LABOR AND THE LAW IN THE PUBLIC UTILITY FIELD

To the cynical this title may suggest a rhetorical antithesis, and the average citizen cannot but be a bit cynical as a result of his observation and experience of the actuality of the failure of the law to function for the preservation of the continuity of these essential public services in the frequently recurring outbreaks between organized capital and organized labor. In a great measure, he has only himself to blame for this unfortunate condition. He lent ear to the vote-seeking politician and to the propaganda of the interested parties, taking sides with one or the other without thought of his own welfare, until he came to regard the violent adjustment of the conflicting interests of these powerful, selfish groups as a more or less legitimate civil struggle, quite blinded to its sinister character by the euphonious phrase, "industrial warfare." The lengths to which this ever-present internal conflict was carried in the days of war, when the country was battling for its life, aroused the patriotic, thinking citizenship to the realization that the very foundations of our "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" were seriously threatened; but the average citizen, while somewhat disturbed, did not even then sense the real danger of the situation.