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 violent, as the statement of their case by the workers.  Parker would endeavor to find, in all this heap of words, the irritation points of the other side.

“But when a study was finished, his diagnosis made, and his prescription of treatment completed, Parker always insisted in carrying it straight to the workers.  And he did not just tell them results.  He often took several hours, sometimes several meetings of several hours each.  In these meetings he would go over every detail of his method, from start to finish, explaining, answering questions, meeting objections with reason.  And he always won them over.  But, of course, it must be said that he had a tremendously compelling personality that carried him far.”