And as the farmers have accepted the
harvesters as partners they have formed in effect a cooerdinated
producing combination. Without finally settling the problem of
agriculture, they have strengthened the production group and
eliminated strife at the most vital point.
In the period of reconstruction the industrial issues of significance
to democracy will be whether or not management of industry as it has
been assumed by the state for the purpose of war shall revert after
the war to the condition of incompetency which the war emergency
disclosed or whether state management shall be extended and developed
as it was in Germany after the Franco-Prussian War. Fortunately,
these evidences of a new interest of labor in industry as a social
institution, give us some reason to hope that we shall not be confined
to a choice between business incompetency and state socialism. The
evidence of the desire on the part of the labor force to participate
in the development of production is the factor we should keep in
mind in any plans for democratic industrial reconstruction. It is
inevitable that an effort to open up and cultivate this desire
of labor will be regarded by the present governing forces with
apprehension. The movement of labor in this direction is now looked
upon with suspicion even by people who are not in a position of
control. The general run of people in fact outside of those who
recognize labor as a fundamental force in industrial reconstruction,
conceive of the labor people as an irresponsible mass of men and view
their movements as expressions of an irresponsible desire to seize
responsibility.
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