Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
VQL. LXIX NO. 15
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Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York. Oct. 11, 1919
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The Present Epidemic of Unrest
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*VER since the signing of the armistice, and in fact before that eventful day, there has been evident
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in this country a steadily developing epidemic of unrest in labor circles—an unrest that has spread
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. until it has involved practically the entire country in industrial disturbances that are fast undermin-
ing the very foundation of business stability and of prosperity itself. When this unrest first made
itself evident it was sporadic in character, and perhaps did not receive the attention from business men gen-
erally that the situation really demanded. The members of the industries first affected were naturally con-
cerned, but the representatives of the other departments of trade, while expressing regret that such conditions
should exist, did not show sufficient vital concern in developments.
Labor trouble has spread until it is now general and involves almost every line of industry. It has
reached home to the members of the music trade through the declaration of strikes in piano factories and in
talking machine plants in a number of cities. It has come home to the trade press through the strike of
printers in New York, where the chief concern is not alone the demands of the printers themselves in the
matter of hours and wages, but in the apparently chaotic condition in union circles for which the publishers
and employing printers must suffer.
The need of the moment is action—not words. It is time for the executives of industry to gather together
and present a united front to protect the very life of industry itself. The rights of labor have been recognized
as never before during the past few years. The voice of labor has been heard with authority in the councils
of business, and has been welcomed there, but instead of this fact bringing about co-operation, it has served
to develop unrest. It is very probable that the rank and file in labor circles for the most part are desirous of
being conservative and of meeting capital half way, but unfortunately the radical element is fighting to gain
control, and the battle now being waged is not alone between employer and employe, but between the radicals
and conservatives in the labor ranks. If business is to be preserved—if order is to come out of chaos—there
must be made no effort at temporizing.
The radicals of the labor ranks, and for that matter conservatives, offer as an excuse for their demands
the necessity of meeting higher living costs, but hesitate to admit that the steadily mounting cost of living is
due in appreciable measure to their own actions. Strikes do, and have, helped to cut down production tre-
mendously at a time when production is recognized as the secret of the successful adjustment of industrial
conditions. It has been estimated that between ten and twenty per cent of the workers of the country have
been on strike constantly since the first of the year, and this means that for this reason alone production has
been cut down just that percentage. Even the element of unrest has resulted in curtailment of output in
plants that are fully manned but where the operatives are uneasy and are not working to the best of their
ability. Government figures go to show that in such fully manned plants production averages only sixty per
cent of normal. Instead of endeavoring to remedy this condition, the labor element comes out strongly for
shorter hours as well as increased pay, thus cutting down production and thereby directly influencing still
higher prices.
What is needed today is a closer union between employer and employe, and a better understanding on
the part of all of the necessity of creating wealth by labor. There is no question but that on American labor
rests the grave responsibility to attain a maximum unit production, and to maintain uninterrupted distribu-
tion of goods, if labor itself is not to suffer from further rises in the cost of living.
Team work was never more imperative than today; the manufacturer, the workman, skilled and
unskilled, the farmer, in fact everyone who works with his hands or brain should realize that efficient
co-operation is necessary to bring about full and proportionate production to meet the Nation's demands.