Page:Back to the Republic.djvu/85

, who nevertheless were guaranteed large salaries and liberal expense accounts.

Would it be wise for business men to submit to the popular vote of the men in the factory the question as to whether or not an additional building should be added to the plant?

What would happen if they made it a custom, after the appointment of a master mechanic or head of a department, to take a referendum vote of the employes and the stockholders as to whether or not he should retain his position?

There has been a disposition on the part of a large percentage of employes to encourage departures from the republic; to try to coerce candidates into making pledges before election; to try to influence legislation by threatening to throw the union vote against a representative who is trying to be fair in the enactment of laws.

Any effort toward class legislation or class division is an appeal to passion, prejudice or cupidity. It is the work of demagogues, be they labor leaders, politicians or so–called social–justice reformers. The spirit of a republic is to recognize the equality of all before the law.

Unions have a right to organize and fix a scale of wages, and my sympathy is with them, so long as they do not molest the rights of persons or the rights of property, but they have no right