, and not
think at all until I get well by it.

Labor conditions in the Northwest grew worse, strikes more general, and
finally Carl wrote that he just must be indefinitely on the job. "I am
so home-sick for you that I feel like packing up and coming. I literally
feel terribly. But with all this feeling I don't see how I can. Not only
have I been telegraphed to stay on the job, but the situation is growing
steadily worse. Last night my proposal (eight-hour day, non-partisan
complaint and adjustment board, suppression of violence by the state)
was turned down by the operators in Tacoma. President Suzzallo and I
fought for six hours but it went down. The whole situation is drifting
into a state of incipient sympathetic strikes." Later: "This is the most
bull-headed affair and I don't think it is going to get anywhere." Still
later: "Things are not going wonderfully in our mediation. Employers
demanding everything and men granting much but not that." Again: "Each
day brings a new crisis. Gee, labor is unrestful . . . and gee, the
pigheadedness of bosses! Human nature is sure one hundred per cent
psychology." Also he wrote, referring to the general situation at the
University and in the community: "Am getting absolutely crazy with
enthusiasm over my job here. . . . It is too vigorous and resultful for
words." And again: "The mediation between employers and men blew up
to-day at 4 P.M. and now a host of nice new strikes show on the
horizon. . . . There are a lot of fine operators but some hard shells."
Again: "Gee, I'm learning! And talk about material for the Book!"

An article appeared in one of the New York papers recently, entitled
"How Carleton H. Parker Settled Strikes":--

"It was under his leadership that, in less than a year, twenty-seven
disputes which concerned Government work in the Pacific Northwest were
settled, and it was his method to lay the basis for permanent relief as
he went along. . . .

"Parker's contribution was in the method he used. . . . Labor leaders of
all sorts would flock to him in a bitter, weltering mass, mouthing the
set phrases of class-hatred they use so effectually in stirring up
trouble. They would state their case. And Parker would quietly deduce
the irritation points that seemed to stand out in the jumbled testimony.

"Then it would be almost laughable to the observer to hear the
employer's side of the case. Invariably it was just as bitter, just as
unreasoning, and just as violen