PRESIDENT ELIOT'S ADDRESS

President Eliot gave an address on "The Industrial Conditions of Public Happiness" last evening in Sanders Theatre, under the auspices of the Social Service Committee. The President said in part:

"To my thinking, the greatest social services which one man can render to his fellows are, first, improving their moral standards or the ideals which rule them, and secondly, improving the conditions of their daily labor. Tonight I ask your attention to the second of these forms of service.

"The actual industrial organization in the United States is in large measure a dual organization for combat. Its evils are pervasive, chronic, and always at one's very door. This condition ought to prove transitional and temporary, for real public happiness cannot possibly grow out of it.

"Let us consider what the two parties to this conflict can do to modify or cure its evil tendencies and develop its good ones, and what the community, or general public, can do to bring about a lasting treaty of peace. To this end let us apply to all objects, methods, and policies of industrial strife one test--the test of making for the public happiness.

"A democracy seeks to secure for each individual citizen certain conditions indispensable to happiness--liberty, the hope of improving his lot, stability of employment, and good-will--of the individual toward others, and of others toward him.

"For educated men, it is demoralizing to witness wide-spread misery and unhappiness without doing something to remedy such extreme evils. Participation in the industrial combat may occur from any one of three sides--that of the employers, the employed, or the public, including the government.

"Employers should beware how they abridge their own liberty by associating for purposes of combat; they should study and develop in their employees the hope of improving their lot; and as they have more power than the employed to do so, it is their duty to promote stability in any industry.

"Unions should urge--limited associations of employees having a voice in the discipline of the works; collective discussion and bargaining concerning wages and hours of labor; a greater publicity about industrial conditions, and the publication of annual reports to government authorities. Organization of industrial society should not be in horizontal layers, but in vertical groups.

"All attempted enforcement of uniform wages is a mistake. It ignores the diversity of local conditions and personal capacities, ties up the ambitious workman, and cuts off employment from the weak, the dull, and the old.

"Public interest and duty should require inspection of and public reports on the business of corporations, and prevention of unhealthy conditions of labor, the injurious working of children and women, and over-work, with protection of the individual against combined attack.

"The economic effects of a steady good-will between employer and workmen are prodigious. As the industries of the United States become more and more specialized, and manufacturing power more and more replaces the work of men, the inexpediency of all fighting for advantages will be more and more visible.

"Most mechanics and laborers take no pleasure in their occupations and look forward to their evenings, Sundays, and holidays as the only time for pleasure. One distinction between the civilized man and the savage is the former's capacity for contented labor.

"Elements of rational interest and enjoyment in daily labor are--the free play of the powers of observing, thinking and judging during labor, variety in work, the sense of rhythm and harmony in co-operation, and the artistic motive and method."