gaze of men who are likely to be his competitors in the market. Yet this is just what must be done by a committee or board of arbitration if they wish to act intelligently in arranging a wage list that will be just and equitable to all concerned. This is the usual course of procedure in such cases, and it has always resulted in the final dissolution of the local boards.

There is, however, a way by which this difficulty can be overcome, and herein lies the great advantage that the agent system, as exemplified by some of the labor unions, has over the old special committee system. If the manufacturers are honest and sincere in their declarations, if they desire to establish a system that will enable them to have an equal voice in the settlement of all matters in which they are equally interested with their employees, and at the same time render strikes and lockouts unnecessary, they should organize an association for their own protection and appoint a committee of conciliation and arbitration to act in conjunction with a like committee from the labor union. Not stopping here, they should take an advanced step and appoint a permanent agent with full power to visit all factories and inform himself upon all matters pertaining to the industry. Then when their joint board meets for the purpose of arranging wage lists or any other matter that properly comes before the members, they will be in a position to act intelligently. Their agent will be their expert and counsellor, he will be armed and equipped like the agent of the labor union and both sides will be upon equal footing in the submission and conduct of the case at hand.

With such a system in force, supported by men who desire nothing but what they are justly entitled to, men who are broad enough to throw aside their suspicion and jealousy and meet their employees or their representatives upon a common level and discuss and adjust their differences upon a fair and honorable basis, there will be less friction between these two great factors, and they will have little difficulty in arriving at a settlement which will be satisfactory to all.

Whatever opinion may be entertained as to the wisdom and feasibility of these methods, it is a radical error to regard them as worthless. They have been an invaluable aid to the employers and employees and have made it possible for them to come together and arrange the conditions which govern their relations upon a more humane and equitable basis. It is not claimed that they are perfect, nor can it be said that they accomplish all that is desired, and the reason for this is at once apparent if we but bear in mind that they were devised and are administered by men who are very human and not altogether unselfish. It would be strange indeed if, under such circumstances, we could record the fact that they had reached the acme of perfection.

There are yet some obstacles which must be overcome, and it is to be hoped that the employers and employees will bend their energies in this direction.

Throughout the entire investigation it was found that with very few

exceptions the employers and employees and the representatives of labor organizations were heartily in favor of settling their disputes through the medium of arbitration. Experience has taught them that under present industrial conditions strikes and lockouts are very apt to result disastrously to both sides, and they have no desire to engage in them. When it is understood that it was only a few years ago that the sentiment in favor of arbitration was confined to a few localities, the significance of this change will be more readily appreciated. It is the best evidence in the world that the employers and employees in this industry have profited by their experience, and have come to recognize that each side has certain rights which must be respected, and that so long as they are guided by reason and have respect for the rights of each other they need have no fear but that harmony will prevail, that wages and conditions of employment will be more satisfactory, that there will be no necessity for strikes or lockouts, and that greater prosperity and peace of mind will result to all.

RAILWAY RELIEF DEPARTMENTS.

BY EMORY R. JOHNSON, PH.D.(α)

A railway relief department is a special part of the railway service established by the railway corporation for the purpose of enabling its employees to contribute definitely fixed sums from their monthly wages toward a fund administered by the department for the benefit of its members. The organization is managed conjointly by the corporation and the employees. Membership is sometimes voluntary and sometimes compulsory. The members receive aid in case of sickness or accident, and at their death their families or other beneficiaries are paid definite amounts, the benefits derived from membership being proportioned to payments.

Railway relief departments are to be distinguished from the other and less comprehensive arrangements by means of which several railway companies unite with their employees in furnishing temporary relief. Hospitals are frequently maintained by the companies for their employees, the companies in some instances paying all the hospital expenses, and in other cases requiring the men employed to contribute a part of the cost of maintenance. Many railway companies provide their force with free surgical attendance outside of hospitals, and others contribute something to associations formed by the employees to provide themselves with relief. It is customary for railway managers, when possible, to provide partially disabled men, or those grown old in the service, with the kind of labor they are capable of performing. The railway companies having relief departments provide more systematic and comprehensive relief, covering sickness, accident, old age, and death.

Relief departments are one of the three agencies by means of which railway employees can secure relief and insurance. (b) The other agencies are (1) the accident and life insurance companies and (2) the associations or brotherhoods, of which there are several of national scope, each open to a particular class of railroad workmen. Some railway companies recommend their employees to insure in an accident or life insurance company with which a special arrangement has been made. At present, however, relief and insurance is most frequently obtained through membership in an employees' association or order.

a Assistant Professor of Transportation and Commerce, University of Pennsylvania. In this paper the provisions of the relief departments for the payments of death benefits have been designated as "insurance." Railroads, however, have no authority to transact an insurance business. The department that pays the death benefits has the nature of a trust and is not an insurance organization in the ordinary acceptance of that term.

These orders are of two kinds, the less important class consisting of the employees of a single railroad. More frequently the associations are of the type of the International Brotherhood of Locomotive Engincers or the Order of Railway Conductors of America, eligibility to membership in which depends upon the class of work done and not upon connection with the service of a particular railroad company. These large and influential orders maintain relief features in which all eligible members are required to participate. In 1895 the Grand International Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers had 536 divisions, with a total membership of 32,000; the Order of Railway Conductors of America had 370 divisions, with a total membership of 19,827. In the same year the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen comprised 556 divisions and had 24,000 members. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen now includes 519 lodges and 22,978 members.

The kind of insurance and relief afforded by the orders of railway employees is much the same as other labor organizations and secret societies provide their members. The railway relief departments under discussion in this paper are organized upon a different plan and provide the members not only with payments on account of death but also with assistance of definite amounts in case of sickness or accident. The present paper must confine itself to the history of railway relief departments, their plan of organization, and results accomplished. A complete presentation of the subject of railway employees' relief and insurance is not attempted; chat would necessitate a study of the plans for relief and insurance that have been adopted by the employees' orders, the scope of their work, the results they have accomplished, and finally a comparison of the orders and the railway departments as relief agencies. (a)

HISTORY OF RELIEF DEPARTMENTS.

Thus far relief departments have been established in connection with six large railway systems, namely, Baltimore and Ohio, Pennsylvania Railroad, Pennsylvania Company (lines west of Pittsburg and Erie), Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, Philadelphia and Reading, and the Plant System.

a No official investigation of the relief and insurance work being done by the railway companies and by the employees has been made since 1889. In 1890 appeared the Fifth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor dealing with the general subject of railroad labor. The facts regarding the relief and insurance of railway employees contained in that report were based upon an investigation made in 1889 by the Interstate Commerce Commission and published in the third annual report of the Commission (pp. 102-104 and 341-390). The two reports, however, contain only an outline of the various plans of assistance. There was no attempt made to classify the data nor to give a systematic discussion of the subject. Railway relief departments have been treated in a paper by the author, published in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, November, 1895, and printed also as a special publication (No. 162) of the academy. No comprehensive study of the relief and insurance work of railway employees' orders has yet appeared in print.

Each of the six relief departments is administered conjointly by the companies composing the railway system to which the department belongs. All the companies of the Baltimore and Ohio are associated in the relief organization of that system. The Pennsylvania Railroad's department comprises the Pennsylvania Railroad (lines east of Pittsburg and Erie), Northern Central, Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore, and the West Jersey and Seashore.

The motive that impelled the employees to unite with the railway companies in the establishment of relief departments was the desire to secure aid in case of sickness or accident and to obtain a life insurance that would insure their dependents against want. Railway employees are a comparatively well-paid class of laborers, but both their itinerant life and the intermittent character which the alternating periods of activity and inactivity in business give to much of their work militate against economical living and habits of saving. The employees have adequate reasons for favoring systematic relief and insurance agencies.

The railway companies were moved partly by philanthropic and partly by financial motives. In the establishment of relief departments, as in the case of many other measures taken by corporations, philanthropy and economy go hand in hand. The desire on the part of the managers and directors of many of the large railway systems to promote the material and ethical well-being of their employees is attested not only by the existence of relief departments, but also by the railroad Young Men's Christian Associations, reading rooms, libraries, and other well-known institutions supported in large part by the employing corporations. Without doubt, however, the conviction that money expended in helping maintain relief departments for the promotion of the material welfare of the operatives would prove a good financial investment was the most potent of the forces that influenced the action of the railway companies. The directors of some railways, at least, became convinced that the best interests of the roads, even when these interests were viewed strictly from a business standpoint, required that the employed should be connected with the companies they serve by some other bond than that created by the payment of current wages, and the companies thus realized that their greater good required them to identify as fully as possible their own and their employees' interests. Indeed, in this way only is it possible to create such an esprit du corps as makes strikes impossible and prompts men to give their employers the highest possible grade of service. In 1889 Mr. E. P. Ripley, when general manager of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, stated that "the object of the company in establishing a relief department was to enable its employees to make provision for themselves and families at the least possible cost to them in the event of sickness, accident, or death. The company has established this department not only because it has the interest of its