at betterment.

It is the organization of such contact between employer and employees
which distinguishes this advance from the previous drift in large
industry. This type of organization has met with success not only in
non-union shops but in unionized shops, and in the latter case it has
imported the spirit of mutuality in addition to sheer negotiation of
grievance as to conditions of labor. It cannot, in our view, succeed if
it is to be conceived in a spirit of antagonism either to employer or to
union organization.

The trade unions of the United States have conferred such essential
services upon their membership and upon the community that their real
values are not to be overlooked or destroyed. They can fairly claim
great credit for the abolition of sweat shops, for recognition of fairer
hours in industry, reduction of overstrain, employment under more
healthful conditions, and many other reforms. These gains have been made
through hard-fought collective bargains and part of the difficulties of
the labor situation today is the bitterness with which these gains were
accomplished. In my own experience in industry I have always found that
a frank and friendly acceptance of the unions' agreements, while still
maintaining the open shop, has led to constructive relationship and
mutual interest.

In the early days trade unionism was dominated mainly by the economic
theories of Adam Smith, and union labor at that time adopted as one of
its tenets that a decrease of productive effort by workers below their
physical necessities would result in more employment and better wage.
During the past twenty-five or thirty years, this economic error has
been steadily diminishing in American trade unions and while it may be
adhered to by some isolated cases today it is not the economic
conception of large parts of that body. The great majority have long
since realized that an increased standard of living of the whole nation
must depend upon a maximum production within the limits of proper
conservation of the human machine. We find, during the past few years,
many of the unions embracing the further principle of actual cooeperation
with the employer to increase production. I believe the development of
this latter theme opens avenues for the usefulness and growth of trade
unionism of greater promise than any hitherto tried. I am aware of the
current criticism in some union quarters of the development of the shop
council idea for thi