I

Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A.
Joint Commission on Social Service
Reconstruction series. Bulletin, no. 2.191 9

EySZe
—2. 

If

YALE
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

RECONSTRUCTION SERIES - - BULLETIN No. 2
YALE UNIVERSITY
DEC 2 1919
LIBRARY
Reconstruction Programs
A Bibliography and Digest

7.

THE JOINT COMMISSION ON SOCIAL SERVICE
OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH

CHURCH MISSIONS HOUSE :: NEW YORK CITY

FOREWORD
From the confusion of counsels relative to reconstruction some
concrete pieces of wisdom have emerged. The Joint Commission
on Social Service feels that it may help to promote the sane dis
cussion of reconstruction issues in the large by bringing together in a
combined bibliography and digest a number of the more important
programs put forth by responsible organizations and persons. In
framing the comments on the various programs it has seemed de
sirable to give more space to some of the less well-known programs
and declarations than to others better known and no less important,
and also to let the originals speak in a measure for themselves. This
will account for what may appear a lack of proportion in some of
the comments and in some an excess of quotation marks.
It may be noted that some of these programs are radical, some
less radical, even conservative. Some of them would cashier the
wage-system ; others accept it. All alike, however, agree that now is
the time when something must be done to insure to the workers and
the generally less-favored classes a far greater approximation to sub
stantial justice as between man and man than has thus far, even
under the stress of war, been achieved. From these programs in
general emerges the clear conviction that labor throughout the world
is less and less satisfied with increased wages, decreased hours, and
improved conditions of toil, and is more and more insistent on a
greater share, if not the greater share, in the control as well as the
proceeds of industry. It is really industrial democracy in the fullest
sense to which even the international programs or "planks" of labor
are primarily directed. It would be folly for the Church to ignore
them. Particularly to be commended for study are the Church of
England's report on industry, which here follows the program and
resolutions of the British Labor Party and the statement of Inter-
Allied Labor Aims as taking in general the same economic ground,
and the various reconstruction statements of the American Catholic
War Council, the Canadian Methodist Conference, the English
Friends, and the English Church Socialist League. These religious
utterances, notably the last, include some of the most radical de
mands made by any reconstruction conference or agency.
Any one of the programs can be read through in its original
form in half-an-hour; together, they would form a valuable course
of readings.
March 5, 1919. ^J W&7

Reconstruction Programs

Memorandum on the Industrial Situation After the War
Issued by the (English) Garton Foundation (October, 1916), and
commonly referred to as the Garton Memorandum. This, one of
the earliest reports on reconstruction, is the result of an exchange of
views between representatives of employers and employees. It be
gins by declaring that the war has only suspended and not ended in
dustrial unrest, and passes on to discuss the effects of the war, e. g.,
on employment ; on earnings, which will probably be less than before
the war, and if quarreled over by the different parties will lead to in
creasing disputes ; on the distribution of earnings, which cannot be
satisfactory "unless the output can be expanded" ; on capital and
credit ; on the spirit and temper of individual workers, trade unions,
management, etc. Really constructive measures can be formulated
only on the basis of a satisfactory understanding of the "fundamental
question — the relation between employers and employed". Four
guiding principles are laid down: (1) "increased efficiency in pro
duction" through (2) "better methods and organization and a new
attitude towards industry" — reforms which (3) "can only be ac
complished by the co-operation of labor, management and capital",
to secure which (4) "labor must have a voice in matters relating to
its special interests". The Memorandum specifically says : "The
war has not put an end to industrial unrest. Every one of the old
causes of dispute remains, and others of a most serious nature have
been added. . . . The very moderation and unselfishness shown by
the responsible leaders of organized labor are looked upon by im
portant sections of their following as a betrayal of the cause and by
some employers as a tactical opportunity. The efforts of the Gov
ernment to safeguard the interests of the workers are likely to give
rise to unreasonable demands for future action on the one side and
ungenerous criticism on the other. The difficult and complex prob
lem of the return to peace conditions will bristle with thorny ques
tions only to be solved successfully by the clear-sighted and unselfish
co-operation of all concerned. There are too many indications tha*
they may be approached in a spirit of passion and suspicion which
would render a satisfactory solution impossible. . . . The explana
tion of the comparative failure of the employers' associations and
trade unions on the constructive side of the industrial problem is to
be found in their strictly sectional and defensive origin and outlook.
Regarding themselves as entrusted with the interests of one party
to industry, and not of industry itself, they have paid no attention
to the problems and difficulties of the other side, and they have come

together only when one had a demand to make of the other or when
a conflict was imminent. . . . Exchange of views has come at too
late a stage ir the proceedings, when a stand has already been taken
on both sides and prestige or prejudice forms an obstacle to conces
sions. What is still more important, their discussions have been
confined to specific points of dispute, and have not embraced the
consideration of constructive measures for the improvement of in
dustrial conditions and the increase of efficiency." The report has
been characterized by the Guild Socialists or National Guildsmen *
(infra) as unsatisfactory in that it attempts to make peace on the
basis of the wage system.
A Report on Reconstruction by a Sub-Committee of the British
Labor Party
This now well-known British Labor Party program has been re
printed in various forms in this country : in a special supplement of
the New Republic — "Labor and the New Social Order" (February
16, 1918) ; in a pamphlet— "Towards a New World" (W. R.
Browne, Wyoming, N. Y. — $.25) ; it has also been included in such
recent volumes as Arthur Henderson's "Aims of Labor", etc. The
statement bears promise of becoming, if it is not now, the reconstruc
tion classic : it demands not patch-work but a new civilization, of
which the pillars shall be "a national minimum, viz., 'the securing
to every member of the community . . of all the requisites of
healthy life and worthy citizenship' ; 'democratic control of industry' ;
a 'revolution in national finance' in the interest of the less favored
classes; and the surplus wealth for the common good". Though
applying primarily to Great Britain, it has already been an inspira
tion to social thinkers and workers in practically every country of
the globe, and should be known by everybody who is at all interested
in the general problem of reconstruction.
Resolutions of the British Labor Party
Adopted at London, June 26, 27, 28, 1918 (reprinted in the Survey,
August 3, 1918) as supplementary to its program (supra). Re
affirms the need of social reconstruction instead of the "patch-work
jerry-mandering of anarchic individualism and profiteering of the
competitive capitalism of pre-war time" — "a new social order based
not on internecine conflict, inequality of riches, and dominion over
subject classes, subject races, or a subject sex, but on deliberately
planned co-operation in production, distribution and exchange", etc.
Among the special planks of this platform are the need for increased
production, involving "the elimination of every kind of inefficiency
and waste ; . . . improvement in social, political, and industrial or
ganization; . . . the marshalling of the nation's resources so that
each need is met in order of, and in proportion to, its real national
importance", etc. ; maintenance and protection of the standards of
life as against efforts of employers to reduce wages with the return
of peace; such provision for the demobilized soldier or sailor that
* See especially S. G. Hobson, Guild Principles in War and Peace (1917),
particularly Chs. IV et seq.

"there should be no gap between the cessation of his pay and separa
tion allowance and the beginning of his unemployment benefit" — and
other safeguards ; care in demobilizing civilian war-workers so as to
avoid individual suffering and industrial dislocation; restoration of
trade union conditions ( cf . infra — Principles of Guild Socialism )
— as applying to wages, hours, conditions and customs of labor; the
prevention of unemployment, involving among other things "buffer
employment" — i. e., public works, etc. ; unemployment insurance ; the
complete emancipation of women "with regard to industry on de
mobilization" and also "with regard to civic rights" ; the restoration
of personal liberty — freedom of speech, of publication, of the press,
of travel, of choice of residence or of occupation; political reforms,
including complete adult suffrage, absolutely equal rights for both
sexes, the same civic rights for soldiers and sailors as for officers,
etc. ; provision for "every boy and girl, . . . also . every adult
citizen" of "all the training, physical, mental and moral, literary,
technical and artistic of which he is capable" — implying "a system
atic reorganization of the whole educational system from the nur
sery school to the university on the basis of social equality" ; housing
reform ; abolition- of the poor law and development of the municipal
health service; temperance reform; continued national control of
railways and canals, involving the "expropriation of the present
stockholders on equitable terms" ; further nationalization of coal and
iron mines ; assumption by the state of the "whole function" of life
assurance, "giving in place of the present onerous industrial insura-
ance policies a universal benefit free of charge", etc. ; reform of
rural life and agriculture, involving government farms and indi
vidual small holdings, cultivation by co-operative societies, etc. ; con
trol of capitalist industry on the basis of wartime experience ; a re
form in national finance which shall specially recognize the people's
right to the land as opposed to special vested interests which have
enjoyed unearned increments. Besides containing some clauses on
home rule not only in Ireland but in Scotland, Wales, and England
itself, which are of no particular interest to American readers, the
Resolutions close with a demand for a "peace book" — containing a
definite formulation of the main outlines of the national policy of
demobilization, which shall furnish the basis for public criticism.
Finally, the Resolutions call for a revision of the Party Program
(supra) .
Memorandum of War Aims Adopted by the Inter- Allied Labor
and Socialist Conference, London, February, 1918
This document has also been reprinted as a supplement to the New
Republic (March 23, 1918). It deals with both international and
intra-national questions, reiterating the declaration of the Socialist
and Labor parties of the Allied nations of February 14, 1915, which
declared that the European war was "a monstrous product of the
antagonisms which tear asunder capitalist society and of the policy
of colonial dependencies and aggressive imperialism, against which
International Socialism has never ceased to fight, and in which every

government has its share of responsibility". It declares for a
League of Nations for the enforcement of peace in place of the now
outworn bargaining between rival diplomats, and makes specific sug
gestions concerning the solution of the problems of Belgium, Alsace-
Lorraine, the Balkans, Italy, etc. It "declares against all the pro
jects now being prepared by imperialists and capitalists, not in any
one country only but in most countries, for an economic war after
peace has been secured, either against one or other foreign nation
or against all foreign nations, as such an economic war, if begun
by another country, would inevitably lead to rivalries to which each
nation in turn might be driven. . . . The Conference realizes that
all attempts at economic aggression, whether by protective tariffs or
capitalist trusts or monopolies, inevitably result in the spoliation of
the working classes of the several countries for the profit of the
capitalists; and the working class see in the alliance between the
military imperialists and the fiscal protectionists in any country not
only a serious danger to the prosperity of the masses of the people
but also a grave menace to its peace. ... To make the world safe
for democracy involves much more than the prevention of war, either
military or economic. ... In view of the probable world-wide
shortage after the war of exportable food-stuffs and raw materials
and of merchant shipping, it is imperative, in order to prevent the
most serious hardships and even possible famine in one country or
another, that systematic arrangements should be made on an inter
national basis for the allocation and conveyance of the available
exportable surpluses of these commodities to the different countries
in proportion, not to their purchasing powers, but to their several
pressing needs" The Memorandum also demands restoration of the
devastated areas and reparation of wrongs done. It contains the
memorable utterance — "Of all the conditions of peace none is so
important to the peoples of the world as that there should be hence
forth on earth no more war."
Christianity and Industrial Problems, Being the Report of the
Archbishops' Fifth Committee of Inquiry
This report is one of five * which have come out of the National
Mission of Repentance and Hope inaugurated by the Church of
England in 1916. The report, published in 1918, calls the Church
to consider the social applications of the Gospel, tracing the thought
and the practice of Christianity through the ages with reference to
the social and economic order, involving the basic questions of prop
erty, poverty, slavery, charity, etc., pointing out that the attitude
especially of the medieval Church was quite different from that of
the modern Church, which has been influenced greatly by economic
doctrines growing up since the seventeenth century, as a result of
changed conditions and new forces in industry. The core of the
report may be found in the section (Chapter IV) devoted to "urban
life and industry", in which it follows, generally speaking, the lines
* The other four deal with ecclesiastical matters, such as doctrine, worship, etc.
6

of the British Labor Party Program (supra). The report accepts
the wage-system but insists that a new spirit must be introduced into
industry and economic life in general, which shall provide not only
for "co-operation for public service, not competition for private
gains" as "the true principle of industry", but also for adequate
remuneration of workers, proper conditions of employment, "ade
quate leisure", "the prevention of and provision for unemployment",
etc. The remainder of the report is given over to a discussion of
education, which has application chiefly to characteristic English con
ditions, though some of the recommendations, such as "the impor
tance of a liberal education for all, the physical welfare of children
and young persons, . . the lengthening of the period of full-time
attendance at school, the establishment of compulsory continued
education up to the age of eighteen", etc., have application and sug-
gestiveness for American life. The following excerpt from the
conclusion of the report is significant: "The democratic movement,
just as those movements which preceded it, will not be without its
dangers, and the minds of its best and wisest men will not be blind
to these. . An ordered liberty cannot maintain itself without
self-discipline, selflessness, patriotism, mutual confidence, and
brotherliness of spirit, a readiness to serve and suffer for the com
mon good and to trust and follow chosen leaders with loyalty and
self-suppression. For all this it will need the strong stuff of deep
and sterling character. But it is just to produce these qualities that
the Church, if it knows its own business, exists. . The men for
whom Christ is the real guarantee of moral and spiritual values will
be armed as none other can be against all the practical materialism
which is the vast and encroaching peril of complex civilizations.
Reflection upon the Lord's own principle that he who would save
his life must lose it will show that its true meaning is intensely
social. . . . The call which is sounding in this day of world judg
ment is that we should not only hold the faith but re-order our life —
social as well as personal — in accordance with its principles. This
we know to be the true mission of the Church. This we are per
suaded is the true interest of the community."

Report of the British Ministry of Reconstruction's Sub-Com
mittee on Relations between Employers and Employed
Commonly referred to as the Whitley Reports (from the name of
the chairman of the Sub-Committee). Four reports have been
issued: one on March 8, 1917; two on October 18, 1917; one on
January 31, 1918 — the first three dealing with industrial organiza
tion, the last with conciliation and arbitration. Dividing industries
into' those in which employers and work people are already re
spectively organized (Group A), those which are partially organized
(Group B), and those at present either unorganized or imperfectly
organized (Group C), the Sub-Committee proposes for Group A
a "triple organization of national, district and workshop bodies"
(work committees, industrial councils), formed voluntarily by the

employers and employees, on which both are 'represented.^ The
workshop committees shall deal not with wages and hours, "which
should be settled by district or national agreement", but rather with
"questions closely affecting daily life and comfort in, and the success
of, the business, and affecting in no small degree efficiency of work
ing, which are peculiar to the individual workshop or factory. . . .
We look upon successful works committees as the broad base of the
industrial structure which we have recommended, and as the means
of enlisting the interest of the workers in the success both of the
industry to which they are attached and of the workshop or factory
where so much of their life is spent. These committees should not,
in constitution or methods, discourage trade organizations" (unions).
In Group B industries "where there are representative associations
of employers and employed, which, however, do not possess the
authority of those in Group A industries, ... the triple organization
[supra] should be modified by attaching to each national industrial
council one or . two representatives of the Ministry of Labor to
act in an advisory capacity". "In industries having no adequate
organization of employers and employed (Group C) . . . trade
boards should be continued or established,* and . . . these should,
with the approval of the Minister of Labor, be enabled to formulate
a scheme for an industrial council". The foregoing recommenda
tions are endorsed by the Minister of Labor in a communication to
leading employers and trade unions. It will be noted that these re
ports frankly accept the 'wage-system as the basis of industrial rela
tions, attempting merely to effect better and closer co-operation
between employers (including state and municipal authorities) and
workers (by contrast with more radical proposals, such as those of
the Guild Socialists — infra — who would do away with the wage re
lation). The last report of the Committee, opposing compulsory
arbitration and forcible prevention of strikes and lockouts pending
an award, recommends voluntary resort to arbitration or mediation,
if possible through a permanent governmental board, though in
minor controversies a single mediator who is persona grata to both
sides may be more effective.

Workshop Committees
Written by C. G. Renold of Manchester, England, at the request of
the Section of Economic Science and Statistics of the British Asso
ciation (1916-1917) and reprinted by the Survey (October 5, 1918)
as Reconstruction Series No. 1. A discussion not of the general

* The British Trade Boards Act "was originally intended to secure the estab
lishment of a minimum standard of wages in certain unorganized industries,
but . . . the trade boards should be regarded also as a means of supplying a
regular machinery for negotiation and decision on certain groups of questions
dealt with in other circumstances by collective bargaining between employers'
organizations and trade unions" (from the Whitley Committee's Second Re
port on Joint Standing Industrial Councils, paragraph 11 — October 18, 1917).
Additional legislation is urged to give the trade boards the additional powers'
above suggested. 8

question of reconstruction but of a special method which has re
ceived increasing attention of late (cf. supra — Reports of the British
Ministry of Reconstruction's Sub-Committee) The author says by
way of introduction : "It is assumed that the need is realized for a
new orientation of ideas with regard to industrial management" and
"that the trend of such ideas must be in the direction of the devolu
tion of some of the functions themselves. . . It must be admitted
that the conditions of industrial life fail to satisfy the deeper needs
of the workers and that it is this failure even more than low wages
which is responsible for much of their general unrest. . . The
satisfaction to be derived from work depends upon its being a means
of self-expression. This . . . depends upon the power of control
exercised by the individual over the materials and processes used
and the conditions under which the work is carried out . . . — on the
willingness, understanding, and imagination with which he under
takes such a role. In the past the movement in industry . . . has
all been in the wrong direction, namely, a continual reduction of
freedom, initiative and interest, involving an accentuation of the
'cog-in-the-machine' status. Moreover, it has too often produced
a 'cog' blind and unwilling, with no perspective or understanding
of the part it plays in the general mechanism of production or even
in any one particular series of operations." The writer recognizes
that "any scheme of devolution of management can only stand pro
vided it involves no net loss of productive efficiency", but "even
should the introduction of more democratic methods of business
management entail a certain amount of loss of mechanical efficiency
due to the greater cumbersomeness of democratic proceedings, if it
can succeed in obtaining more willing work and co-operation, the
net gain in productivity would be enormous." Hence the need of
"the establishing of touch and understanding between employer and
employed ; between management and worker. . . . There is a vast
amount of bad feeling due to misunderstanding on the part of each
side of the aims and motives of the other. Each party, believing the
other to be always ready to play foul, finds in every move easy
evidence to support its bitterest suspicions. . . . More important
therefore than any reconstruction of management machinery, more
important even than the remedying of specific grievances, is the
establishing of some degree of ordinary human touch and sympathy
between management and men." Of the details of his plan the
writer says : "Under Section I, some of the functions of manage
ment which most concern the workers are considered with a view
to seeing how far the autocratic (or bureaucratic) secrecy and ex-
clusiveness which usually surround business management as far as
workers are concerned is really unavoidable, or how far it could be
replaced by democratic discussion and joint action. The conclusion
is that there is no reason inherent in the nature of the questions
themselves why this cannot be done to a very considerable extent.
Section II deals with the machinery needed to make such joint
acdon . . . workable. . . . The apparent complication of such
machinery is doubtless a difficulty, but it is not insuperable. . It
9

must be realized . . that the task of elaboration of the machinery
for joint working adopted by any particular industry or firm must
be in relation to the elaboration of the existing management system.
It would be quite impossible for many of the refinements of discus
sion and joint action suggested to be adopted by a firm whose ordi
nary business organization was crude, undeveloped, and unsystem
atic." The last two sections contain summaries and additional com
ment. Some of the specific problems with which such joint machin
ery would deal are collective bargaining concerning wages, piece
work rates, watching the operation of special legislation, awards,
or agreements ; grievances ; general shop conditions and amenities ;
general social amenities; interpretation of management to workers;
education in shop processes and trade technique ; promotion ; educa
tion in general business questions. Shop committees must keep in
touch with both trade unions and the management and must conduce
to rapid action. The particular type of committee will be deter
mined by the type of labor, stability and regularity of employment,
elaboration of management organization. Among the special
schemes of organization suggested are shop stewards' committees,
social unions, and welfare committees.
Principles of the National Guilds Movement (Guild Socialism)
Clearly and cogently set forth by a group of able apologists in
various recent volumes : e. g., G. D. H. Cole — Self -Government in
Industry, The World of Labor, Labor in Wartime, Labor in the
Commonwealth; S. G. Hobson — Guild Principles in War and Peace,
National Guilds (in collaboration with A. R. Orage) ; Reckitt and
Bechhofer — The Meaning of National Guilds; see also three papers
by Cole, Reckitt and Mellor in a symposium on Industrial Recon
struction (edited by H. Carter). The Guild Socialist idea is briefly
a combination of Syndicalism and Collectivism (State Socialism) —
the first standing for control of industry by the producers, the second
for control by the public as consumers. Guild Socialism would
place industry under joint control of both producers and consumers
after the present wage or capitalistic system has been overthrown.
This new movement opposes equally the "accommodationist" atti
tude of orthodox British unionism and the covert attempts of em
ployers to entrench themselves in "State Capitalism" — control of
industry by government, which is itself controlled by capital. It sees
the workers' enemy not in poverty but in (wage-) slavery: the
worker is not a slave because he is poor, but poor because he is a
slave. The proponents of Guild Socialism are not much encouraged
by the results of the war, which has shorn the unions of many of
their hard-won rights, though at the same time giving them higher
wages. The "restoration of trade union conditions" must be but the
prelude to labor's fight for industrial freedom through the acquisi
tion of industrial control.*

*"A National Guild is the combination of all the labor of every kind, ad
ministrative, executive, and productive, in any particular industry. It in-

10

Conclusions of Twenty British Quaker Employers
Reprinted in The Survey (November 23, 1918) as Reconstruction
Series No. 2. The result of four days' discussion in 1917 and 1918
under the heads of wages, status of workers, security "of employ
ment, working conditions and the social life of workers, appropria
tion of surplus profits. The statement distinguishes between mini
mum or "basic" wages, and wages above the minimum, "which may
be referred to as 'secondary' ". The basic wage of men in the aver
age industry for average capacity should enable "them to marry, to
live in a decent house, and to provide the necessaries of physical
efficiency for a normal family, allowing a reasonable margin for
contingencies and recreation". Women employed to do men's work
should receive the same pay. The precise amount of the "secondary"
wage may be left to bargaining, provided the employer remembers
"that the pleasures and varieties of life are just as dear to the work
ers as to himself and that they too need comfort, rest, and change of
scene" This will demand "the co-operation of the employees in the
form of better and more intelligent work". As to status of workers :
"With the financial and commercial aspects of the business the
worker is not at present so directly concerned, although indirectly
they affect him vitally. But in the industrial policy of the business
he is directly and continuously interested, and he is capable of helping
to determine it" This may be secured through existing shop com
mittees, or through workers' councils or committees to be estab
lished, which shall deal with questions of wage-rates ; disciplinary
and shop rules ; the engagement and dismissal of workers ; the time
and duration of factory holidays, adjustment of working hours and
number of staff to meet shortage of work; health, canteen, and other
social work. Security of employment involves "reducing the em
ployment of casual labor to the very lowest limit" and "regularizing
work throughout the year so far as possible" ; the reabsorption in
other departments of workers replaced by improved machinery; dis
missal of employees only "as a disciplinary measure in the last
resort" ; training of adolescents for adult occupation. Working con
ditions involve personal environment, material environment, and
social conditions : "employers should remember that confinement to
one monotonous task, not only month after month but year after
jear, is apt to deaden the intellect and depress the vitality of the
worker", and ^should make provisions to overcome these dangers.
Surplus profits belong as a whole neither to the proprietors nor to
the workers: "the consumer should never be exploited" and "in

eludes those who work with their brains and those who contribute labor power.
Administrators, chemists, skilled and unskilled labor — everybody who can
WOrk  are all entitled to membership. Numerically considered, the trade-
unions must form the bases of these National Guilds ; but they, in their turn,
must merge into the greater body. It is, of course, evident that such an
organization would have a complete monopoly of its labor power. Possessing
that monopoly, the commodity valuation of labor would go by the. hoard, and
with it the wage system." — S. G. Hobson, Guild Principles in War and Peace,
Ch. I. 11

equity . . . may claim the greater part of surplus profits. If this is
not taken in the form of taxation, we think that it should be re
garded by those into whose hands it passes as held in trust for the
community". In conclusion, these enlightened employers "believe it
to be our duty to promote a progressive spirit in the various trade
organizations with which we will be associated. In this connection
we suggest the desirability of giving full information as to wages,
average costs and average profits in industry as a basis for effectual
collective bargaining and as a recognition of the public character of
our industrial functions" (italics ours).

Minimum Program of French Labor ("Confederation Generate
du Travail")
As summarized in The Survey, January 11, 1919. The international
principles of the French General Federation of Labor, thus outlined,
include a league of free peoples to abolish war and establish justice;
no economic war after the war, no protective tariffs, and free "lines
of sea communication" under international guarantees; national
"specialization" in production (and distribution) according to each
country's peculiar aptitude and raw materials — transportation and
colonial economic resources to be internationalized therefor; no re
prisals but simply reparation of damage done, and no annexations —
the recognition of the right of peoples to self-determination; dis
armament under the society of nations as a means of peace and in
ternational democracy. The Confederation further demands an
"official place" at the peace table; restoration of civil or constitu
tional liberties abrogated in wartime; recognition of "free union
rights" for all workers, including municipal, departmental, and state
employees ; the universal eight-hour day ; abolition of dangerous and
unhealthy work for women and children under eighteen, and "pro
longation of the school age" to fourteen years ; economic revival on
a peace-time basis (demobilization and re-employment) under a
national council including labor representatives; unemployment in
surance ; no profiteering in reconstruction of devastated areas, and
rebuilding of "cities, communes, and factories" with due regard to
hygienic and esthetic considerations ; "uninterrupted development of
the national industrial equipment and unlimited diffusion of general
and technical knowledge" ; abolition of "sterile and murderous
routine" and of "all voluntary restriction of production and all sur
plus of producers" ; maintenance of the nation's "social right (droit
social), created by the labor of past generations, maintained by the
common effort of the economic organisms, and developed by the
sacrifices to which individuals have consented for the successive
transformation of these organs". This involves state control of
production as a safeguard against private exploitation and of all
public utilities and natural resources — through delegates of pro
ducers and consumers (analogous apparently to the program of the
English National Guilds or Guild Socialism), who shall also control
prices, technique, wages, as well as working conditions, insurance,
12

distribution of profits, though without entirely strangling private
initiative. Especially must the individual be safeguarded ("the
security of individuals is more important than that of property")
through education, sanitary housing, unemployment, invalidity, and
old age insurance. "Every workman, whatever his nationality, has
the right to work whenever he can ... , to enjoy all trade union
guarantees, especially in the administration of his union in the coun
try where he works. . . . Labor migrations shall be organized . . .
under organizations on which the national workingmen's and em
ployers' associations shall be represented as well as the govern
ment. . . . The recruiting of emigrants is placed under the control
of the labor organization of the country of emigration". "The high
cost of living must be reduced by suppression of all customs and
duties on food, fuel, and lighting. The income tax and war profits
law [must] be strictly applied and ... a new law [must] tax in
heritances ... to diminish the burden of the nation". These and
other details constitute a "minimum program" which should be com
pared and contrasted with the more philosophic but perhaps no more
fundamental British Labor Program (supra).

A Statement of Principles
Issued by the League of Free Nations Association (130 West 42nd
Street, New York City). The object "is to promote a more general
realization and support by the public of the conditions indispensable
to the success, at the Peace Conference and thereafter, of American
aims and policy as outlined by President Wilson. . . The purposes
of such a League are to achieve for all peoples, great and small, (1)
security — the due protection of national existence; (2) equality of
economic opportunity", involving access of all nations to raw ma
terials and markets, non-exploitation of colonies for the benefit of
the home population, internationalization of rivers, canals, straits and
railroads, and access to the sea of land-locked states. This state
ment of principles sees the rudiments of a "progressive interna
tionalism" in the Allied combinations for securing "military re
sources, shipping and transportation, food, raw materials and
finance. . . . Complete publicity and effective popular representa
tion must be insisted upon" if an efficient League of Nations is to
be established "upon the principle that the security of each shall rest
upon the strength of the whole. . . . The formation of such an
association should be an integral part of the [peace] settlement itself
and its territorial problems, and not distinct therefrom. It should
prohibit the formation of minor leagues or special covenants, or
special economic combinations, boycotts, or exclusions. . . . The
effective sanction of the association should not be alone the com
bined military power of the whole, used as an instrument of repres
sion, but such use of a world-wide control of economic resources as
would make it more advantageous for a state to become and remain
a member of the association and to co-operate with it than to chal
lenge it". 13

"Labor's Fourteen Points"
Adopted by the Chicago Federation of Labor as a proposed platform
for a National Independent Labor Party; published _ in the daily
press and reprinted in magazines — e. g., in Reconstruction (January,
1919). The fourteen points are labor's' right to organize and deal
collectively with employers; democratic control of industry ; an eight-
hour day and a minimum wage; abolition of unemployment; equal
rights, political and industrial, and equal pay for men and women ;
the end of profiteering, and the reduction of the cost of living "by
the development of co-operation and the elimination of wasteful
methods, parasitical middle-men", etc. ; democratization of educa
tion; extension of soldiers' and sailors' insurance to all workers; in
heritance, income, and land-values taxation as a means of paying war
debts and government expenses ; public ownership of public utilities,
including nationalization and development of natural resources to
furnish employment for returning soldiers and sailors and displaced
war workers ; restoration of freedom of speech, of the press, and of
assembly; representation of labor in all governmental departments
and agencies of demobilization and reconstruction; representation
of labor at the Peace Conference ; the abolition of kings and wars.*
Program of the Farmers' National Conference on Reconstruc
tion in America and International Reconstruction
Adopted at a recent convention in Washington after "a program
drafted in advance" had been "carefully considered by the delegates
before they met". "The farmers declare for government ownership
and development of natural resources and government ownership
and operation of means of transportation, including the merchant
marine; they endorsed the recommendations of the Federal Trade
Commission on the meat-packing industry ; and demand that the cost
of the war be met by taxes upon inheritances, incomes and land
values. They declare 'for general amnesty for all political prisoners,'
for reorganization of rural education to prepare the children of the
country for tasks as citizens, and call upon the government to for
mulate a plan for the speedy withdrawal of foreign troops from
Russia. Probably no labor leader would ask for a more sweeping
labor demand than that of the farmers that the principle be estab
lished 'that labor is the first fixed charge upon all industry.' The
conference endorsed the league of nations, stating that among the
instrumentalities of such a league it believes to be essential are an
international investment board, board of trade, commerce commis
sion, institute of agriculture and labor board. Reduction of arms
and armaments is also demanded." i

* This platform has been recently endorsed by organized labor in New York
City and other centers, or similar programs adopted. The American Federa
tion of Labor has also adopted a similar, though longer, platform.
t Quoted from The Survey (January 25, 1919). "The conference did not stop
with resolutions or the adoption of a reconstruction program. It authorized
the creation of a Farmers' National Council charged with carrying it out.
This council is to work largely through committees working for the several
planks of the platform. As a means of putting the program into operation
14

A Program of Social Reconstruction
Issued by the Social Democratic League of America (277 Broadway,
New York). Price $.10. Stresses "the tendency of the war to in
troduce democratic control over industry" and discusses a national
program and an international program. The first section treats of
labor after the war, social insurance, maximum prices and rents,
taxation, wealth, education, government ownership and control
during and after the war and its extension, government control of
capital, agriculture, and the land, governmental organization of com
munity development, co-operative societies. The international pro
gram discusses world organization for international democracy,
economic internationalization, internationalization of international
capital and transportation, international co-operation in world trade,
and a political confederation of the various democracies.

Study Outline in the Problems of the Reconstruction Period
Association Press, New York. $.25 per copy, $2.00 per dozen. Re
vised edition November, 1918. Compiled by the following: Her
bert L. Shenton of Columbia University, Harry F. Ward of Union
Seminary, and Paul Moore Strayer, President of the Presbyterian
Social Service Commission, who were the final revision committee ;
Henry Churchill King, Worth M. Tippy, Walter Rauschenbusch,
Owen Lovejoy, John Spargo, Sidney Gulick, Porter Lee, Frank M.
Crouch, B. S. Winchester, Henry Sloane Coffin, W. S. Culbertson,
Henry A. Atkinson, Charles Stelzle, Stephen S. Wise, George M.
Forbes, F. E. Johnson, James Bishop Thomas, Mrs. Lucia Ames
Mead, Samuel Z. Batten, Rabbi Horace J. Wolf, Frederick Lynch,
Daniel Poling, Alva W. Taylor, Raymond Fosdick, John McDowell,
Richard Edwards, and the specialists of the Y. M. C. A. and the
Y. W. C. A. Designed for study groups of various parishes, Young
Men's Christian Associations, Young Women's Christian Associa
tions, etc., and divided into three sections — Immediate Problems,
Permanent Tasks and Aims, Moral Forces in Reconstruction. The
first section deals with the home-coming man, the broken family, the
status of woman, alcoholism, social vice ; the second with war finance
and the increased burden of living, democracy and the war, indus
try, nationalism and internationalism, the ending of war; the third
with the new spirit of co-operation and service, the new task of
organized religion, "What we are aiming at". Each lesson consists
of topical headings with special bibliography, including books,
pamphlets, and magazine articles under each section.

the conference also provided for the organization of a Farmers' National
Non-partisan Congressional Committee to work for the re-election of mem
bers of both branches of Congress who have supported the farmers' program
and to secure the election of more farmers to Congress, pledged to the
farmers' program." 15

The New Social Order in America
Prepared by the Helen S. Trounstine Foundation (Cincinnati,
Ohio). First revision, July, 1918. A study syllabus based on what
is assumed to be the Anglo-Saxon preference for "continuous evo
lution" vs. "sudden forcible overthrow of existing . . . institu
tions". Deals with the "basic principles of social justice" — child wel
fare, a living wage, opportunity for moral and intellectual develop
ment, care of incompetents, the sick, the incapacitated, the aged, the
unemployed, etc. ; conservative remedies for misery — economy and
efficiency, social insurance, increasing the bargaining power of labor
and of the consumer; taxation as a means towards social justice —
income, land-value, and inheritance taxes; pros and cons of social
ism; industrial democracy; war materials for a new social order —
social insurance, housing, education, recreation, regular employment,
wage and price adjustment, health protection, government owner
ship, taxation, industrial democracy, international organization. The
lessons include topics for study, followed by quotations giving the
point of view of representative agencies and individuals, with sug
gestions for original thought and discussion, and collateral readings.
Reconstruction: A Preliminary Bibliography
Compiled by Laura A. Thompson for the U. S. Department of
Labor Library. Contains 200 volumes with annotations, and 200
pamphlet titles. May be secured on application to the Government.
Reconstruction: A Bibliography
Containing between thirty and forty titles with brief comment, issued
as a bulletin of the Russell Sage Foundation Library, New York
(October, 1918).

ADDENDA

Since the foregoing summaries were put into type, additional re
construction programs have come to attention — as follows :
Manifesto of the English Church Socialist League
Issued before the recent British General Election and reprinted in
Reconstruction (January, 1919). A clear-cut challenge not for
mere ameliorative reconstruction but for a thorough-going recon-
stitution of industry and society. Declaring that the "Church as a
whole is failing to maintain the ideals and standards it has so long
proclaimed, and is aiming to achieve not the salvation of society,
but the mere 'stability' of the existing order", the Manifesto urges
"the redemption of the mass of the people from exploitation and
economic servitude", and warns against the menace even of a
League of Nations if "bureaucratically controlled and plutocratically
inspired" with "pretexts to extinguish the struggles of industrial
democracy by a display of overwhelming force; and in particular
16

... to stifle that revolution of the German people which may yet
prove to be the greatest triumph and justification of the war. . . .
We condemn the claim of a political coalition to absolute powers of
settling in advance and 'without opposition' the industrial future of
Britain on 'principles of reconstruction' which assume as their basis
an identity of aim and interest between capital and labor. We
affirm that no such identity as regards fundamentals either does or
ought to exist. The wage system involves a spiritual subjection of
the worker which is a denial of the essential claims of human per
sonality. Every increase of social authority and economic power
gained by the controllers of capital — whether financiers, merchants,
or manufacturers — renders that subjection more permanent and
more complete. . . . We call on all Churchmen to oppose and reject
any imagined 'settlement' of industry, however described, which per
petuates the spiritual degradation of the worker by treating him as
a tool for the purposes of others. . . . We would call attention to
the concentration of wealth which has been a scarcely observed
feature of the war period. Whereas before the war 2 per cent of
the population owned two-thirds of the national wealth reliable
statistics now show that they own three-quarters of it. In view of
such a state of things we press for acceptance of the principle that
the cost of the war shall be borne mainly by those, already wealthy,
who have been still further enriched by it." The Manifesto further
calls for such maintenance and extension of state control of natural
resources and public utilities as may be necessary to prevent their
exploitation by "private profiteers", and concludes with a warning
to labor not to depend on mere political action "as a sufficient means
of accomplishing its emancipation from wage-slavery. ... It is
only upon the activities of a reconstructed and developed trade
unionism that a democratic socialist community can base its eco
nomic life. The process of attaining this goal will involve a strug
gle against those 'having great possessions' and the vested interests
of wealth and power. But the Church Socialist League, so far from
deporing such a struggle, sees in it an essential aspect of that conflict
with the 'world' to which at his baptism every child of God is called."
Reconstruction Program of the Canadian Methodist Church
Adopted at the General Conference of the Methodist Church of
Canada at Hamilton in 1918, and reproduced in the New Republic
(February 8, 1919). Deploring the failure of pristine Methodism
to translate its "doctrine of holiness or perfect love" into "all its
social and economic implications, — a translation which would have
inaugurated a revolution compared with which the Protestant Re
formation would have to take second place," — the Hamilton Con
ference declares: "1. The present economic system stands revealed
as one of the roots of the war. The insane pride of Germany, her
passion for world-domination, found an occasion in the demand for
colonies as markets and sources of raw materials — the imperative
need of competing groups of industries carried on for profits. 2.
The war has made more clearly manifest the moral perils inherent
17

in the S3'stem of production for profits. Condemnation of special
individuals seems often unjust and always futile. The system rather
than the individual calls for change. 3. The war is the coronation
of democracy. ... It is clearly impossible for the champions of
democracy to set limits to its recognition. The last century de
mocratized politics; the twentieth century has found that political
democracy means little without economic democracy. The demo
cratic control of industry is just and inevitable." Recognizing the
"magnificent effort of many great employers to make their industrial
organization a means of uplift and betterment to all who partici
pate", the Conference nevertheless maintains that "the human spirit
instinctively resents even the most benevolent forms of government
while self-government is denied", and sees in wartime industrial ex
perience in England ground for hope that the present "separation
between labor and capital", on which the British official reconstruc
tion program is based, may be transcended, "whether through co
operation or public ownership. This is the policy set forth by the
great labor organizations and must not be rejected because it pre
supposes, as Jesus did, that the normal human spirit will respond
more readily to the call to service than to the lure of private gain."
In particular the Conference condemns "special privilege, unearned
wealth", — whether from land, "natural resources", or "over-capital
ization", — the "company-owned town", and "profiteering" ; urges
"democratic commercial organization" ; declares it "un-Christian to
accept profits when laborers do not receive a living wage, or when
capital receives disproportionate returns as compared with labor" ;
and advocates "old age insurance", "nationalization of national re
sources", and "sympathy with labor" : "As followers of the Car
penter of Nazareth, we sympathetically seek to understand the
problems of life as they confront the classes of labor in Canada, and
thus rightly estimate the pleas they make for justice, and find in
them allies in the struggle to realize the ends of fair play, humanity
and brotherhood."
Reconstruction Program of the English Society of Friends
"Seven points" were adopted at the yearly meeting in 1917, submit
ted to quarterly meetings, revised and increased in number to eight,
approved by ten out of eighteen quarterly meetings, and read opted
by the yearly meeting of 1918 ; now issued by the Social Order Com
mittee of the American Friends in a monthly bulletin. The "eight
points" are given verbatim as follows : "The Fatherhood of God, as
revealed by Jesus Christ, should lead us toward a Brotherhood
which knows no restriction of race, sex or social class. — This
Brotherhood should express itself in a social order which is directed,
beyond all material ends, to the growth of personality truly related
to God and man. — The fullest opportunity of development, physical,
moral and spiritual, should be assured to every member of the com
munity, man, woman, and child. The development of men's full
personality should not be hampered by unjust conditions nor crushed
by economic pressure. — We should seek for a way of living that will
18

free us from the bondage of material things and mere conventions,
that will raise no barriers between man and man, and will put no
excessive burden of labor upon any by reason of pur superfluous
demands. — The spiritual force of righteousness, loving kindness and
trust is mighty because of the appeal it makes to the best in every
man, and when applied to industrial relations achieves great things. —
Our rejection of the methods of outward domination and of the
appeal to force applies not only to international affairs but to the
whole problem of industrial control. Not through antagonism but
through co-operation and goodwill can the best be attained for each
and all. — Mutual service should be the principle upon which life is
organized. Service, not private gain, should be the motive of all
work. — The ownership of material things, such as land and capital,
should be so regulated as best to minister to the need and develop
ment of man."
Social Reconstruction : A General Review of the Problems and
Survey of Remedies
Issued as Reconstruction Pamphlet No. 1 (January, 1919) by the
Committee on Special War Activities of the National Catholic War
Council. Begins with a review of two or three of the programs
summarized in the preceding pages,* but sees "no profound changes
in the United States" as a result of the war: it calls for a "practical
and moderate program" — including provision for the re-employment
of demobilized soldiers and sailors,! care of women war-workers,
maintenance of "present wage rates", "housing for the working

* This Catholic program also refers to the declaration issued on December
10th, 1918, by the National Chamber of Commerce at its convention at Atlantic
City — a statement excluded from these pages as being too reactionary to offer
any hope for the future, as indeied the Catholic Committee recognizes in the
statement: "It is extremely disappointing. By far the greater part of it
consists of proposals and demands in the interest of business. Apparently
the National Chamber of Commerce is not yet ready^ to concede the right of
labor to be represented in determining its relations with capital." A proposal
made to this effect by a prominent American business man was commended
by the Atlantic City convention, but the specific methods suggested to give it
effect were not endorsed. (It has not seemed advisable to reproduce in these
pages individual industrial "creeds" or programs— aside from the plan pro
posed by C. G. Renold (ante), which is included as bearing directly on the
recommendations of the Whitley Committee.) The Catholic statement
(supra) also comments favorably on the reconstruction statement issued in
1918 by an "Interdenominational Conference of Social Service Unions, com
prising ten religious bodies, including Catholics''. The chief features of this
statement, which is difficult of access in this country, though reproduced with
comment in the (English) Catholic Social Year Book for 1918, are the neces
sary relation between Christianity and social action as involving the "sacred
ness of personality", which must be recognized in industry and in legislation
as the basis of Christian social reform; insistence on a real "living" wage,
not a bare "subsistence" wage ; housing reform ; provision against unemploy:
ment; promotion of marriage and family life; improvement and extension of
education; etc. This statement may be secured from the Catholic Social
Guild (1 Victoria Street, S. W. 1, London) at iy2d.
t On this matter see the Joint Commission's Reconstruction Bulletin No. 1 —
"The Church and the Home-coming Man", which may be had on application.
19

classes", "reduction of the cost of living", establishment of "the legal
minimum wage", social insurance, "labor participation in industrial
management", vocational training, prohibition of child labor (under
sixteen years of age). "Probably the foregoing proposals comprise
everything that is likely to have practical value in a program of im
mediate social reconstruction for America. Substantially all of
these methods, laws, and recommendations have been recognized in
principle by the United States during the war, or have been endorsed
by important social and industrial groups and organizations". The
program does not foresee a speedy end of capitalism, which it prefers
to socialism, but nevertheless recognizes the need of "ultimate and
fundamental reforms", among which it reckons co-operation and co
partnership, "increased incomes for labor", "abolition and control
of monopolies", and a "new spirit", involving "a return to Christian
life and Christian institutions" as inculcated by Leo XIII. The
program finds the "main defects of the present system" to be "enor
mous inefficiency and waste in the production and distribution of
commodities; insufficient incomes for the great majority of wage-
earners, and unnecessarily large incomes for a small minority of
privileged capitalists". But "changes in our economic and political
systems will have only partial and feeble efficiency if they be not
reinforced by the Christian view of work and wealth". "Labor must
give "an honest day's work in return for a fair wage" and must
"root out the desire to get a maximum of return for a minimum of
service" Capital must "learn the long- forgotten truth that wealth
is stewardship, that profit-making is not the basic justification of
business enterprise, and that there are such things as fair profits,
fair interest, and fair prices. . . He [the capitalist] must culti
vate . . . the truth which many of his class have begun to grasp for
the first time during the . . war . . . , that the laborer is a human
being, not merely an instrument of production ; and that the laborer's
right to a decent livelihood is the first moral charge upon industry"
(italics ours). Incidentally the program demands the continuance
of the Federal Employment Service and of the National War Labor
Board.

Additional copies of this Bulletin may be secured on application to
the Rev. F. M. Crouch, executive secretary, 281 Fourth Avenue,
New York City.

20

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 09861 0430