e in the
world. In this they have been favored by a combination of conditions
which it is not possible to describe briefly; suffice it here to say
that organization is itself not the whole explanation, but only
a small part of it. That organized labor, officially, is strongly
opposed to compulsory arbitration in America, is thus perhaps
sufficiently to be understood on the principle of "Let well enough
alone." When in August, 1916, a strike on the entire railroad system
was threatened by the four railroad brotherhoods, and some action was
proposed in the form of the Canadian act, the trade-union officials
issued a statement containing these words: "Since the abolition of
slavery no more effectual means has been devised for insuring the
bondage of the workingman than the passage of compulsory investigation
acts of the character of the Canadian Industrial Disputes Act." Within
less than a week the brotherhoods called off the strike after Congress
had passed an act giving the men immediately the eight-hour
day--a substantial part of what they had asked--and providing for
investigation, by a commission, of the effects of the rule. This is
compulsory upon the railroads but it is not compulsory upon the men to
accept these terms.

Sec. 15. #The public and labor legislation.# It has come to be recognized
that in every serious labor dispute, especially in such as develop
into strikes, those concerned are not merely the two parties,
employers and employees, but a third party, the public, consisting of
every one else whose interests are not directly or indirectly bound up
with one of the other two parties. The line of demarcation is not easy
to draw exactly. An individual may be divided in sympathy, inclining
to the one party perhaps because of some personal friendships or class
loyalty or to the other party because of material investments, while
in the main having interests distinct from either. But wherever
the public is drawn in as a party, it includes far more persons
and embraces far larger interests than does either of the other two
parties or than do both of them together. The public becomes a party
primarily because it consists of the purchasers and consumers of the
products, who are deprived of the usual supply of goods, more or
less essential to their welfare or even to their existence. With the
increasing division of labor and complexity of industrial organization
more and more kinds of business have, in a greater and