following good word to say of Postal Currency:

A unique feature in congressional legislation this winter is presented in the promotion of a postal currency. The system was devised, perfected and patented by a private citizen, who offers the result of his efforts to the government free of all cost. The system has the approval of many officials, and is endorsed by a long list of manufacturers and business houses throughout the country. Publishers and farmers are especially interested, in that the new currency promises an easy way for a man in the country to promptly send remittance for his favorite publication. Under the present inconvenient money order system the individual desiring to send a small sum of money through the mail is met by the necessity for a timekilling journey to the postoffice to obtain safe money. This sets up a barrier to the prompt transaction of business and results in much loss from the fact that many people never carry out their original intention to subscribe or purchase. The need is for money in the hands of the people that can be safely and instantly sent by letter.

The provisions of the "post check" currency bill, now before Congress, introduced in the senate by Mr. McMillan, and in the house by Mr. Gardner of Michigan, provides for printing the one, two and five dollar bills in the future with blank spaces on the face. These bills, of course, pass from hand to hand before the blanks are filled. When it is desired to send one in the mails the blanks are filled in with the name of the payee, his city and state, a 2-cent postage stamp is placed in another blank space and cancelled with the initials of the sender in ink, the name of the sender is signed on the back, and, presto! his money has suddenly ceased to exist as currency and has been transformed into a check on the United States government, having all the safety of any bank check, and ready for inclosure in his letter. When the payee receives this check he treats it just as he would any other check-endorses it, goes to the nearest bank or post office and deposits it or has it cashed.

The paid check finally reaches the treasury department, when it is replaced by a new one with the spaces unfilled. This keeps the circulation at par. No change whatever is made in the financial policy of the government, the only change being in the character of the printing on the bills of five dollars and under.

The bill also provides for the issue of $50,000,000 of fractional currency, with blank spaces similar to the larger de

nominations, in place of an equal amount of money of larger denominations, presumably twenty and fifty-dollar bills. The provision under the new system for a continual reissue insures clean money both in the fractional currency and in the larger bills. The government fee on the five, ten, fifteen, twenty-five and fifty-cent pieces is to be one cent each.

Perhaps in no better way can the reader come to understand the pressing need for postal currency than to recall the times without number when he himself has been desirous of sending a small sum of money through the mails with safety. Always in such cases comes up the barrier, and only the persistent one will carry out his purpose by using stamps, coin placed in holes in pieces of pasteboard, or risking loose money. The average person will not expend the valuable time required for the journey to the post office for a money order. Only the pressure of necessity in the absence of a simple convenient system brings to the money order system its present patronage. Statistics show that from ten to twenty times the number of letters received by business houses, publishers and others who do a large business through the mails, contain stamps, loose money or some other representative of money, than contain money orders, a clear enough mark of the disapproval of the public.

While it is not thought that, if adopted the proposed system would entirely supersede the money order system, because for amounts over $50 the money order would be slightly cheaper, it is thought by the advocates of the pending bills that such a system of post checks would prove a great convenience to those desiring to send small amounts of money through the mails, and would result in gain to merchants, publishers and business firms who now receive such remittances in the form of stamps (often torn and mutilated,) drafts on small banks, or loose coin in letters-always a temptation to postal employes. All of these forms of remittance entail some loss, in many cases to the receiver, and to that extent, perhaps, a creditor is unjustly defrauded, innocently, it may be. by the debtor. Under the new system these troublesome and unfair methods of making remittances would be done away with, owing to the simplicity and convenience of the post checks, and the cost of sending the remittance would be placed where it properly belongs-with the sending debtor or the person making the purchase.

The main difficulty with the present money order system is that less than half the postoffices in the country are money order offices, and even at these such evidences of money can only be ob

tained at the expenditure of much time and trouble and during certain specified hours. With a post check note in his possession one has but to fill in the blank spaces for the purpose, attach a postage stamp, cancel it, enclose it in an envelope, place in a mail box, and the transaction is finished.

Unquestionably the intent of the postal authorities is to extend and increase the usefulness and popularity of the rural free delivery service. The adoption of the post check notes will afford a most convenient and safe money for the agricultural communities, to whom banks, with their facilities and safeguards cannot be utilized with convenience. It is claimed by those who have investigated the subject that the revenues of the Postoffice department would be very materially increased by the adoption of the post check system.

A somewhat unusual feature of the post check proposition is the fact that the inventor is a successful business man, who has for years realized the urgent necessity for a simpler way of making small remittances in the mails, and

who has devoted a great deal of his time and means to the perfection of the idea, and offers, in case of its adoption, to turn the patents, and all rights under them, over to the government free of any cost or charge whatever. He considers that should the system be adopted the consciousness of having accomplished a reform of such importance to the general public and business men will more than compensate him for his time and trouble.

Congress can best judge of the wants of the people by direct word from them. It is difficult to secure legislation of this sort, involving a departure from present methods, unless there be a pronounced demand by the people. Postal Currency can be secured if those whom it would benefit will write personal letters to their Senators and Representatives in Congress, asking them to favor and work for the McMillan-Gardner Post Check Currency bill.

The industrial commission in the third installment of its report, says: “The injunction is a high prerogative writ and should be awarded only after the most careful examination by a tribunal thoroughly competent."

Of course this comment is intended to apply as affects the labor troubles in which judges have made the injunction a common instrument restraining men from combining together to carry out a purpose legal for one man, but which they deny the right of many to do. There have been numerous cases within the past twelve months in which judges have hastened to interfere in labor disputes by injunction which were clearly matters for settlement with the police authorities and the ordinary processes of law.

In this connection the Chicago RecordHerald says:

But the craze for injunctions has not stopped with the issues thus presented. Judges have attempted to exercise the executive and legislative functions of government by their extraordinary writs.

In Milwaukee, for example, one of the local courts went so far as to forbid the city council from enacting a certain ordinance. The usurpation was afterward repudiated by the Supreme Court of the state, but it was significant of a tendency that has gained great force of late years. During the same period also divers other injunctions were issued in the progress of the fight between the people and a street railway company which amounted to an assumption of a dictatorship.

Whether the immediate purpose of these measures is good or bad, it is clear that such a common use of the injunction is offensive to our institutions and that the judicial effort to anticipate and prevent the action of a legislative body is a direct infraction of one of the essential principles of our government. Unless the writ is reserved for great emergencies in which there is no other recourse the danger of "government by injunction" is not the imaginary creation of a party platform but a very real danger which should not be tolerated by the people.

Judges should remember that, like the rest of us, they are the servants of the law, not its masters, and while it is proper that a profound respect for the

courts should be cultivated their authority is clearly circumscribed. They are not appointed or elected to make or execute laws or to rule by fiat, but to interpret the statutes and apply them. The cases justifying injunctions are so few that the writ should be a rarity instead of an ordinary incident of current litigation.

It seems that the function they are created to perform and the power vested in some of our judges is not understood. In some cases they assume the position of accuser, witness and executioner and usurp a power that is only equalled by the ruler of an absolute monarchy.

Another example of the exercise of autocratic power is cited by the Philadelphia North American, in the action of Judge Smith, of Cincinnati, O. It says:

Judge Samuel Smith, Jr., of Cincinnati, has decided that nine Anchor Buggy Company strikers have been guilty of contempt in violating the Court's injunction against picketing, patrolling and loitering about the factory. While he held that the men were not guilty of actual violence, they belonged to a union which had ordered a strike and against which he had issued a temporary restraining order. Pending the hearing for a permanent injunction order, however, Judge Smith has seized the opportunity presented by the appearance of the nine strikers in his court to modify his temporary order "so as to enjoin persuasion and all manner of interfer

ence.

Judge Smith, of course, is only a humble imitator of more eminent authorities, but his assumption of power outside the law is none the less questionable. The fashion of prejudging the motives and anticipating the acts of men engaged in the peaceful exercise of their rights has

acquired great vogue with the courts in the last twelve months. It is precisely this abuse of judicial power that Senator Hoar and the senate judiciary committee propose to check by the passage of the anti-injunction bill which they reported favorably to the senate. This bill is intended to aid in adjusting labor disputes on railroads and to define the powers of the federal courts. But the principle on which it is based applies with equal force to all state courts.

Under the terms of the Hoar bill a combination to do an act or not to do it shall not be punished more severely than the act itself, and the combinations of this character between employers and employes engaged in interstate commerce shall not be considered in restraint of trade. The bill in no way lessens the responsibility of the individual striker for any unlawful act he may commit, but it makes it impossible for a Judge to pass new criminal laws at his convenience and to impose whatever penalties he may see fit under his own bench made code.

When our laws are so amended as to permit no recourse to injunctions where the offense is punishable by law, the officers of the offended law clothed with power to arrest such offenders will take care of all cases far more effectually and less friction will be the result, than all the judges could accomplish in a thousand years with their injunctions. Laboring men have just as profound respect for our courts as any other man, but they are human and cannot fail to recognize the lack of dignity on the part of the bench when it usurps police powers and beats the constable out of his job. If our judges would command the respect of the people let them respect the dignity of the office they hold.

The Sattley Manufacturing Company of Springfield, Ill., is a firm engaged in making plows and other agricultural implements. In October, 1901, they cut their piece-price schedule from 5 to 20 per cent, and in one department 50 per cent. They closed their doors on all employes for three days, then opened them with the notice posted thereon

that employes desiring to return to work should notify the proper officials of their desire to do so. The new schedule was then presented and their resignations asked from the union to which they belonged. The result was a strike in which 254 participated. The matter was referred to the State Board of Arbitration which said in part of its report:

We are not called upon in this case to determine legal rights or obligations. These are left to the courts, where they have been determinable from time immemorial. The law creating this board expressly provides that it shall have jurisdiction only where there is a difference "not involving questions which may be the subject of an action at law or bill in equity." While the rights prescribed by law are superior to all others, and must forever remain so in a free government, yet there are certain obligations due between employer and employe, and from both to the general public, quite distinct from those defined by constitution and statute, and so generally recognized that the law itself has taken cognizance of them. It is for the adjudication of controversies arising from these obligations that such tribunals as the state board of arbitration have been erected. So far as strictly legal rights are concerned, it will not be questioned that an employer, unless bound otherwise by contract, is at liberty to employ whomsoever he chooses, and that the workingman has the like liberty of working for whomsoever he chooses; and that the law does not, and cannot consistently with the fundamental principles of civil liberty, undertake to say whether a man shall or shall not belong to a labor union.

It is impossible to ignore, and futile to try to check, the tendency of the age, in the commercial and industrial relations of men. It is distinctively an age of cooperation of the achievement of results by concerted and harmonious action for the common good of all. We witness today combinations of capital of a magnitude scarcely dreamed of so recently as a quarter of a century ago. There have been, in connection with some of these combinations, results that have created widespread alarm. Yet, in the sober second thought of the nation, it is conceived that these combinations are a necessary part of commercial progress; that the evils that have arisen from them are of a purely incidental nature, and that ultimately these will be minimized or completely eradicated by proper regulation.

So, likewise, the tendency toward cooperation-to organize for the common good and to attain a common end-has extended to the industrial masses to such an extent that the labor union is now found in almost all trades and occupations. That men in these organizations, suddenly clothed with large power, have sometimes exercised it unwisely, and that the men composing the rank and file of the organization have sometimes acted upon bad counsel, is undeniable. Yet this is far from proof that such organizations are intrinsically bad.

On the other hand, growing experience has shown them, when judiciously conducted, to be a powerful agency for good, whatever evils are justly chargeable to labor unions may be traced to incompetent or unwise management or leadership.

We fail to perceive any reason for denying to workingmen the same right to combine for their mutual benefit and protection as is exercised with great freedom by their employers. The labor union is based upon the recognition of the potency of organization. Men have learned that in the great industrial struggle the individual is but an atom. If he have a grievance, standing alone, he is powerless to redress it. In all respects he is at a decided disadvantage in his relations with his employer. But when he has the united co-operation of his fellow-employes, he is supported by a power that at least must command attention.

We have but to glance back a century to perceive the phenomenal changes that have come in the relations between employer and employe, and between individual citizens generally. Customs deemed wise and necessary then would be absurd and intolerable now. So there have come changes in the laws. In former times the concerted action of workingmen in quitting the service of an employer was adjudged a criminal conspiracy; but today the right of workingmen to strike is recognized by legislatures and courts, and it is only when striking men resort to violence or intimidation that they incur the penalties of the law.

The employer owes it not only to himself, but to the community in general, to promote permanency of employment among his employes. He who builds a home, or entertains the hope of doing so, is likely to be a superior workman and a superior citizen. The man who feels that his employment is permanent enjoys a sense of security for the future. There is then an incentive for him to possess a home, to accumulate his savings, and to take an active and beneficial interest in the affairs of his community, his state and his country. There should be an avoidance of all conditions which will tend to foster a vast army of migratory men, without certain employment, without home ties and without a substantial interest in citizenship. is to the interest of all to provide, in every way possible, for the permanent employment of men. It is for this reason that in the case under consideration we deem the present relations between the Sattley Manufacturing company and its old employes to be a misfortune to be deplored by the entire community.

It

As this is a case in which the board of arbitration has no power to render a de

cision that may be enforced by legal process, we make the following recommendations, in the hope that they will be acted upon by the parties to this controversy and result in a settlement thereof:

1. That the Sattley Manufacturing company meet a committee of its old employes with a view of making an arrangement by which employment may be provided for all or a part of them, as may be found practical.

2. That the terms of re-employment include "recognition of the union" by the Sattley Manufacturing company, the precise meaning of this term to be defined by written agreement; but that, in any event, the company shall not deny to the men the right to be members of the Plow Workers' union and shall not discriminate against the members of such union or endeavor to persuade them to withdraw from the same.

3. That the terms of settlement be embodied in a contract covering a specified period, and shall include an agreement on the part of the company not to discharge men, and on the part of the employes not to leave the service of the company without a specified notice.

4. That said contract provide that, in

case of future differences arising between the company and the men, the same shall be referred to arbitration without strike or lockout-the arbitrators to be either the state board of arbitration or persons mutually agreed upon.

We regard this case, in its present status, as one requiring mutual concessions, and we urgently request the reopening of negotiations between the company and the men with a view to effecting a settlement; and in this connection we hereby tender such further service of this board, or of its individual members, as may be required to accomplish the end in view.

This is said to be the first instance in which a state arbitration board has assumed to pass upon this question. Controversies usually relate to wages. This made the issue one of unionism..

The tendency of the age is in the direction of co-operation and organization and is irresistable in the commercial and industrial relations of men, and the questions to be met are properly those of regulation.

Cigarette

Mortuary tables and other statistics showing pernicious effects of cigarettes upon the health are being gathered in all parts of the country by prominent men and women, who are forming a crusade against their sale; but, without doubt, Dr. H. F. Fisk, principal of the Northwestern Academy, leads the list, not only as an authority, but as a reformer. We cannot help but take cognizance of the evil effects of cigarettes upon the mind when such men as Dr. Fisk calls to our attention the effects that have come under his observation. He said:

Drawing conclusions from the effects of cigarette smoking from the comparative standing made in the recent examinations by those who smoke and those who do not, we will divide the students into four grades. Two per cent. of the users of cigarettes were in the highest grade and fifty-seven per cent. in the lowest grade. Of the very best students not one was a cigarette smoker, My experience has been that four out of five of those who persist in the cigarette habit ulti

Slaves.

mately make a failure in their studies. and for that reason I would advise those who are unable to quit and those who do not wish to quit to withdraw from the school.

The striking part of Dr. Fisk's conclusions is his advice, which gives the student the option of quitting or else be branded as a numskull on account of his slavery to an appetite that he does not have the moral courage to conquer. Isn't it an inspiring sight to look upon a human being, endowed with all the faculties of nature, who poses as one of the lords of creation, and yet is so utterly lacking in will power that he pleads his inability to quit the use of cigarettes? Oh, poor mortal! Subject of sincerest contempt from all who surround you. Weak in manhood, weak in purpose, weak in effort, you are indeed a pitiable object, unable to see yourself as others see you and blind to the sneers of contempt often directed at you because of your lack of will power to be a man. You force your society upon those who detest you because of