Foreword

AuthorHerman Feldman
Published date01 November 1942
Date01 November 1942
DOI10.1177/000271624222400101
Subject MatterArticles
vii
FOREWORD
THE
labor
army
at
home
is
the
indispensable
second
front
of
a
modern
war.
Upon
it
depends
whether
brave
and
willing
men
on
the
battlefield
are
left
dismayed
and
powerless
or
can
turn
their
sacrifices
into
victory.
Many
Frenchmen
remem-
ber
with
heartache
that
in
those
crucial
months
when
unity,
resolution,
and
effi-
ciency
were
the
imperative
national
needs
on
their
home
front,
vital
energies
were
worse
than
wasted
in
internecine
quarrels
and
fatal
delays.
We
in
America,
suf-
fering
less
from
such
discord
but
mindful
of
prewar
tensions
and
present
hindrances
to
maximum
productiveness,
are
determined
to
overcome
these
obstacles
to
survival
and
victory.
The
labor
program
of
conducting
a
war
may
be
divided
into
two
broad
cate-
gories.
The
first
is
that
of
providing
manpower.
It
embraces
the
efforts
designed
to
supply
adequate
labor
and
skills
at
the
points
of
essential
production,
and
it
consists
largely
of
the
techniques
of
allocating,
training,
and
utilizing
available
tal-
ents
under
national
direction.
The
second
is
the
promotion
of
those
industrial
relations
policies
and
practices
which
produce
the
fullest
measure
of industrial
co-
operation.
That
is
the
subject
of
the
present
volume.
It
deals
chiefly
with
the
more
intangible
and
indefinite
problems.
In
these
the
difficulty
is
as
great
in
know-
ing
what
to
do
as
in
having
it
done.
To
attain
labor
morale
is
not
only
a
matter
of
providing
incentives
to
individ-
uals.
The
emphasis
has
shifted
to
the
complicated
issues
of
satisfying
dynamic
labor
groups and
their
virile
leaders.
Formulae
must
be
devised
to
harness
the
power
of
labor
organizations
within
the
sturdy
and
disciplined
gear
of
management
so
that
the
two
may
not
tug
against
each
other
but
walk
briskly
to
a
common
goal.
The
buoyant
strength
of
unionism
has
thus
introduced
new
and
puzzling
prob-
lems
of
administration
for
industry
and
government.
It
has
presented
equally
puzzling
questions
to
the
average
citizen.
People
everywhere
are
profoundly
con-
cerned
with
what
is
happening
in
labor
relations
and
what
should
be
done.
They
are
wondering,
evaluating,
arguing.
Some,
for
example,
are
querying
Government
policies,
not
so
much
from
the
standpoint
of
present
expediency
as
from
that
of
postwar
and
future
implications.
Others,
on
the
contrary,
are
hopeful
that
this
very
emergency
experience
will
help
us
more
enduringly
in
fashioning
the
kind
of
a
world
we
are
fighting
for.
Hence
to
take
time
out
to
consider
present
develop-
ments
and
programs
is
basic
to
sound
public
opinion
and
guidance.
In
scope,
the
volume
has
been
planned
for
a
variety
of
uses
and
wide
distribu-
tion.
It
is
designed
for
the
layman
and
the
professional,
the
general
reader
and
the
specialized
student,
the
industrial
concern
and
the
academic
institution.
That
such
a
discussion
is
of
immediate
and
national
importance
would
seem
to
be
attested
by
the
willingness
of
outstanding
authorities
and
of
administrators
bearing
large
re-
sponsibilities
to
present
their
specialized
knowledge
and
mature
thinking
on
the
topics
here
included.
Many
of
these
contributors
have
made
genuine
sacrifices,
as,
for
example,
in
giving
part
of
their
meager
summer
vacations
to
present
their
views.
The
result
is
a
volume
of
broad,
keenly
stimulating,
and
highly
constructive
chap-
ters
whose
authors
have
thus
earned
the
gratitude
of
every
reader
who
is
seeking
enlightenment
on
present-day
labor
relations.
HERMAN
FELDMAN
at SAGE PUBLICATIONS on December 4, 2012ann.sagepub.comDownloaded from

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