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Show Wilson's Opinion of Labor 1 I Before He Entered Politics ? I I " ' ' New York City, June 16, 1909. ' ' rr ' 'W I -'Aj&f Hon. Woodrow Wilson, . ... v , .. II - President Princeton University, ..'V. jr- I Princeton, N. J. v V f ' J v I II . Dear Sir: I ' II a v In the New York Times of June 14, which purports to give extracts of ' ; ..- km v ' yuv baccalaureate address to the students of Princeton University, you are 1 T'V: I Jj j jTv quoted as follows: . . I ' "You know what the usual standard of the employee is in ' ' I ;."t.. . our day. It is to give as little as he may for his wages. Labor . .W I is standardized by the trade unions, and this is the standard to 1 l - i which it is made to conform. No one is suffered to do more than t v' 1 ti:'- .- the average workman can do. In some trades and handicrafts I ' ' t no one is suffered to do more than the east skilful of his fellows , fc" I ' can do within the hours allotted to a dajr's labor, and no one may I ' t :.' work out of hours at all or volunteer anything beyond the I J '... minimum." , ' T iiifli ' V" Now, 3'our reported remarks strike me as being so extraordinary so -i..', ., different from what If as a member of organized labor, have found to be the 4 ,m .facts that I feel impelled to ask you if the foregoing paragraph is a correct ; report of what 3rou said. ' ( i 1 If you are correctlj1" quoted I should like to have you give me your au- I thority for your statement that in labor unions "no one is suffered to do I II ;' more than the average workman can do," Also give me the names of a few I .1 . - trades or handicrafts where "no one is suffered to do more than the least jj I' skilful of his fellows can do within the hours allotted to a day's labor, and . ' 1 j ,; no one may work out of hours at all or volunteer anything beyond the j i " minimum." I 11 "' ' . . . j I As a matter of course, a president 0 f a university of the reputed stand- j II ing of Princeton would not make statements in his baccalaureate address , unless he knows, or at least fully believes, that his statements are true. Therefore it ought not be a difficult matter for you to oblige me with the ' Y names of those labor unions whose laAvs, or even policies, bring about the "' results you specify. ' I - Awaiting your reply with lively interest, I am, I Si.-. Yours very truly, ;, Jjj ' - EDGAR -B. ILAVERTY. 'J$m$J. I Care Evening Telegram, ' ... .... j-'-- ! ' ' '. New York City. Lxifoots Opinion of Hucfics' I t - After He Retired from Polities I !"HE WAS A GREAT GOVERNOR." "Now that Governor Hughes has retired from politics and' ascended to a place on the highest tri- v bunal in the world, the fact can be acknowledged without hurting anybody's political corns, that he was the greatest friend of labor laws that ever occupied the governor's chair at Albany. During his two terms he has signed 56 labor laws, includ-I includ-I ing among them the best labor laws ever enacted II - , PRINCETON IINIVERSITY,, ' ' ' 1 S ir PRINCETON, Nk X 7 " v"' v ' II I f.' 'President's Room. y j S! June l8thVl909. k My Dear Sir. T' r. III Your letter of June 16th contains a very proper challenge. I qnite . agree that I ought not to make the staatements I did make about the trades . ! I imions, unless I were able to cite cases in verification of my statements. ' ' ' j "vi I' of course, had no individual trades unions in mind which I can name '-f 1 by number, but I had in mind several cases of buildings in New York City, :l : jj - for example, the brick layers working on which spent about one-third of the j1! ' jH working day sitting around, smoking their pipes and chatting, because they I 1 i had laid the number of bricks to which they were limited for the day by S' I! 'J the union to which they belonged. I had in mind numerous experiences of y II my own in dealing with working men in Princeton, where I once found it 'A ly' jl impossible, for example, on a very cold evening to get a broken window ", - ' I! pane mended at the house of an invalid friend, because the prescribed labor 1 II 1 hours of the day were over and the glazier could not venture, without risk- jl ing a strike, to do the work himself and could not order any of his work- j men to do it. I had in mind scores of instances, in short, lying within my j ; ' own experience and resting upon the testimony of friends in whose veracity ! I have every reason to have the greatest confidence. 'I I1 1 I, of course, could not, in the case of more than one or two of these in- - j stances, give legal proof of my assertions, but the evidences I have are en- 1'7 ji J 'I tirel3r sufficient to convince me of the general truth of the statement ' I '""k jl J ' made. lij " immam- Very truly yours, ',- lij $?SPBS?- WOODROW -WILSON. ;V ' ' H M-r- Mr. Edgar R. Laaverty. j I H in this or any other state. He also urged the en-actment en-actment of labor laws in his messages to the legis-: legis-: lature, even going so far as to place the demand for a labor law in one of his messages to an extra session of the legislature. . "Only 162 labor laws have been enacted in thisi state since its' erection in 1777 in 133 years. One- third of these, exceeding in quality all of the others, have been enacted and signed during ;ir . Governor Hughes's- term of three years and nine 1. months. I H f ' "With such a record of approval and sugges- 1 H tion of progressive legislation in the interest of H humanity to his credit, it is easy to believe that . human rights will have a steadfast and sympa- thetic upholder in the new justice of the supreme I j court of the United States." jj j H From the October, 1910, issue of Legislative News, H published by New York State Federation of I H Labor Jl H Labor's Opinion of Hughes Is Based on What He Has Done I ; These Are Some of the Laws He Advocated and Signed While Governor of New York: jj H Wainwright Commission of Inquiry. Limiting the hours of labor for signalmen and Reconstructed the State Department of Labor. I Automatic mutual agreement compensaton law. -: railroad telegraphers. Changed the penalties to make enforcement ot , H Automatic compulsory compensation. Placing young women from 19 to 21 years of age labor laws eaS1er. -, (Thefirstlaw of this kind enacted in the United ELEVENCHnjT IlABOR LAWS extending Requirng semi-monthly payment of wages States.) - neriod from 1907 in 1Q10 THIRTEEN LAWS relating to welfare, safety H ; J&SLtn (TheTe laws S Cffiw and sanitation in workshops. . i i Lmrhiig the hours of labor for men in tram A for the protection of children in New York.). , ... Republican National Publicity Committee.;... 1 sc. ice lllf 1 y ' ' " Polltlcal Advertisement.) SMy l |