on state banks, and for an issue of $50,000,000 of state bonds for good roads, which, however, on account of another proposed change, will only buy $25,000,000 worth of good roads. Moreover, uniformity in school districts is to be prevented, and variety in municipal government compelled,

so that bond limits and other financial safeguards for the community may be unstable.

The manufacturers of Ohio, as everywhere else (buying raw material, making it up and selling it at a profit, if they can, employing hundreds of thousands, and meeting the pay roll, if they can), are very unpopular in Ohio, as elsewhere, and really deserve no consideration in the face of propositions to dynamite the works and boycott the business out of existence. But what it is proposed to do to these gentlemen, under all of the amendments, to the Ohio constitution that can possibly be adopted, will be a fearful and wonderful thing, even for the friendless manufacturers to contemplate. They now pay a county tax, a federal income tax and a state tax on capital stock; but it is contemplated that they shall pay a county tax on stock outstanding and an additional tax to cover increased interest on the bonds of the municipality. Thus, with the increased wages really to be paid. on account of the minimum wage provision, and the increased rates for workmen's compensation, perhaps a thousand per cent more than employer's liability rates, and the cost of damages on account of the changed jury system, they will have a fine time of it-unless they choose to move to Pittsburgh or Indianapolis for a time, or go to Europe forever.

Finally, the initiative and referendum is provided for on 3 per cent petition, and if there is anything in the above (incomplete) list of things that the populists and radicals have omitted to propose to do to business and property and opportunity in Ohio, the omission can be apologized for, and it can promptly be attended to in a month or two, while you wait.

I don't know whether those of substance in Ohio, or those who want to be of substance, realize what is likely

to happen to them in the near future, but it is sure to be a plenty even if they wake up now. Outside of of Ohio are known to be various persons who have invested money or have advised others to invest money within the borders of that state. They are taking alarm. Somebody like Frank Vanderlip or Benjamin Franklin said that nothing was so cowardly as a million dollars, except two million dollars. I said "cowardly"; I meant "sensible". Here may prove to be a length to which confiscation, bold, shameless, unutterable, will not hesitate to go. But property does not all have to stay in Ohio. It can be withdrawn; and if the police in other. places cannot be depended upon to protect it, it can be hidden.

Bars Time Measurement

The following is in substance the bill introduced by Congressman Pepper, in the National House of Representatives, to regulate the method of directing the work of government employes:

It shall be unlawful for any officer, manager, superintendent, foreman, or other person having charge of the work of any employe of the United States government to make Or cause to be made with a stop watch or other time-measuring device. a time study of the movements of any such employe, or to pay or cause or allow to be paid to any such employe any premium or bonus as wages or otherwise;

Provided, That the terms "premium" and "bonus" as herein used shall not be construed to include any cash reward paid any employe under authority of law for suggestion resulting in improvement or economy in the operation of the plant in which he is employed.

Sec. 2. That any violations of the provisions of this Act shall be deemed a misdemeanor and shall be punished. by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars or by imprisonment of not more than six months, at the discretion of the court.

One of the most severe arraignments ever given a man in any publication appears in the Argonaut and its object is Lincoln Steffens, author and also guardian angel of the selfconfessed murderers, the McNamaras. What the Argonaut has to say is based on Steffens' testimony on the witness stand in the Darrow trial. Steffens said that the blowing up of the Los Angeles Times building was a social crime, that in the negotiations leading up to the pleas of guilty by the McNamara brothers, he tried hard to save J. J. McNamara and that the community would not have its problem solved by the punishment of the two men.

Among other things the Argonaut says that the part played by Steffens "stinks" and that it is an insult to good government and to the law. It declares that it is merciful to assume that Steffens is mentally warped and it concludes by saying that it is no wonder that courts lose respect when they permit "hysteriacs", like Steffens, to use them as a convenient forum for anarchy. The Argonaut says in part:

There is only one extenuating circumstance that can be urged for Mr. Steffens. It seems merciful to assume that he was mentally diseased. He proclaimed his conviction that the McNamaras ought not to have been punished at all for the confessed murder of over twenty people and for the implication that naturally followed the commission of some eighty other dynamite outrages throughout the country. It seems hard to believe that a man of education should be so lost to the obligations of civilization, indeed of mere common decency, as to offer such a contention as this. But the fact is upon record. Mr. Steffens

said this, according to the report, and the court heard him say it without protest. The crime of the McNamaras, says Mr. Steffens, was a "social crime". The conditions that caused it should have been treated, and presumably the murderers should have been respectfully notified that the points at issue would be immediately adjusted.

The further we go in the "evidence" of Mr. Steffens, the more amazing does it become. If some I. W. W. orator had said half as much at San Diego, it would be easy to understand that the tar bucket or the lunatic asylum would be the only alternatives. But no I. W. W. ever talked like Mr. Steffens. No I. W. W. would dare. Not satisfied with this maudlin plea for two particularly cowardly murderers, Mr. Steffens went on to explain why, in his opinion, the prosecution of the McNamaras had been undertaken. That it was undertaken because a score of people had been brutally murdered and because there was every reason to believe that the McNamaras were the murderers had apparently never entered his head. No. The McNamaras were prosecuted because orders for two "victims" had been received from certain eastern interests. And this opinion, be it remembered, was voiced by Mr. Steffens a week ago and in face of the fact that the McNamaras confessed and are now in prison. In the eyes of Mr. Steffens these men are still "victims", the prey of insatiate corporation revenges, martyrs to the great cause of social justice.

There is only one way to describe the part played by Mr. Steffens from first to last in these proceedings. It stinks. It is an insult to good gov

was the one voice externally audible. His admonitions, pieties, scriptural tags, beseeching and threatening filled the air. He seems to have had a perpetual passport to the prison on one side and the judge's chamber on the other. And now we are informed, and in a court of justice, too, that all these hysterical hurryings and scurryings were undertaken on behalf of two men whom he knew to be murderers; that murder ceases to be a crime if undertaken for "social" ends, and that the McNamaras are being punished, not for killing over twenty people, but because certain corporations had demanded two "victims". Is it any wonder that our courts should be losing the respect of the country when they allow hysteriacs like Mr. Steffens to use them as a convenient forum for anarchy?

McNamara Defense Fund

A recent dispatch shows the distribution of the McNamara defense fund. The dispatch reads:

All labor unions which contributed to the McNamara defense fund will receive copies of an 82-page pamphlet setting forth a detailed statement of the uses to which the fund was put and showing a balance of $8,286.54. Seventy-four pages of the pamphlet are devoted to detailed statements of contributions to the fund and two pages to expenditures, the largest of which were to Clarence S. Darrow as chief attorney for the defense. The statement shows that $236,105.25 was contributed to the funds, of which exactly $200,000 was paid to Darrow. Indianapolis attorneys, Leo. M. Rappaport and Henry Seyfried, received $11,000 and $2,500, respectively. Other principal expenditures are for buttons, $1,225; tickets, $457.75; printing and mailing literature, $2,623.50;

arranging for production of exhibition of McNamara films, $3,142.19, and many other items of less importance.

The largest single contribution to the fund was by the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers, which paid $25,000 on Aug. 4, when assessments of $5 on each member were being collected.

This organization, of which the McNamaras were members, made several other contributions, two in excess of $5,000 and one of $3,000.

Law Works Badly

It is reported from New York state. that the workmen's compensation and employers liability law, which have been effective in that state since September 1, 1911, impose new risks upon employers and are proving to be rad-. ical and one-sided. Several of the defenses of the employer are modified by the liability act, the general result. of which places upon the employer a heavier burden than formerly.

The workmen's compensation act applies only to certain so-called dangerous employments, such as the building trades and railroading. It provides for recovery in certain limited amounts, irrespective of the employers' negligence. It is optional with a workman injured in these employments, whether he will claim under the compensation or the liability act. If he has a strong, clear case, he will probably claim under the latter, as the chances are greater for larger damages. If the employer plainly be not liable under the liability law, claim will then be made under the compensation act. Hence, the employer is compelled to insure under both statutes. In the building trades, general contractors are held liable for injuries to workmen employed by their subcontractors.

Because of multiplied risks, liability companies have raised their rates in New York state. The New York law, imposing upon employers of that state undue penalties, while trying out the compensation principle in this country,

is uneconomic.

One of the boldest and most open pieces of lawlessness on the part of a strike sympathizer ever exhibited was in Cleveland, O., in connection with the strike of waitresses at Griffith's restaurant on Prospect avenue in that city.

Griffith's is an all-night place, but is, of course, comparatively unpatronized after 10 p. m. One night in August, while several waiters and a few customers were in the restaurant and the place was well lighted, a man deliberately walked up in front of the place and with a stone smashed two of the three plate glass front windows.

Two of the men employed in the restaurant ran out and one drew a revolver and shouted to the man to stop or he would fire. The man did not stop, neither did the waiter fire. A few numbers up the street was a union headquarters. The fleeing man turned in there. Five or six stalwart unionists were awaiting him outside the stairway door, on the walk. The pursuers turned back into the

restaurant.

Then the remarkable thing happened, the thing that stamps the occurrence as one of the boldest defiances of law in the history of labor outrages. The windows were broken at about 11 p. m. An hour later, at midnight, the man returned and again standing in the full light of the restaurant, broke the third window with a stone and calling out, "I have done all I want to now," ran. Again he was pursued, but again his companions awaited him outside labor headquarters and the chase was given up. One hour after he had been plainly seen and threatened that he would be

shot, he returned and finished his work.

The man was plainly seen by everybody in the restaurant and was recognized by two of them. The next morning Griffith swore out a warrant for his arrest. Three weeks have elapsed, but the warrant has not been served, nor the arrest made. The police tell Griffith that they think the man has left town. Perhaps he has,

but police dislike to make arrests in labor troubles..

Since the strike is on the part of the waitress' union, the man law violator was, was, of course, a sympathizer and not a striker, but that he was a union man was evident because of his seeking safe harbor in a labor headquarters.

This is the same strike in which, as recounted in THE AMERICAN EMPLOYER for September, a boycotting card mentioned the names of four physicians, an attorney and a cigar merchant, who lunched at Griffith's notwithstanding the strike. The attack upon these men has done them no harm. The physicians are attending to the usual number of sick people every day, the same as before they were placed under the ban of a boy

cott.

Since the windows were broken, a policeman stands guard in front of the restaurant day and night.

Socialism in Boston

Still the Socialistic tendency for municipal competition with private business continues among mayors for vote-catching purposes.

Mayor Fitzgerald, of Boston, has a new plan for reducing the high cest of living. His first plan was for

municipal markets. His latest is to have the city arrange for the shipment of produce to the market in Boston, to be sold at private sales or auction.

"Stations could be erected along different trolley lines, where farmers could bring their goods for shipment to the market place in Boston," said the mayor, "and the city arrange for these goods to be sold at private auction to the middle class at a minimum cost to both producer and consumer.

"I intend to talk with representatives of different organizations interested in the reduction of the cost of foodstuffs, and will ask the labor organizations, the members of the Consumers' League and others interested in the people's welfare."

LYNCH IS NO BOSS Typographical Union Won't Support Stereo

typers-School Book Situation

President Lynch, of the International Typographical Union, at its Cleveland, O., convention in August, denied he was a boss and told his critics, who formed a minority in the organization, in effect, though without mentioning his name, that if they wanted to see a real Simon pure blown in the bottle labor boss, let them look at Samuel Gompers. Lynch's enemies were criticizing his administration. Finally he took the floor himself.

"You are told that I have a machine," he said. "Well, maybe I have. It's a machine age and I want to be in the running. But if you want to see a smoothly running, well-oiled machine, just attend the next convention of the American Federation of Labor and watch the workings of its executive board of eleven members. That is what your eighteen-member board would be."

The stereotypers got but little satisfaction in the convention for the part they took in the recent

Chicago newspaper strike. Several attempts were made to gain for L. P. Straube, president of the Chicago stereotypers, the privilege of the floor. Lynch would not permit it.

He said that Straube, with his union, had been suspended and that James. J. Freel, president of the International Stereotypers' and Electrotypers' union, would be the only man to address the meeting on the Chicago situation.

"On April 21, our Chicago local, No. 4, took a strike vote and determined to walk out," said Freel when he spoke. "On April 30, this action. was rescinded and contracts signed with the Hearst papers, the contracts bearing the signatures of the international officers. These contracts held good until 1915.

"We were notified May 2 that a strike or walkout had occurred on the Hearst papers and on the same day the president of the international pressmen's union asked our support. On May 3, I was notified that the stereotypers' local had struck, despite the fact that we had inviolable contracts with the Hearst papers. I called President L. P. Straube by long distance telephone, told him the strike was illegal and ordered him to put his men back at work. He flatly refused.

"Straube ignored telegrams sent by the international officers and on May 6, I went to Chicago. Straube still held out and on May 9 the charter of Chicago No. 4 was suspended. It is entirely up to you, gentlemen, to extend the privilege of the floor to whomever you wish, but I wish to say that L. P. Straube is no longer a member of the International Stereotypers' and Electrotypers' union, and anything he might say would be without weight."

The committee report, which was finally presented, read in part as follows:

"This committee finds that the stereotypers' union, in entering into sympathetic strike, violated its contract with the Chicago publishers, that this action immediately was disavowed by the international officers of the I. S. & E. U.; the local union's charter revoked and that the convention of this organization, held at San Francisco in June, upheld the officers in their action.

"The committee finds from evidence before it that arbitration was offered to the pressmen before they walked.