§ 17. The public and compulsory arbitration. Where the railways are owned and operated by the state (as is now the case pretty generally except in America and Great Britain) the question of the " right to strike" arises from time to time in critical forms. The logic of the situation compels even those officials that are of the labor party or are most favorable to labor, to maintain an uninterrupted service on the public railways. The experiences of that nature in France and in Australasia have been notable. Nowhere in the United States has the principle of compulsory arbitration been adopted, but at the time of the great anthracite strike, in 1902, public sentiment grew strong in favor of it. As a result of the intolerable conditions in the mines of Colorado, was passed the compulsory investigation act of 1915 in that state. In 1916 the threat of a general railroad strike brought from the public press almost unanimous condemnation of the strike as a method of settlement of wage disputes on the railroads. In the end, organized labor accepted, apparently with much satisfaction, a law involving the legal fixation of wages and the principle of compulsion as applied to the employers. President Roosevelt, at the time of labor trouble in the government printing office, maintained that employees of the government could not have the right to strike. Governor Coolidge (later Vice-President) upheld the same principle in the case of the policemen's strike in Boston in 1919. The trend of public opinion seems to be strongly to the same general conclusion.

References

Abbott, Edith, Women in industry. N. Y. Appleton. 1915.

Adams, T. 8. and Sumner, H. L., Labor problems. Chs. II, VIII, XII, secs. 1-4, 9, XIII, sec. 2. N. Y. Macmillan. 1914.

Barnett, G. E., and McCabe, D. A., Mediation, investigation and arbitration of industrial disputes. N. Y. Appleton. 1916.

Clark, V. 8., The labor movement in Australasia. N. Y. Holt. 1906.

Commons, J. R., and associates, History of labor in the United States.

2 vols. N. Y. Macmillan. 1918.

Commons and Andrews, Principles of labor legislation. Chs. III,

secs. 2, 3, IV, V. Rev. Ed. N. Y. Harper. 1920. Compton, W. M., Wage theories in industrial arbitration. A. E.

Rev., 6: 324-342. 1916. Mote, C. H., Industrial arbitration. 1916. Suffern, A. E., Conciliation and arbitration in the coal industry of

America. Bost. Houghton. 1915. United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletins on many subjects. Webb, Sidney, The economic theory of a legal minimum wage. J.

P. E., 20: 973-998. 1912.