which, in a short time, had extended to all the roads handling Pullman cars in 27 States and Territories. Rioting soon began in Chicago and hundreds of cars were burned in the freight yards.

The local authorities were powerless to cope with the difficulty, yet when President Cleveland sent troops to prevent the obstruction of the mails and to assist the courts in protecting interstate commerce against conspiracies, Governor Altgeld appealed to States' rights and issued a protest in which he was sustained by Governor Pennoyer of Oregon.

A "blanket injunction" was then issued by the United States district court, commanding the American Railway Union and "all other persons whatsoever" not to interfere with certain roads. When Eugene V. Debs, the president of the union, disobeyed the order, he was promptly convicted of conspiracy under the anti-trust act of 1890 and sent to jail for six months. The strikers lost completely.

A few injunctions had been issued before, but this extended development was something new and was vigor ously denounced by many not identified with the laborers as virtually doing away with trial by jury. "Government by injunction was now added to the grievances of labor and became an issue in politics.* Yet, when the legislatures of several States

*

Dewey, National Problems, pp. 287-296; Appleton's Annual Encyclopedia.

attempted to restrain the use of injunctions in such cases, their acts were declared null and void by their own courts.*

On May 12, 1902, the anthracite miners of Pennsylvania struck and remained out five months. Feeling was very bitter on both sides. Suffering was not confined to the miners, but extended to the coal-using public. The strikers were led by John Mitchell, who managed to keep public sympathy in spite of some violence and an almost unreasoning boycott. At last President Roosevelt intervened and told the operators that the public had some rights in the matter, suggesting arbitration; but they remained obdurate and demanded Federal troops. When this was refused and they saw the rising tide of public anger, they submitted. The arbitration board made an award favoring the miners in most of their contentions.† In the spring of 1912 another coal strike occurred, this time including many bituminous coal workers; but the workmen were not out long, returning to work pending arbitration, which granted many of the unions' demands.

An intimate ally of the strike is the boycott. This term is comparatively new, but the practice is very old and, under the name conspiracy, has been held illegal for centuries. The peace

ful boycott, putting the union label on goods and printing fair lists, is commonly regarded as legal, but the other forms of the direct boycott are illegal at common or statute law and under the Sherman anti-trust law. However, in spite of this, boycotts have become increasingly common in the last few decades, 408 having been declared within 12 years.

The last stand for legality was made on the unfair list on the ground of the guarantee of the freedom of the press. In 1901 the American Federationist, which had been publishing such lists for years, put Loewe, a Danbury hat manufacturer, on the unfair list to compel him to recognize the union, later adding the Buck Stove and Range Company. Injunctions were applied for in both cases and they were granted on the ground that

no newspaper has the right to publish any matter intended to aid to aid wrong-doers in accomplishing a wrongful purpose, or doing unlawful things, or to aid unlawful combinations in making effective an unlawful conspiracy." Gompers, Mitchell and Morrison, officers of the Federation, having defied the injunction, were sentenced to twelve, nine, and six months' imprisonment respectively for the violation.* Execution of the sentence was suspended pending an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States which refused, in 1911, to pass judgment on the case, since

* Political Science Quarterly, March, 1909, pp. 83-85.

an agreement had been previously reached between the Buck company and the American Federation of Labor. Contempt proceedings were then begun by the same company against the same labor leaders, the charge being that they were in contempt of court through violating the injunction. The defendants were found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment for one year, nine months, and six months, respectively, but the case was carried to the Supreme Court.

The boycott of certain employés by employers is called blacklisting. The blacklist is generally regarded as far more injurious to the men concerned than the boycott. A majority of the States have expressly prohibited it by law, but such a law is far more difficult to enforce than that against boycotting, owing to the secrecy which employers can maintain.

Competition, which was the very basic principle of our industrial organization, has virtually been destroyed by the crushing hand of the monopolies growing out of the great industrial combinations. The increasing arrogance of the privileged classes has cost them a large part of the public sympathy and has turned a corresponding share of it to the workers. This tendency may be seen in labor legislation and in judicial decisions the latter still somewhat behind designed to favor the workers. Such is the meaning of the creation of the Massachusetts bureau

of labor (1869), an example since followed by many of the States* and by the United States (1884), the creation of the Department of Commerce and Labor (1903), and the provision made in many of the States for boards of conciliation and arbitration.t

The boards of arbitration had to be voluntarily invoked by the disputants. The result so far cannot be said to have been altogether satisfactory. The comparative failure of these efforts and the acute struggles between capital and labor consequent upon the concentration of the former and the organization of the latter, brought on an agitation for compulsory arbitration, which was being adopted in some foreign countries. Progressive thinkers have urged that the welfare of the public is so dependent upon the railways, the mines, and other like industries that they have a right to a guarantee that these industries will not be tied up again as they were in 1894 and 1902. On the other hand, it is urged that freedom of contract, which is one of the basic principles of our institutions, is incompatible with compulsory arbitration; that compulsory arbitration and the enforcement of the award would mean compulsory labor - that is, slavery. To this it is replied that democracy should not confess itself helpless in the face of a serious menace to the public welfare

* Sparks, National Development, p. 69.

† Bolen, Getting a Living, p. 695; Adams and Sumner, Labor Problems, p. 295, note.

for the sake of a political theory which has ceased to confer the benefits it was once supposed to give. Compulsory arbitration in the settlement of disputes between capital and labor through Federal and State wage commissions was recommended in November of 1912 by a report of a special board of arbitrators appointed to adjust the demands of 30,000 locomotive engineers against 52 Eastern railroads for increases in wages and an improvement of certain conditions. An advance of wages was granted also, irrespective of whether or not the railroads could afford it, and a minimum was fixed below which no railway could depress its payments.

The field of legislation intended to benefit directly the laborer and the public is comparatively new, but is being worked extensively. Such are the laws forbidding employers to deprive laborers of any social and political rights, payment in company or store checks, and requiring weekly or bi-monthly payments, and the employer's liability acts. On their face such laws appear to make of the laborers a privileged class, but they are defended as necessary to put the weaker party on a plane of equality with the stronger. However, in many cases the courts have held them void as being class legislation, violating the freedom of contract, or depriving of property without due process of law.* It is almost universally conceded

Adams and Sumner, pp. 327, 477.

that one of the worst features of our industrial system is the condition of child and female labor, which was very much aggravated by the industrial revolution. After the Civil War the evils soon became of such magnitude that the public began to demand remedial legislation. The evil was common everywhere, but perhaps greatest in the South during the 80's and 90's, when that section was enjoying a period of great industrial development. But lately the Southern people have become aroused and now practically all the States have some sort of child labor laws.*

These laws, the first of which was passed by Massachusetts in 1866, and the latest in 1912, the 54-hour law applying to women and children in New York City, relate in general to the age limit below which children shall not be employed, to hours of labor, sanitation and education. The age limit varies from 10 to 14 in different States, farm laborers and domestic servants being excepted. The constitutionality of these laws was long uncontested, but they were sustained when the test was finally made. Unfortunately, however, the laws have not been thoroughly enforced anywhere and in many States not at all. Compulsory education, if enforced, would be an effective means; but this is the exception, not the rule,

* Adams and Sumner, pp. 45-47, 59-61, 61, 63-64, 126-127; Bolen, p. 526.

Political Science Quarterly, March, 1909, p. 89; Labor Bulletin, no. 91, pp. 932-933.

in the South. Grasping employers connive at false certificates of age and honest ones are imposed on by them. Where thorough and competent inspection is not provided, as often happens, evasions are frequent and easy. The comparative failure of these laws led to a vigorous effort on the part of Senator Albert J. Beveridge, of Indiana, to secure a National law on the ground that the power to regulate interstate commerce gave Congress the power to regulate the manufacture of goods which enter into interstate trade.

It was in October of 1910 that the Los Angeles Times building was blown up with the loss of 21 lives. This outrage being only one of a series which was finally laid at the door of John J. McNamara, secretary of the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers, his brother, James B. McNamara, and Ortie McManigal, who afterwards confessed and gave full details. The McNamara brothers were sentenced to prison, and organized labor in general made haste to repudiate complicity in warfare by dynamite.

The evils of female labor are old, but did not become very acute in this country until the Civil War, when thousands of women were thrown upon their own resources. Large numbers may be found in agricultural pursuits and in the professions, as well as crowding into the factories. and sweat shops. Since 1870 the number of female workers has in

creased in a greater ratio than either male or child workers.* By far the larger part of such workers is found in the New England and Middle States, most of them being employed in textile industries, especially cotton and silk. Legislation on this subject began with the Massachusetts tenhour law of 1874. It now deals with hours (the usual limitation being eight), conditions of comfort and sanitation, and restrictions of kinds of work. These laws were vigorously assailed as unconstitutional, as class legislation, and as depriving women of the freedom of contract. When this contention was upheld by the supreme court of Illinois, it for a time produced consternation in the ranks of reformers, but other courts (notably in Nebraska and Washington) soon took the opposite view,† which was ultimately sustained by the Supreme Court of the United States on the ground that the law was a valid exercise of the power of police and wardship.‡

There is also a great mass of important legislation intended to protect male as well as female laborers. The factory acts, which have grown through many years by accretion, make up a sort of code in themselves. For the most part they relate to conditions of safety and health. Workingmen's compensation acts,

90.

*Adams and Sumner, p. 42. Ibid, pp. 31-32, 467.

em

Political Science Quarterly, March, 1909, p.

ployers' liability, and workingmen's insurance, are all in the formative stage, and even the minimum wage is yet being introduced in this country. The prohibition of Sunday work has been enacted in many States on grounds of morality and hygiene, and such laws are being better enforced.

To secure more uniform workmen's compensation legislation, a conference was held in New York City in November of 1912, at which government, capital and labor were well represented, from which fruitful results are expected. There is a growing endeavor on the part of all concerned to find a basis of compensation which shall be definite and equitable. There are now two classes of laws - one imposing liabilities on the individual employer, and the other on mutual insurance. Workmen's compensation has lately been voluntarily assumed by The United States Steel Corporation and the International Harvester Company.

The eight-hour movement began before the Civil War, but here again nothing of consequence was accomplished until after that event. To limit by law the hours of labor seemed to violate the principle of freedom of contract; to reduce the hours to eight, or even ten, seemed contrary to the interests of both employer and employé. Nobody could deny the former contention; to convince the world of its error on the latter was a great task, but it was taken up in 1863 by Ira Steward, a Boston ma