the State can do is to give him a chance to fight for himself. If he is afraid to fight for himself, nobody else is going to incur the risks of fighting for him.

When workmen talk about telling their story to a public officer who is in sympathy with them, and not to any other, they ruin their own case at the outset. Whatever be the rights or wrongs of the matter, whatever be the actual state of the case, a man who will only tell his story to a sympathizing officer, is not generally regarded as a very trustworthy witness or as a very respectable object. If he has facts and is willing to stand up to them, he has a chance of getting justice; but if he is not ready to bring out in public the facts which he knows better than any one else, no amount of sympathy will help him in securing his rights.

It is precisely here that labor organizations may serve a most useful purpose. It will often happen that an organization will dare to stand up for rights which the individual workman would fear to defend. When this happens, it does good in every way. It insures that the law shall have its effect, if it is a good one, or be shown to be bad, if it is a bad one. It puts employer and employee on an equality before the law; it shows the workmen as a body the difficulties of enforcing the law, and at the same time teaches them the lesson of self-help in a most practical way.

The individual workman, seeking his rights, is often at a great disadvantage. There are, unfortunately, a great many manufacturers who object to any statement of grievances; and they have such an unreasoning horror of everything that looks like agitation, that they are not ready to consider legitimate complaints; or even if they do consider them, nevertheless bear a grudge against the complainant. He is thenceforth a marked man. A pretext is found for discharging him. Once discharged, he finds it impossible to obtain employment elsewhere. The use of the blacklist is not as extensive as workmen commonly suppose. Many a man who claims to have been blacklisted for doing his duty by the law and by his fellow workmen, turns out, upon investigation, to have

Yet

been discharged for incompetency, or drunkenness. there are enough cases where the blacklist is used as a means of suppressing agitation, to make it a powerful instrument of terror against those workmen who are only anxious to secure their legitimate rights. And there is no doubt that a great many manufacturers who would not themselves use it in this way, are glad to turn the prevailing dread to their own. account; exactly as a great many leaders of labor organizations, who would not themselves sanction intimidation, are glad to make use of the results of measures of intimidation to further their own purposes.

There is no use in saying that the workmen ought not to be afraid of the blacklist. The danger, whether exaggerated or not, is, to some extent, real; and so serious as to make any man hesitate before incurring it. Let any capitalist ask himself candidly what he would do if he were in the workmen's place. Would he run a chance of ruining himself by a protest? or would he quietly submit to the wrong as inevitable? How many capitalists, at non-competitive points, have the courage to protest against the management of a railroad when it indulges in actions of questionable legality? Every railroad investigation in the United States and England shows that the shippers at local points are afraid to stand up for their legal rights. They fear, and with good reason, that any advantage which they may secure in the courts will be rendered worse than useless by the tactics which the railroad manager can if he pleases adopt against them. The shipper is as much afraid of the railroad company's arbitrary power of retaliation as the workman is afraid of the blacklist. One man is not any more willing to be a marked man than another. In the railroad legislation now pending in England, one of the most important reforms sought by the shippers is the right, on the part of boards of trade, or other commercial associations, to prosecute the complaints of their individual members.

Now, the relation of the employees to the employer is, in some respects, very much like that of the shippers to the

railroad. The individual employee, or individual shipper, is at the mercy of the employer or the railroad. The latter can, for the time being, dictate the terms of every contract, and make arbitrary differences between the individuals. It is only when the shippers or the employees take action as a body that they obtain a power which is not merely equal to that of the railroad or the employer, but far greater. In fact, the greatness of this power, under extraordinary circumstances, constitutes a most serious danger. It is important that it should be given every means of legitimate action under ordinary circumstances. If such action is restricted, it will sooner or later find expression in means of doubtful legality, and destructive to all parties concerned.

In other words, if organized labor takes a fair legal chance for prosecuting the grievances of individuals, it simply gives those individuals a fair chance before the law; if organized labor does not prosecute such grievances, it gives the employers an immunity from interference at present, but at the risk of almost revolutionary consequences in the future.

There is nothing to prevent the Knights of Labor, or a trades union, from being incorporated under the law of the State of Connecticut at present. Though not generally understood, this is a fact.

If a law has been violated, there is nothing to prevent an assembly of the Knights of Labor from instructing its officials to force the prosecuting officers of the State to take action in the matter; and such prosecuting officers are bound to obey the demand from this source just as much as from any other. But we are willing to go further than this. If an explicit declaration of the rights of labor unions to institute suits against employers in any of the recognized legal channels will help towards securing this result, by all means let such declaration be made as explicitly as possible. Anything that will help to make workmen understand that they have at once the right to demand the enforcement of the law and the responsibility for a failure to enforce it will be a great benefit to the community.

The good effect of such a course would be felt in several directions:

1. A union with a recognized legal position is less likely to commit irresponsible acts, or even to make unfounded claims. The mere fact of legal recognition tends to give a cautious and conservative character to the management. The power to enforce the responsibility of others involves an increase in its own responsibility. The power to obtain legal remedies for a grievance checks the temptation to resort to illegal remedies.

2. It teaches the lessons of self-help and self-government. A man or an association that is given a fair and equal fighting chance soon learns not to depend upon appeals for sympathy; he learns that exaggerations and figures of rhetoric, which sound well in the speech, are worse than useless when subjected to cross-examination; he learns that it does harm instead of good to tell a story which he is not ready to maintain. in the face of all the world; he learns the lesson of talking less and getting more.

3. Finally, any such chance for the workingmen to prosecute their own grievances will bring the laws on the statute book to the test of enforcement; it will help the execution of the good ones; it will help the repeal of the bad ones; it will do away with the attempt to please everybody by insisting on extreme laws which cannot be enforced. If the workmen have the execution of the laws largely in their own hands, they will hesitate before demanding legislatio which they are not willing to incur the odium of supporting in its actual details.

More than this. When workmen are ready to make personal effort to enforce the law in their behalf, it is surprising how little legislation is needed. On the other hand, where the most laws seem to be needed, the means of enforcing them are fewest. When many abuses exist side by side, the attempt to meet any one of them by legislation finds fewer people to enforce it, meets more enemies and involves greater hardship in its execution.

THE BURDEN OF A CHANGE FALLS ON THE WEAKEST.

This is why the coincidence of monthly payments, long hours, and child labor does not furnish a more decisive argument in favor of radical legislation.

It does indicate a relatively low condition on the part of the laboring people-less independence; less time to themselves; more exhaustion; more danger of deterioration of the race. Any man who attempts to defend one part of the system finds the presence of the other parts a terrible argument against him.

But when people draw the very natural conclusion that these things ought to be prohibited by law they make a mistake; or at least they go faster than the facts warrant. The fact that all these three things go together so uniformly may show the need of legislation; but it shows still more clearly its impotence. The different things are not independent. It is of little or no use to attack them separately. They indicate a relatively low condition of the laborers. Until that condition can be raised, legislation is of comparatively little effect. People who are not fit for industrial independence will persistently continue to live on credit. People who cannot concentrate their work will have to work longer hours in order to compete with those who can. Where labor is uneducated or undisciplined, it will have to make up in cheapness what it lacks in efficiency. Where workmen are not far-seeing enough to look at the indirect effects of child labor, they will try to make a profit out of the work of their own children, and will be themselves the most dangerous opponents of the child labor law. Until you have educated them. above this point, the attempt to remedy this state of things by legislation will involve great hardship, and will be of doubtful

success.

It is on account of their educational effects that labor organizations have the most incontestible reason for their existA strike may turn out well or ill; but if it is made by the direction of an organization with a history, the lesson is preserved and laid up for the future; if it is made without

ence.