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Austrian caps with the inscription "Dienst," and when the conductor of a local train, wearing the attire of all Italian conductors, refused to speak Italian to me, I felt proud and hopeful: proud that Italy has learned how to

be free from the retaliatory mania; and hopeful that a country which knew how to absorb the French of Piedmont, the Germans of Lombardy, the Slavs of Venetia, the Spaniards of Sardinia, the Greeks of Sicily, and the Albanians of

Apulia will ultimately, by this same generous method of non-interference, write -not soon perhaps, but well-another chapter in the history of assimilation of foreign races in the land so markedly circumscribed by the Alps and the triple sea.

I

TAXATION OF LABOR UNIONS

N Daniel Webster's address before the Historical Society he tells us: "I learned from the reports of controversies in the courts of law of the pursuits and occupations of individuals and of the objects which most earnestly engaged their attention." This was Mr. Webster's last public address in New York City, and it finds illustrations in the current reports of decided cases.

In a recent decision of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals in the Seventh Circuit, in which that Court dealt with the controversies between the United Mine Workers of America and some of the independent coal operators in West Virginia, we find the Court stating the following facts respecting the organization known as the United Mine Workers of America:1

"The evidence shows that members of the Mine Workers Union purchased firearms and ammunition and otherwise financed the violent activities in behalf of the unionizing forces in West Virginia, and this state of war continued until the President sent troops into the State, and it is only held in abeyance because of that fact.

"The evidence shows that the revenues of the Mine Workers Union are produced from dues and assessments laid upon the members; that these fines and assessments are, by an arrangement between the miners' organization and the operators, taken from the wages of the workers in the mines by the operators and paid by them to the organization of mine workers. This is the 'check-off' system. The membership is large and the dues and assessments yield an

enormous sum.

"Statements made by officers of the United Mine Workers show that the miners' organization has sent into West Virginia to carry on this struggle more than two and a half million dollars, and the secretary-treasurer of that organization, in his report to the Convention recently held in this city, stated that during the year ending August 1, 1921, the organization had sent into West Virginia more than a million dollars. This money was derived from the 'checkoff' system, and was sent to West Virginia to assist in the effort to organize the West Virginia field."

The system of the Mine Workers Union in all the districts where it has succeeded in what it calls "unionizing" the mines is this. No man is allowed

1 Ora Gasaway v. Borderland Coal Corporation. Chicago "Legal News," December 22, 1921.

22

BY EVERETT P. WHEELER

to work in the mines unless he is a member of the union. When he becomes a member, he is required to sign a contract that his dues to the union shall be deducted from his pay and sent by the company to the treasurer of the union. As long as he remains a member of the union this contract remains in force. The only way he can get rid of it is by resigning from the union, in which case he loses his job. Another illustration of the work of trade unions is to be found in the testimony taken before the Lockwood Committee of the New York Senate, which was published in the New York "Times" on December 6, 1921.

There is a brotherhood of electrical workers in New York City. Unlike the miners' union, it does not seek to attract members to it, but has succeeded in enforcing a regulation of its own that no electrical worker should be permitted to put in work in the city of New York unless he pays to the union, if he be a journeyman $130 a year, and if he be a helper $52 a year. Additional testimony was given by one of the officers of the union that there was "no bookkeeping system to look at," and it appears that there was a large leak in the accounts of the union and that some of its officers had accumulated private property by methods not disclosed but which can be readily surmised.

The facts which have been thus disclosed call public attention to a condition that ought to be surprising and is familiar. Practically the unions are not subject to any public authority whatever; they are not incorporated, they are not required to keep or publish any accounts of their receipts and expenditures, as corporations are. They have large incomes, amounting in many cases to millions of dollars annually, and have accumulated funds, some of them to the amount of many millions. They are exempt from taxation; in short, they are a privileged class. Beginning as a protest against what was in many cases injustice, they have become great and powerful. Some of their leaders undoubtedly are sincere men who seek what they consider public good, but others are ambitious and have been encouraged to be lawless because of the privileges extended to them.

What the public has a right to ask is that all trade unions should be required to keep accounts of their receipts and expenses, that these accounts should be subject to the inspection of some public authority, and that a summary of them

should be published. All this is just as important for the members of the union as it is for the public.

cers.

It is hardly possible, for example, that the electrical workers would approve the blackmail that, according to this testimony, has been practiced by their offi. But, apart from this, no democracy can continue to prosper which tolerates the existence of a privileged class, having unlimited authority to raise money which, in the end, comes out of the pockets of those who have no voice in the management, and of associations which do not contribute in any way to the support of the Government. Every loyal citizen ought to be glad to do his part to support the Government that gives him protection.

For the purpose of removing the anomalies to which attention has just been called, it has been proposed to require the trade unions to become incorporated. The difficulty here is that their members are not willing to become incorporated, and it would be a difficult and perhaps impossible task to compel persons to incorporate against their will. Another method much more feasible is suggested by an examination of the Federal Tax Law which was approved by the President on November 23 last. Under 6 and 2 of this act we find the following clause: "The term corporation includes associations, joint stock companies, and insurance companies." Trade unions are certainly associations, and they would be taxable under the provisions of this law and required to account, as corporations are, were it not for a special exemption in Section 231. This provides that the "following organizations shall be exempt from taxation under this article: (1) Labor, agricultural, or horticultural organizations."

Whatever reason there may be for exempting from taxation agricultural or horticultural organizations we need not consider. But the facts already stated show that there is none for including labor organizations in the exemption. If Section 231 of the Tax Law were amended by striking out the single word "labor," the desired result would be accomplished as far as it can be by Federal legislation. Can there be any good reason for continuing an exemption which exempts wealthy associations, some of whom certainly are using their accumulated funds for unlawful purposes, and compels their fellow-citizens to bear the whole burden?

From a painting

BY PRESIDENT ANGELL, OF YALE

EDWARD WINSLOW, GOVERNOR OF PLYMOUTH COLONY Such men as Winslow... did not cast in their lot with these poor people [the Pilgrims] for any worldly advantage. . . . It was the sanity of their religious views, and the goodness of their lives, that gained them such valuable support. From "The Pilgrim Fathers," by Winnifred Cockshott, of St. Hilda's Hall, Oxford.

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the face of a torn and agitated world it is complacently disposed to believe that life is to-day fuller, more interesting, and more agreeable than at any previous time in the history of man, and that to-morrow is likely to reveal still further promise. And yet at these dinners, and similar ceremonies held elsewhere, the Pilgrim Fathers are extolled in terms which would have brought the blush of shame to their tanned and sallow cheeks; and this despite the fact that their descendants could by no possible means be induced to exchange their present lot for that of these heroic ancestors. We praise, but we do not envy.

Pilgrims, but often it is ludicrously misconceived and misdirected, as who should praise Napoleon for his modesty, or Henry VIII for his domestic virtues. It has been said that it is better not to know so much than to know so much which is not true, and similarly it may be advisable to praise our forebears less or to praise them more justly.

The Pilgrim is often lauded as the founder of religious liberty; and it is true that by his struggle to secure opportunity to worship according to his conscience he contributed to this great cause. But the liberty he sought for himself he was reluctant to grant to others. A witty commentator has observed in regard to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, that after ten years its members had so far secured religious

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heresies among the savages. As the Indians commonly scalped the heretic first and examined his theology afterward, few dissenters elected this alternative.

Again, there is often much unfounded accrediting to these glorious forebears of ours of the establishment of democratic government. It is true that in Connecticut there was at the outset a form of democratic town government, but it was hardly more than a form, and for many a long year democracy, as we now know it, was not only wholly lacking in New England, but was generally despised and distrusted. At Plymouth there was originally something closely approaching the communism apparently practiced in certain of the earlier Christian communities, but even this quickly passed away, being found impracticable. No one would deny that liberty of conscience and the forms of democracy both grew up in New England. But equally no informed person can truthfully assert that these achievements were characteristic of the earliest New England communities.

What we do find in the Pilgrims is the most superb devotion to religious convictions. For them the real world was the world of the spirit, compared with which the world of material things was but ephemeral dross. They feared not death nor physical suffering. Their dread was for sin, for the weakness of their souls in the face of temptation. Their heroic venture into the unknown wilderness across a wintry sea will always stand as one of the immortal landmarks in the onward march of the human soul, an enduring proof of the unconquerable power of complete moral and religious devotion. If we have that good fortune at all, we may well pride ourselves less on being their blood descendants than on being in some measure the worthy heritors of their undaunted spirit and their consecration to their vision of truth and righteousness. They respected law and human personality. Rank and social position as known in the polite world were to them an abomination, and in turn, as was not unnatural, they were despised and persecuted by the leaders of that world. Liberty they valued above all, but only as a prerequisite to the fulfillment of duty, to obedience to divine law, fealty to the Maker of all things. Thoroughgoing democracy, universal suffrage, and the like were far from their ideals.

We find among them also a position assigned to the family which made it the very foundation of the religious life of the individual and the community. He would be bold who should assert that our contemporary status of the family is an advance upon theirs. Moreover, they valued education, and from the first moment set themselves to pro

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vide schools and shortly even a college for the education of their leaders. And if these men and women have sometimes been praised for qualities they either did not possess or did not esteem, it is equally true that they have been blamed for faults which were peculiar to other men of their time as well as to themselves.

The period was not one of large tolerance, either in politics or religion, and in these matters they fought fire with fire. They were undoubtedly serious and some of them presumably hard and sour, like certain of their descendants; but they were also certainly brave and

wholly conscientious. Their domestic life may have been bleak, but at least it was sturdy and pure. Surely these traits have some meaning for us to-day. We do not see God with their eyes, but we know that justice and mercy shall endure forever. We do not apprehend Satan in the material forms which they made so vivid, but we do know that, with nations as with men, injustice breeds strife and loose morals spell national decay.

We can never return to their literalistic interpretation of the Scriptures, nor to the austerities of their daily life, but we may well inquire whether something

of their sense of the deeper, spiritual values of experience would not soften the hard and cynical gaze with which so many a modern looks out upon life, I would not make for a deeper and more enduring foundation for our social relations and our National vigor.

Is it too much to hope that those superb impulses of high spiritual purpose which possessed our entire Nation during the late war may once more sweep over our people and embed themselves forever in our National fiber? Such a moral victory would indeed be a fitting tribute to the dauntless men and women whose memory we honor to-night.

ROME AND THE NEW WORLD

TOT since the days of Luther has the Vatican faced a situation so full of uncertainties-of possibilities as that which greets the successor to Pope Benedict XV. The choice of Cardinal Ratti is in itself significant. His rapid promotion, his athletic physique, his mountaineering zeal, mean that here is a Pontiff who will broaden the Catholic appeal. He becomes Pope not as an ecclesiastic merely but as a man of muscle and individuality. He blesses the people from the outside of St. Peter's, not from the inside. He is the prisoner of the Vatican who intends to escape.

Many are the evidences of a counterReformation which might substantially change the balance between Catholic and Protestant. The war has not turned people into atheists, but has led them, rather, to mistrust a modern progress away from religion. "Pure reason" as developed in Prussia did not keep the peace, but produced poison gas, and science seemed to be summed up in submarines. Hence we see Bernard Shaw returning at least to Methuselah, while for the sake of argument H. G. Wells concedes God. Sir Oliver Lodge, once agnostic, delivers other-worldly lectures; and in Scotland and northern England there has been a spontaneous revival, evoking comparisons with the life-work of the Wesleys, Whitefield, Fox, and Moody, or with the spiritual experiences of Wales. Finally, we have had a President of the United States inaugurating a Conference of the Powers, and among them Japan and China, with the Lord's Prayer.

In this atmosphere the Roman Church has displayed a world-wide and careful activity. Sir Charles Dilke, who was in his day a high authority, considered that the diplomats of the Papacy were the ablest in the world. If diplomacy can restore a faith, assuredly Rome is once more formidable. With exquisite timeliness, Joan of Arc has been canonized and France in victory receives a

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THE SHRINE OF STE. ANNE AT THE CHURCH

OF STE. ANNE DE BEAUPRÉ, QUEBEC

This is one of the most celebrated shrines of the New World. Thousands of people annually make pilgrimages to this place to pray before the shrine, which contains a relic of the saint

patron saint. Canonized also is Bishop Plunkett, of Ireland, hung, drawn, and quartered during the Popish Plot. It is doubtless an undesigned coincidence that both these saints were martyred by England! The Protestant halo which surrounds Nurse Cavell is reflected by a Catholic halo around Cardinal Mercier, also revered by mankind. Organizations like the Young Men's Christian Association are not only denounced as subver

sive of faith and morals; they are challenged by rivals like the Knights of Columbus. And in these days of the camera the Church of Rome has this further advantage-she photographs admirably. Not only does she paint pictures she is one. In the movies her ceremonial reaches to the ends of the earth. Of her pageantry she makes no secret. Her mysteries are frankly displayed. If a great ecclesiastic dies, his body lies in state, without reserve. His 'face is seen. In the inner life, let us say, of the Quakers, there is nothing for the film. It is like leaven hidden in three measures of meal. It is a kingdom that cometh without observation.

As an example of the emotions which are stirring the world, one may mention faith healing. Whatever may be the troubles of Christian Scientists in Boston, their crusade continues in England. Shrines like Lourdes or Sainte Anne de Beaupré in Quebec have never been more popular. Even the Anglican Church has developed its healing ministry; and a glance at the Report of the Rockefeller Foundation, with the news that never has the death rate in New York fallen as low as it is to-day, suggests that medicine also is working its scientific miracles, and so carrying forward the first main task of the Saviour when on earth. Under such circumstances, signs and wonders are to be expected. From Ireland we have reports of cripples being cured through bleeding statues and holy pictures, while Cardinal Newman, who was so interested in ecclesiastical miracles, would have noted, had he been alive, the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius at Naples, which happily foretold the failure of revolutionary troubles in Italy.

If, however, the influence of the Catholic Church has sometimes tended towards superstition, that influence has also made for sober manners. Pope Benedict XV declared that "on the domestic hearth woman is queen." He denounced extravagance of dress; and

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in Spain, the United States, and other countries the hierarchy emphasized his message, even interrupting the rite of marriage unless the company were clothed according to "Christian mod esty." Against divorce the Church stands so firm that there are cities in the United States where moving pictures in which the stars have figured prominently in matrimonial suits are not easily shown. Certain incidents which accompanied the campaign for birth control are part of the same Catholic policy. With a profound discernment, the Papacy has appealed for conservatism in manners and morals as well as in theology. It is essentially the appeal made by the black coat of an American President. It is also the appeal deliberately enforced against the smart set by the British Court. Catholicism is now no longer identified with bull-fights, the Continental Sunday, absinthe, and the stiletto! Catholicism is, or seeks to be, mid-Victorian.

Hence what has been called "the procession to the Vatican" as to a steadying factor in the world's affairs. The cynic may say that statesmen, afraid of Bolshevism, were glad of any port in a storm. Be that as it may, with the world becoming republican, we have the amazing fact that the number of countries with representatives accredited to the Holy See has doubled. Before the war it was a dozen; now it is more nearly thirty. Even Britain and Holland are included. Hitherto the Papacy has cultivated the good will of monarchs. Now it must deal with democracies; and it fell to the lot of Pope Benedict XV to recognize indeed, to welcome the inevitable. After all, even Catholic monarchs have not always acted as obedient sons of the Church. There was Henry VIII. There

was Napoleon Bonaparte. There was Louis XIV. There was the veto of the Hapsburgs which prevented Rampolla being Pope. And among Protestant "despots" there was Bismarck, there was George III. What the Papacy is now organizing is no longer the divine right of kings, but voting power among the peoples. In France Catholics are released from the royalist allegiance: In Italy they are no longer warned against elections but urged to record their suffrages, with the result that there has been formed under Don Luigi Sturzo, a Sicilian priest, the Italian Popular Party, which, it is hoped, will become the nucleus of a White Internationalthe Christian alternative to the Red International. In the United States there have been various pronouncements on social reconstruction of a liberal character.

The policy of winning the people instead of merely cultivating the friendship of their rulers has had results. There were tens of thousands. of priests in the French army, and as soldiers they were infinitely more powerful for the Church than they would have been if they had claimed the privileged exemption allowed by Britain to her clergy. France is not Catholic. But she no longer holds what Catholicism she has merely "for export." In Italy the active quarrel between Church and State is at an end. The theory that the Pope is a prisoner of the Vatican, that he is restrained by some civil usurpation from exercising his office, that his letters are opened, and so on, has always been a polite fiction. The Pope can at any time go anywhere or receive any one or anything that he wants. But his attempt to forbid Catholic sovereigns visiting the King of Italy-he even objected to the

discretion of Theodore Roosevelt-was by no means unreal. It was almost a cause of war on one occasion between Austria and Italy, and it has been most wisely abandoned. Indeed, cardinals today drink tea with the royal house of Savoy, and an Italian Minister formally presented condolences at the Vatican on the death of Benedict XV. It is true that no panegyric on him was pronounced in the Italian Parliament. But it is also true that the Italian Government which desired this without securing it fell from power. The Catholics have become a force in Italian politics.

Even so stanch a Whig as Macaulay has admitted that "it is better that men should be governed by priestcraft than by brute violence, by such a prelate as Dunstan than by such a warrior as Penda." What Pope Benedict XV aimed at was to be the Dunstan who restrains the Penda. He supported the principles underlying a League of Nations. He asked to be represented at Versailles, but Italy would not have it. He has pronounced against conscription and the worst horrors of war. His voice materially contributed to a settlement in Ireland. But it must not be supposed that his record has commanded universal assent. At a time when the Protestant and Eastern Churches are drawing together, when important conferences are held and contemplated to discuss either reunion or intercommunion, Rome stands aloof, as haughty as ever. She will join with no other body of Christians. All Christians must first join her. The Papacy has still to emerge from that terrific scene in 1870 when, with France tottering, and tottering also the Temporal Power, Pius IX, undeterred by peals of coincident thunder, signed his own infallibility amid a daylight dark

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ness which was only relieved by canIdles held above the challenging manuscript.

The future of Roman Catholicism, though brighter than before and, some would say, of a dazzling prospect, is by no means free from perplexity. Statistics are published showing hundreds of millions of Catholics even in Europe; but these figures are nominal. In no real sense are there, for instance, thirtyfive million of the faithful in France The Vatican is, by admission, in need of funds. Not only have the revenues of the Papal States come to an end, but contributions from Austria, Hungary, Poland-to mention only three Catholic countries must have most grievously declined. This means that the Pope is now dependent more than ever before upon the tribute which he receives from the New World, and especially from the United States. This country is one where, as England discovered to her cost, taxation without representation, and especially taxation by the Old World, needs a good deal of defending. Hence it must be considered a serious question whether the existing constitution of the College of Cardinals can be maintained. From a recent book of reference I gather the list which is printed in the adjoining column.

That means a clear majority for Italy. And at a Conclave the under-representation of the New World is the more noticeable because time is not allowed for

the four non-European Cardinals to arrive and vote. In other words, the Catholics of North and South America at present exercise no influence over the choice of the Pontiff. The explanation of the anomaly is of course curious and interesting. The Pope is not only the Holy Father of Catholic Christians. He is Bishop of Rome. The Cardinals are in a technical sense his local clergyhis suffragan bishops, his priests, his deacons. Each has his parish in the Eternal City. But, however keenly the antiquarian may appreciate this tradi

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tion, one must face the fact that the election, let us say, of the Bishop of New York, in which the laity participate, in which the whole Church concerned has a voice, in which the proceedings are public, seems to be more in line with equity and the custom of to-day than the picturesque proceedings in the sealed chambers and chapels of the Vati

can.

What the Church has to guard against is another breach between her Italian body-guard and her faithful beyond the Alps. The country which bred Julius Cæsar, Dante, Michael Angelo, and most of the Popes deserves a world-wide empire over men's minds. But, after all, the predominance of Italy in the Papacy was at least a contributing cause of the Reformation in northern Europe and in Britain. And the Italian view on many subjects, particularly the relations of the Papacy with other Christian bodies, may not be at all the real and considered view of Catholics outside Italy and Europe. A large increase in the propor tion of non-Italian Cardinals would seem to be needed by the circumstances of the case, and with it a somewhat more elastic arrangement for their attendance. when summoned, at Rome. The situation is, if one may say so, somewhat similar to that of England and her Dominions. More and more she has found it wise to recognize the sentiments and the susceptibilities of her distant adherents.

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