Recent Events

1916

According to Seattle Times, a $22,000,000 fleet is to be built in Pacific coast ports for A. U. Anderson & Co. of Copenhagen, Denmark, which will be placed under American flag. 14 vessels already have been contracted for.

Citizen soldiers who attended earlier camps at Plattsburg, N. Y., as well as those now in training there, will receive from government their traveling and subsistence expenses under army appropriation bill passed by Congress.

Mexican de facto government has promulgated decree requiring companies engaged in production of crude oil in Mexico to register in the tax bureau of ministry of finance before Sept. 15.

Department of commerce reports that 221 firms are holding nearly 5,000,000 cases of eggs — about 143,000,000 dozen — in cold storage, or 10 per cent less than a month ago.

Herald New York despatch says railroads may delay attack on eight-hour law. Prominent officials believe President Wilson's statement to Congress Friday was a pledge of remedial legislation and are inclined to await outcome of election.

State department has received information of an agreement between Great Britain and Norway whereby latter will place an export embargo on raw copper and will receive without interruption imports of copper from this country.

Copper is now chief article of export from Alaska. Export value for year to June 30 was $26,488,000, compared with $5,182,000 in 1915. Receipts of copper from Alaska aggregated 117,000,000 pounds.

A new labor union, composed of government employees, has decided to ask President Wilson to make Saturday a half-holiday for all government workers throughout the year.

Arrangements are being made for formation of a $50,000,000 automobile company in France to manufacture cheap cars after war capable of competing with Ford.

New revenue bill makes income tax returns public records, with proviso requiring an order by the President before such records can be seen.

London Times says that Swedish harvest will be finest on record, crop yield being from 50 per cent to 200 per cent above average.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 12, 1916, p. 7.

Tuesday, September 12, 1916 — Editorial Comments

Maine/New Hampshire, 1916

Alice B. Glines, editor

All who ran were elected.

The spellbinders are gone; peace to them.

What is so rare as a day in June? A September day, not infrequently.

We common people get the little end; and deserve it, by voting against ourselves.

The plan to annex South Portland to Portland and raise the Portland tax rate another jog is now on foot again.

Sometimes you can tell what a thing is by taking notice of what something else isn't. The Boston Transcript says there has been "no pussyfooting" by Judge Hughes on the Adamson bill, and declares this to be "the supreme sensation of the campaign."

A woman in Portland who has married the same man three times and been divorced from him twice now wants to be divorced again. Next time she better get someone who does not get drunk to marry her, unless there is some incongruity in that program.

Our present governor's repeated disregard of the nicer things of life, the non-essentials perhaps, had much to do with calling out the huge "stay-at-home vote" which can not he reached by appeals based on the real problems of government. Governor-elect Milliken is his exact opposite in these regards.

Belknap County Pomona last week argued the question whether summer boarders and bungalow residents are more conducive to the prosperity of a town, or good roads and good markets. One trouble with this question is that it is mixed; if a town can get good roads they will not lead to markets or trains, but be laid out to suit that same summer travel. As for good markets, we in northern New England must first decide whether commerce is a good or a bad thing. Markets mean trade.

It was unhandsome of Mr. Samuel Untermeyer to put it in print, but he had no less an authority than the late Thomas Brackett Reed to back up his statement of the abilities of Maine people (Query: Are we different from, the people where he comes from?) to untangle mixed political conditions. Mr. Reed always said that it was foolish to try to discuss public questions on their merits before a mixed audience; and all he ever tried to do in his campaign speeches was to appeal to our sympathies, or prejudices, and make us laugh at his funny stories and witty hits.

President Gompers of the Labor Unions was not fair in his Portland statement of the attitude of the train men, which he said was not at all a threat. He said they merely said to the roads that if they wanted men to work on the present terms of employment they must get other men to do it. But this was in truth not in the least the attitude or the intentions of the trainmen. On the contrary, if an average of one in a hundred per week of the trainmen should really throw up their jobs for some other employment, the railroad agents would voluntarily shorten the hours, or raise the pay, whichever the men seemed to prefer.

Judge Hughes at Rockland on Saturday said, speaking of the Eight-Hour law enacted by Congress under threat of a strike by the train crews:

"This issue transcends every other issue before the American people, because it is the fundamental issue, whether or not we have a Government; and an Administration that yields to force is not an administration at all. It is being driven. It is not government in accordance with the principles of American institutions."

From which the thoughtful reader cannot escape the inference that if the railroad men had not threatened to strike, in that case there would not been any issue of the highest degree of importance for the Republican party to base its canvass on.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 12, 1916, p. 6.

The Federal Farm Loan Measure

Maine, 1916

After many years of effort on the part of those who were interested in the proper capitalization of the farms of the Country, Congress has passed what seems to be an adequate law that will give the farmer and land owner the same privileges in our banking system that have been enjoyed by other branches of industry for many years.

The grange, both State and National, has been a factor in creating a sentiment that has made the passage of this measure possible, and is seems a matter of great concern that at the hearing on the measure at Augusta, recently, those who had official connection with the grange, or who had commissioned themselves to speak for that body, felt called upon to discourage the Commissioners from trying to locate one of the branch banks in Maine.

Had the farmers, who realize their needs, and who are trying to meet present day conditions on limited capital, been allowed to speak for themselves the result of the hearing would have been different. But they were on their farms, working against great odds, and others spoke for them from knowledge obtained in the class room, in business circles, on the lecture platform and in City counting rooms.

How this hearing emphasizes the necessity of leaders who really realize their responsibilities, and who are able to look at the problems of the farmer from the proper view point.

Is it possible that these men let partisan prejudice warp their judgment? Did they think it improper to judge favorably an act of the present Congress? If such is the case, which God forbid, let me quote a little from the last President of the United States, of the opposite political party:

"The 12,000,000 farmers of the United States add, each year, to the national wealth $8,400,000,000. They are doing this on a borrowed capital of $6,040,000,000. On this sum they pay annually interest charges of $510,000,000. Counting commissions and renewal charges, the interest rates paid by the farmers of this country is averaged at 8 1/2 per cent, as compared to a rate of 4 2/3 to 3 1/2 per cent paid by the farmers, for instance of France and Germany.

"Again, the interest rate paid by the American farmer is considerably higher than that paid by industrial corporations, railroads or municipalities. Yet, I think it will be admitted that the security offered by the farmer, in his farm lands, is quite as good as that offered by industrial corporations. Why then will not the investor furnish the farmer with money at as advantageous rates as he is willing to supply it to the industrial corporations? Obviously, the advantage enjoyed by the industrial corporation is in the financial machinery at its command, which permits it to place its offer before the investor in a more attractive and more readily negotiable form. The farmer lacks this, and lacking it he suffers."

This, from so good an authority as Mr. Taft, ought to be convincing to all who are fair minded and intelligent. It ought to silence for all time the cry of the partisan that this bill has no value except as a political weapon.

The recent happenings in relation to increased freight rates, the arbitrary fixing of prices of his products by the distributors, and the high price of labor have set the farmer to thinking. He now knows that while farm products are higher to the consumer than ever before, his profits are not increasing, in fact, that they are actually decreasing in many instances, and that one great reason for this is the lack of ready capital to take advantage of conditions, and to finance him through the season and enable him to act with his fellows in any co-operative plan that shall tend to lift a portion of his burdens.

Then again, the college of Agriculture which was represented at the hearing, is all the while turning out graduates who ought to be well fitted to take up the business of farming and carry it to a successful standing.

But to do this they have got to have capital and ready means of credit, but very few of them are fortunate enough to have a farm awaiting them on graduation. This higher agricultural education calls for more expensive methods, better animals, more farm machinery, all of which call for money.

And because of the lack of ready capital, many of these young men will drift into other occupations, their services will be lost to the farm, and the college will suffer because more of its graduates are not found on farms.

It would naturally have been supposed that these college representatives would have hastened to put themselves on record as favoring the establishing of one of these land banks where it would have been available for their graduates, instead of remaining silent or actually repelling it.

But the time is coming when the farmers will speak for themselves, when they will no longer be bound by the time-serving policies of their leaders, and self-appointed spokesmen. When that time does come, as it surely will, the farmer shall get his full due, the business will again be prosperous, every man's hand shall not then be against him, and there shall come a lasting prosperity to State and Nation that shall arise from a happy, a contented, a prosperous agriculture. Let us all try to hasten the glad time coming.

B. Walker McKeen.
Fryeburg, September 1, 1916.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 12, 1916, p. 2.

Trainmen's Higher Wages a Burden to Farmers

1916

New Orleans, La., Saturday. — That the increase in pay of members of the four railroad brotherhoods, caused by the enactment of the eight hour day law by Congress, will rest ultimately upon the farmer was asserted by Henry N. Pope, newly elected president of the Association of State Presidents of the Farmers' Union, in a statement issued to-day.

Mr. Pope declared that the farmers of the country stand for a fair wage for both labor and capital and favor an eight hour working day, but that he personally doubted the wisdom of Congress fixing wages for labor employed by private enterprise. "I doubt," he said, "if it is in the interest of either labor, capital or the people to make the wage schedule of railroad employes a political issue."

The condition of the farmers of the country is worse than that of the most lowly railroad laborer, Mr. Pope stated, with an average farm income of only $1.47 a day, out of which must be paid the expenses of the family.

The condition of women laborers in the fields he described as worse than during the days of slavery.

"Not a word has been spoken by Congress in defence of the woman who rakes the hay and gathers the sheaves," said Mr. Pope. "Little has been done that has increased the income of the farmer or enabled him to pay a higher wage to his laborers.

"But to-day we find the highest paid laborers in the world, making three times more money than a farmer, demanding twenty-five per cent increase, and Congress hastening to their relief. This increase must, in the end, rest upon the back of the farmer and will reduce his income, increase his hours of labor and call for another levy of farm mothers from the home to the field.

"The farmers of this nation must fight to hold what they have and to get what is rightfully theirs from the government. We must do it through organization."

Mr. Pope stated that by the enactment of the eight hour law Congress had thrust upon the people of the country a new responsibility, and organized labor now stands committed to the principle of government regulation of wages. The government, he said, should fix wages for all classes of railroad employes and should have the power to decrease as well as to increase wages to remedy comparative inequalities.

"In my opinion," he continued, "the next session of Congress should readjust the wages of all railroad employes, from railroad president to section laborer, giving all a square deal and fixing a schedule of pay based upon business justice and human rights. I submit a schedule of wages taken from official government reports which presents conclusive evidence of the inequalities of the present daily wage scale of railroad employes:—

"General officers, $16.11; other officers, $6.49; general office clerks, $2.53; station agents, $2.37; other station men, $1.99; enginemen, $5.28; firemen, $3.23; conductors, $4.49; other trainmen, $3.11; all shopmen, $2.37, and trackmen, $1.50."

Mr. Pope declared that the foregoing schedule showed that the 350,000 section hands in the country were condemned to a life of poverty. He said he believed that Congress, having undertaken to regulate the wages of higher paid employes, should review their wages.

Rival Labor Unions

1916

Copperhill, Tenn., Sept. 23. — Citizens and members of trade unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor today drove out of Copper Hill the principal leaders of a movement for strengthening organization of the Western Federation of Miners among employees of the Tennessee Copper Company and the Ducktown Sulphur, Copper and Iron Company. At the same time the companies discharged a number of employees said to be members of the Western federation.

Guy Miller of Denver, organizer for the Western federation was seized by a mob of about 200 men, taken to the outskirts of the town, whipped and ordered to leave. J. A. Jones, Miller's local assistant, was taken from his room in a hotel, marched through the streets and forced to swear he would leave town on the next train, which he did.

The western federation, it is claimed has been trying for several months to gain control of the local labor situation but is opposed by the United Mine Workers of America, who have been supported by what is said to be a majority of business men of the Tennessee Copper Field.

Against Taxing Wealth

1916

The high priests in their search for some vital and appealing issue against the Democratic party have hit upon another dangerous one.

They are squarely on record, as the Post pointed out yesterday, in opposition to the eight-hour day for railroad workers, and the other working men of the United States are asking themselves what this ominous assault means. Nor can they be blamed if they become convinced that the Republican party is identified with the capitalists and the big "interests." Or if they feel that logically Mr. Hughes and a Republican Congress — if such should be the results of the election — would at once move to repeal the railroad eight-hour law. The bosses can only blame themselves and their candidate for the feeling that the party has no sympathy this year for the aspirations and hopes of labor.

But there is another issue just as likely to burn the fingers of the G. O. P. orators and leaders. It is opposition to the taxation of wealth.

Already the business has begun. Assaults on the income tax law here in other States are now under way. The people are being told how iniquitous it is that the south pays so little of this tax and the north so much, as if that were some fault of the law. The logic of this is almost incredibly clumsy.

Our extraordinarily rich and prosperous northern states, Massachusetts among the rest, pay more income tax to the support of the federal government for the simple and sufficient reason that the wealth is here to be taxed. There isn't a southern state but would rejoice with exceeding great joy if from its borders went to the national treasury at Washington as much money as goes from Massachusetts, for that would mean that it was rich, that many of its citizens had great incomes which were doing their share in the Federal support.

Idle wealth was never justly taxed in these United States until the passage of the Democratic income tax law. On the shoulders of the poor rested by far the heavier burden. Now come the Republican stump speakers and attack this fairest and squarest form of taxation ever devised on the absurd ground that it is "sectional," keeping silent about the fact that wealth is taxed wherever found, whether north, south, east or west.

Against the eight-hour day and against the taxation of hitherto hidden and evading riches — that's where the Republican party is headed, if it is not already there. — The Boston Post.

President Begins Speeches

1916

Long Branch, N. J., Sept. 23. — President Wilson today actively opened his campaign for reelection with a speech replying to Republican criticism of his settlement of the recently threatened railroad strike.

With emphatic gestures, before a large crowd gathered at Shadow Lawn, he defended the eight-hour day and declared also that the nation must be freed front the possibility of interference with its transportation.

"The chief cloud that is upon the domestic horizon is the unsatisfactory relations of capital and labor," the President said, adding that "so long as labor and capital stand antagonistic the interests of both are injured and the prosperity of America is held back from the triumphs which are legitimately its own.

"Human relationships, my fellow citizens, are governed by the heart, and if the heart is not in it, nothing is in it.

"I have recently been through an experience which distressed me. I tried to accommodate a difference between some of the employes of the American railways and the executives of the American railways, and the distressing thing I discovered was that on the one hand there was unlimited suspicion and distrust of the other, and that that suspicion and distrust was returned by the other side in full measure.

"The executives did not believe in the sincerity of the men, and the men did not believe in the sincerity and fairness of the executives.

"When I carried it to Congress, some very interesting things happened. In the House of Representatives the plan was passed, was sanctioned by a vote which included, I am told, about 70 Republicans as against 54 Republicans; and in the Senate, I am informed, that the Republican members of the Senate had a conference, in which they determined to put no obstacle in the way of the passage of the bill. Now this was because the proposal was reasonable and was based upon right.

"But, ladies and gentlemen, that is not the end of the story. This thing ought to have been done, and it had to be done at the time that it was done, so as to bring about a reasonable trial of the eight-hour day and a careful examination of the results of the eight-hour day.

"But that does not finish the matter. Let me call your attention to what I believe we ought all to be thinking about so as to set the stage for this and all similar cases.

"There are some things in which society is so profoundly interested that its interests take precedence of the interests of any group of men whatever. One of these things is the supply of the absolute necessaries of life. It would be intolerable if at any time any group of men by any process should be suffered to cut society off from the necessary supplies which sustain life.

"These men were dealing with one another as if the only thing to settle was between themselves, whereas the real thing to settle was what rights had the 100,000,000 people of the United States?

"The business of government is to see that no other organization is as strong as itself, to see that no body or group of men, no matter what their private interest is, may come into competition with the authority of society, and the problem which Congress, because of the lateness of the session, has for a few months postponed, is this problem."

An Authorized Statement of President Wilson's Plans

1916

L.' Ames Brown in Collier's.

No sane man doubts that the coming of peace in Europe will modify profoundly the present conditions of business enterprise in the United States.

Among economists, as well as publicists, opinions differ as to the extent to which the industries of the nations now at war will be re-energized when peace makes them again our competitors in business. Some of our prophets have broadcasted the prediction that European manufacture may then be so speeded up that the resulting flood of products will swamp our industries unless they are protected by a solid tariff bulwark. Others, including President Wilson, hold that America, having husbanded and conserved her great resources while other nations were passing through the travail of a great war, is better able than ever before to meet the pace of her international competitors.

President Wilson believes that the American position is sound, not only because our resources have not been impaired, as have those of the European belligerents, but because our manufacturers have been stimulated and trained by new demands the war has made upon them. They have learned to meet, not only the war needs of Europe, but also those wants at home which heretofore foreign industry satisfied for us. Finally, the President attaches great importance to the fact that the United States has become, by reason of the Federal Reserve Act, the great financial power of the world.

Keen-minded men of every viewpoint are agreed, however, as to the imminence of severe new tests for American industry and as to the necessity of preparation to meet these tests. A period of intense competition looms up ahead of the nation — a competition of peace times which probably will not be comparable to any international industrial competition the world has ever known.

President Wilson believes that preparation for national defense is the first and most essential requirement the Government is called upon to meet. This he regards as a sort of insurance against an irremediable conflagration. But once our house has been put in order, it becomes the paramount duty of the Government to see to it that the most efficient preparation possible is made for the peace which will liberate the energies of the European power for industrial activity. Mr. Wilson already has looked ahead to the manner in which this primary duty of the American Government is to be performed, and he has evolved a comprehensive plan of preparation. It is the privilege of the writer of this article to present from intimate knowledge the views President Wilson has formulated with the object of giving a new and fuller meaning to American efficiency.

As soon as industrial preparedness is mentioned the mind of the American business man turns to the tariff. The tariff is the first line of trenches of American industry, our business men believe, and the first duty of the Government officers at work upon an adequate preparedness policy is to consider the question of tariff revision. Neither the President nor the well-informed business man has ignored the lesson contained in the announcement that Japan already has revised her tariff to meet new conditions; that England is preparing to enact prohibitive duties upon the products of her enemies and moderate duties upon the products of neutral nations at the close of the war; that Germany will revise all of her commercial treaties in 1917; and that a strong sentiment exists in England, France, Russia, and Italy for the negotiation of a commercial alliance.

The Tariff Must Be Revised.

President Wilson considers himself bound by no commitments save to a competitive tariff policy. The Underwood-Simmons Tariff Law embodied his ideas of the competitive needs of our industries at the time its schedules were framed — when pre-bellum industrial conditions obtained. His mind is entirely open as to the extent to which competitive conditions may have been modified by the European War. He does not need to be convinced that these conditions may be altered. He is prepared to act upon the facts as they may be gathered and their value impartially assessed through the instrumentality of a nonpartisan tariff commission. He considers that an earnest of his open-mindedness on tariff revision has been given in his support of the measure adopted at the present session of Congress to levy higher duties on dyestuffs as a means of securing necessary industries in the United States. The President considers his position, as here outlined, to be in the strictest accord with the avowed principles of his party.

The Tariff Commission is the instrumentality through which the President expects the Government to gather the facts needed for guidance in adjusting the tariff schedule. That would be perhaps the chief purpose of the Tariff Commission's suggested journey to Europe, though that would be only one phase of its inquiries. President Wilson is now as thoroughly convinced as anyone that America is not at the period of her destiny when free-trade ideas can be applied in our tariff making consistently with the necessities of revenue. It is an obvious fact, to which a section of the Democratic leaders, not including the President, persistently has closed its eyes, that all tariff duties in some degree protect the industries concerned. Tariffs protect, whether drawn with an eye to protection or to revenue, and the wisely drawn tariff law — the competitive tariff law — is that which balances revenue features with the nicest sensing of the needs of developing commerce and industry. It can be said that the President will study the report of the Tariff Commission with the view of formulating an adjustment of necessary tariff levies which will effect the fullest measure of development.

"There are many paths which lead up the mountainside, but when we reach the peak the same moon we shall see," says a proverb of Old Japan. How applicable it is to the present tariff discussion! Some one has called President Wilson's attention to the fact that fully 50 per cent of arguments among individuals about the tariff grow out of misunderstanding of isolated facts and not out of differences on fundamental principles. He does believe that a clear presentation of the facts relating to the conditions of competition between the United States and foreign countries will go far toward weeding out differences of opinion attributable to lack of information; so far that it will be possible to formulate a tariff policy for the United States which will command the support of an overwhelming majority of the people of the country regardless of partisan affiliations. The possibility of such an approximate agreement on a subject that hitherto has divided the electorate into two antagonistic sections is attributable in large measure (the President considers) to the development of independent thinking among the voters.

The great body of the people (Mr. Wilson believes) have made up their minds that the industries of the country ought not to be hampered by a too strict adherence to abstract tariff theories, but that the fullest measure of opportunity should be opened to them so long as the conferring of special privileges is avoided. On the other hand (as the President understands the public mind) there is the conviction that our industries ought not to be fattened to the point where apoplexy is threatened; but again, the conviction is just as clear that it would be the height of national folly to lower the entire range of tariff duties to such an extent that, coincidentally, the Government would be deprived of an important part of its accustomed revenue and the industries of all of their accustomed re-enforcement. So much for the President's views on the tariff, which relate solely to the defensive preparation of American business for the tests to come at the end of the war. The President believes that the aggressive and buoyant spirit of American business is such that it will be more concerned with offensive measures, with preparation to wade into the markets of the world, and to establish American supremacy there.

The President's policy includes numerous legislative and executive steps through which this preparation is to be accomplished. Most important of these is his plan to procure definitive authorization for American firms to co-operate for foreign-selling operations without regard to the provisions Of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. The President recognizes that in the past the American Government has been somewhat provincial in its attitude toward this need of our export business. The war and the vigorous investigation by the Federal Trade Commission have orientated the President and the Government, however. Now it is realized that the great competitive strength of Germany and the other industrial nations of Europe in the past has been due in large measure to the freedom with which their industries were permitted to organize for purposes of foreign trade. In Europe individual companies of one nation did not need to meet ruinous competition of other nations. They could present a solid national front. This was accomplished through the organization of syndicates and cartels which have flourished for decades in every great industrial nation except the United States.

Set Business Free.

The President's understanding of prospective post-bellum conditions holds up to his mind the probability that hereafter American industry may have to compete not only with those solid national organizations, but with international organizations. It is because he faces this prospect that the President believes it is high time for the American Government to strike from our industries some of the shackles in which they have labored because the Sherman Law failed to authorize the needed and wholesome processes of co-operative business organization.

President Wilson's attitude toward business organization as a principle for domestic as well as foreign application is different from that which has determined the policy of many Governmental officers in the past. Then the Government was so much concerned with eradicating the flaws in our business structure that it gave no large measure of thought to developing business opportunities. Under the President's inspiration the Trade Commission idea has been evolved, whereby the anti-trust division of the Department of Justice has been prevented from flourishing its sword over the heads of business organizations, merely because of the size of these organizations. Mere bigness is not held to be cause for suspicion by the Trade Commission, which is now the chief instrumentality of enforcing the anti-trust laws.

The Trade Commission has encountered little difficulty in straightening out kinks in commercial organizations which involve violations of law because business men have been made to realize that the main concern of this body has been the promotion of growth and the development of opportunity.

The Tariff Commission will find many ways of being useful to the business world if the plans President Wilson has formed for it are followed. The war has developed new industries in the United States, notably the dyestuff industry. Great benefit can be conferred on industries of this character, the President believes, if the Tariff Commission studies their methods of operation and subsequently the methods of operation and the economies which obtain among the European nations, where these industries have been longest established and are most efficient.

The President expects the Commission to go into the field of foreign tariff duties and to convey to American export organizations complete data as to the existence and effects of discriminating duties, commercial treaties, and preferential rates; the effects of export bounties and preferential transportation rates; and the effects of any special or discriminating privilege that may be used against the United States.

The scope of the Trade Commission's activities, according to the policy in the President's mind, includes the development of plans by which American business firms may best prepare themselves for the plunge into the international markets. For example the standardization of materials, manufacturing methods, and products, so that a uniformity of quality and price may be maintained in foreign markets, will obviate many of the difficulties experienced by American exporters in keeping up their historic endeavor to compete with one another. Another measure approved by the President is the development of a system of accounting which will enable the American business man to tell more accurately what it costs him to turn out his product. The President was surprised recently to learn from Federal Trade Commissioner Hurley that, whereas 50 per cent of German manufacturers can compute the exact cost of their products, only 10 per cent of American manufacturers can do so.

In general, the President intends that the Trade Commission shall apply itself vigorously to methods of reducing the cost and increasing the efficiency of production.

The President is wholly committed to plans for maintaining and developing the transportation facilities at the disposal of the nation's business. His views on the need for an American merchant marine such as will assure American manufacturers means of conveying their products to foreign markets without depending on other nations, are now well known, and the shipping bill which embodies his ideas is now before Congress. The public is not so well informed, however, as to the President's attitude respecting the conservation and development of our domestic transportation facilities, namely, the railroads. With a view to obtaining the real facts about the difficulties confronting our great railroad companies the President has brought about the creation of a Congressional Commission to make a thoroughgoing inquiry into all phases of railroad problems. The President does not ignore the fact that in many instances the State Railroad Commissions and the Federal Interstate Commerce Commission have worked at cross purposes, thereby seriously retarding the development of the roads as national utilities. The President's mind is open on the subject of Federal incorporation and he will embody in his constructive business policy the conclusions which may seem justified by the investigation of the Congressional Commission.

Welcomes "Dollar Exchange"

There are many other phases of the railroad problem, however, regarding which the President desires the public to be better informed so that the Government may be enabled more fully to do its duty by the roads. These relate to credits and methods of expansion, as well as to schemes of regulation; and most important of all, to the spirit in which the public is to approach all questions relating to the welfare of the common carriers.

Another phase of the President's plans centers around his desire to provide means of assuring to the country the most efficient exertion of its great accumulated financial strength at the end of the war.

The United States has more gold than either group of the European belligerents and her financial position is incomparably stronger than that of any European nation with which we are shortly to engage in competition. But the President faces the fact that this new and happy condition has been created by the war and that plans must now be evolved for expanding our credit structure if the nation's industries are to reap the full benefits of our great financial strength when peace comes. The President believes that one of the measures which should be taken toward this end is the establishment of joint agencies of the Federal reserve banks in Europe as soon as sufficiently stable conditions are restored there. He also favors the establishment of such agencies in South America. It is his policy further to encourage American banking institutions to establish foreign branches in South America, where American trade is endeavoring to establish new footholds, and in general to adopt the most liberal attitude permissible while observing the spirit of the Federal Reserve act. The development of "dollar exchange" he contemplates with real enthusiasm.

The Government Must Help Business.

The President's policy may be summarized in the statement that he desires the Government to assume the role of the vigorous and robust friend of American business men in their endeavors to cope with competitors from other nations. This general statement covers not only the measures which have been discussed in this article and the holding of financial conferences between the United States and countries with which our trade may be expanded, but other concrete ideas for legislative enactments and executive acts which will promote the same purpose.

The President believes that the measures which his administration has taken for conserving and energizing American labor are part and parcel of the policy which I have been permitted here to set forth.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 26, 1916, p. 8.

The Right to Strike

1916

Railroads are from their very nature public institutions. They have their being in law, and are governed throughout by legislative enactments. Their rates are limited, and within certain broad lines their duties are prescribed. The advocates of government ownership merely would extend the power of government that now lie latent. Private business may and should control its own affairs; but public business must be subject to such supervision and control as is necessary to protect the rights of the public. This raises the question of the responsibility of labor on railroads or in gas and electric light plants the same as that in a store or factory? A strike in a factory makes little difference to the public at large; and such inconvenience as does follow may better be borne than to interfere with individual initiative. But the strike that ties up a railroad or a gas plant immediately and directly affects the whole public. Clearly the cases are different, and call for different treatment. — The Public.

Labor of Ants

1907

It would perhaps be pushing metaphors to an unwarranted extreme to speak of "dignity of labor" in connection with the occupations of ants. But if by the phrase we mean that labor is the honorable lot of all citizens and that all labors of whatever sort are upon the same level of respectability then we might venture to apply the saying even to the labors of an ant hill. For therein all are workers, from the newly fledged callow to the veteran of a second summer. — Harper's Magazine.


Armenian Marriages

An Armenian mother usually chooses her daughter's husband. After all business preliminaries are settled between the families the bridegroom's mother, accompanied by a priest and two matrons, visits the bride and gives her a ring in token of espousal, and with this ring the couple are ultimately married. Among the fishing communities very ancient and elaborate rings are used, and they descend as heirlooms from generation to generation.

Trade Unions — Savings Bank Lifts Load of Anxiety

1910

By Daniel J. McDonald

Trade unions are formed to elevate humanity by increasing wages and by bettering the condition of the laboring classes. In work along each of these two lines they have been far more useful and effective than is generally believed. Each dollar increase in wages and each hour of leisure secured gives larger opportunity for education, thought and the gaining of knowledge.

Among the greatest of the loads borne by the workers are uncertainty of employment, heavy expenses of sickness and of death of the worker himself or of those dependent upon him or of those upon whom he is dependent; the loss of wages during such times of trouble and the lack of provision for old age. So small is the utmost possible amount of a workingman's savings that almost invariably it is swept away, sometimes repeatedly, by one of these causes, and old age finds the worker penniless.

Any movement like this of savings bank insurance that proposes to lift the financial load at times of sickness and non-employment, and make provision for old age, is in direct line of trade union effort. By providing for future emergencies it promotes independence and lifts a load of anxiety. The man is more able to fit himself for advancement.

The British labor movement has been noted from the beginning for the variety and extent of its financial assistance to its members in times of trouble. Unity, solidarity, steadiness of purpose, devotion and faithfulness of members have been the results. The splendid achievements in English labor legislation, far surpassing anything we can hope for in many years, are due to the unity of purpose and action produced largely by the fraternal care for each member. In this country we need to exercise more care for the welfare of each member, in order that each member may be more devoted to the welfare of the whole.

The ideal method of affiliation, if there is to be affiliation, between the labor movement and savings bank insurance, is for each union to insist that each of its members shall be properly and adequately insured.

Wise Words — "Whatever Love Undertakes"

1896

Whatever love undertakes to do, it does well.

A sunbeam in the heart is bound to light the face.

Some people might as well be crazy; they have no sense.

Labor is drudgery only when we do not put heart in our work.

A pessimist is not blind, yet he can not see even a bright prospect.

It is to live twice when we enjoy the recollections of our former life.

Some people prepare their excuses before they make their failures.

Everyone believes in friends until he has had occasions to try them.

Nothing succeeds like success. It can convert a traitor into a patriot in five seconds.

When we come close to a giant, he often turns out to be only a common man on stilts.

A little lovers' quarrel or two is a good thing by which to take each other's measure.

It is a question with many bright young men whether they will practice law, medicine or deception.

Never lie in bed thinking that the cat that is howling in the back yard will grow weary and go away.

A single man has nobody but himself to blame if things go wrong. A married man can blame it all to his wife.

It is not in the power of a good man to refuse making another happy, where he has both ability and opportunity. — The South-West.

How Long to Sleep

1874

There has been a great deal of trash written and labeled "Hygienic;" but the following so entirely accords with our own experience, that we commend it to readers as sensible:

The fact is, that as life becomes concentrated, and its pursuits more eager, short sleep and early rising becomes impossible. We take more sleep than our ancestors, and we take more because we want more. Six hours' sleep will do very well for a plowman or brick-layer, or any other man who has no exhaustion but that produced by manual labor, and the sooner he takes it after his labor is over the better. But for a man whose labor is mental, the stress of work is on his brain and nervous system, and for him who is tired in the evening with a day of mental application, neither early to bed nor early to rise is wholesome. He needs letting down to the level of repose.

The longer the interval between the active use of the brain and his retirement to bed, the better his chance of sleep and refreshment. To him an hour after midnight is probably as good as two hours before it, and even then his sleep will not so completely and quickly restore him as it will his neighbor who is physically tired. He must not only go to bed later, but lie longer. His best sleep probably lies in the early morning hours, when all the nervous excitement has passed away, and he is in absolute rest.

Note: Please don't take this old article for true advice on your own sleeping. I had to read it a couple time because I can't believe my eyes. The author discounts the exhaustion of a man who plows or lays bricks as something less than one whose labor is more mental. And since the author was a writer, guess who is being talked about there. It would seem that he or she is feeling a bit superior to those others. It seems like the truth would be just the opposite, or neither. There's a lot of looking-down on people in these old articles, a lot of snobby upper class hoity-toityness.


Perseverance

A poor woman had a supply of coals laid at her door by a charitable neighbor. A very little girl came out with a fire-shovel, and began to take a shovelful at a time and carry it to a sort of bin in the cellar. I said: "Do you expect to get all that coal in with your little shovel?" She was quite confused with my question, but her answer was striking: "Yes, sir; if I work long enough." Humble worker, make up for your want of ability by abundant continuance in well-doing, and your lifework will not be trivial. The repetition of small efforts will effect more than the occasional use of great talents.

Professor in Rags Talks to Workers

1920--

Tells Clothing Shop Hands Perils of 40-hour Week

BOSTON, Mass., May 20. -- Exhibiting the tattered lining of his coat, Professor William D. Ripley of Harvard told the Amalgamated Clothing Workers' convention here that the public could not afford to buy clothing at present high prices. The workers had just pledged themselves to cut their working hours to forty a week at present wages.

"If you will look at the clothing of more than one-half of the people of the country today you will see that it is well worn, old, or made-over clothing," Professor Ripley said. "You have the problem to work out. Remember that if you ask large profits to divide up between you and forget us, the public will not buy, and there will be nothing to divide."

--The Saturday Blade, Chicago, May 22, 1920, page 4.