There is some reason to believe that trade unions have some consciousness of this fact and appreciation of the lessons of their experience. The American Federation has within the last year organized a legal information service. It is giving some attention to the development of law in the field of employer and employe. There is also much more talk in labor circles of labor education. Schools are being established for the training of professional labor leaders and business agents. Some unions are attempting to collect and perhaps actually to study data on the conditions and problems that surround the business features of their trade. Several unions have entered the field of banking. These unions are being forced to give attention to the intricate problems of finance. Other unions have undertaken mining and manufacturing enterprises in which there is a store of practical experience. Some unions, finding themselves in direct competition with labor operating under nonunion plans of mutual understanding are bending their efforts to the making of production records and the reduction of labor costs. these are hopeful signs. They suggest a conscious responsibility for getting along in a world as it is and helping to change it, if at all, by improvement through service rendered.

All

Now would seem a happy time to advance this line of endeavor. Now would seem a happy time to abandon further attempts to establish arbitrary standards that cannot be maintained and that lead only to unrest, disorder, and unemployment, as under the National Agreements on the railroads and the existing agreement in the coal fields. Now would seem the time to abandon the waste and strifeprovoking jurisdictional strike which forces employers and employes alike to stand aside in idleness while two unions exhaust their energies fighting for possession of the same job.

Certainly the time is at hand to cleanse the labor movement of its professional criminals. There is and there. can be no excuse for sanctioning Sam Parks, Robert Brin

The new leadership of the American Federation of Labor comes in at a propitious moment. The spirit of optimism is abroad in the land and in foreign lands. The tide of socialism has been stemmed. Apparently the productive machinery of the world is to be given an opportunity to go ahead again. Quacks are to be relegated to the cushioned parlors and the heated studios which are their natural habitat. This should afford to organized labor the opportunity to be judged upon its merits,-an opportunity which is not always present. This should afford to organized labor an opportunity to demonstrate what service or benefit to it the community may depend upon if the leadership of organized labor in determining and stating the interests of the wage earner is accepted.

The American people are not going to abolish the independence of their judiciary to interpret and uphold their rights against the fanaticism or the subjugation of political majorities in order to permit organized labor to procure the passage of laws granting it special privileges. The American people are not going to put up indefinitely with any labor organization which harbors professional crooks and gives them as a weapon for their purposes the economic power and apparent moral support of thousands of honest wage earners. The American public is not going to suffer indefinitely the losses of protracted large scale strikes when means of agreement upon reasonable terms, through the aid of disinterested agencies, is at hand.

The American people are entitled to know if the American labor movement realizes these things and will take the opportunity which now affords to demonstrate that it does realize these things and will act accordingly.

The Railroad Labor Board brought proceedings in the United States District Court to compel the attendance before it as witnesses of certain men who are officers of train service brotherhoods. Motion was made to dismiss the proceedings. The motion was overruled, 6 Law and Labor 318. Motion for the issuance of the order for attendance of the witnesses came on to be heard. The

motion was granted and the Court filed an opinion.

It was urged that the order should not issue because in effect it compelled the employes represented by the witnesses as officers of their unions to become parties against their will to a proceeding before the Board. The Court held otherwise, saying:

"The action of the Board does not force the em

ployes to become parties to a proceeding. It does not place them in a situation different from that of any other witness. The statute invests the Board with power and imposes upon it the duty to investigate the matters in controversy between the carriers and their employes and to report concerning the same. It is given authority to summon witnesses to ascertain the facts upon which to make this report. Certainly a witness is not exempt because he happens to be an employe of one of the carriers or is interested on one side or the other of the controversy."

It was contended that the Court in this proceeding was being used as an aid to the formulation of a public policy in violation of the theory of its judicial functions. The Court held this to be without foundation, saying:

"The Court is not called upon here to aid in the formulation of a public policy. The Labor Board is charged with the duty, in certain situations, of rendering decisions concerning disputes between carriers and their employes. While the decision upon the issues involved (using that term in a broad sense) is not enforceable by process, it does have behind it the force of public opinion. "The function of the Labor Board is to direct public criticism against the party who, it thinks, justly deserves it.' Under some circum

stances this is more effective than fines or jail. The Court is called upon to enforce the right of the Board to the evidence required as a basis for a decision concerning the dispute which it is investigating. And, as I have already held, this function is a judicial one."

Objection was made that the chairman of the Railroad Labor Board was disqualified because of his public utterances and that the Board with a disqualified chairman sitting was not entitled to the aid of the Court. The Court held otherwise, saying:

"It is contended that the prayer of the petition should be denied because of alleged disqualification of the Chairman of the Labor Board. The disqualification, it is asserted, arises from certain public statements manifesting prejudice against the defendant. The Labor Board does not act as an arbitrator within the true meaning of that term. It is an administrative body clothed with certain statutory powers. Its acts, if arbitrary, are void. Whether it has acted arbitrarily, however, must be determined not from the state of mind of one or more of its members but from the inherent quality of the acts themselves."

The decree for the attendance of witnesses was granted.

The Toledo Transfer Company operates taxicabs in Toledo, Ohio. It has contracts with various railroads entering Toledo, to transfer their passengers from one line to another upon their through tickets in interstate transportation. Under these contracts the company is obliged to meet all trains and to transfer to other stations passengers who present coupons issued by the railroads. These coupons are redeemable by the railroad at an agreed price. The drivers of the company who were unorganized, struck. The Central Labor Union of Toledo undertook to help them and to direct the strike. The strikers picketed the railroad station and the offices of the company. The picketing was so successful that the company contracted with the Toledo Brown & White Cab Company to perform its contract for it while it was hindered by the strike. The company, by its attorneys, Tracy, Chapman & Welles, finally brought action in the Federal Court against the Teamsters' and the Central Labor Union to enjoin the picketing on the ground that it constituted interference with interstate commerce. The Federal Court issued a restraining order.

Upon the return of the restraining order counsel for the defense objected that the Court was without jurisdiction to entertain the complaint. The Court, Killits, J.,

sitting, answered this objection from the bench, saying:

"So far as the objection to the jurisdiction of the court is concerned, we have to say this, and we will say it somewhat emphatically: on the showing made in the petition, it appears that The Toledo Transfer Company, and its agents lawfully employed by it, are, in one line of the activities of that company, engaged in interstate commerce. There cannot be any question about that, because such a company as this is a necessary connecting link in the transportation of passengers from one railroad to another engaged in interstate commerce; and if this company is engaged lawfully in a contract to carry passengers in interstate commerce, then it is entitled, to the extent of that much of its business, to the protection of a federal court. That much of its business is as much entitled to the protection of this court as if it were the New York Central Railroad. There cannot be any question about it."

Explaining the power of the court to afford adequate protection to interstate commerce, the Court addressed some of the individual defendants who were present. After stating that the Court assumed that it was a real strike, but that the Court was not concerned with the merits of the strike, Judge Killits said:

"We do not care about the benefits or disasters of