industry in general and recommend legislation to Congress. It has become so settled a fact that corporations will be dishonest that the Bureau of Corporations is largely engaged in the investigation of suspects. Recently the packing industry has been subjected to special sanitary inspection.

The public promotion of commercial interests of private corporations are extensions of the general interest in private enterprise. Thus the Department of State negotiates commercial treaties. Its consular agencies are almost exclusively devoted to commercial interests. The Department of Agriculture has spent approximately $40,000,000 in ten years in the promotion of agriculture.

Indeed, laws regulating and limiting the possibilities of dealing with one's own property in commerce are increasingly bewildering in their extent and complexity. Thus in 1903 fifteen states regulated weights and measures. Fiftyfour laws were passed regulating and licensing trades and occupations. Massachusetts and Minnesota curtailed the use of trading stamps. Twenty states passed laws relating to contagious diseases of animals; thirteen laws were passed relating to warehouses and stockyards. A new national meat inspection bill has been passed (1906) providing inspection of live cattle and carcasses and meat products and the destruction of condemned meats in the presence of the inspector. Thirty-one states legislated concerning adulterations and imitations.

Notwithstanding the multitude of restrictions that have been suggested, it is still perhaps true that "our civilization makes property more sacred than personality." " Only those laborers who own land are protected in their right to live. Limitation of the power to compel service would

1 N. Y. Lib. Bul. Leg., 22.

2 Small, Am. Journal of Sociology, i, p. 278.

be the most serious loss to ownership of commerce and industry. The Thirteenth amendment secures labor against involuntary service. Complete ownership being impossible, partial ownership through wages and contract is subject to increasing limitation. Wyoming and Utah laws say: "The rights of labor shall have joint protection through laws calculated to secure to the laborer proper rewards for his services and to promote the industrial welfare of the state." "The wage workers are peculiarly entitled to the encouragement and protection of the law." Notwithstanding many decisions affected with the idealism of a past generation the tendency of the laws seems to be to dispose effectually of the fiction of freedom of contract. There can be no such thing where contract is based as in our industry, not on equality of status, but on inequality of ownership. Society protects the laborer to some degree from freedom of contract. Contracts for unreasonable length of time will not be sustained by the courts. The codes of Colorado, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota provide that contracts for personal service are not enforceable against the employe for a longer time than two years. It is not easy to enforce a reasonable contract. "The rule, we think is without exception, that equity will not confirm the actual affirmative performance by an employe of merely personal service any more than it will compel the employer to retain in his personal service one who, no matter for what cause, is not acceptable to him for service of that charRelief of that character has always been regarded as impracticable. Practically every state exempts the laborer's wages from attachment or execution for debt and

acter.

1 Cited Report of Industrial Commission, v, p. 19.

2 President Roosevelt, Message, Dec. 1904.

3 Freund, op. cit., p. 480.

4 Ibid.

makes him on the other hand a preferred creditor.1

Cer

tain states exempt labor from the operation of the antitrust law.

Compare the following contracts:

"Know all men by these presents that I, John Koontz of the county of Shenandoah and State of Virginia for and in consideration of the sum of three hundred and seventyfive dollars to me in hand paid before the sealing hereof, having granted, bargained, sold and delivered, and by these presents do grant bargain, sell and deliver unto John Newman of the county and state aforesaid one negro boy named James to have and to hold unto the said John Newman, his heirs, executors and admrs. and assigns the said negro boy James forever, and the said John Koontz for himself, his heirs, executors and admrs. hereby warrants and defends the said negro boy James to the said John Newman, his heirs, etc., sound in body and mind and free from all defects whatsoever, aged sixteen years in September next. Witness my hand and seal this 11th day May, 1830.

Test. John Newman.

Here is an indenture of 1628:

John Koontz. (Seal.)2

A husbandman of Surrey county, England, contracts and binds himself to a citizen and iron monger of London to continue "the obedient servant of him, the said Edward hurd, his heirs and assignes, and so by him or them sente transported unto the country and land of Virginia in the parts beyond the seas to be by him or them employde upon his plantation there or and during the space of four yeares, and will be tractable and obedient and a good and faithful

1 Adams and Sumner, Labor Problem, p. 476.

2 In the possession of the writer.

servant onyst to be in all such things as shall be commanded him. In consideration whereof the said Edward hurd doth covenant that he will transporte and furnishe to the said Logwood to and for Virginia aforesaid and allow unto him sustenance, meat and drink, apparel and other necessarys for his livelihood and sustenance during the said service." This was sealed and delivered in the presence of two witnesses.

A southern negro, who does not at all know what he is doing contracts as follows:

"I agree at all times to be subject to the orders and commands of said .. or his agents, perform all work required of me. or his agents shall have the right to use such force as he or his agents may deem necessary to compel me to remain on his farm and to perform good and satisfactory services. He shall have the right to lock me up for safe keeping, work me under the rules and regulations of his farm and if I should leave his farm or run away he shall have the right to offer and pay a reward of not exceeding $25 for my capture and return, together with the expenses of the same, which amount so advanced, together with any other indebtedness I may owe at the expiration of the above time, I agree to work out under all rules and regulations of this contract at same wages as above, commencing ... and ending shall have the right

The said ...

to transfer his interest in this contract to any other party and I agree to continue work for said assignee same as the original party of the first part.'

"1

Passing by agricultural laborers and household servants who are usually engaged on conditions prescribed by cus

1 Cited in Ely, Evolution of Industrial Society, p. 407.

tom and with liberty usually only at the grace of the employer, a contract of a skilled mechanic may be given:

"I hereby agree in consideration of the Wm. Knabe & Company employing me as polisher at the present scale of wages, that I will discharge my duties in a workmanlike and skillful manner according to the directions of the said company, and that in leaving the employment of the said ocmpany, I will give thirty days' notice in writing and if requested sixty days' notice of my intention to leave. I further agree that said company shall have the right to deduct fifteen per cent of each week's wages until the sum shall amount to $100, which said sum of $100 shall be retained by the company till the termination of my employment, when it shall be paid to me, provided I shall faithfully keep the terms of this agreement, otherwise all money so deducted shall be considered liquidated damages for the violation of this agreement, and shall belong to the said company. And it is understood that as soon as the deduction from wages as aforesaid shall amount to $100 the sum shall begin to bear interest at the rate of five per cent, which said interest shall be paid annually, and that said company shall give me thirty days' written notice before making any change in the scale of wages existing at the time of this contract." 1

Whether one sees any analogy between this last contract and the other three depends entirely upon his economic experience. Hence it is idle to draw any. Yet the status of the two parties to the contract is entirely different after the making of the agreement. The employee has sold himself temporarily. The employer gives something much less than personal service in return. When freedom of contract pre

1 International Woodworker, April, 1902.