Just so soon as it became evident that mediation under the existing law
had failed and that arbitration had been rendered impossible by the
attitude of the men, I considered it my duty to confer with the
representatives of both the railways and the brotherhoods, and myself
offer mediation, not as an arbitrator, but merely as spokesman of the
nation, in the interest of justice, indeed, and as a friend of both
parties, but not as judge, only as the representative of one hundred
millions of men, women, and children who would pay the price, the
incalculable price, of loss and suffering should these few men insist
upon approaching and concluding the matters in controversy between them
merely as employers and employees, rather than as patriotic citizens of
the United States looking before and after and accepting the larger
responsibility which the public would put upon them.
It seemed to me, in considering the subject-matter of the controversy,
that the whole spirit of the time and the preponderant evidence of
recent economic experience spoke for the eight-hour day. It has been
adjudged by the thought and experience of recent years a thing upon
which society is justified in insisting as in the interest of health,
efficiency, contentment, and a general increase of economic vigor.
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