be much more marked under the future conditions which are here assumed; and its tendency would be to lower real-estate values, withdraw from the city important fractions of its efficient laboring population, diminish the city's industrial output and reduce taxable wealth.'

Such would be the effects in manufacturing. A similar result would be entailed in the case of wholesale business, because here the home market is much less secure than in retail trades. Buyers from wholesalers will even now make their purchases in Chicago, Philadelphia and other cities at comparatively slight concessions in price. As wholesale business houses could and would move to other cities, rents of the buildings they occupy could not be raised to offset increased taxation, and a considerable portion of this loss could not be shifted by the landlords. The result would be a shrinkage of taxable values. Even more marked would be the effect on commercial activities. The railway differential against the port of New York has, in spite of the many advantages which the latter possesses, had the effect in recent years of aiding the growth of competing cities, so that their trade has increased in much larger ratio than that of New York. How much more marked, then, would be the effects of

was found that taxation, while not the determining cause, was a contributing factor. Other causes, such as inadequate shipping facilities and especially the high cost of trucking, taken in connection with high taxation and the prospect of its further increase, were deemed to outweigh the loss of a superior labor market and the cost of moving. Four of the concerns moved to New Jersey and one to another borough of the city.

In another case, where also the question of taxation was considered important, a manufacturing establishment has determined to move from New York, although the mere cost of moving will exceed $200,000. This cost of moving is undoubtedly an element of "economic friction" which tends to keep factories where they are until the disadvantages of their location become very pronounced. But no such consideration can be said to affect business judgment when the question arises where to establish a new plant, and here the effect of even slightly excessive taxation may easily prove to be the determining factor. The check to new growth will therefore be felt before a loss is experienced from the removal of existing industries.

1 The great cities of modern times have grown as the result of economic causes and not for the purpose of securing social benefits. The latter have been incidental effects rather than causes. If cities were not superior agencies for the economic production of wealth they would never have grown as they have; and should this superiority disappear, their decay would be imminent.

such conditions as we have been considering! The play of commerce is in a free field where handicaps tell for their full weight.

Thus far we have treated of the effects of extreme taxation on New York City under the assumption that its competitors will be less heavily burdened. If it be assumed that municipal socialism is to march forward with equal strides in other cities, a corresponding modification must be made in our conclusions; though there would still remain the important-and under these conditions the increasing-competition of the small towns. A general and uniform development of municipal socialism is, however, extremely unlikely, and to render our conclusions wholly invalid, it would be necessary to imagine practically the whole world, China included, committed to socialistic principles. So long as any substantial part of it clings to the more obvious advantages of modern industrialism, so long must we keep at least within hailing distance of the general line of social movement. The ambitious programs of municipal socialism involve such enormous public expenditures that the burdens of taxation resulting therefrom would surely drive away from a city more trade, more manufacturing, more industry, more population, than could possibly be attracted to it by the benefits which these expenditures were intended to secure. Those who dream of a speedy realization of the utopian hopes which sociology has revealed to some of its enthusiastic votaries must curb their impatience lest disaster befall.'

The social philosophers who devise grandiose schemes of municipal development and social reconstruction are not usually those who have to foot the bill. To spend the money of others for the benefit of mankind is a doubled delight. We laugh in a good-natured way at the volunteer advisers who seek to direct the willing stream of Mr. Carnegie's benevolence; but how

It is to be regretted that the graduates of our universities, who recruit so largely the ranks of the "parlor socialists," should specialize so exclusively in social science. This study-which, as yet, is not a science at all—is undoubtedly more alluring than taxation, finance and other branches of economics. The latter, however, are more firmly grounded on facts elicited by empirical investigation, and a better appreciation of their significance would help to moderate youthful extravagances. Those who keep their gaze fixed on the stars should none the less tread firmly on the earth.

ought we to regard those who would gratify their folie raisonnante by employing the taxing power to empty the pockets of those unwilling and unable to pay?

Whatever progress has been made in the modern social “ uplift" has been due to the wonderful achievements of modern industrialism, which have created so large a "surplus value" as to enable wealth to realize much of its latent social power. The ability to aid mankind is no longer limited to a small aristocracy of charity; more and more each day, as prosperity increases, the community at large becomes better able and more willing to contribute towards this end. But this ability must not be over-estimated. With the great majority of men the first problem is still that of self-support. A man must feel secure of that before he can be expected to give, either voluntarily through old-fashioned charity or involuntarily through taxation for better social conditions. The fanatics of the new religion. of socialism, by fostering municipal megalomania, can more effectively arrest the progress of social welfare than the most selfish and stubborn of reactionaries. Mankind, in spite of Herbert Spencer's forebodings, still cherishes the sentiment of justice. Indeed, it is that very sentiment, in part, which makes us so desirous to raise the deserving poor from oppressive conditions, but this must not be attempted at the cost of a greater injustice.

The limitations of municipal socialism lie mainly in the effects of excessive taxation. Should this movement, which in its philanthropic aspect is, as I have said, merely a kind of governmental sodality, advance with due recognition of its economic limitations, it would be difficult now to set the bounds of its ultimate accomplishments. But it depends for its future upon economic prosperity and sanity in expenditure.

NEW YORK CITY.

EDGAR J. LEVEY.

UNIONISM IN THE IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY

HE first union in the iron and steel industry in the United

TH States was organized in 1858 by the Pittsburgh pud

In

dlers. It was called the "Sons of Vulcan." The movement was at first very cautious, but in 1862 secrecy was abandoned and, on September 8, a national organization was effected in Pittsburgh with Miles Humphreys as president. Two other unions in the iron industry were formed later. 1869 the heaters in a Chicago mill formed an organization, which soon became national, under the name "Associated Brotherhood of Iron and Steel Heaters, Rollers and Roughers." The Iron and Steel Roll Hands of the United States" was organized in a mill in Chicago in 1870. Earlier dates are sometimes given for the beginnings of organizations in the finishing departments, but these Chicago locals seem to be the only unions that developed into anything permanent.

I

The three organizations existed side by side in the same mills, and it soon became apparent to the members that much could be gained by joining forces. Accordingly, on December 7, 1875, representatives of the three organizations met in Pittsburgh and spent six days in discussing plans for amalgamation. They drew up a tentative constitution and adjourned. August 1, 1876, the three unions met in separate conventions in Pittsburgh, and on August 3 they went into joint convention. In addition to the representatives of the three national organizations there was one representative of the "United Nailers," an organization which had been started in 1874 and which included

'Fincher's Trade Review published in its trade-union directory a card of a "Heaters' Union" of Cleveland, Ohio, in 1865. In 1866, cards of "Heaters' Union Number 2" of Troy, New York, and “Heaters' Union Number 8" of Pittsburgh were published. A card of the “Iron Rollers of Troy,” New York, was pub. lished in 1865 and 1866. July 6, 1865, a convention was held at Cleveland, Ohio, "pursuant to call" with delegates of heaters' unions present from various states for the purpose of “organizing a national union, or, more properly, of effecting a more complete national organization." They remained in session two days and adjourned to meet at the same place July 5, 1866.

several local lodges without any national organization." The joint convention proceeded to vote on the constitution that had been agreed upon by the amalgamation committees in December, 1875, and it was adopted practically without change. The convention adopted as a name, "National Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers."

Once formed, the Amalgamated Association steadily extended its organization. From the first the Pittsburgh district had been the trade-union stronghold. The bulk of the membership of the Sons of Vulcan was in and around Pittsburgh, and here unionism found the most responsive feeling. By 1885 practically all the iron mills in western Pennsylvania had been organized and the Amalgamated was gaining a strong foothold in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

At this time the steel industry in America was in its infancy. The Edgar Thomson steel works at Braddock, Pennsylvania, began to make Bessemer steel in 1875. This was the first large steel mill built in Allegheny county. The North Chicago Steel Mill entered the industry a few years earlier, but it was not until the middle of the eighties that steel superseded iron in the market. This fact has had an important bearing on the internal and external history of the Amalgamated Association. The three bodies that met in 1876 and created the new organization were composed of iron workers. The name " 'Iron and Steel Workers" was really a misnomer, for the steel workers who participated in the movement were so few as to be almost a negligible quantity. The Sons of Vulcan, composed of iron workers exclusively, formed the backbone of the new organization and contributed over eighty-five per cent of its original membership, and the majority of the members of the Heaters and Rollers and also of the Roll Hands were iron workers.

Before discussing the effect of the make-up of the organization upon its working policies it seems desirable to describe the machinery of the organization and its fundamental laws.

In the original constitution of the association, the first section of the first article reads as follows: "This Association shall be

1 Report, Pennsylvania Bureau of Industrial Statistics, 1887.