Editorial Calls on Steel Industry to Acknowledge That Unions Exist, Nov. 4, 1919

From the editorial page of The Commonwealth, Scotland Neck, N.C., Nov. 4, 1919

Too Much Standing Pat

The policy of “standing pat” may be an admirable one at times, but in the present industrial upheaval it is apparently being carried to extremes.

The steel strike is a fair illustration.

Judge Gary in the beginning assumed a sphinxlike attitude, refusing to meet the labor people for a conference, and has since been standing pat.

The strike leaders are in a defiant mood and are also standing pat.

The public is holding the bag and is wondering if a time will ever come when it can let loose.

The strikers may be right in tying up the great steel industry of the United States, or they may not—as you see it.

Judge Gary may be justified in his silent defiance, or he may not—that, also, according to your views.

But one thing is certain. Between the two elements a great international industry is at a standstill, and it will require a long time to recover the ground that is being lost.

Judge Gary should come down from his lofty perch and talk with his workmen. If he is too proud to meet them face to face, he might delegate the task to one of his officials who is more democratic in his tastes and in his views.

The steel trust is powerful, we concede. But an aroused public opinion is even more powerful.

Throw out the radicals and bring the more conservative brains of the two contending forces together and something tangible and satisfactory will result.

Standing pat in this instance is becoming a public calamity, and is breeding bolshevism and national peril.