says:

"We hear multitudes clamoring for pensions for large families, old age pensions and government aid in various other forms, and we see subservient politicians advocating all such proposals. Why? Because the multitudes have votes. Nearly every day we read about assaults and murders committed by strikers; acts that would put 'darkest Russia' to shame. These strikers and their organizations have been called 'lawless' and 'criminal', yet a large number of our politicians are their humble and obedient servants. Why? Because they have

votes.

"How long will it be before all of these pension propositions, and the single tax, and other confiscatory propositions will be put through and enacted into laws? Experience tells us that pensions, once voted, are never reduced, but that there is a constant clamor for their increase. Politicians have found that it costs them nothing to vote for pensions and increase of pensions, and that their refusal to do so usually costs them their office when they seek re-election.

"The time has come when there ought to be an employers' and working people's compensation act, under which the government would assume responsibility for all loss and damage to life, limb and property, resulting from the unlawful acts of strikers, and under which the government would be bound to make good all such losses and damages, not only to employers,

but also to working people who are prevented from working by the strik ers; and under which all members of labor unions would be compelled to pay an annual per capita tax to cover the total expense. If there is any injustice in this proposition I would like to know it. In fact, such a law ought to have been passed 25 years ago."

Express Service

In his treatise on "The Express Service and Rates", published by La Salle Extension University (Chicago). Mr. W. H. Chandler, assistant manager of the Traffic Bureau of the Merchants' Association of New York, presents a work of timely and lively public interest. The Interstate Commerce Commission's activities, the new express rates that became effective on the first of February, the parcels post competition, and particularly the recent announcement of the United States Express Company of its discontinuance of business, have all pointed attention to the subject of Mr. Chandler's work on the subject and made it one of great popular interest.

The new publication forms part of

a series of treatises that serve as a basis for the correspondence course in interstate commerce of La Salle Extension University, and is a more practical than scholarly effort, though no objection can be brought against it on that score. It covers the whole express field, from history, organiza tion and service to rates and classifi cation. Express statistics and finance are subjects carefully treated, and both the old and the new rate-making s tems are fully explained. This is of especial interest since the rates are lowered considerably. The relation to the parcel post is also carefully dis

cussed.

The question of relation between employer and employe is an acute one. It has become more acute with our industrial and commercial development. Under the old regime, before the inventive genius of man had given us our modern machinery, the relationship between employer and employe was personal. The employer came in contact, personal contact, with his employes, usually had but few of them, and never so many but that he knew the individuality of the men who were working for him and could deal with them accordingly. Inventive genius and the machines growing out of that inventive genius have made it absolutely necessary that there should be an organization of capital in order that there might be the most efficient production.

Some of the machines we now have in use and some of the systems necessary for the proper utilization of those machines would not be possible under the old forms. New forms had to be devised. Out of those new forms has grown our immense corporations, facilitating the use of the machines, economizing here and economizing there by virtue of centralized production and giving us more efficiency in labor than we could have otherwise. But it has eliminated that personal relationship between the employer and employe that formerly existed, and, because of the elimination of that personal relationship, complications arise. in dealing with the problems that grow out of our industrial development.

There is not the same confidence between the employer and employe, when neither knows the other, as there is when they know each other.

CAPITAL AND WEALTH

The situation, then, has entirely changed, and, growing out of that change in situation, something is necessary in order to find a substitute for the old personal relationship that formerly existed. When you come to deal with the problem, however, and seek for that something which will take the place of the old personal relationship, you are met at the threshhold with extremes of thought and extremes of action that hamper you in your efforts to find a solution, and you find amongst the working men, amongst the wage workers, those who make the contention that because capital is inanimate, having no life, no intelligence, no energy, therefore, it performs no function in production, and, performing no function in production, is not entitled to consideration.

Upon the other hand, you find the sentiment amongst employers that fails to recognize that their employes are different from ordinary machines, a sentiment that looks upon employes as being but a part of the machinery in production, instead of living, moving, sensuous human beings like themselves, and who undertake to deal with. the wage-worker, with the laborer, from the same standpoint and with the same kind of sentiment as they would deal with a machine. You

have those two extremes, and yet what are the facts?

What is capital? Capital is the unconsumed product of previous la bor, mental and physical, as I have defined it before. It differs from wealth in this that you may take a vacant lot out here on one of your streets, and that vacant lot is wealth, but the moment you erect a building upon that lot, then the building is capital. All the machines that are used in your shops, all the machines that are used in your transportation, and all the buildings that you occupy, and that your workers occupy, are the unconsumed product of previous labor. They are capital, and the function that capital performs in production, and particularly in modern production, is that it furnishes the machine which makes labor more productive than it otherwise could be. furnishes the shelter, the homes, in which the workers live. It furnishes the workers, in the form of wages, with the means of living, until those complex things upon which they are working are finished and ready for

use.

It

And aside from the mental work which must be classed as labor, the mental work on the part of the owner of the capital, he conceives the idea of assembling at a common point, that is, the creation at a common point, of an industry, and he carries his organization out from that point. Aside from the intelligence, which is also labor, which directs the plant after it has been created; aside from the genius of the inventor, which is also labor, which improves the machinery from time to time; and aside from any of these functions on the part of the owners or controllers of capital, capital performs the important functions. of furnishing the machines, being the unconsumed product of previous labor, of furnishing the shelter for the worker, and of furnishing the means. of livelihood until that which the worker is laboring upon is ready for use. For performing these important functions in production it is entitled to the very highest consideration.

Upon the other hand, labor is the vitalizing force. Labor, mental and physical, is the force that makes you capital available, that makes your machinery move, that makes your production possible. No matter how much capital you may have, unless in addition to your capital you have mental and physical labor available for use upon your capital, you cannot produce another article for common use. So labor and capital have mutual interest in production; a mutual interest, not an identical interest. Mark the distinction. Notwithstanding the various schools of thought that have existed amongst those who have been con nected with the labor movement, and with others, it is nevertheless a fact that they have a common interest. a mutual interest, in securing the largest possible production with a given amount of labor.

Anyone who examines the history of this or any other country is bound to come to the conclusion that the workers today are very much better of than the workers of two or three or four generations ago. We have our extremes of wealth, and we have our extremes of poverty today as we had then, but the great mass of the people between those two extremes of wealth and poverty are very much better off in their material surroundings than our forefathers were. The principal reason why they are much better of than their forefathers were is that by the introduction of machinery there has been a greater amount of production, and because there has been a greater amount of production, there is a larger share that can go to the wage-workers than went before that greater production took place.

SERVICE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR IN DISPUTES

So you are mutually interested in securing the largest possible production with a given amount of labor. Your interests only diverge when it comes to a point of division of that which has been jointly produced, when it comes to the division of that which has been produced as a result of stored energy in the form of capital, an

the unstored energy in the form of labor. When it comes to a division of their joint product, there is a diversity of interest. Each is desirous of securing the largest possible share, and out of that desire to secure the largest possible share that can be secured come our industrial conflicts.

Not having the personal relationship that we had before to mellow those contentions, they become extremely acute, and they not only affect those who are engaged in them but they affect all other portions of the community who may not be directly engaged in the contest. When a dispute

of that nature arises which results, or is likely to result, in a suspension of operation in any given industry, the temper, the spirit, of both sides has been aroused. They are not so likely to listen to reason presented by each other as they would be if they were considering the proposition in calmer

moments.

One of the purposes for which the Department of Labor has been created is to step in when that condition of affairs exists and offer its good offices in an effort to bring the contending parties together, in order to adjust their difficulties, because, if it has come to the point where a stoppage of work takes place, then it means an economic loss, a loss not only to the employers and employes engaged in the contest, but a loss to the entire community of forces that ought to be valuable in producing valuable economic results.

When the Department of Labor steps in when a condition of that kind exists, the first step that should be taken is to endeavor to get those who are immediately interested in the contest to work out their problem themselves. A great deal depends on geting them to work out their problems hemselves. A great deal depends on getting them to realize the mutual interests they have, and if they can sit down around the council table and work out their problems on as nearly correct a mathematical basis as it can De arrived at, and the trouble is adusted in that way, the spirit of cooperation which grows out of a condi

tion of that kind is bound to be beneficial in the carrying on of the work in that particular plant.

Failing to secure a mutual consent to consider their own problems and to deal with them and settle them, if they can, then it becomes the duty of the new department to act as a mediator, as a go-between, and to pass between the employer and the employe, not for the purpose of imposing upon either the employer or the employe the particular views of the department, or the department head, but for the purpose of trying to find some mutual basis, some basis upon which two parties can

agree and thereby eliminate the possible contest.

Failing in that, then, to suggest to both parties the advisability for their own interests and for the interest of the community of submitting the question at issue to arbitration, to some disinterested party. It is very much better to settle it themselves, but, failing to settle it themselves, then, in the interest of industrial peace, in the interest of the community at large, it is necessary to submit the questions at issue to disinterested parties and allow them to determine such questions.