workers, Democrat; James D. McDermott, commercial telegraphers, Democrat; David J. Lewis, coal miners, Democrat; Charles B. Smith, railroad telegraphers, Democrat; Carl C. Anderson, musicians, Democrat; Isaac R. Sherwood, typographical, Democrat; E. E. Roberts, metal miners, Republican; John R. Farr, typographical, Republican, and James P. Maher, hatters, Democrat. These fifteen members were advantageously distributed among the various committees of the House, no less than four of them being upon the Committee of Labor, of which W. B. Wilson was Chairman." (This is the Mr. Wilson who has since been placed at the head of the federal Department of Labor, with a seat in the President's cabinet.)

"One of the principal efforts of this labor lobby, both 'outside' and 'inside', is by act of Congress to legalize the boycott and to strip the federal courts of the power to issue injunctions in restraint of it. To this program, involving as it does the repeal of the Sherman anti-trust act and other conspiracy laws of the United States so far as they embrace the lawful acts of labor unions and their members, and the dismantling of the courts of equity of the power to protect business men and non-union men in their fundamental rights, the Anti-Boycott Association is strongly opposed and has done, and will continue to do, what it can to prevent its success.

WHAT THE BOYCOTT IS.

"What the boycott is, as understood and practiced by the Federation, is thus described in the report of the Committee on Boycotts to the Federation Convention of 1905 and ratified by it:

"We must recognize the fact that a boycott means war, and successfully to carry on a war we must adopt the tactics that history has shown are most successful in war. The greatest master of war said that "war was the trade of the barbarian, and the secret of success was to concentrate all your forces upon one point of the enemy, the weakest, if possible."

In

view of these facts the committee recommends that the state federations and central bodies lay aside minor grievances and concentrate their efforts and energies upon the least number of unfair parties or places in their jurisdiction. One would be preferable. If every available means at the command of the state federations and central bodies were concentrated upon one such and kept up until successful. the next on the list would be more speedily brought to terms, and within a reasonable time none opposed to fair wages, conditions or hours but would be brought to see the error of their ways and submit to the inevitable.'

CONGRESSMEN MADE TO YIELD.

"One of the most effective means employed by this organization to render the efforts of this lobby effective in carrying out the aforesaid program is to terrorize Senators and Congressmen into yielding to its demands, is the following method described in a re port made to the convention of 1902 and adopted by it and vigorously pursued ever since:

"It is only through legislation that the authority of the federal courts can be limited. It is only by an ag gressive policy on the part of the American Federation of Labor that legislation can be secured on this subject. We, therefore, recommend that the Executive Council instruct the legislative committee of the American Federation of Labor to make a record of the names of every Congressman and United States Senator who speaks or votes against any measure indorsed by the American Federation of Labor which has for its purpose the relief of workingmen from the evils pertaining to the application of the writ of injunction in labor disputes, and that our incoming Execu tive Council make every possible effort to secure the enactment of effective legislation. For the better information of the members of affiliated bodies we further recommend that the names of Congressmen and Senators who oppose anti-injunction legislation of the character referred to be compiled and published in a circular, to be sent to

every international, national, state and local affiliated body, with the recommendation to the national and international bodies that they communicate this information to their members by means of a circular, or by publication in their official journals.'

"The extent to which the organization has gone in coercing Congressmen and Senators by this brutal and insolent warfare against them during the last ten years is appalling, and its improper effect upon the legislation of Congress is only too apparent. It was only under the influence of the fear created by such methods in the past that Congress passed the infamous legislation embraced in the last sundry civil bill, forbidding the use of funds appropriated for the enforcement of the anti-trust laws to be used in the prosecution of labor unions or their members for violations of those laws. The records of this great lobbying institution, found in the proceedings of its annual conventions and in its magazine, The American Federationist, are full of proofs of their activities in controlling legislation, if the congressional investigating committee real ly care to go into the matter. It will be interesting to observe whether they do it or not. There can be no doubt about the fact that there is a labor lobby at Washington. What will Senator Overman's committee do about it ?"

CALLS A HALT

The "World" Criticised for Publishing Mullhall Story

From Leslie's Weekly, July 17: "Come now, isn't Our esteemed friend, The New York World, going a little too far and too fast when it cartoons the National Association of Manufacturers as a great swollen boss covered with 'Greed', 'Corruption', 'Bribery', 'Intimidation' and 'Power'? And The Chicago Tribune, too!

"And what is the reason for this mad outburst? A lot of private letters made public, for a consideration,

"Colonel George Pope, President of the National Association of Manufacturers, promptly asked for a suspension of judgment until the charges of a dismissed employe could be met and answered. This Association has been, as President Pope publicly states, 'a recognized leader in the movement for the prevention and compensation of work accidents, for vocational training, for industrial betterment, the development of a merchant marine, and the extension of foreign commerce'.

"Has the time come when the representatives of capital and labor have no right to appear on an equal footing at our national capital to ask for fair play and a square deal from our legislators? Have they no right to respond to the invitation these legislators, as the representatives of the people, extend to the public to advise and counsel them? Are we becoming, as The New York Herald says, 'A nation of mud slingers'?

"In all this orgy of official investigation, busting and smashing, we have found nothing more discreditable than the attempt to take Mike Mulhall's letters seriously. But how much of the vogue of the yellow press and the muckraker is due to the generous patronage they have received from the members of the Manufacturers' Association whom they now seek to overwhelm with contempt?"

ACCOUNTING

Fallacious Methods of Computing Profits From Cusiness

"Few business men know precisely what profits are. They are willing to take what they regard as profits, but most of them have a false idea concerning the actual amount that should be credited on the right side of the ledger each year. Some economists even go so far as to sharply distinguish business profits from

wages. Part of what a business man gets is thought to be simply wages; but part is neither wages, nor interest, nor rent; it is different from these. This particular element is regarded as profits. The method of separating business wages from profits is artificial," says F. M. Taussing, in The Bakers' Review.

"Looking over the whole varied. range of earnings among those engaged in business careers, it is simplest to regard them all as returns for labor-returns marked by many peculiarities, among which the most striking are the risks and uncertainties, the wide range, the high gains from able pioneering. In some cases business profits are separated from wages by considering as wages that which the individual would have been paid if hired by some one else. independent business man's actual earnings are likely to exceed that sum; the excess is business profits. Here emphasis is put on the element of risk. Profits differ from wages in that they are the result of the assumption of risk and are the reward for that assumption.

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"The average business does not really pay what it is supposed to pay, because the owner lacks sufficient business training to discover the hidden. leaks. His premises are wrong, his principles wrong and his calculations often wrong. The first and most general fallacy is that which, in spite of figures, repeats to itself: 'I am making ten or some other per cent.' This form of self-hypnosis is so common that it has almost the force of a trade custom. If I ever want to sell out, the owner reasons, 'I can't sell a busi

"A tradesman celebrated his fortyfifth anniversary in his town and shop. It is his proud boast that he has made, year in and year out, his twenty per cent. So firmly is this fixed in his mind that he resents, as a disloyal act, the attempt of his son -a skilled accountant-to show him that last year's business paid him but 141⁄2 per cent, and that he has had years when he actually lost money. The son, used to calculating the profits of city concerns, sees in a glance what the father has not seen in fortyfive years of business in one place.

'Last

"A second fallacy is the assumption that all, or a great part, taken in over the cost price is profit. The master barber of a five-chair shop found one of his men calculating. I'm going to start a shop,' he announced. Saturday I did $4.80 worth of work, for which you gave me $1.20, consequently you made $3.60 profit out of I am going to start a shop profit. This journeyman barber, having having omitted to note that he had drawn $1.20 for Tuesday's work-which day he took in but fifty cents-he was a surprised man when the new shop was sold five months later to pay wages and rent.

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"Third on the list of profit-eating fallacies is the belief that every expense incurred because of the business should not be charged in the expense to run. Thus a caterer neglects to charge in the wages of his wife and children in running the business. His oversight is duplicated every day. Where a business owns a building, the rental is frequently neglected in calculations; window displays, particularly where the display is depreciable, often fail to connect with a charge; and interest on investment is never reckoned by fully 60 per cent of business men today."

"When

we consider," said Mr. Henry W. Bullock, Chairman of the Indiana Workmen's Compensation Commission, in a recent address to the Bar Association of that state, "that every year one coal miner out of every ten in Indiana is injured, one steel worker out of every five, and one railroad worker out of every twenty, with even a greater proportion in some of the building trades, we can more nearly comprehend the social problem with which we must deal. Annually ten times as many laborers in the United States are injured while in their various lines of duty as were engaged both on the Union and the Confederate sides in the battle of Gettysburg, and every year practically as many American workmen are killed in the line of their employment as fell upon that field of valor and carnage fifty years ago. As these fatalities occur to workmen, whose average age does not exceed thirty-five years, their families, and society as well, are deprived of thirty years of productive labor. While their families must suffer, society also will suffer in defective citizenship with low-living standards, or you and I must make this up through our contributions to some social in surance fund, which will relieve the social shock now borne by a few. Justice demands that all citizens be well paid and cared for, and, if the wages received are not sufficient under all circumstances to provide against want in every contingency, then they are not living wages.

"We have been permitting employers and employes to deal with this question between themselves, without regard to the social significance which it embraces. From time to time, we have enacted employers' liability laws, which impose duties of compensation, or, rather, provided for causes of action for the misconduct on the part of employers or their servants. We have finally succeeded in abolishing the fellow-servant rule which Secretary Ireland said 'Was invented in 1837; Lord Abinger planted it; Baron Alderson watered it; and the devil gave it increase'. These laws have been beneficial in that they secured payments in many instances to those seriously injured, but they have been found defective in that they do not provide for compensation in all cases of injury. Most foreign countries have gone further than we have, and have provided that in every case of disability there shall be compensation in proportion to the degree of the injury.

The

"There can be no argument brought against the theory that every man who commits a private wrong on another should pay the injured party. employers' liability laws are right in principle, but are insufficient to meet the situation. Society does not demand their repeal but their extension. The objections to these liability laws are to their administration rather than to their principle. We must not confound a liability law with a compensation law or social insurance measure. Liability laws deal only with miscon

duct and wrongs. Compensation laws deal with social and economic conditions without regard to misconduct. The objections to the operation of liability laws can be summed up as follows:

"1. Only a small portion of injured workmen receive substantial compensation. Thus the standard of citizenship and of living is lowered, and the public is the sufferer.

"2. The system is wasteful, being costly to the employer, and to the state in maintaining courts, and to employes in their attorneys' fees.

"3. The system is slow in operation.

"The operation of the law breeds antagonism between the employers and their employes.

"5. It throws the burden of suffering upon a few directly and upon society indirectly.

"Many foreign countries have gone beyond compensation for misconduct, and have provided social insurance reaching all classes of disability, and have provided systems of insurance, whereby the many who have profited shall divide the burden with the few who have suffered. Our Federal government in 1908 recognized this principle and enacted a law for the compensation of a part of the civil employes of the United States. This law, as finally extended, covers about one-fourth of the 400,000 civilian employes of our government. From August 1, 1908, to July 1, 1911, there were 21,033 injuries reported regarding government employes, of which 670 were fatal. Claims were made on 363 of these fatal injuries, and on 7,622 of the non-fatal cases, and $960,000 was paid for the same and out of the Federal treasury. Thus 307 deaths and 13,104 lesser injuries were not compensated for out of the public treasury.

"Senator Kern, of Indiana, has introduced a measure in Congress to provide for compensation in all cases affecting government employes, either by disease contracted while in service or from accident received while in the line of duty.

EXTENDING LIABILITY.

"I do not deem it necessary to discuss at great length the constitutional question of liability without negligence. Our laws have written into the contract of employment that an employer shall be liable for certain negligence of himself or of his employes, which inflict bodily injury to workmen. The laws have prescribed certain rules of conduct, which the employer and his servants must follow, and if the violation of these rules causes injury to a workman he may recover. This is as it should be. But there is a large number of industrial accidents-more than half, in fact-where the conduct of the employer is in strict accord with the law and where he is guilty of no legal shortcoming. These injuries result from the inherent hazards of industry-from the dangers which strictly adhere to and are a part of the industry itself for which no one can be legally blamable.

"To my mind it is useless to discuss the academic proposition of compelling the employer to respond in damages, where he is guilty of no misconduct or negligence. Private wrongs or torts are personal; but the injuries occurring from the inherent hazards of industry are not personal, and should be charged against the industry, as a whole, and not against the individual employer. Society in its organized form may adopt any law, rule or regulation it sees proper concerning property, life, or liberty. It is only a matter of expediency whether or not it does this. Constitutions are adopted that these changes may not be radical, and that certain rights may be guaranteed as long as the constitution endures. All property rights are created by law and can be destroyed or modified by law. All prop erty is held, devised and conveyed only by virtue of statutory and constitutional laws. We have no vested rights in rules of law or conduct, except as society has spoken through constitutions. So all laws regarding fellow servants, contributory negli gence and assumption of risk may be modified at the pleasure of the legisla

ture.