THE LEAGUE FOR INDUSTRIAL RIGHTS To Preserve constitutional rights in industrial disputes. Protect employer and employe against illegal strikes and conspiracies. Secure legal responsibility and integrity of contract. Safeguard industrial liberty. Create a public policy on industrial warfare. PUBLISHERS OF Law and Labor SUBSCRIPTION $5.00 THE YEAR MURRAY T. QUIGG, Editor 50 CENTS THE COPY THE LEAGUE WILL APPRECIATE THE COURTESY IF DUE CREDIT IS GIVEN WHEN REPUBLISHING MATERIAL FROM LAW AND LABOR THE HISTORY OF THE LEAGUE FOR INDUSTRIAL RIGHTS MR. GREEN ON TRADE UNION ECONOMICS. Comment on the Doctrine of the New President of the American Federation of Labor That High Wages Are a Cure for Unemployment MINIMUM WAGE LAWS Held Unconstitutional in Their Application to Adult Women, Not So As to Minors SAVE THE CONSTITUTION FOR THE PEOPLE. Comment on the Reason for and Objection to the Proposed Federal Amendment Permitting Direct Vote of the People on Constitutional Amendments 55 55 57 ... 58 OLD AGE PENSION LAW of Pennsylvania Violates the Constitutional Provision Prohibiting Appropriations for Benevolent Purposes to Any Person or Community 60 STRIKES to Coerce the Destruction of a Contractor's Contracts and His Opportunity to Contract, to Compel Unionization of His Business, Enjoined 63 NO STRIKE EXISTS Where An Employer's Plant Is Running Normally. Strikes Advertising Statute of Wisconsin Construed 64 "CURRENT RATE OF PER DIEM WAGES," Law of Oklahoma Held Unconstitutional for Uncertainty and Lack of Due Process of Law 66 COMBINATION OF EMPLOYERS Engaged in Interstate Commerce to Employ Only Workers Who Are Mutually Approved Does Not Violate the Sherman Anti-Trust Act 67 INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES INVESTIGATION ACT of Canada Held Unconstitutional As a Violation by the Dominion Government of Those Civil Rights Placed in the Jurisdiction of the Provincial Governments by the British North America Act 69 INTERNATIONAL LABOR REGULATION. Gleanings From "International Progress" by G. A. Johnson 71 The History of the League for Industrial Rights This month the League for Industrial Rights publishes its history. It has been prepared by Mr. Walter Gordon Merritt, associate counsel of the League, whose intimate knowledge of its affairs and whose understanding of the legal principles it has worked to establish and the liberties it has fought to preserve insures its accuracy, clarity and thoroughness. The history of the League and the preservation of industrial liberty go hand in hand, so that this publication answers not only the questions of how the League came to be established and what it has accomplished, but also gives a graphic picture of the growth and restraint of oppressive trade union power. also established that a trade union, though unincorporated, may sue and be sued, and must respond in damages to those it injures upon those same principles which apply to the activities of corporations and individuals. The League developed as a protest against the notion that it could be lawful among a free people to destroy the market for the products of any one who would not conduct his business in conformity with the demands of a private society. Time and again organized labor has said to an employer, "Unless you are going to discharge workers who are unwilling to join our union and employ only union men we shall prevent your products reaching the markets of the nation. No matter how liberal may be your labor policy in fact, no matter how substantial the value of your products may be to the public who buys and uses them, we pronounce you 'unfair' and will not let you trade." When the United Hatters put this policy in effect against Danbury hats, the Loewe Company resisted. Others came to its rescue and they organized the League. A great battle followed to guard the avenues of commerce and the right of men to work, independent of the ukase of organized labor. The legal struggle was shifted from the courts to the political and legislative forum. Wherever the struggle migrated the League followed and finally, after twenty-two years of struggle, established the principles of industrial freedom and sustained the proposition that legislation intended to grant special privilege to organized labor is invalid under a government committed to the preservation of individual liberty. Finally it was Mr. Green on Trade What manner of man is Mr. William Green, newly chosen president of the American Federation of Labor? The indications are that he is a gentleman of the old school. He will not discuss matters of common interest on the same platform with Mr. Sidney Hillman, socialist, and leader of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers. Eclecticism of that sort when indulged in by an employer is characterized as Bourbonism. The leading article in the February issue of the American Federationist written over the signature of Mr. Green, is entitled "No Wage Reductions; No Going Back." This, too, reminds us of the past in respect of its devotion to the dogmas of trade union economics. The history of the League for Industrial Rights reviews the more important controversies in this great struggle. It explains the origin and outcome of each controversy. it reveals the dominating influence of the League in this struggle. In connection with each issue, the history quotes freely from official publications of the American Federation of Labor. Labor's demands and labor's views are set forth in its own words. Its demands upon employers, its demands upon the courts, its demands upon Congress, are set forth in its own language and the story of their success and failure traced for a period of over twenty years,— the years of our greatest industrial growth and expansion. The right of the working man to organize or to remain. unorganized, the right of the employer to deal with trade unions, with intrafactory organizations or with individuals and opposition to a closed shop, whether closed union or closed non-union, is emphasized throughout this history. It is a story of the fight against collective coercion and not a fight against trade unionists. It is the story of a fight to save the right to buy and sell goods or labor in any market and upon any condition satisfactory to a free trader. It is a story of the right of individual opportunity in conflict with the unrestrained power of an irresponsible, private society. It is a story of the right of the American. freeman to earn his daily bread in his own way and in accordance with his own judgment in conflict with the claims of private associations to dictate the terms upon which every wage earner and employer of labor shall labor and earn bread. For these reasons it is a story which is intimate to the life and welfare of every American and one which he should know and understand. Union Economics Mr. Green says that for some months there has been much unemployment. Then he observes: "The trade union is thus far the most effective weapon against unemployment ever devised. The trade union movement has stopped and cured more unemployment than any other agency. It has done this by the simplest of methods. It has reduced the hours of labor per day. It has raised the rates of pay. It has fostered the development of machinery. It has steadily taught the workers to demand and secure better conditions of living, higher standards in everything. Before those straightfordward measures, unemployment has steadily receded." Then, after pausing to praise the United States Steel Corporation for having recently raised wages, the Carpenters' Union for its early stand for the eight hour day, the United Mine Workers, the Typographical Union, and the Cigar Makers for sundry good works, Mr. Green demands that the wages of textile workers shall not be reduced. He concludes with this astonishing statement: "Elaborate schemes for the stoppage of unemployment haven't amounted to much. But the unions of the workers, by their steadfast resistance to wage reductions, can and must hold the lines. There is no better, surer method of cutting down unemployment. Wage reductions are the first steps toward complete idleness. "Let there be no backward steps anywhere!" This is undoubtedly in accord with the best traditions of trade union economics as it has been preached for twenty years. What relation has it to the welfare of the American wage earner? If reducing the hours of labor accounts for the decrease in unemployment, how is it that fostering the develop ment of machinery can also have the same effect? The fact, of course, is notorious that trade unionists in practise have many times opposed the installation of new machinery because it was a labor saving device. Yet if it had not been for the development of machiney and the resulting increased productivity, the decrease in the hours of labor would have decreased the wealth available to meet the carrying charges of industry so that industry would have been forced to return to the long hours and barbaric conditions of a century ago. No doubt, as Mr. Green says, the trade unions have tended to teach wage earners to demand and secure better conditions of living and higher standards of working conditions. But the possibility of securing them has depended upon the fortunate circumstances that the past thirty years have marked the most extraordinary industrial development in the history of the nation and of the world, that new, industries involving hundred of millions and billions of dollars have arisen within that time, and that the automobile, the motion picture, the low-priced magazine, and the highly developed art of advertising have greatly extended the popular demand for goods, and therefore for labor. The trade unions of Great Britain have been demanding the same things and there trade unions are much more powerful than in this country. Yet the British worker has never been so well off as the American worker during the past thirty years in which trade unions have developed their power. For five years unemployment in Great Britain has been notorious. In this country trade union policies were unable to head off unemployment incident to the business depression of 1920 and 1921, and, as Mr. Green admits, the status of employment is not satisfactory yet, though it is far better than in Great Britain. In the National Industrial Conference Board's study, Wages and Hours in American Industry, published this year, there appears a curve of wages from 1840 to 1923, inclusive. It is highly instructive. It shows a gradual rise from 1840 to about 1862, then a sharp rise to 1865, then a slow rise to about 1872, then a decline to 1880 to a point about 75 per cent higher than the index number for 1840. There is then a gradual but slight rise to 1900. From thence to 1915, there is a steady and rapid rise. From there the curve shoots up to 1920 and drops sharply to 1922 and then comes back one-third of the drop in the early part of 1923. Subsequent tables show that this curve continued on a level in 1923 and started down again in 1924. The interesting thing about this curve is that at the peak of wages following the Civil War, wages had advanced about 100 per cent above the pre-war level, but they dropped back nearly 40 per cent to a point about 20 per cent higher than would have been reached in the same year had the pre-war curve continued its rising course without interruption. The advance in the wage curve during the World War is nearly 125 per cent above the 1914 level. By the end of 1924 it had dropped back to 95 or 100 per cent. In the National Industrial Conference Board's research report, Number 69, dealing with wages, hours and employment in American manufacturing industries from July, 1914 to January, 1924, there is also much interesting material. The curve of average hourly and weekly earnings from June, 1920, to January, 1924, follows the same general outline in both unionized and ununionized industries with the exception of printing and publishing where the curve is almost straight. Despite the decline in money wages, the curve of actual weekly earnings shows a marked rise due to the fall in the cost of living. But in the textile industry, which seems at the moment to be the particular concern of Mr. Green, the curve of employment in northern cotton manufacturing shows a marked fluctuation ending in January, 1924 at 78 per cent of the employment in June, 1920. The curve of employment in the cotton industry in the south shows but a small falling off in 1920 and then a steady rise to the summer of 1923. In January, 1924, it was 11 per cent higher than in June, 1920. In January, 1924, the hourly rate in the north was twelve cents higher than in the south. A northern worker averaged 45.5 hours a week and received $21.38. The southern worker worked 53 hours a week and received $18.55. The difference in earnings in favor of the northern worker of $2.83 a week could hardly be considered to pay for the difference in the cost of living in New England and the Carolinas. Furthermore, where the higher rate prevails employment had fallen off over 20 per cent, and where the lower rate prevails it had increased 11 per cent. Do these data mean nothing to Mr. Green? Is the American Federation of Labor to continue indefinitely to be managed on the economic notions of the prodigal son of a rich household? Is it not time for it to take stock of the real factors which contribute to the wealth of the industrial society in which it lives and to adjust its policy to the needs of that society? Mr. Green has stated for the rules of posperity, a trade union program which is generally accepted and enforced in Great Britain, where trade unionists have been living for four years largely with the help of doles from the public treasury. Indeed the British condition of powerful unions, high wage rates, and serious unemployment, is most nearly approached in this country in the industry dominated by our most powerful trade union, Mr. Green's own union, the United Mine Workers. By orthodox trade union policy Mr. Green's union is producing such widespread unemployment in the coal fields that its own members are clamoring for abandonment of the Jacksonville wage agreement threatening a split within the union itself. The consideration of other factors than these samples of trade union economics must be taken in account if an intelligent policy towards wage prices is to be developed by the Federation. Now is a happy opportunity for the Fed eration to develop a policy that will foster American industry and its capacity to pay high wages. Now is an opportunity to realize and acknowledge that the total sum of payrolls rather than the height of wages scales is the test of prosperity. The approach to a wage of ten dollars a day is shorter and more certain by employing twenty men at five dollars a day than by employing twelve men at eight dollars and fifty cents a day and leaving eight men without any wages. Mr. Green praises the United States Steel Corporation for raising wages. It lowered wages in 1921 when the market for steel was bad. It made itself able to sell steel at prices that would bring buyers. Therefore it has recovered its markets and now it can afford to pay better wages. It is in this fortunate position, perhaps, because it was not hampered by trade union economics. The nonunion steel industry seems to be in a sound economic condition. The unionized textile and coal industries are not in sound economic condition. They are each facing fights on high wage rates while unemployment is widespread. If Mr. Green's article is an accurate reflection of trade union thought upon the economics of the situation, and we think it is, it furnishes an explanation for the contrast between these industries. The Federal Decision Holding Minimum Wage Laws Unconstitutional as to Adult Women Held Not to Apply to Minimum Wage Laws for Minors Stevenson v. St. Clair. (Supreme Court, Minnesota, 201 Northwestern 629.) The issue and the law were stated by the Court as follows: "Plaintiff, a minor, recovered a judgment against defendant for the difference between the agreed wages the minor had been paid for his services and the amount fixed under the so-called Minimum Wage Act (chapter 547, Laws 1913), and defendant appeals. "The law is attacked as unconstitutional. It was sustained by this court in William v. Evans, 139 Minn. 32, 165 N. W. 495, 166 N. W. 504, L. R. A. 1918F, 542, where its applicability to women was involved. Later a similar act passed by Congress for the District of Columbia was considered by the Supreme Court of the United States and held violative of the federal Constitution, in so far as it attempted to fix the minimum wage for adult women. Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U. S. 525. However, the court took pains to exclude from the decision the question of the validity of the law as applied to minors. "We may assume for the purpose of this decision that the Adkins Case renders the part of our act fixing a minimum wage for women repugnant to the federal Constitution; hence it is useless to discuss the first proposition advanced by appellant. It may well be left, as was done by the court in Folding Furniture Works v. Industrial Com. (D. C.) 300 F. 991. "That the provisions of our act relating to the minimum wages for minors are repugnant to the federal Constitution we cannot accept as settled. The prediction from Stetler v. O'Hara, 243 U. S. 629, and the Adkins Case would seem to be that as to minors the law would now be held by that court not to exceed the legitimate exercise of the police power of the state. That in the opinion of this court it in any manner transgresses the limits of the state Constitution cannot be urged with any hope of success, since the opinion in William v. Evans was rendered. "The last contention is that, if the provisions relating to adult women be eliminated, the remainder of the act cannot stand, without supplying additional language, and, even were it possible to separate the unconstitutional features from the rest, it should not be done unless the court can declare that the Legislature would have enacted the parts which are constitutional, had it known the other parts were invalid. We see no difficulty in applying the law as written, if women not minors are excluded from its operation. And we are persuaded that, had the Legislature known that the fixing of a minimum wage for adult women infringed the liberty of contract guaranteed by the federal Constitution, it would nevertheless have enacted the law as to minors. Had the Supreme Court in the Adkins Case considered of substance either of the two reasons urged for holding the act invalid as to minors there would have been no occasion to ground the decision on the fact that the parties were sui juris, adult women, and specially stating that the provisions relating to minors were not considered. It is not pointed out wherein our act may not stand as to minors, if invalid as to adult women, as well as the act of Congress. "Judgment affirmed." Save the Constitution for the People Labor, which says that it is owned by the "Associated Recognized Standard Railroad Labor Organizations," whatever that may mean, is published weekly in Washington. It is devoted to trade union representation of the interests of railway employes and promiscuous attacks upon "Big Biz," wherever it detects it. It carries this legend at the top of its editorial column, "All Power is Inherent IN the People. Therefore All Power TO the People." Yet in its issue of February 14th, under the half page spread of "Stand Patters Plot to Block All Changes in the Constitution," it carried an attack upon the proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States introduced and advocated by the Hon. James W. Wadsworth, Jr. of New York. This amendment is intended to amend Article V of the Constitution which provides for the method by which the Constitution shall be amended. This amendment would permit the people to have the opportunity, if they wish to use it, to express their approval or disapproval of any proposed amendment. The attack in Labor starts out as follows: Senate. The wishes of the majority of the 56,000,000 people entitled to vote in the United States may be disregarded or flouted. In order to insure that the people may have some opportunity to express themselves for or against changes in their Constitution, the Wadsworth proposal provides: "The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, upon the application of two-thirds of the legislatures of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as a part of this Constition when ratified by three-fourths of the several States either through their conventions or through the direct vote of their people at elections to be held under the authority of the respective States, reserving also to the States respectively the selection of either mode of ratification, and the authentication of the action taken, and until three-fourths of the States shall have ratified or more than one-fourth of the States shall have rejected a proposed amendment, any State may by the same mode ""No more amendments to the Constitution! Don't dot selected change its vote; Provided, That if at any time an "i" or cross a "t"! Leave it as it is!' "That's the latest scheme put forward by the Democratic and Republican reactionaries in Congress, apparently with the full approval of the Coolidge administration. "The proposal is before the Senate in the form of an amendment to the Constitution, fathered by Senator Wadsworth of New York. "The Old Guard has given it a preferred place on the legislative program for this session. If possible, it will be rushed through both houses, and submitted to the legislatures. "Two Birds With One Shot. "The reactionaries have a double object in hastening consideration of the amendment: They want to head off all future amendments to the Constitution, but they also want to make sure that the pending child labor amendment will be defeated. "Fortunately the progressives in both houses are not asleep. They are preparing to discuss the Wadsworth amendment and to lay bare the innumerable 'jokers' concealed in the innocent-looking document." The Constitution is now amended by the favorable vote of two-thirds of a quorum of each house of Congress, and a majority of a quorum of each house of thirty-six of the forty-eight state legislatures. It is estimated by Mr. Garrett, member of Congress from Tennessee, that fewer than 4,000 individuals can now alter each and every sentence and paragraph in the Constitution of the United States except the clause as to equal state suffrage in the more than one-fourth of the States have rejected the proposed amendment, said rejection shall be final and further consideration thereof by the State shall cease: Provided further, That any amendment proposed hereunder shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution as provided in the Constitution within eight years from the date of submission hereof to the States by the Congress: Provided further, That no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate." The Constitution of the United States and the first ten amendments were adopted as a result of the deliberation of conventions held in the several states and elected for that purpose by the people. Amendments since then have represented merely the political sentiment or fears of legislators. In support of this statement and to show how often the popular will has been thwarted by the present methods, in respect to recent amendments, Mr. Wadsworth presents a formidable array of facts-some of them fresh in the memory of many people. The Senator summarizes them as follows: "The people of Ohio had, prior to the submission of the 18th amendment, changed their state constitution. and laws so that an act of the Ohio legislature might be submitted to popular vote upon the petition of a certain number of qualified electors. Among the legislative acts thus brought within the jurisdiction of the qualified electors, resolutions proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States were specifically included. In |