z EMPLOYEE REPRESENTATION 
back and forth, winning sometimes the fruit of others victories, but 
more often suffering from their determination to “go it ‘alone.’ 
The public has gradually been forced to assume the task of judging 
as to the merits of the contestants; and through the instrument of 
government it has attempted to intercede in hope of preserving for 
those groups in the community not engaged in the warfare some 
semblance of peace and order. The public in whose behalf an 
outraged press or excited government officialdom has taken up 
its verbal cudgels has been a shifting and motley assortment of 
persons more or less seriously annoyed by quarrels which often 
directly did not concern them. Interference with the even tenor of 
their way has more often aggravated these persons than a sincere 
concern for the social function of production. Their animus has 
generally been directed toward the strikers, despite the fact that 
strikes are often no more the fault of those who strike—the em- 
ployees—than of employers whose inability or unwillingness to satisfy 
the legitimate desires of employees precipitates the situation which 
causes them to strike. It is coming to be recognized, however, that 
‘strikes are merely symptoms of more fundamental maladjustments, 
injustices and economic disturbances which produce unrest, dis- 
content, and bitterness among the ever-increasing number of industrial 
workers.” 
Conflict manifested in unrest when not in open strife, continually 
augmented by the control-seeking tactics employed by both of the 
contending forces, has sapped untold energy from the real business 
of industry—production. The mechanisms each side has contrived 
for defensive purposes have served largely to stimulate counteraction 
by the other. Labor organizations, lacking obvious concern for 
furtherance of production so long as the fruits of such endeavors 
remained under control of employers, and while the basic, material 
needs of their constituencies were still unmet, have had little or no 
incentive to employ any but negative measures. 
’ Ibid., pp. 18-19. 
10 Doten, C. W., “Strikes and Lockouts in the United States,” in Federated 
American Engineering Societies, Waste in Industry, p. 314. 
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