times in our history, is tho
time for common counsel, for tho drawing to
gether not only of tho energies but of the minds
of tho nation. I thought that it was a welcome
opportunity for disclosing to you some of tho
thoughts that have been gathering in my mind
during those last momentous months.
CRITICAL TIME IN HISTORY
"I am Introduced to you aB the President of
tho United States, and yet I would be pleased if
you would put tho thought of the ofllce Into the
background and regard me aB one of your fel
low citizens who has comd here to speak, not
tho words of authority, but the words of coun
sel; the words which men should speak to one
another who wish to be frank in a moment more
critical perht-ps than the history of the world
has over yet known; a moment when it is every
man's duty to forget himself, to forget his own
interests, to fill himself with tho nobility of a
great national and world conception? and act
upon a now platform elevated above the ordin
ary affairs of life and lifted to where men have
views of tho long destiny of mankind.
"I think that in order to realize just what
this moment of counsel Is it is very desirable
that we should remind ourselves just how this
war came about and just what it is for.- You
can explain most wars very simply, but the ex
planation of this ifa not so s'-ncple. Its roots run
deep into all the obscure soils of history, and
1A my viow this is the last decisive issue be
tween the old principle of power and the new
principle of freedom.
WAR STARTED BY GERMANY
"The war was started by Germany. Her au
thorities deny that they started it, but I am
willing to let tho statement I have just made
await the verdict of history. And the thing that
needs to be explained is why Germany started
the war. Remember what the position of Ger
many in the world was as enviable a position
as any nation has ever occupied. The whole
world stood at admiration of her wonderful in
tellectual and material achievements. All the .
intellectual men of the world went to school to
her. As a university man I have been sur
rounded by men trained in Germany, men who
had resorted to Germany because nowhere else
could they get such thorough and searching
training, particularly in tho principles of science
and the principles that underlie modern material
'achievement. Her men of science had matTe her
industries perhaps the most competent industries
of the world, and the label "Made in Germany"
was a. guarantee of good workmanship and
sound material. She had access to all the mar
kets of the world, and every other nation who
traded in those markets feared Germany "because
of her effective and almost irrestible competi
tion. She had a "place in the sun."
GERMANY'S INDUSTRIAL GROWTH
"Why was she not satisfied? What more aid
she want? There was nothing in the world df
peace that she did not already have and have in
abundance. We boast of the extraordinary pace
of American advancement. We show, with pride
the statistics of the increase of our industries
and of the population of our cities. Well, those
statistics did not match the recent statistics of
Germany. Her old cities took on youth and
grew faster than any American cities ever grew.
Her old industries opened their eyes and saw a
new world and went out for its conquest. And
yet the authorities of Germany were not-satisfied.
"You have one part of the answer to the
question why she was not satisfied in her meth
ods of competition. There is no important in
dustry in Germany upon which the government
has not laid its hands, to direct it and, when
necessity arose, control H; and you have only to
ask any man whom you meet whois familiar
with the conditions that prevailed before the
war in the matter of national competition to
find out the methods of competition which the
German manufacturers and exporters used under
the patronage arid support of the government of
Germany. You will find that they were the
samo sorts of competition that we have tried to
prevent by law within our own borders. If they
could not sell their goods cheaper than wo could
sell ours at a profit to themselves they could
get a. subsidy from the government which made
it possible to sell them cheaper anyhow, and the
conditions of competition were thus controlled
in large measure by the German government
Itself.
BERLIN-BAGDAD RAILWAY
"But that did not satisfy the German govern
ment. All the while there was lying behind its
thought and its dreams of the future a political
control which would enable it in the long run to
dominate the labor and tho industry of the
world. They were not content with success by
superior achievement; they wanted success oy
authority. I suppose very fe.w of you have
thought much about the Berlin-to-Bagdad rail
way. The Berlin-Bagdad railway was construct
ed in order to run the threat of force down the
flank of the industrial undertakings of half a
dozen other countries; so that when German
competition came in it would not be resisted too
far, because there was always the possibility of
getting German armies in to the heart of that
country quicker than any other armies could be
got there,
"Look at the map of Europe now! Germany
in thrusting upon us again and again
tho discussion of peace talks, about what?
Talks about Belgium; talks about north
ern France; talks about Alsace-Lorraine.
Wei- those are deeply interesting sub
jects to us and to them, but they are not the
heart of the matter. Take the map and look at
it. Germany, has absolute control of Austria
Hungary, practical control of the Balkan states,
control of Turkey, control of Asia Minor. I saw
a map in which the whole thing was printed in"9
appropriate black the other day, and the black
stretched all the way from Hamburg to Bagdad
the bulk of German power inserted into the
heart of tho world. If she can keep that, she
has kept all that her dreams contemplated when
the war began. If she can I.eep that, her powe
can disturb the world as long as she" keeps i
alwavs provided, for I feel bound to put this
proviso in alwavs provided the present influ
ences that control the German government con
tinue to control it. I believe that the spirit of
freedom can get into the hearts of Germans and
find as fine a welcome there as it can find in any
other hearts, but the spirit of freedom does not
suit the plans of the Pan-Germans. Power can
not be used with concentrated force against free
peoples if it is used by free people.
PEACE RUMORS
"You know how many intimations come to us
from one of the central powers that it is more
Anxious for peace than the chief central power,
and you know that it means that the people in
that central power know that if the war ends as
it stands they will in effect themselves bevas
sals of Germany, notwithstanding that their pop
ulations are compounded of all the peoples of
that part of the world, and notwithstanding the
fact that they do not wish in their pride and
proper spirit of nationality to be so absorbed and
dominated. Germany is determined that the po
litical power of the world shall belong to her.
There have been such ambitions before They
have been in part realized, but never before have
those ambitions been based upon so exact and
precise and scientific a plan of domination.
"May I not say that it is amazing to me that
any group of persons should be so ill-informed
as to suppose, as some groups in Russia appar
ently suppose, that any reforms planned in the
interest of the people can live in the presence
of a Germany powerful enough to undermine
or overthrow them by intrigue or force? Any
body of free men that compounds with the pres
ent German government is compounding for its
own -destruction. But that is not the whole of
the story. Any man in America or anywhere
else that supposes that the free industry and
enterprise of the world can continue if the Pan-
Qorman ,pjan ,is achieved and German power
fastened 'upon .the world is as. fatuous as tho
dreamers in Russia. What I am opposed to is
not tho feeling, of the pacifists, but their stupid
ity. My heart is with them, but my, mind has a
contempt for them. I want peace, but I know
how to get it, and they do not.
'COL. HOUSE'S MISSION
"You will notice that I sent "a friend of mine,
Col.' House, to Europe, who is as great a lover
of' peace as any man in the world; but I didn't
send'himon a peace missipn yet. I sent him to
take part in a conference as to how the war was
to be won, and he knows, z.s I know, that th.it
is the way to- get peace, if you want it for more
than a few minutes.
"All of this is a preface to the conference that
I have referred to with regard to what we are
going to do. If we are true friends of freedom,
our-own or anybody else's, we will see that the
power of this country and the productivity oi
this country is raised to its absolute maximum,
and. that absolutely nobody is allowed to stand
in the way of it. When I say that nobody is al
lowed to stand in the way I do not mean that
they shall be prevented by the power of the gov
ernment but by the power of the American spirit.
Our duty, if we are to do this-great thing and
.show America to be what we believe her to be
the greatest hope and energy of the world is to
stand together night and day until the job is
finished.
LABOR MUST BE FREE
"While we are fighting for freedom we must
see, among other things, that labor is free; and
that means a number of interesting things. It
means not only that we must do what -we have
declared our purpose to do, see that the condi
tions of labor are not rendered more onerous by
the war, but also that we shall see to it that the
instrumentalities by which the conditions of
labor are improved are not blocked or checked.
That we must do. That has been the matter
about which I have taken, pleasure in conferring
from time to time with your president, Mr.
Gompers; and it I may be permitted to do so, I
want to express my admiration of his patriot'c
courage, his large vision, and his statesmanlike
sense of what has to be done. I like to lay my
mind alongside of a mind that knows how to pull
in harness. The horses that kick over the traces
will have to be put in corral.
"Now, to stand together mean's that nobody"
must interrupt the processes of our energy if the
interruption can possibly be avoided w'thout the
absolute invasion of freedom. ' Tb puF it con
cretely, that means this: Nobody has-a right to
stop the processes of labor until all the methods
of conciliation and settlement have been ex
hausted. And' I might as well say r'ght here
that I am not talking to you alone. You some
times stop the courses of labor, but there are
others who do the same, and I Relieve I am
speaking from my own experience not only, but
from the experience of others when I say that
you are reasonable in a larger number of cases
than the cap'taHsts. I am not saying these
things' to them personally yet, because I have
not'had. a chance, but they have to be said, not
in any spirit of criticism, but In order to clear
-the atmosphere and come down to business.
Everybody on both sides has now got to trans
act -business, and aTettlement is never impos
sible when both sides want to do the square and
right, ihing.
. i SETTLEMENT HARD TO AVOID
"Moreover, a settlement Is always hard to avoid
when the parties can be brought face to-face. I
can differ from a man much more radically when
tie is not in the room than I can' when he
is in' -the room, because then the awkward thing
is he can come back at me and answer what I
say.' It is always dangerous for a man to have
the floor entirely to himself. Therefore, we
must Insist in every instance that the parties
Come into each other's presence and there dis
cuss the issues t etween them, and not separately
in places which have no communication with
each other. I always like to remind myself of a
delightful' saying of an Englishman of the past
generation, Charles Lamb. He stuttered a little
bft, and once when he was with a group of
friends he spoke very harshly of some man who
was not present. One of his friends said: "Why.
Charles, I didn't 'know that you knew so and
so." "O-o-h," he said, "I-I 4-d-don't; I-I can't
h-h-hate a m-m-manI-I know." There is a
great deai of human nature, of very pleasant
human nature, in the saying. It is hard to hate
. :t
