almost always readily available? There has never been a moment since their present organization was formed when the coal miners of Pennsylvania would not have been eager to submit their claims to such a tribunal. It is a great thing that the employers have now been forced by public opinion to realize that they too must be somewhere nearly as reasonable as the tradeunions. Common sense has indeed won a victory.

A New Crop of

The coal strike overshadowed all other topics last month; yet the acute Radicals. phases of the subject did not prevent a widespread discussion of the principles involved. For once, many of the extreme social and economic radicals were content to be silent in order to hear astonishing avowals from the mouths of men heretofore regarded as the very high priests of conservatism. What was there for the extremists to say when men like Richard Olney, formerly Attorney-General and Secretary of State, should declare that the anthracite operators who had called on the President to suppress the law-breaking strikers, were themselves "the most unblushing and persistent law-breakers." Continuing in this vein Mr. Olney, said:

For years they have discriminated between customers in the freight charges on their railroads in violation of the interstate commerce law. For years they have unlawfully monopolized interstate commerce in violation of the Sherman anti-trust law. Indeed, the very best excuse and explanation of their astonishing attitude at the Washington conference is that, having violated so many laws for so long and so many times, they might rightfully think they were wholly immune from either punishment or reproach.

A BREAKER IN THE HARD-COAL REGION, WITH SOFT-COAL TRAINS PASSING EN ROUTE TO NEW YORK.

There were no doubts whatever as to the views and sympathies of ex-President Cleveland, who heartily approved of the steps taken by President. Roosevelt. As against the assertion by the operators of the unqualified right to manage their own affairs without interference, either from the workmen or from the public, the answer of aroused American conservatism was that in the last analysis the rights of the private owners of the coal mines were least important of all. The most fundamental right was that of

the public to obtain its necessary fuel supplies. Next in importance was the well-being of the large population employed in the hard and dangerous work of mining coal for public use. American conservatism will not confiscate anybody's property, and it will doubtless deal most tenderly with the issues of watered stocks and bonds that the monopoly exploitation of the anthracite coal fields has converted into the semblance of sacred vested interests.

in Thinking.

We

But

But American economic thinking An Advance has made a great advance. Public ownership of coal mines has now been talked of, not merely by the class of men called rabid socialists, but by hard-headed business men and shrewd practical politicians. are not, indeed, going to have public ownership and operation of coal mines in the United States at any time in the near future ;-at least, there is no probability of such a development. we may fairly hope to have a state of public intelligence and political honesty which will bring about the rigid enforcement of means to regulate and control such combinations as the one which has brought on this great anthracite trouble of the present year. One of the disadvantages of the country is, that so many lawyers of the ability and force of Mr. Richard Olney, instead of being engaged on the side of the public, are the advisers of the great trusts and combinations which rely upon expert legal counsel to point out the way to violate the laws. Meanwhile, there has also been a renewed study of labor questions, and a hopeful revival of interest in the question how best to keep the peace between capital and labor.

Some American

Those misunderstandings and conflicts which have so disturbed Euro

Principles. pean industry, and curtailed its development, are not wanted in the United States. This country has prospered on two general principles, (1) that of encouraging the largest possible output, and (2) that of paying liberal wages; while English and European tradeunionism has stood for small output, fixity of condition, and stagnant rather than buoyant industry. The kind of trade-unionism that refuses to give the industrious and ambitious man a chance, as against the lazy, inferior, and incompetent workman, is mischievous; and it must be reformed, or destroyed. Strikes are a perilous resort, and are always evidence of stupidity on one side or on both sides; and, generally, of turpitude on the one side or the other. The public does not hold to severe enough account the men who are ultimately discovered to

have been responsible for a needless labor conflict. Some labor leaders are reckless and fanatical, and some capitalists are pompous and arbitrary; but the leaders on both sides are usually well-meaning, and responsive to an appeal to the sense of fair play. The real fault will generally be found to lie simply in a lack of intelligence. This is the trouble that chiefly afflicts Wall Street at present in its new rôle as center of American industrial activity.

Wall Street.

The ignorance of Wall Street touchIgnorance in ing the history of labor movements, the personality of labor leaders, the aims of trade-unionism, and the ordinary working in the labor market of the law of supply and demand, is greater than is commonly be lieved. Wall Street very much dreads and dislikes what it calls a harsh and indiscriminate attempt at the enforcement of the anti-trust laws; yet it has been indulging in the fantastic dream that, with its new and experimental weapons of industrial combination, it could at once go forth and destroy so firmly established a force as trade-unionism. It would seem clear to the most ordinary intelligence that the one indispensable policy for Wall Street to adopt was that of liberality toward labor and large encouragement to trade-unionism. Trust methods make it easily possible for industries to pay good wages and keep the peace with their men ; and thereby they strengthen themselves at a thousand points. "Collective bargaining," made possible by the existence on the one side of large capitalistic combinations, and of tradeunions on the other side, affords the easiest and best attainable method by which the trust magnates can keep clear of labor troubles, and carry on their affairs profitably and safely. To many thoughtful observers of this strike in its successive phases, the most painful and the most disquieting thing of all, therefore, was the revelation it gave of the short-sightedness of a group of employers who were risking everything they had to fight desperately against the very methods of dealing with their labor-problems that would have been most beneficial to themselves. The worst of it was they thought their ignorance wisdom, and distrusted the wisdom of their own friends who really knew. There were individual men in Wall Street who would have arrived at wise conclusions; but they were not given the full opportunity.

been a time for eighteen months or two years when, if Mr. Perkins had been authorized to act for the capitalists as Mr. Mitchell was acting for the laborers, the situation could not have been promptly harmonized to the permanent, as well as the temporary, advantage of everybody concerned. He understands that capital and labor should be joint industrial forces; that one needs the other; that it is good for the country that both should be prosperous; and that it is just as fair for one as for the other to be organized, and to deal through accredited representatives. He can grasp the essential principles, and he is practical. It was not men of Mr. Perkins' type who ever supposed that the circulation of petty slanders about John Mitchell would help to settle the anthracite deadlock. Organized labor certainly needs honest and upright leadership; and fortunately, in men like John Mitchell, and like Mr. Clark, of the Railway Conductors, whom President Roosevelt has selected as a member of the arbitration board,-American trade-unionism to-day has a number of men who lead wisely and intelligently. But, on the other hand, the vast aggregations of organized capi tal also need wise leadership, and they cannot well endure many such shocks of confidence as this anthracite trouble has produced.

Centralized The combinations of capital are not Human Wel- all of them predatory or improper;

Power and

fare. many of them are excellently conducted, and they are becoming great balancewheels, so to speak, that help like the succession of regular crops to keep the flow of national prosperity smooth and steady. Thus, Mr. Morgan's great steamship combination is a most legitimate and admirable triumph of industrial organization and financiering genius. The Steel Corporation bids fair to prove itself not a trust, in any monopoly sense, but a wonderful experiment in the field of industrial economics, a creditable evolution and a valuable factor in this country's prosperity. A number of the great railroad combinations, in like manner, are in the line of genuine progress. Apart from technical questions of a legal nature, it is not to be assumed, off-hand, that even the anthracite operators' agreement is not also a move in the right direction. But the responsibility that goes with the conduct of these vast enterprises cannot be best exercised by men whose mood is arrogant. Power, when it makes men ruthless, is not in fit hands. Let us hope Wall Street will have learned something from this last experience; and that it will, at least, have a better instinct as to the men competent to give it advice in problems involving human welfare.

The Political Pendulum.

The politicians had been much puzzled over the question how this strike would affect the approaching elections. Early in October-when the President's efforts seemed doomed to failure through the obduracy of the capitalists,-it was widely believed that the new Congress would be overwhelmingly Democratic. President Roosevelt, himself, probably shared in that opinion. No very logical reason could be given; but, as a rule, in this country the party in power is always punished for anything in the nature of a widespread calamity. It has seemed to fall peculiarly to the lot of the Democratic party to claim that it ought to be rewarded when the people are in trouble; but that is merely because the Republicans happen to have been dominant in our generation much more than half the time. If the political pendulum should prove to have swung the other way this fall, it will not be due to any lack of popular affection for the President and confidence in him. Republican candidates for Congress, indeed, would many of them have been in better position before the people this fall if there had not been something of a prevalent impression that the majority party in Congress had not been supporting the President with due loyalty.

The

Policies.

At least, however, as we have rePresident's marked more than once,-the President is on excellent personal relations with all public men in his party; and he never expected any man to sacrifice honest convictions, on any point, to please the administration. He was naturally disappointed, and deeply so, that Congress failed to uphold the national honor and good faith in dealing with Cuba. No citizen who shares the President's deep convictions on this question will, this year, feel like voting for any Congressional candidate who has not given his word explicitly that he will support Presi dent Roosevelt in any non-partisan and patriotic plan for recognizing, by commercial treaty or otherwise, the moral fact of Cuba's dependence upon us as a sequel to our occupation of the island and our forcing upon the Cubans the concessions to us enumerated in the Platt amendment to their constitution. This is the most important business that can come before the present Congress in its short concluding session, which will open on Monday, December 1, and close on Wednesday, March 4. President Roosevelt's fortunate settlement of the coal strike will cer tainly have saved his party many thousands of votes, as it will also have enhanced his prestige and strengthened his hands for the great tasks that pertain more directly to his office. The circumstances of the strike manifestly brought new support to the President's position on the trust question, as set forth in his recent speeches. It is a growing opinion that, under existing powers, Congress can accomplish a good deal toward the better regulation of the great corporations; and it is possible that both the interstate commerce law and the Sherman anti-trust law may be amended in the near future.

Our October number went to press The President's last month as the President was en

Indisposition. tering upon his Western speaking tour, with an extensive itinerary, that was to have kept him away from Washington until October 7; and we stopped the presses to make а brief note of the fact that the after-effects of a wound received in the collision of his coach with a trolley car in the Berkshires, on September 3, had compelled a sudden change of plans, the speaking trip being abandoned in Indiana on September 23. The President was suffering excruciating pain from bruises on the left leg below the knee, which had failed to heal properly and had resulted in the formation of an abscess, with some affection of the bone. The leg was operated upon in Indianapolis, and the President was at once removed to Washington, where he was

Some Notes

HON. BIRD S. COLER.

In the normally Republican State of of the Cam- Pennsylvania. it was supposed that paign. Mr. Pattison, the Democratic can didate for governor,-who has twice previously been elected to that office through exceptional local conditions.-may gain votes by reason of the coal strike; but it does not seem likely that he will be able to defeat Judge Pennypacker. In New York the Democrats-as foreshadowed in these pages last month,-nominated Mr. Bird S. Coler for governor; ex-Senator David B. Hill providing the platform, and absolutely dominating the Democratic situation. Mr. Coler was elected comptroller of the city of New York, on the Tammany ticket with Mayor Van Wyck, in 1897. The platform pays particular attention to the tariff question. Yielding to pressure under momentary excitement over the fuel famine. Mr. Hill allowed a plank to be inserted in his platform advocating the national ownership and operation of coal mines. The proposal was not

taken seriously by the newspapers or the public; Governor Odell's reëlection, by a normal majority, was regarded as assured after the settlement of the coal strike on October 15. The Republican State Convention endorsed President Roosevelt for renomination in 1904; favored reciprocity with Cuba; spoke for protection, though touching lightly on the tariff issue; and condemned monopolies and trusts, but not in the violent and unqualified terms of the Democratic platform. There were only two notable incidents connected with the State Republican Convention; one being its hearty endorsement of Roosevelt, as against the earlier plans of some of the party leaders; and the other and more dramatic incident being the repudiation of a candidate who had been selected by the leaders for lieutenant-governor, on the ground of his connection, as an active Wall Street man, with a large number of great corporations and so-called trusts. Certain corporate interests had opposed the endorsement of Roosevelt; they were again displeased by the rejection of the candidate who had been selected to run with Mr. Odell. Some, at least, of them were further offended by Mr. Odell's outspoken disapproval of the attitude of the operators in the coal strike. These incidents were said to have resulted in the shutting-off of campaign funds from sources usually relied upon for liberal contributions; but the offishness of Wall Street may be worth more to Governor Odell and the Republican ticket this year than its friendly aid could have been.

The pending campaign has afforded The Trusts and the Par- a hundred illustrations of the abties. surdity of trying to give the so-called trust question a party character. The Democrats of New York-breathing out threatenings and slaughter against all trusts in their platform,-placed at the head of their ticket a young Wall Street banker regarded as having trust affiliations; the Republicans, on the other hand, with their much milder platform, refused to allow a very excellent candidate for lieutenant-governor, although originally agreed upon, to have a place on the ticket on account of his connection with numerous corporations. In Massachusetts the Democratic candidate for governor, Mr. Gaston, had attained prominence as the leading spirit in the most powerful corporation of Boston or the State,-a wealthy man, thoroughly identified with the modern corporation methods; the Republicans, on the other hand, departing from their longestablished traditions, did not nominate man of wealth, a Harvard man, or a member of

a

Copyright, 1902, by E. Chickering & Co.

HON. JOHN L. BATES, OF MASSACHUSETTS.

(Republican candidate for governor.)

the typical Massachusetts aristocracy of family and culture, but have as their candidate a man of the people who is said to belong to what the older generation will remember as the Henry Wilson type. It is not that Mr. Bates lacks education, experience, and fit qualities; it is only that he represents a larger and plainer element of the people. He is a Methodist rather than a Unitarian or Episcopalian, and a graduate of Boston University rather than of Harvard. He is a lawyer, but not a wealthy one, and he is a downright opponent of trusts; and in the Boston Common Council and in the State Legislature he has kept a watchful eye on the sort of corporate interests that have been represented by Mr. Gaston, the Democratic candidate. Thus, in our model commonwealth of Massachusetts, it is the Republican rather than the Democratic ticket, this year, that best represents the attitude of those who would put greater restrictions upon combinations of capital. There is no need to multiply instances; the trust question evidently does not fit itself to the present-day party alignments. President Roosevelt and Attorney-General Knox fairly represent the average thoughtful view: that the sovereignty of the Government must be maintained, and the laws of the land must not be disregarded; but that, on the other hand, the normal play of business energy should not be