powder sometimes spontaneously explodes, we don't prohibit the use of powder. The proper application of power is what all our civilization strives for.

All unions or federations, whether of capital or labor, are a dangerous element to all outside such union. They are allied for defence but occasion may arise when the alliance makes for offence. Colorado points a flagrant instance of this when the citizens, as against miners' unions, formed themselves for defence into a citizens' alliance and in the power thus gained, decreed that union workers must be deported from the state.

This action offered no remedy for the evil. It simply substituted one class of oppressors for another. The country has no more to fear from labor unions than it has from any other form of organization.

Labor has an equal right with any other interest to unite, protest, and even resist conditions which press unduly upon it.

And a condition which now presses heavily upon labor is that in its conflict with capital, it is harried and menaced by state forces which should be wholly neutral and lend their weight to neither one side nor the other in the controversy. The labor problem in this country demands a fair court of arbitration,-a court presided over by judges as invulnerable to bribery as the Supreme Court of the United States. Here the claims of employer and employed should be impartially weighed and adjusted.

To evade such a public adjustment is not only to fasten strikes upon us, but it is to nullify our republican boast of equal citizenship.

The public should demand some general arrangement and adjustment by which no class of worker or owner will be given discretion to err on the side of injustice. A code of equity, as between employer and employed, must be established. I believe this to be inevitable.

The labor question will not be settled without a satisfactory answer to its claims. It demands a fair share of the prosperity of the century.

Bias to one side or the other of the problem only puts off the evil day.

The answer given to the miners in Pennsylvania only staved off the day of reckoning. The answer of Colorado is a threat of anarchy which has set many minds thinking that there may be two sides to this as to most questions.

But perhaps the most decisive answer of all comes from Illinois. Here one man owns the whole town of Zeigler. Land, homes, business, mines, are his by holy right of possession.

He proposes to manage the town according to his own will. In his mines he has reduced the scale seventeen cents per ton, and insists that those he employs shall work ten hours a day. Those who refuse to accept these conditions are ordered to leave his town. To enforce his ruling he has imported police and detectives from Chicago to protect his town and guard his plant. Is not this a jump back to feudalism under state or city protection? Then the feudal lord maintained his own-now the state defends while the lord owns.

The labor question will not be dismissed by such exhibitions of abuse of power. Prejudice will not cause it to disappear, nor evasion make it dissolve itself into thin air.

The question will remain with us until it is answered with dignity, truth and justice.

"I can call spirits from the vasty deep."

'Aye, but will they come when you do call for them?"

So we may say that we dismiss the labor question. But the counter question confronts us: "Will the labor question dismiss at your command?"

FANNIE HUMPHREYS GAFFNEY. Larchmont-on-the-Sound, N. Y.

by the fact, that to punish and get rid of the briber is the most direct, practical and effective way to rid the community of the evils of bribery. In this connection it must be remembered that the number of bribe-givers, in comparison with the number of parties who are ready and willing to receive bribes, is relatively very small. The former in addition to being destitute of all moral principle or honor, must possess the wealth or pecuniary ability to provide the funds necessary to achieve or carry out his nefarious purposes. It is no doubt true that a vast majority of these offences against the cities are perpetrated by and in the interest of corporations, and of these generally by public-service corporations. This fact shows how very limited is the number of bribe-givers in comparison with the number of bribe-takers. One successful prosecution against a wealthy corporation followed by the infliction and collection of a heavy fine, as well as by the deprivation of all boodle or stolen property obtained through its villainy, would do more to check or stamp out bribery than a hundred successful prosecutions against the petty, obscure and insignificant bribe-receivers. Whenever one such bribe-giver is driven or frightened from the field of corruption, at least fifteen, twenty or thirty bribe-receivers are driven out at the same time. Their occupation is gone.

Under the influence of a reward it would not be unreasonable to expect that sometimes a member of the city government would be willing to play the rôle of a detective and in such character would accept the briber's gift with the intent and for the express purpose of making a full disclosure of the corruption. Furthermore, when the guilty parties are numerous, each one is under a strong temptation to be the first to go forward and make a clean breast of the whole matter and thereby not only secure exemption from punishment, but also establish his claim to the exclusive ownership of a valuable reward. Each one

knows that the only thing that will prevent such a disclosure from being made by some one of his comrades in guilt, is the so-called principle of "honor among thieves." That a strong pecuniary temptation would generally prove a fatal strain upon this attenuated principle can be hardly doubted.

Another fact to be considered in this connection is that the briber would never know just what kind of a man he is dealing with. He would never know but what the party to whom he is paying his money or is arranging to make payment in the future, is adroitly and deliberately scheming to get him and his associates into the clutches of the law. This very uncertainty would of itself prove a potential factor in preventing or restraining recourse to the practice of corruption.

III.

However, city authorities should not be wholly dependent for their evidence on the free and voluntary action of the parties involved in the guilt. On the contrary the law should authorize every city or a resident taxpayer thereof to go into a court of justice and file an ex parte application or petition in the nature of a bill of discovery alleging in general terms the facts constituting the charges of bribery and asking the court to order an investigation to be made, and to issue all processes necessary to render such investigation complete and effective. This method of procedure is suggested as an improvement on the slow and cumbersome proceedings before a grand jury. But strict secrecy, as in like proceedings before the grand jury, should be enforced and all the witnesses examined separately. The chief advantages of such procedure are, that it can be instituted at any time, and can be adjourned or suspended if necessary, and all questions touching the relevancy or competency of the evidence, or the self-crimination of witnesses can be decided without delay or serious interruption of the proceedings. In such investigations whenever a witness claims

exemption from testifying on the ground that he is not bound to criminate himself, the court should have the authority to grant him a full pardon at once, and to order that in no proceedings, either civil or criminal, shall his testimony be used against him except in a prosecution for perjury in giving such testimony.

IV.

The most effective safeguard that the law can furnish when a corporation is the bribe-giver or the recipient of the stolen property, would be to impose upon the guilty company, or the corporate body itself, a very heavy penalty, say a penalty not less than one thousand dollars nor more than twenty per cent. on the capital stock authorized by its charter or articles of incorporation. Obviously such a penalty could not be justly regarded as excessive when considered in connection with the overwhelming strength of the motive operating upon the company, and the magnitude of the wrong and injustice done to the people of the city when the efforts of the corruptionist are crowned with success. A penalty to be truly deterrant or repressive in its operation, should have some relation or proportion to the extent or magnitude of the evils it is designed to mitigate or prevent.

V.

As a further safeguard to the cities, the law should provide that where any person, company or corporation has obtained a franchise or other valuable property from any city or other municipal corporation and has in connection therewith or as a means thereto bribed any member of the city council or other officer of such city, and said city or municipal corporation has by reason of the granting of such franchise or other valuable property sustained any loss or damage whatever, such city should have the legal right and authority to sue for and recover from such person, company or corporation all loss or damage so sustained, and in addition thereto whatever exemplary

were

or vindicative damages the jury in the exercise of their discretion may deem proper. To establish a complete prima facie right to recover it should be sufficient simply to show that bribery was used in connection with, or as a means of acquiring such franchise or other property. Proof that a single member of the city council or other officer was paid or received a bribe of any kind, should of itself establish a basis for the recovery of damages. The legal presumption should be that the party receiving and enjoying the stolen property directed and sanctioned whatever means employed or steps taken in its acquisition. This right of action should remain absolutely intact, no difference what the terms and conditions of the agreement or arrangement between the city and the other parties may be, all provisions, stipulations or covenants to any extent in conflict with or designed to take away, frustrate or destroy this right of action should be declared and held to be absolutely null and void. Neither should the city through its council or otherwise have any right or power to either defeat or destroy or to compromise, adjust, settle or waive this right of action except under the authority and sanction of a court of justice.

VI.

Another means of protecting cities against the evils of corruption, would be to invest the courts of equity with full power to annul and set aside any grant, transfer or conveyance of any right, franchise or other property of a city when the same has to the loss or detriment of such city been to any extent procured through or by means of bribery practiced by the grantee. To what extent and under what circumstances courts of equity would interfere in such cases under existing laws and grant to the cities the relief here suggested are questions whose answers are still involved in a greater or lesser degree of doubt and uncertainty. Hence specific legislative enactments au

thorizing these courts to declare void and annul all fraudulent, corrupt or collusive alienations of any of the rights, franchises or other property of cities, would at once sweep away all such doubt and uncertainty, and at the same time add greatly to the safety and protection of the interests of municipal corporations. When a city in such cases fails, neglects or refuses to institute proceedings for relief, any property-holder or taxable in

habitant of the city should have the right to bring an action in his own name on the ground that he has an indirect legal interest in the preservation of all the rights, franchises and other property of the city, and will sustain loss and damage in case the corrupt and fraudulent actions of the city officials are not rendered void by the rulings of the court.

Dubuque, Iowa.

GEORGE CRANE.

INDICA

NDICATIONS are not wanting that what has been so generally proclaimed to be "our great prosperity" is about to be succeeded by a period of trade depression. A correct view of the causes which produce alternate periods of good and bad trade is of interest, not only theoretically, but materially and financially, to every investor, to every capitalist, and to every workman in the

nation.

Trade is simply the exchange of commodities for commodities. It derives its incentive from the wants and desires of human nature. So long as men seek the gratification of their wants there can be under normal conditions no such thing as depression in trade. During what is known as a period of trade depression human desires and wants are as active and urgent as ever. Depression, therefore, cannot originate in any diminution of demand. It can only originate when potential demand is unable to find means of gratification; that is to say, when there is a failure in the supply of those commodities which are necessary to be exchanged for others, that human desires may be satisfied. Clearly it is at the point of production, not at the point of

De

consumption, that depression in trade must have its originating cause. mand is perpetual and constantly tends to increase. Each succeeding age requires more than the former age, more and better clothing, more and better food, more and better accommodation, more and superior gratifications of every kind. Human desires and requirements tend to increase with their gratification, and the luxuries of the past generation become the necessities of this.

Any actual decrease in demand can only occur, therefore, when there is a failure in the means to pay for the desired gratifications. When people retrench their expenses in food, clothing, furniture and other necessaries, or when they cut down their expenses in luxuries, it is not because they desire such things any less than before. It is because they lack the means to pay for them. And they lack the means to pay for them only because of the lessened production of those things on which they depended for obtaining the means. Lessened demand is always preceded and caused by lessened supply. Whenever demand is lessened without human wants being fully satisfied, it is absolutely certain that produc