CONFLICT AND RECONSTRUCTION 55

worker would be getting more than that to which he has a
right if he were paid something in excess of this ethical
minimum. Why, then, should we assume that this is the
normal share of almost the whole laboring population? Since
our industrial resources and instrumentalities are sufficient
to provide more than a living wage for a very large proportion
 of the workers, why should we acquiesce in a theory
which denies them this measure of the comforts of life?
Such a policy is not only of very questionable morality, but
is unsound economically. The large demand for goods, which
ls created and maintained by high rates of wages and high
purchasing power by the masses, is the surest guaranty of a
continuous and general operation of industrial establishments.
[t is the most effective instrument of prosperity for labor and
capital alike.

Protestant churches of all denominations also supported
the principles underlying this pronouncement. The Interchurch
 World Movement itself in 1919 called a conference
in New York City to formulate a nation-wide, constructive
basis of procedure. Two industrial conferences composed
of representatives of capital, labor, and the public were
also convened by President Wilson in the years 1919-1920
and urged by him to formulate a new constructive program
looking toward industrial justice and permanent industrial
 peace and democracy.

REVERSION TO INDUSTRIAL CONFLICT
Organized capital and labor, however, were unable to
agree on a definition of collective bargaining. On this
rock the attempts toward a new constructive policy were
shattered. New principles of wage-determination never
really passed beyond the phase of agitation to formal jointdiscussion.
 This deplorable condition of affairs was
brought about by extremists in the forces of both capital
and labor.