Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/225

 206 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS He signed contracts with the men, jnst as a railroad company might have done. Soon after Goethals's arrival disturbances which had been brewing for some time among the engineers, conductors, and steam-shovel men came to a head. They wanted more pay, and they wanted Goethals to sign agreements with them as Stevens had done. They had brought to bear the tremendous influence of their unions and brotherhoods in the States, so that Roosevelt had sent Taft to Panama to see if the difficul- ties could not be adjusted. A substantial increase in wages was granted; but Goethals, reversing Stevens's policy, re- fused to enter into signed agreements with the unions. Some of the men struck and Goethals promptly filled their places, and when the old workmen wished to come back they had to begin at the bottom of the ladder. Other appeals and complainte went up to Roosevelt, and the unions in the States worked vigorously through their representatives in Congress. The pressure was great, but Goethals remained firm. His position was the result of no hasty decision, nor of prejudice, but grew out of a settled point of view, not only toward this particular work, but toward life. The canal is not a private enterprise, based on profit, he argued, but a government enterprise based on service. We are not here to fight one another, but to fight the jungle and the Culebra slides and the Chagres River. No one is making any profit out of it ; there are no spoils. We are all working here together for a common cause and we are all alike wage- workers. Men *s pay should not be settled on a basis of con- flict, upon their ability through organization to injure the work, but upon the basis of service, or their ability to push the work. It is as unjust for a labor union to force more than its share of wages as against the unorganized men, as it is for a contractor to snatch undue profits. Having no se- crets here, and every record wide open, we can and must settle wages not as a matter of conflict and truce but upon the basis of what each workman earns. This was his logic : his fundamental point of view : and he stood upon it like a rock.