“One or two phases of the completion of peace negotiations in the local trolley situation call for particular notice here and now.  We do not remember, for instance, to have heard for some time of the active participation in labour agitations of a regularly ordained clergyman of the Christian church.  We noted, therefore, with respectful interest, the manner in which the Reverend Alexander Irvine took part in the meeting at which the final decision was made, and especially the influence which he brought to bear to clear the atmosphere.  Usually hot-headed sympathizers with the cause of labour agitation are the principal advisers at such a time.  We remember, and the trolleymen certainly do, that at the critical juncture several summers ago, when a final decision was to have been rendered by the striking trolleymen, an agitator from Bridgeport not only agitated, but nearly managed to turn the balance toward an irreparable break in negotiations.  We remember that New Haven people absolutely lost all patience at that juncture, and would have stampeded from their thorough sympathy with the trolleymen’s cause had not better wisdom finally prevailed.  Mr. Irvine seems to have occupied that gentleman’s shoes at the Saturday night meeting, and to have acquitted himself much more to the taste of the public.  His interest was, we take it, purely that of any citizen who has studied labour questions sufficiently to arrive at a fair and unprejudiced point of view, and who, moreover, possessed the requisite balance of mind and sincerity of purpose to counsel, when his counsel was asked, judicially.  There was absolutely lacking, in his whole connection with the case, any of that sky-rocket, uncertain theorizing that makes the attitude of so many labour ‘organizers’ so detrimental, in the public eye, to real labour benefit.  New Haven has considerable to thank Mr. Irvine for in his attitude in the past crisis.  More sound advice and friendly counsel and wise sympathy from such men as he are needed in labour troubles.”

Another New Haven paper, commenting editorially on my attitude toward a strike carried on by the bakers’ union, said: 

“We commend to the Connecticut Railway and Lighting Company, which has now practically four strikes on its hands, in two Connecticut cities, the sentiment of the Reverend Alexander Irvine, in his sermon last Sunday night in reference to the striking bakers of this city who declared against a proposition to arbitrate with the bosses.  ’If they have nothing to arbitrate,’ said Mr. Irvine, ’they have nothing to strike about.’  The proposition would seem to involve a sound principle of business ethics.  An honest disagreement is always arbitrable.  A body of workmen who make a demand which they are unwilling to submit to the judgment of a fair and intelligent committee deserve little sympathy if they lose their fight, and an employer who refuses to entrust his case to the honesty, fairness and justice of a committee of respectable citizens representing the best element of that public from which he derives his support, must not be surprised if he loses public sympathy.”