History for ready reference, Volume 7

by J. N. Larned

"The internal policy of the Western Federation of Miners is
consistent with its published principles. The most important
part of this policy is an aversion to the signing of contracts
with employers. A contract is regarded as a manacle. It binds
one union when another union might need its help. … In
consequence of not demanding a contract, the Federation
naturally does not demand a closed shop. As it does not ask
the employer to bind himself by a contract to anything, it
does not ask him to bind himself to the exclusive employment
of union men. In three other respects besides its failure to
demand a closed shop the Western Federation of Miners follows
a policy which has often been admired by enemies of trade
unions. The Western Federation has no apprentice system. It
does not restrict output. And it discountenances
jurisdictional quarrels between rival trade organizations. …
"So much for the philosophy of the Western Federation of
Miners. Now for the lawlessness with which it has been
charged. There can be no doubt that members of the Western
Federation of Miners have frequently coerced non-union men. …
A programme of intimidation has at times, in certain mining
camps, become the equivalent of a closed shop contract. The
employer was not asked to exclude non-union men. The union
excluded them spontaneously, without bothering the employer
about it. … In addition to the coercion of individual
non-unionists, there have been a few occasions on which armed
bodies of union men have stormed mining property and captured
it."
On the other side of the case this writer recounts the acts of
violence and the barbarous "deportations" which the miners of
the Western Federation have suffered at the hands of the
Mine-Owners’ Association and the Citizens’ Alliance in
coöperation with them; and he emphasises this fact:—"that the
members of the Citizens’ Alliance and the members of the
Western Federation of Miners are brothers under their skins.
They come in the main from exactly the same breed. Two men go
out prospecting. They come from the same town in Ohio. Their
claims are half a mile apart. One man strikes gold. The other
doesn’t. One man becomes a millionaire and a member of the
Mine-Owners’ Association. The other becomes a workingman and a
member of the Western Federation. … They were all of them
American adventurers before they became employers and
employees. Practically identical in breed, the mine-owners and
the miners are practically identical in temperament. They
transact their affairs on both sides with an untrammeled
recklessness which is appalling, but which, if the distinction
be admitted, savors of anarchy rather than of illegality.
{386}
The situation is like that in the rough early mediaeval States
before the central authority had established its power by
means of police. … That these frontiersmen, as workingmen and
as members of the Western Federation, have used their guns in
trade union controversies is indubitable. That the Western
Federation, however, is an organized criminal clique, and that
it accentuates and stimulates the gun-playing proclivities of
its members, is, so far, unsupported by evidence."
William Hard,
The Western Federation of Miners
(The Outlook, May 19, 1906).
The question on which Mr. Hard threw doubt, as to whether the
leaders of the Western Federation of Miners, or any of its
responsible members, had been implicated in the dreadful
crimes of murder and destruction of property which attended
the conflict between the Federation and the mine-owners of the
Far West, came to trial in connection with the horrible murder
of ex-Governor Frank Steunenberg, of Idaho. The victim had
been Governor of that State in 1899, when, during a strike in
the Cœur d’Alene district, a mill at Wardner was blown up by a
mob. Governor Steunenberg obtained the aid of Federal troops
and vigorously crushed the disorder. Six years afterwards, on
the 30th of December, 1905, at the gate of his residence in
Caldwell, he was blown to pieces by a bomb, so placed that it
was exploded by the opening of the gate. A man named Harry
Orchard was arrested on suspicion and held until, finally, he
not only confessed the crime in question, but owned, or
claimed to have participated in, or had knowledge of, an
appalling number of other murders, deadly explosions, and
other barbarities, all of which he alleged to have been
committed at the instigation and under the direction of
officials in the Western Federation. Its President, Charles H.
Moyer, its Secretary, W. D. Haywood, and George A. Pettibone
of its executive were especially implicated by Orchard’s
confession in the murder of Governor Steunenberg. These
accused men were in Colorado at the time, and there, on a
requisition from the Governor of Idaho, they were arrested on
the 15th of February, 1906, and taken hurriedly to Boise,
having no opportunity to resist what was claimed to be the
illegal extradition. Subsequently, however, when the question
was carried from the Supreme Court of Idaho up to the Supreme
Court of the United States, the legality of the proceeding was
affirmed by all of the tribunals which reviewed it.
Intense feeling in labor circles was enlisted in behalf of the
accused chiefs of the Western Federation of Miners. Very
generally their innocence of the imputed crimes was believed,
and they were looked on as victims of an implacable
conspiracy, in which capitalists and politicians were leagued,
to hunt them to their death. More than a year intervened
between their arrest and the trial of Haywood, who was the
first to be arraigned. This greatly exciting trial was opened,
at Boise City, the capital of Idaho, in May, 1907, and was
concluded on the 28th of July, resulting in the acquittal of
the accused. Orchard’s testimony does not seem to have been
seriously shaken, otherwise than by the incredible horrors of
his story; but corroborative evidence was lacking, and nobody
could trust a witness whose moral irresponsibility was so
plain a fact. The announcement of the verdict of acquittal was
gladly received. It was followed at once by the release of
President Moyer on bail.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1900-1909.
Labor Unions and Oriental Immigration.
See (in this Volume)
RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1900-1909.
Study and treatment of Industrial Problems by the
National Civic Federation.
See (in this Volume)
SOCIAL BETTERMENT: UNITED STATES.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1901.
Teamsters’ Strike in San Francisco.
See (in this Volume)
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: SAN FRANCISCO.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1901.
The unfortunate Strike of the Amalgamated Association
of Iron, Steel, and Tin Plate Workers.
Its conflict with the United States Steel Corporation.
Breaches of Contract involved.
Failure.
A strike which involved breaches of contract between employés
and employers, and which resulted most unfortunately to those
engaged in it, was ordered in July, 1901, by the heads of the
National Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Plate
Workers of the United States. As in the case of the Anthracite
Coal Strike of 1902, which is told of below, the circumstances
of this strike received a very thorough study and a very clear
exposition to the public, in an article from the pen of Dr.
Talcott Williams, published in the American Review of
Reviews for September, 1901, and what is stated here is
drawn from that article:
The industries concerned in what occurred had been carried on
for a considerable period under conditions too complicated to
be described in this limited place. It must suffice to say
that there were union mills and non-union mills, and also a
third class, of "open" mills, in which union and non-union men
worked together. A truce had sprung up during a period of
prosperity in which, says Dr. Williams, "there had come to be
a quasi, only a quasi, general understanding that certain
mills were to be considered as union, certain as non-union,
and certain as ‘open.’" While "the trade was still divided
among hundreds of mill-owners," the Amalgamated Association of
workers in them "equalized conditions for all of them. It
lifted wage disputes out of the narrow mill atmosphere. It
forced all concerned to look at the trade as a whole. It gave
continuity and uniformity to contracts for wages. It
established standards of wages"—for union and non-union, both.
But when, in June, 1901, "the Amalgamated came to its annual
collective bargaining," it had to deal, not with numerous
independent mill-owners, but with the great consolidation of
them that had just occurred, in the formation of the mammoth
United States Steel Corporation.
"Two courses," says Dr. Williams, "were open to the president
and officers and Advisory Council of the Amalgamated. They
might, after the usual conference, for which its constitution
provides, through a special committee, have signed its ‘scale’
for the union mills in which its membership worked and wait
for the social and political pressure of public opinion, as in
1900, to force this new representative of capital—the
‘Trust’—in its various forms to accept a collective bargain
for part of its mills, trusting to events, the steady
gravitation of skilled labor to its ranks, and the greater
economic efficiency of the union—for unless it is that it
cannot survive—to win a slow battle. Much depended for
organized labor all over the country in formally committing
the United States Steel Corporation, the greatest employer of
labor on the planet, to the recognition of a union scale as
the best regulator of wages, union and non-union.
{387}
It looked as if this waiting plan were adopted when the scale
was signed for one year to come, carrying a new
non-interruption clause, with the American Tin Plate Company.
… On the last day on which the scale could be signed—June 29—
and it generally is not signed before, the demand was made
that the scale should be signed for all [of certain] non-union
mills. The advance in wages asked was conceded. Mr. Persifor
F. Smith, for the company, offered to sign for twenty-one
mills accepted in the past as union. President Shaffer refused
to sign for any, unless all were accepted as union. Mr. Smith
refused to sign for mills non-union in the past, and claimed
that two, Salzburg and Old Meadow, hitherto union, had
abandoned the organization, a position later conceded. The
issue raised was whether the change from individual to
collective bargaining could be required under penalty of a
strike, not only in the mills in question, but in all the
mills of the company. The men involved had a right to require
a collective bargain for as many as they chose to include. The
company had its right, equally, to decide where it would have
individual and where collective bargaining. …
"The Amalgamated was … strong, until it struck. Its demand for
wages and hours were all accepted. It had been allowed to
organize lodges in various non-union mills, after the
corporation had bought them, where before it was excluded.
When it attempted, on its own demand and instance, to change
the status of these mills and act for their labor, it proved
right in its claim that the men wished to be union in four out
of five of the steel hoop mills and wrong in five out of the
seven mills claimed in the Sheet Steel Company. Each
contestant claimed more than it could control. A compromise
was in order. A compromise was offered. Twelve mills in all
were in dispute. The corporation offered four. The Amalgamated
demanded all or none. … A strike was ordered July 15, and
the American Tin Plate Company men broke their year’s contract
of a fortnight before."
The strike was "circumscribed at first by members of the
Amalgamated in the Federal Steel Company plants at Chicago,
Joliet, and Milwaukee refusing to break their contracts and
strike. Here, the membership of the Amalgamated was less than
a tenth of the whole number involved. It is not over this
proportion in the general body of men on the pay-roll of the
United States Steel Corporation. The proportion in union mills
varies. In none does it include all. In some, those without
its membership are a small fraction, in others, more than
half. By the men of the National Steel Company and the
National Tube Company, annual contracts were broken,
sacrificing the annual collective bargain."
"Nothing can be accomplished for labor, even that tenth share
of it organized in the Amalgamated, until this share has
learned that contracts must be kept and the line drawn between
wages and business control. The successful efforts of the
Amalgamated to induce its members to break their contracts,
first in the tin works and later at various works in the
Federal Steel Company, has deepened the conviction among
business men and the public that men in the union cannot be
trusted to keep promises; and until this trust is possible,
nothing is possible."
The strike failed in its objects completely, and came to an
end on the 14th of September, having lasted sixty-one days.
Under the agreement which then terminated it, the union mills
which the Amalgamated Association had been able to keep closed
were recognized as being within its sphere, but no provision
could be made for the displaced union men of mills which had
been wholly or partly reopened during the progress of the
strike, and large bodies of the strikers were left to seek
employment where they could.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1902.
Remarkable Conference on the Peaceful Settlement of Labor
Disputes, under the auspices of the National Civic Federation.
Appointment of a Committee of Conciliation.
In January, 1902, a remarkable conference, to discuss the
relations between labor and capital and to seek means for the
peaceable settlement of industrial disputes, was held in New
York, under the auspices of the National Civic Federation.
Notable men of all professions, of high circles in business,
of high leadership in trade unions, and of high official
positions, came together, with the Honorable Oscar S. Straus
presiding, and held frank and free talk on a subject which
concerned them all in the greatest possible degree. The main
practical result of the Conference was the appointment of a
powerful standing Committee, to act for the Civic
Confederation as an agency of conciliation and intermediation
between the parties in industrial disputes. The Committee,
which has exercised its good offices many times since, not
always with success, but always with an influence that must be
of growing effect, was appointed as follows:
On Behalf of the Public.
Grover Cleveland;
Cornelius N. Bliss;
Charles Francis Adams;
Archbishop John Ireland;
Bishop Henry C. Potter;
Charles W. Eliot, president of Harvard University;
Franklin MacVeagh, Chicago;
James H. Eckels;
John J. McCook;
John G. Milburn, Buffalo;
Charles J. Bonaparte, Baltimore;
Oscar S. Straus;
Ralph M. Easley.
Representatives of Organized Labor.—
Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor;
John Mitchell, president of the United Mine Workers;
F. P. Sargent, grand master of the Brotherhood of
Locomotive Firemen;
T. J. Shaffer, president of the Amalgamated Association
of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers;
James Duncan, secretary of the Granite Cutters’ Association;
Daniel J. Keefe, president of the International Association
of ’Longshoremen;
Martin Fox, president of the National Iron Molders’ Union;
James E. Lynch, president of the International
Typographical Union;
Edward E. Clarke, grand conductor, Brotherhood of
Railway Conductors;
Henry White, secretary of the Garment Workers of America;
Walter Mac Arthur, editor of the
Coast Seamen's Journal, San Francisco;
James O’Connell, president of the International
Association of Machinists.
Representative Employers.
Senator Marcus A. Hanna, Cleveland;
Charles M. Schwab, president of the
United States Steel Corporation;
S. R. Callaway, American Locomotive Works;
Charles Moore, president of the National Tool Company;
J. D. Rockefeller, Jr.;
H. H. Vreeland, Metropolitan Street Railway Company;
Lewis Nixon, Crescent Shipyard, Elizabethport, New Jersey;
James A. Chambers, president of the American Glass Company,
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania;
William H. Pfahler, president of the National Association
of Stove Manufacturers, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania;
E. P. Ripley, president of the Atchison,
Topeka & Santa Fe Railway;
Marcus M. Marks, president of the National Association
of Clothing Manufacturers;
J. Kruttschnitt, president of the Southern
Pacific Railway Company.
{388}
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1902-1903.
The Great Strike of Anthracite Coal Miners.
Distress and Alarm in the Country.
Intermediation of President Roosevelt.
Arrogant Attitude of Mine-owning Interests.
Final submission to Arbitration Commission appointed by
the President.
Award of the Commission.
A prolonged general strike of miners in the anthracite coal
fields of Pennsylvania, beginning in May, 1902, was one of the
most serious in its public effects and the most alarming that
has ever occurred in the United States. It may be said to have
had its origin in a previous strike that came about in the
fall of 1900, resulting from which the miners had obtained an
advance in wages of ten per cent. That increase was guaranteed
until the 1st of April, 1901. In the interval Mr. John Mitchell,
the able and much respected President of the United Mine
Workers of America, strove to secure from the railway magnates
who are the masters of the anthracite coal property and trade
some recognized right on the part of the miners as a body to
discuss and arrange the terms and conditions of their work.
The rebuffs that he met with were near to causing another
strike in the spring; but some powerful influences were
brought to bear, it was said, by New York financiers, which
patched up a truce for the ensuing year. The ten per cent
increase of wages was continued for that further period, and
the miners, in some way, rightly or wrongly, acquired an idea
that the next year was to bring about an arrangement of free
and fair representative conferences between their union and
the union of mine-owners and operatives, like that which had
been established in the bituminous coal regions. In this
expectation they were wholly disappointed when the year came
to its end, as it did on the 1st of April, 1902.
The National Civic Federation, in which every great social
interest, of capital, labor, politics, education, religion,
philanthropy, is splendidly represented, intervened in the
disputes which followed, and brought about some meetings on
the subject; but the capitalist side of the controversy was
entrenched in its determination to give no recognition to any
union of miners, and to refuse an arbitration of the dispute,
while the miners were provoked to the making of larger demands
than they might have insisted upon, probably, if they had been
differently met. By a small majority of the delegates to a
convention held in May the miners voted to strike—against the
judgment of President Mitchell it is said—and work in the
mines was stopped about the middle of the month.
On both sides of the conflict there were real difficulties in
the way of approach to a common ground of negotiation. These
were fairly set forth by Dr. Talcott Williams, of the
Philadelphia Press, in The Review of Reviews for July,
1902. On the side of the anthracite railroad managers and mine
operators he pointed to the fact that they were "under a
grinding competition with bituminous coal. To accept a union
of United Mine Workers of America, in which the bituminous
workers were two to one, was, they believed, to render it
certain that on most issues the management of the union would
keep bituminous mines busy rather than anthracite." Further to
the fact that "anthracite mining varies greatly from mine to
mine, and a uniform ‘scale,’ as in bituminous mines, is
difficult." But, said he, "it cannot be impracticable, for
veins as narrow, tortuous and varying are mined under a
‘scale' in England." As for difficulties of concession on the
part of the mine-workers, this just analyzer of the conflict
described their division into three classes having different
and unequal footings in the industry. These were the miners
who break out or detach the coal in the mines; the laborers
whom the miners employ to load and remove what the latter
detach; and, finally, the men employed as mine bosses and to
operate engines and pumps. The miners are paid for the
quantity taken out; the laborers (who aspire to become miners)
receive wages for a ten hours day; the bosses and engineers
are employed by the year and have continuous work, because the
pumps cannot be stopped, whether mining goes on or not. These
three interests must be consolidated in a union of the
mine-workers if it is to have any effective strength; and this
raises knotty problems among them. The attitude of the
railroad managers and operators had prevented such a
consolidation, with bad results, in Dr. Williams’s opinion. As
he summed up the situation, it was this: "Had the miners’
union in the past eighteen months exerted the rigid discipline
of big well-managed unions, prevented small strikes, and
worked for a cheap output, it might have divided capital. But
it had not been ‘recognized.’ Therefore, its control was often
loose. Local unions irritated local operators. In the Reading
mines, the proportion of coal mined per miner fell one-eighth.
It is part of a bad system of over-manned mines under which
miners try to distribute work. Output was reduced and wages
increased. The result was that the miners were without the
responsible control of a big union, and the railroad managers
and operators irritated by small strikes and ready for a
fight."
In his conclusions this well-informed critic of the situation
justified the public feeling of the time which held the
capitalists of the controversy more accountable than the
laborers for the loss and suffering inflicted on the country.
He closed his article with these words:
"Under competition, the anthracite plant is one-half larger in
mines and one-half greater in labor than the utmost demand of
the public. Two-thirds of the mines and two-thirds of the men,
run more regularly and systematically, could in spite of the
lack of demand in summer, produce the coal cheaper and more
profitably, and at a higher individual aggregate average, even
if at a lower per diem or per ton than the present system.
{389}
What the anthracite coal industry really needs is a
reorganization like that after the London dock strike of 1889,
reducing the number of men but increasing work for each. As it
is, men who prefer working all the year to working two-thirds
of the year, and often half a day at that, have, by a natural
elimination, been weeded out steadily, and have left a large
share of men, bred to a habit of irregular work and short
hours. This one fact is at the bottom of much fitful
irregularity in the mines.
"The railroad managers, holding public franchises weighted by
public responsibilities, have clearly no right, as they have
all united in doing, to refuse all compromise, conciliation,
or adjustment, and simply stop work, letting the public pay
the cost in higher coal. They are bound either to reach an
adjustment themselves, to let some one else reach one for
them, or to reorganize the whole industry on a basis which
will reduce the material and moral waste of the present
system, where poor mines are worked and men are one-third of
the year idle even in a prosperous year."
The powers which controlled the mines did not, however, see
their duty to the public in this light, and the strike went
on. Before the summer ended the pinch of scarcity in the
supply of fuel to the country was being felt widely, in most
industries and in domestic life. The pinch increased, and the
price of coal went higher as cold weather came on. Control of
the rougher elements among the miners and mine laborers was
lost by their leaders, and rioting broke out, with dark
outrages of crime, calling for a strenuous employment of
militia and police. There were threatenings, too, of a
sympathetic strike of bituminous miners, which might easily
produce a fuel famine of frightful effect; but President
Mitchell and other intelligent leaders succeeded in persuading
the miners of the bituminous district that their best help to
the anthracite unions was by adhering to their yearly contract
and continuing the work which enabled them to contribute funds
to the support of the existing strike. In August they were
reported to be sending to the idle anthracite men no less than
$130,000 a week. With this and other help these seemed likely
to maintain their stand for months. By the first of October
the supply of anthracite coal was so meagre that "factory
managers were put to their wits’ end to get fuel enough at $15
or $20 a ton to keep their machinery running; whereas, in
normal times, their supplies had cost perhaps $3 a ton. The
great majority of the retail coal dealers were entirely sold
out, and for the poor who were obliged to buy in small
quantities the price had reached a cent a pound, or even more,
with prospect of a total cessation of the anthracite supply.
Soft coal was being largely substituted for hard coal; but it
also, in the East, had advanced 300 or 400 per cent. in price,
and it was not well adapted for chimneys, furnaces, stoves and
grates that had been constructed for anthracite. Furthermore,
the cessation of anthracite mining during that half of the
year in which the bulk of the winter’s supply is produced had
created a situation of scarcity that could not have been
wholly overtaken by the utmost effort to substitute the
bituminous article."
The situation was now so grave that the whole country was
demanding an intervention of government by some means to end
the obstinate dispute. The Federal Executive could find no
legal authority to act; but President Roosevelt determined to
bring the prestige and weight of his high office and of his
vigorous personality into an exercise of persuasive influence
in the case. He invited the representatives of both parties in
the conflict to meet him, and the meeting took place October
3d. In opening a discussion of the subject he disclaimed any
right or duty to intervene between them on legal grounds, but
said that "the urgency and the terrible nature of the
catastrophe impending over a large portion of our people " had
impelled him to think it incumbent on him to use such
influence as he could to "bring to an end a situation which
has become literally intolerable." "With all the earnestness
that is in me," he pleaded, "I ask that there be an immediate
resumption of operations in the coal mines in some such way as
will, without a day’s unnecessary delay, meet the crying needs
of the people. I do not invite a discussion of your respective
claims and positions. I appeal to your patriotism, to the
spirit that sinks personal considerations and makes individual
sacrifices for the general good." Mr. Mitchell then spoke
briefly, saying that he and his associates did not feel that
they were responsible for "this terrible state of affairs";
and he made the following proposition; "We are willing to meet
the gentlemen representing the coal operators to try to adjust
our differences among ourselves. If we cannot adjust them that
way, Mr. President, we are willing that you shall name a
tribunal who shall determine the issues that have resulted in
the strike; and if the gentlemen representing the operators
will accept the award or decision of such a tribunal, the
miners will willingly accept it, even if it is against their
claims."
To say that the President’s appeal and Mr. Mitchell’s proposal
of arbitration had an arrogant response from the chiefs of the
coal monopoly is to speak mildly of the spirit and language of
their replies. "I now ask you," said one of them, "to perform
the duties vested in you as President of these United States
and to at once squelch the anarchistic condition of affairs in
the coal region by the strong arm of the military at your
command." "The duty of the hour," cried another dictatorially,
"is not to waste time negotiating with the fomenters of this
anarchy and insolent defiance of law, but to do as was done in
the War of the Rebellion—restore the majesty of the law."
With one consent they rejected the proposal of arbitration
with scornful defiance, and the meeting broke up without
result.
But, behind the men in immediate command of the railway and
the mining companies there was a bigger-brained financial
power that could comprehend, as they could not, the
recklessness of so arrogant a challenge, which went straight
past the miners and the President of the United States to a
suffering public. As the captain of that force, Mr. J.
Pierpont Morgan took the business in hand, and, after a
conference with Secretary Root and some talk with railway
presidents, brought the latter to a different state of mind.
On the 13th of October he went to Washington with the proposal
of a Commission, to be appointed by the President, to which
the companies were willing that "all questions between the
respective companies and their own employés" should be
referred.
{390}
"The Commission to be constituted as follows:
(1) An officer of the Engineer Corps of either the military or
naval service of the United States;
(2) an expert mining engineer, experienced in the mining of
coal and other minerals, and not in any way connected with
coal-mining properties, either anthracite or bituminous;
(3) one of the judges of the United States courts of the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania;
(4) a man of prominence, eminent as a sociologist;
(5) a man who by active participation in mining and selling
coal is familiar with the physical and commercial features of
the business."
There were added the stipulations that upon the constitution
of such Commission the miners should return to work and "cease
all interference with and persecution of any non-union men who
are working or shall hereafter work," and that the
Commission’s findings should govern the conditions of
employment between the respective companies and their own
employees for a term of at least three years. On this basis,
with some modifications, an agreement with Mr. Mitchell,
acting for the miners, was arrived at, and the appointment of
the Commission, named as follows, was announced on the 16th:
Brigadier General John M. Wilson, U. S. A., retired
(late Chief of Engineers), Washington, D. C.,
"as an officer of the Engineer Corps."
Edward Wheeler Parker, Washington, D. C.,
chief statistician of the coal division of the Geological
Survey, and editor of the Engineering and Mining Journal;
"as an expert mining engineer."
Honorable George Gray, Wilmington, Delaware,
"as a Judge of a United States Court."
Edgar E. Clark, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Grand Chief of the Order
of Railway Conductors, as a sociologist, the President
assuming that for the purpose of such a Commission the term
sociologist means a man who has thought and studied deeply on
social questions and has practically applied his knowledge."
Thomas H. Watkins, Scranton, Pennsylvania,
"as a man practically acquainted with the mining and
selling of coal."
Bishop John L. Spalding, Peoria, Illinois
(The President added the Bishop’s name to the Commission.)
Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner of Labor;
appointed Recorder of the Commission.
Mr. Mitchell’s acceptance of the plan of settlement, as
finally worked out by the President, was ratified by a miners’
convention at Wilkes-barre, and the strike was declared at an
end October 21st. The Arbitration Commission was organized at
the White House on the 24th, under the presidency of Judge
Gray. Carroll D. Wright, appointed originally as recorder of
the Commission, was added as a seventh member to the board,
all parties consenting. Public hearings by the Commission were
opened at Scranton on the 14th of November, President Mitchell
being the first witness, under cross-examination by railway
attorneys for five days. The investigation was laborious and
long, and it was not until the 21st of March, 1903, that the
award of the Commission was made. The following summary of its
important decisions is derived from an exposition of it by
Walter E. Weyl, Ph. D., in The Review of Reviews for
April, 1903:
"There were four demands of the miners,--namely, for an
increase of pay, a decrease in hours, the weighing of coal
where practicable, and the recognition of the union. The first
two demands of the miners have been compromised, the miners
receiving over half of the increase demanded; the third demand
was refused, but the conditions reformed; while for the fourth
demand, the men secured practically what they desired,
although formal recognition was denied them.
"At the beginning of the hearings, the commission decided that
any increase in the rate of pay, or any decrease in the hours,
should be retroactive, and be effective from the first day of
November. There would have been difficulty in carrying out
this plan, however, especially in the case of a reduction in
hours, and in substitution therefor the commission provided
for a 10 per cent. increase in all wages of all employees
during the five months of investigation, from November 1,
1902, to April 1, 1903. … With regard to future wages and
future hours of labor, the commission has adopted the plan of
awarding increases for the various classes of employees and
making this increased wage the minimum of a sliding scale. In
other words, during the three years from April 1, 1903, to
April 1, 1906, wages may not fall below the increased scale
now awarded, no matter what the price of coal may be, but must
rise above that rate in case the price of coal advances. The
contract miners asked for an increase of 20 per cent., and
have received a minimum of 10 per cent." The engineers
hoisting water and the firemen were awarded the reduction in
hours that they asked for, from twelve to eight, without
reduced pay. Other engineers and pump men who asked the same
received a five per cent. increase of pay with a reduction of
working days per week from seven to six. The work day of men
paid by the day was cut down from ten hours to nine. "These
wages, however, are not necessarily the wages which will
prevail, but merely the irreducible minimum of wages during
the next three years. It was suggested by Mr. Baer that a
sliding scale should be adopted, and that the wages of all
mine workers should not fall below what they were in April,
1902, but should be increased by one per cent. for every five
cents increase in the price of the large sizes of coal in New
York City." This seems to have made part of the award.
"The commission says that it does not consider the question of
recognition within the scope of the jurisdiction conferred
upon it, although it states that ‘the suggestion of a working
agreement between employees and employers embodying the
doctrine of collective bargaining is one which the commission
believes contains many hopeful elements for the adjustment of
relations in the mining region.’ This concession, however, is
qualified by the statement that ‘the present constitution of
the United Mine Workers of America does not present the most
inviting inducements to the operators to enter into
contractual relations with it.’ Notwithstanding its disclaimer
of jurisdiction, however, the Anthracite Coal Strike
Commission has in practical effect compelled the operators to
grant to the union full, plenary, and distinct recognition.
The recognition of the United Mine Workers is clearly
indicated by the language of the award.
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Section 4 provides that ‘Any difficulty or disagreement
arising under this award, either as to its interpretation or
application, or in any way growing out of the relations of the
employees and employers, which cannot be settled or adjusted
by conciliation between the superintendents or managers of the
mine or mines and the miner or miners directly interested, or
is of a scope too large to be settled or adjusted, shall be
referred to a board of conciliation, to consist of six
persons, appointed as hereinafter provided. That is to say, if
there shall be a division of the whole region into three
districts, in each of which there shall exist an organization
representing a majority of the mine workers of such district,
one member of said board of conciliation shall be appointed by
each of said organizations, and three other persons shall be
appointed by the operators, the operators of said district
appointing one person.’ The award of this board of
conciliation shall be final, and in case of dispute the matter
shall be referred to an umpire appointed by one of the Circuit
judges of the Third Judicial Circuit of the United States.
There could be no clearer, no more definite, recognition of
the union than is herein provided."
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1902-1909.
The National Farmers’ Union and the
American Society of Equity.
A history of the Farmers’ National Union has been written by
its President, Charles Simon Barrett, from whose narrative the
following account is drawn. It is quoted here from the
National Civic Federation, Review.
"In the little town of Emory, Texas, in the year 1902, ten men
met together at various times and discussed the methods of
formulating rules and plans by which the laboring masses might
be allowed a voice in the pricing of their farm products. From
this meeting of a few plain men the Texas Union was formed.
Credit as the founder of the Farmers’ Union is given to Newt.
Gresham, of Texas, an indefatigable worker for the good of
farmers, who was long identified with the Farmers’ Alliance as
one of the organizers of that association.
"From local and State unions the organization has grown to be
a national union, holding annual conventions and gathering
into its fold an aggregation of between two and three million
members.
"The most striking feature of this great organization is the
fact that its membership is made up of employers and employés.
No line is drawn separating the farm owner, operator or
laborer, but all are received in the Farmers’ Union on one
broad platform of mutual aims and interests. Recognizing that
the good of all is the good of the individual, the Farmers’
Union, in democratic fashion, labors for the greatest good for
the greatest number.
"The Farmers’ Union works along the most practical lines.
There have been four great national meetings, the first being
held in Texarkana in 1905, and the convention of 1906 at the
same place; in 1907 the national meeting was at Little Rock,
Arkansas, and in 1908 at Fort Worth, Texas, where President
Gompers appeared. Besides the annual meetings of the National
Union several important conventions have been held: one in
January, 1907, in Atlanta, Georgia, was called as a grand
national rally. At Memphis, Tennessee, the same year, a
convention of the Farmers’ Union was held for the purpose of
devising ways and means by which the cotton then held by the
membership of the Union might be sold advantageously. At New
Orleans, 1908, another cotton growers' meeting was held, and
at Topeka, Kansas, and Atlanta, Georgia, very important
meetings were arranged between the cotton spinners and growers
of the South and representatives from many English and
continental cotton mills of Europe.
"The purpose and principles of the Farmers’ Union, as
enunciated in its constitution, afford material for an
interesting study. It declares the following purposes:
‘To establish justice.
To secure equity.
To apply the Golden Rule.
To discourage the credit and mortgage system.
To assist members in buying and selling.
To encourage the agricultural class in scientific farming.
To teach farmers the classification of crops,
domestic economy and the process of marketing.
To systematize methods of production and distribution.
To eliminate gambling in farm products by boards of trade,
cotton exchanges and other speculators.
To bring farmers up to the standard of other industries
and business enterprises.
To secure and maintain profitable and uniform prices for
grain, cotton, live stock and other products of the farm.
To strive for harmony and good will among all
mankind and brotherly love among ourselves.’"
Another extensive organization of farmers bears the name of
the American Society of Equity, which was reported in 1906,
when it went into alliance with the American Federation of
Labor, to have a membership of 268,000. This membership was
scattered principally throughout Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois,
Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Nebraska, with some members in
Kansas, Oklahoma, and Michigan.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A.D. 1903.
Establishment of the Department of Commerce and Labor
in the Federal Government.
See (in this Volume)
UNITED STATES; A. D. 1903 (FEBRUARY).
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1904.
President Roosevelt on Combinations among
Employees of the Government.
"There is no objection to employees of the Government forming
or belonging to unions; but the Government can neither
discriminate for nor discriminate against nonunion men who are
in its employment, or who seek to be employed under it.
Moreover, it is a very grave impropriety for Government
employees to band themselves together for the purpose of
extorting improperly high salaries from the Government.
Especially is this true of those within the classified
service. The letter carriers, both municipal and rural, are as
a whole an excellent body of public servants. They should be
amply paid. But their payment must be obtained by arguing
their claims fairly and honorably before the Congress, and not
by banding together for the defeat of those Congressmen who
refuse to give promises which they can not in conscience give.
The Administration has already taken steps to prevent and
punish abuses of this nature; but it will be wise for the
Congress to supplement this action by legislation."
President's Message to Congress,
December 16, 1904.
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LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1904-1905.
Long unsuccessful Strike of Operators in the
Fall River Cotton Mills.
From July 25, 1904, until January 18, 1905, about 25,000
workers in the Cotton Mills of Fall River, Massachusetts, were
idle, and seventy-two mills were substantially out of
business, as the consequence of a reduction of wages which the
operatives would not consent to. Great suffering among the men
and women concerned was said to have been endured. It was
through the mediation of Governor Douglas that a settlement
was finally brought about, the work people submitting to the
reduced wages, but having the promise of some increase later
on, if an independent examination of the books of the mill
companies should show a certain stipulated percentage of
profit.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1905 (April-July).
Strike of the Teamsters’ Union at Chicago.
One of the most violently conducted strikes that has ever
occurred in the United States was brought on at Chicago, in
the spring of 1905, by an attempt of the Teamsters’ Union in
that city to give sympathetic support to a strike of the
Garment Workers Union. The latter selected for special attack
the firm of Montgomery Ward & Co., which carries on an
enormous mail-order business, selling goods of all
descriptions through no agencies, but dealing directly with
customers in small towns and rural districts throughout the
country. This company employed few garment workers relatively:
but, probably because the magnitude and diversity of its
shipments made it particularly vulnerable to such an attack,
the teamsters began their undertaking by refusing to move its
wagons or goods. From this the movement spread, as teamsters
refusing to deliver goods to Montgomery Ward & Co. were
discharged, and the concerns discharging them were boycotted
in turn. Presently business in Chicago, to a large extent, was
brought to a stand-still. The membership of the Teamsters’
Union in the city was said to exceed 35,000, and 4000 were
estimated to be on strike at the end of the first week in May.
From this time the heat of passion in the conflict rose fast.
An Employers’ Teaming Association was organized, and the
business interests of Chicago showed readiness to fight the
striking union to a finish. Fierce attacks were made on the
non-union teamsters brought into the work, but they seem to
have been well defended by the police. In a hundred ways the
whole city was divided into factions and deplorably disturbed.
Children refused to attend schools which received coal from
boycotted companies or wagons; and arrests of both children
and parents were necessary to enforce the compulsory education
laws.
While the strike was in its earlier weeks, President Roosevelt
visited Chicago, and was called on by the President of the
Teamsters’ Union, Mr. Shea, who protested against a supposed
design to call Federal troops to the city. In reply to him the
President said: "I have not been called upon to interfere in
any way, but you must not misunderstand my attitude. In every
effort of Mayor Dunne to prevent violence by mobs or
individuals, to see that the laws are obeyed and that order is
preserved, he has the hearty support of the President of the
United States—and in my judgment he should have that of every
good citizen of the United States. … I am a believer in
unions. I am an honorary member of one union. But the union
must obey the law, just as the corporation must obey the law;
just as every man, rich or poor, must obey the law. As yet no
action whatever has been called for by me, and most certainly
if action is called for by me I shall try to do exact justice
under the law to every man, so far as I have power. But the
first essential is the preservation of law and order, the
suppression of violence by mobs or individuals."
At a banquet the same evening the President recurred to the
subject and added, with fine emphasis: "This Government is not
and never shall be the government of a plutocracy. This
Government is not and never shall be the government of a mob."
Those immediately responsible for dealing with a local
situation, the President said, must first exhaust every effort
before a call is made upon any outside body. "But," he added,
"if ever the need arises, back of the city stands the State,
and back of the State stands the Nation."
Chicago kept the conflict within itself, fighting it out
through 105 days. It ended in the unconditional defeat of the
Teamsters’ Union, which called off the strike on the 20th of
July. It was followed by a grand jury investigation of charges
which each side had hurled freely against the other, of
blackmail attempts by one, of bribery and attempted bribery by
the other. The evidence obtained left little doubt that
labor-leaders had extorted money for the prevention of
strikes, and that business men had paid for exemption from
trouble.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1906.
Suspension of Coal Mining, both Anthracite and
Bituminous, throughout the Country.
Final Agreement for Three Coming Years.
On the 31st of March, 1906, the agreements between mine owners
and miners under which the latter had been working, in the
bituminous mines for two years and in the anthracite for
three, expired, and agreements for the future working had not
been arrived at in either case. Miners in the bituminous field
had accepted a wage reduction of five and a half per cent. in
1904, and now wanted it restored. Part of the mine owners, in
Western Pennsylvania, were willing to concede it; others, in
the more western States, stood out against them. In the
anthracite field there was also a question of wages between
miners and operators, and both sides offered arbitration, but
differed as to the point to be submitted. The miners claimed
arbitration of the general question of wages and conditions in
the mines; the operators maintained that those had been
adjudicated by the arbitration of 1903, and that the only
proper question now was whether any change in conditions had
occurred which called for a readjustment. That question they
would submit to at least a majority of the members of the
former Anthracite Coal Strike Commission, or they would agree
that the awards made in 1903 by that Commission "and the
principles upon which they were established by the Commission,
and the methods established for carrying out their awards,
shall be continued for and during the further term of three
years from the first day of April, 1906."
{393}
The 1st of April found these disagreements still existing, and
coal mining, both anthracite and bituminous, was generally
suspended throughout the United States. More than 300,000
miners, on the whole, stopped work. In the anthracite field
the suspension of work lasted until the 10th of May, when it
was resumed under an agreement which continued for another
three years (until March 31, 1909) the award of 1903. During
the forty days of idleness there were few disorders of any
kind in this region. In the soft coal fields the suspension
was more protracted. It was ended in different localities at
different times. Some mine owners, in several States, made
terms with their men at an early day. Some kept their mines
idle until the middle of July. Serious disturbances and
conflicts of rioters with police and militia occurred in a
number of States. At the end the miners had won a restoration
of the wages of 1904, but had made concessions on other points
of dispute which differed in different States.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1907.
President Roosevelt’s Foundation for the
Promotion of Industrial Peace.
President Roosevelt, having been awarded the Nobel Prize of
the year 1906 for his services in the interest of
international peace, devoted the sum received, being somewhat
more than $40,000, to the creation of a fund "the income of
which shall be expended for bringing together in conference at
the city of Washington, especially during the sessions of
congress, representatives of labor and capital for the purpose
of discussing industrial problems, with the view of arriving
at a better understanding between employers and employés, and
thus promoting industrial peace." To carry out this purpose,
an organization was incorporated by Act of Congress, March 2,
1905, under the name of the "Foundation for the Promotion of
Industrial Peace," with trustees named as follows:
Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller, president;
Seth Low of New York, representing the general public,
treasurer;
John Mitchell of the United Mine Workers of America,
representing labor, secretary;
Thomas G. Bush of Birmingham, Ala.,
representing general public;
Marvin A. Hughitt, representing capital, and
Secretaries James Wilson and Oscar Solomon Straus.
Vacancies in the board to be filled by the President of the
United States. The Trustees to pay over the income of the
Foundation, or such part as they may apportion, to an
Industrial Peace Committee, of nine members, selected and
appointed by the Trustees, "three members of this committee to
be representatives of labor, three to be representatives of
capital, each chosen for distinguished services in the
industrial world in promoting righteous industrial peace, and
three members to represent the general public." As originally
appointed, this Committee was made up of the following
persons:
"Archbishop John Ireland,
Marcus M. Marks of New York,
Ralph M. Easley of New York,
Elbert H. Gary, chairman finance committee
United States Steel Corporation;
Lucius Tuttle, president of Boston & Maine railroad;
J. Gunby Jordan of Columbus, Georgia;
Samuel Gompers, president of the
American Federation of Labor;
Daniel Keefe, president of the Longshoremen’s association, and
Warren S. Stone, president International Brotherhood
of Locomotive Engineers."
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1907.
Abortive Strike of Telegraphers.
A widely organized and considerably prolonged strike of
American telegraph operators, in the fall of 1907, was made
abortive by the fact that the supply of men and women who have
some training for the ordinary work of telegraphy is too large
for a trade union to control the employment of it. The
telegraphic service was made very imperfect for some weeks,
and the public was subjected to much inconvenience; but the
employing companies were brought to no such straits as could
be coercive. The struggle of the operators was mainly for the
recognition of their union, to secure negotiation with them as
a body, for the adjusting of some conditions of which they
complained. They suffered absolute defeat, and had to make

terms individually at the end.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1907 (April).
Threatened Railway Strike averted by Federal Intermediation.
A strike of trainmen and conductors on railways west of
Chicago which threatened to be very serious was averted, in
April, 1907, by the intermediation of the Chairman of the
Interstate Commerce Commission and the Commissioner of Labor,
acting in obedience to the Erdman Law, so called, of 1898.
Both parties to the dispute made concessions. The employés
withdrew their demand for a nine-hour work day, and the
railway companies made an advance in wages which was estimated
to add over $5,000,000 to the earnings of 50,000 men during
the ensuing year.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1908.
The Work of the National Civic Federation in Promotion
of Trades Agreements.
The following is from the annual address of President Seth Low
to the National Civic Federation, at its annual meeting in New
York on the 14th of December, 1908. The special subject of
discussion at the meeting was "The Trade Agreement," on which
Mr. Low spoke in part as follows:
"It has been our good fortune during the year to associate Mr.
John Mitchell with the active work of the Federation, as the
Chairman of its Trades Agreement Department. Mr. Mitchell
entered upon his duties on August 1, and we have already had
many opportunities to perceive the advantage to our work
likely to result from his permanent connection with it.
Through correspondence with labor unions and with the
employers who have trade agreements with labor unions, he is
building up an exceedingly strong department, the influence of
which ought to be very helpfully felt in furthering the use of
the trade agreement as a means for promoting industrial peace
and progress.
"There are still some, though they are fewer in number than
they used to be, who maintain that the relation of the
employer to the employé is an individual one, and who
therefore will not deal with men as members of an organization
in matters relating to their employment. I read in the paper
the other day that there are 89,000 stockholders in the
Pennsylvania Railroad Company. No one contends that these
people organize into a company in order to fight labor. They
organize because they have to in order to work together, and,
as a result of organizing, they are represented in every use
made of their capital by their officers. Can any one seriously
contend that these 89,000 stockholders, speaking through their
officers, are justified in saying to their 160,000 employés,
‘We insist upon dealing with you, man by man; we will not
recognize your organization.’ Is it not rather clear, that the
160,000 employés, so far as their interests are common, must
unite if they are to have anything at all to say as to the
conditions upon which they will work, and, if they unite, they
must have an organization and they must be represented by
their officers? …
{394}
"Take another illustration: The United States Steel
Corporation employs, in round numbers, 200,000 men. Of this
vast army of workmen about 44,000, nearly all of them
representatives of organized labor, own stock in the
corporation. In their capacity as stockholders, these 44,000
workmen are represented by the officers of the corporation.
Can it be contended that they are any the less free, or have
any less right, to be represented, in their capacity as
workmen, by the chosen representatives of their trade
organization? And when the two attributes of holding stock and
taking employment are thus united in the same persons, will
any one any longer contend that these men, as workmen,
organize for the purpose of antagonizing themselves as
capitalists?
"Now it is out of conditions that have produced a situation
like this that the so-called ‘trade agreement’ has sprung. In
its simplest statement, a trade agreement is an agreement
between organized stockholders and organized workmen, both
acting through their chosen representatives, to determine, for
the period of the agreement, the general terms of employment
of the various classes of workingmen concerned. That each side
tries to make the best bargain it can, goes without saying.
That conditions favor sometimes one side and sometimes the
other is equally true. That each side tends, when it has in
its turn the upper hand, to push the other too hard is not
improbable. But just as certainly as a pendulum, after
swinging from one side to the other, tends to rest in a
position of equilibrium, so such trade agreements tend to
relieve the trade to which they apply of the extreme swing
from conditions favoring capital to conditions favoring labor,
and vice versa, which so often spells disaster to
capital and labor alike. In other words, trade agreements that
are revisable from time to time certainly make for industrial
peace, and they ought as certainly to make for industrial
progress. In the meanwhile they are constantly educating
everybody concerned into a realization of the fundamental
importance of keeping faith."
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1908-1909.
The Question of Injunctions in Labor Disputes.
See (in this Volume)
LAW AND ITS COURTS: UNITED STATES.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1908-1909.
Union Boycotting a Violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law.
The American Federation of Labor and the Bucks Stove Company.
Alleged Contempt of Court by President Gompers and others.
Early in 1908 the Supreme Court of the United States gave
final decision to a case in which the Hatters’ Union and the
American Federation of Labor were proceeded against, for
boycotting the goods of a hat manufacturing firm which refused
to unionize its factory. As the plaintiffs in the suit sold
their hats in many States, the boycott was alleged to be a
combination in restraint of interstate commerce, and a
violation, therefore, of the anti-trust law. The United States
Circuit Court had dismissed the complaint, and the Court of
Appeals had affirmed its decree; but the Supreme Court, by a
unanimous decision, overruled both. It held that the law in
question is violated by a combination to prevent the sale of
non-union articles in different States.
[Under this decision, in a suit by the hat manufacturing
company against the Hatters’ Union for damages, a jury at
Hartford, Connecticut, on the 3d of February, 1910, awarded
$74,000 to the former. The Union has appealed from the
verdict.]
The attitude of law toward trade union boycotting was
exhibited a year later in another more notable case, which
arose from action taken by the American Federation of Labor
against the Bucks Stove Company. In March 1907, the Federation
had proclaimed a boycott against that company, advertising it
in the official organ of the Federation as one which "we don’t
patronize," and taking measures to prevent tradesmen from
buying the company’s stoves. A suit to enjoin this boycott was
brought, and the injunction was granted, in December, 1907, by
Judge Gould, of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia.
The issuance of the injunction was made dependent, however, on
the filing of a bond by the plaintiff, to make good all
damages if the injunction should not finally be sustained, and
an interval of six days occurred before the filing of the bond
made the injunction effective. In that interval, many copies
of a publication which the injunction would forbid were sent
out by mail from the headquarters of the Federation, and more
or less of these copies reached their destination after the
injunction became of force. This proceeding, together with
various devices by which the officers of the Federation had
sought to evade the injunction, through covert allusions to
the boycott, became the ground of a charge that the principal
officers of the Federation, Samuel Gompers, John Mitchell, and
Frank Morrison, had violated the injunction and been guilty of
contempt of court. On this charge, in July, 1908, these
officials were ordered to show cause, on the 8th of September
following, why they should not be punished for contempt. The
case came then before another judge, Daniel T. Wright, whose
judgment, rendered near the end of the year, held them guilty
of contempt and sentenced them to imprisonment, severally, for
one year, for nine months and for six months.
Appeal from the injunction, meantime, had been taken to the
Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia, and there, on
the 11th of March, 1909, it received a modification which
seems, practically, to have extinguished the contempt. The
Court held that the decree should be modified to the extent
that it shall only restrain the defendants from conspiring or
combining to boycott the business of the Bucks Stove & Range
Company or threatening or declaring any boycott or assisting
therein, and from printing the name of the complainant, its
business or product in the "we don’t patronize" or "unfair"
list of defendants in furtherance of any boycott. The court
held that the defendants cannot be restrained from all
publications referring to the Bucks company, but only such as
are made in furtherance of an illegal boycott.
On the appeal from the decree of the Court which adjudged
Gompers, Morrison, and Mitchell to be guilty of contempt of
court, the District Court of Appeals, on the 2d of November,
1909, affirmed that decree, and the sentence of Judge Wright
was thus in force. A stay was given to it for a time, during
which a writ of certiorari was obtained from the Supreme Court
of the United States, which will review the whole case, but
not until October, 1910.
{395}
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1909.
Expiration and Renewal of the Three Year Agreement
in the Anthracite Coal Districts.
Report of the Conciliation Board for the past Three Years.
Again, in the spring of 1909, at the end of a three year term
of agreement (see above, A. D. 1906), the anthracite coal
miners and their employers were in controversy over a renewal
of the agreement. The latter proffered a renewal, without
change, for another three years. The miners, in convention, at
Scranton, on March 23d and 24th, refused the offer unless the
agreement should be signed by them as members of the United
Mine Workers of America, recognizing their organization. In
this they were upheld by the new President of the United Mine
Workers, Thomas L. Lewis, successor to Mr. John Mitchell,
whose state of health had compelled him to resign. The old
agreement expired on the 31st of March, and nothing was
formulated at the time in its place, except a verbal
understanding that, pending further conferences, the miners
would continue work on the former terms. Later, however, it
was stated that the Board of Conciliation, created by the
strike commission of 1902, had been continued for a further
period of three years.
At the end of August, 1909, the Conciliation Board published a
report of the last three years of its work, in the settling of
differences between mine-workers and operators. Only
twenty-three grievances were presented to the mediators
between April 1, 1906, and April 1, 1909, as compared with 150
grievances in the preceding three years. The Volume issued
three years ago contained 336 pages. This year only 69 pages
are required to tell of the grievances and settlement. A
number of the grievances covered in the new report were
settled out of court. Of the others, some were decided in
favor of the employees, some for the employers. In three years
only three grievances had to be referred to an umpire. As the
purposes of the board have become more clearly understood, a
greater number of differences have been settled without
reaching the stage of formal complaints. The members use their
influence with the contestants to effect a compromise,
avoiding the delay occasioned by a formal investigation.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1909 (May-June).
The Georgia Railroad Strike.
See (in this Volume)
Race Problems: United States: A. D). 1909.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1909-1910.
Strike of Girls in the Shirtwaist Trade at New York.
Its Social Significance.
One of the most important of recent labor strikes, in its
social aspect, was undertaken in November, 1909, by the
shirtwaist-makers of New York City, mostly girls. At the
outset, the strikers numbered between 25,000 and 30,000; but
half of them, by the middle of December, had made terms with
their employers and resumed work. Ten or fifteen thousand were
still in heroic contention with obstinate masters of the
trade, and having public opinion and sympathy very strongly on
their side. "The strike began," says the New York Evening
Post, "in a multiplicity of causes. Wages, sanitary
conditions in the shops, humane treatment by foremen and
forewomen, and recognition of the Waistmakers’ Union all
played a part. The contest has now [December 15] settled down
to the single question of the union shop. The employers
profess themselves ready to arbitrate every other point in
dispute. The strikers maintain that recognition of their union
is their only guarantee against the recurrence of conditions
such as precipitated the conflict. … It would be easy to
exaggerate the significance of the eager way in which the
Suffragist leaders have thrown themselves into the conflict.
It is even easy to exaggerate the significance of the way in
which women of wealth and social prominence have come out in
support of the strike. More significant to us is the zeal with
which women of no very great social prominence, but still not
of the working class, have from the beginning given their
services in organizing and managing the strike, and
particularly in doing picket duty on the streets and defending
the rights of the girl employés before the police magistrates
and in the courts. Here evidently is a sex-sentiment which
cuts across the boundaries of class and bids fair to give a
new aspect to labor conflicts of the future in which women are
involved. The present strike has a social significance quite
beyond the questions immediately at issue. It is our first
great woman’s strike, and as such it signalizes in a dramatic
fashion woman’s invasion into the field of industry."
----------LABOR ORGANIZATION: End--------
----------LABOR PROTECTION: Start--------
EMPLOYERS’ LIABILITY
INDUSTRIAL INSURANCE
HOURS OF LABOR,
etc.
LABOR PROTECTION:
Safety Guards.
Employers’ Liability.
Insurance, etc.
The Needed Law.
"In order to protect workingmen against injury by disease or
negligent arrangements of machinery and ways, we need a state
code of regulations which will prescribe protective devices,
provide faithful inspectors and punish those guilty of
violating the law. The roundabout method of making employers
liable for damages in case of negligence has little effect,
because employers can buy legal protection and wage-earners
have no money for law suits. Employers’ liability laws may be
made more severe and drastic; by statutes the obnoxious
‘fellow servant’ factor may be eliminated; various other
provisions may be enacted by Congress and by state
legislatures to extend somewhat the definition of negligence;
but no law of this kind ever was made or ever can be made
which will protect workmen from the loss of wages not clearly
due to negligence of employers. An employer cannot be made
‘liable’ for defects for which he or his agent is not
responsible. It is sheer waste of time to labor for
improvement of a law whose fundamental principle covers only
cases of employers’ fault, because a vast number of injuries
are due to causes which the utmost care cannot prevent.
{396}
"In order to secure income in periods of incapacity for labor
several legal ways are open. The British method has much to
commend it and finds favor with many Americans, the method
based on the principle of ‘compensation.’ In Great Britain the
old liability law is left to stand, like a rotting trunk, by
the side of the new and living tree of the ‘compensation’ law.
By the terms of this new law, enacted in 1897 and extended
1907 to certain trade diseases, the employer is required to
pay indemnity to any employé who is injured in health or limb
by accident or any cause due to the trade, and in case of
death his dependent family is paid a certain sum for support.
The employer resting under this obligation is permitted to
meet it any way he can find. Usually he will bargain with an
insurance company to carry his legal risk for a premium. It is
said the insurance companies are putting up the rates, but
Britishers will discover a way to cover the risk in the
cheapest form. Already our federal government has embodied
this ‘compensation’ principle in a law which gives a meagre
sum to its own employés of certain classes when injured in its
service; and the example of the central government will
probably soon be imitated in several states. Bills are now
being drawn for this purpose.
"The ‘social insurance’ principle is entirely different from
that of either ‘liability’ or ‘compensation.’ The word
‘compensation’ carries a little of the flavor of the ancient
damage suit, while ‘insurance’ is simply an amicable business
arrangement to provide in advance for the inevitable average
risk of the trade, which may be extended beyond the perils of
the shop and mill to all places and conditions of the
workman's life.
"Historically the unquestioned tendency is from the liability
principle to the direct insurance principle, with a wayside
inn, perhaps, in some law like that of Great Britain, the law
of France being almost squarely on the social insurance ground
so far as it goes.
"The Illinois Industrial Insurance Commission proposed a law
based on the insurance principle, though its friends were
compelled to stop at a compromise with existing laws and
constitutions. The bill offered by that commission was based
on permission and persuasion; it offered to the employers who
would provide an adequate system of insurance against trade
accidents, freedom from the sword of the existing liability
law; and it offered to the workmen, if they were willing to
accept these terms, an assured income in case of injury and to
their dependents relief in case of death due to occupation. A
law passed by the Legislature of Massachusetts, in May, 1908,
has actually embodied this idea and set it to work in the
field of experiment. It remains to be seen whether the motives
mentioned will induce employers and employés to agree on the
plan. Without agreement the law will be a dead letter, for it
is merely permissive, and agreements will not be made unless
the economic motive is adequate. Up to this writing (December
7) not a single employer has organized a scheme under this
law.
"The Wisconsin Board of Labor has made what seems a wise
proposition to the effect that employers be compelled to
insure their employés up to the ordinary amount already known
to be spent for litigation, casualty insurance premiums and
other expenses; and they also properly suggest state
organization for the collection and administration of the
premiums.
"The recent International Congress on Workingmen’s Insurance,
after many years of debate, reached conclusions of vast
import, happily without dissent. One conclusion was that all
attempts to insure the workmen who most need it, whose pay is
small and uncertain, and who are not organized, must prove
failures. Delegates from France and England who have always
stood for ‘liberty’ have come to admit this truth. Not even
subsidies to voluntary insurance associations have been
effective. Only when insurance is made compulsory on all does
it reach the multitude of the wage-earners. But compulsion to
insure may include liberty of method, if the plan adopted is
approved by legal authority and by actuaries. Either private
companies, mutual associations, or state departments of
insurance may be trusted to conduct the plans once they are
obligatory on all.
"Another interesting conclusion at the Rome congress was that
compulsory insurance can cover only a minimum guarantee of
income to the sick, wounded or invalid workman; while above
this minimum, with advancing wages, workmen and their
employers can well unite in providing more generously for loss
of income by voluntary payments of higher premiums. Trade
unions, fraternal societies and other organizations, as well
as casualty companies, have before them an indefinite field
for expanding their activities in this direction."
Charities and the Commons,
March 13, 1909.
LABOR PROTECTION: Accident and Sickness Insurance:
Proposed Amendments to the German Compulsory Insurance Laws.
A Bill to amend the compulsory insurance laws of Germany which
was laid by the Imperial Government before the Federal Council
in April, 1909, to be acted on in the course of the ensuing
year, is described in part elsewhere.
See, in Volume IV. of this work,
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1883-1889.
See in Volume VI.
GERMANY: A. D. 1897-1900.
See in this Volume,
POVERTY, PROBLEMS OF: PENSIONS.
Of the contemplated amendments that relate to accident and
sickness insurance it was announced, that "the proposed
amendments of the law of accident insurance are mainly formal,
but the scheme of insurance against illness is to be largely
extended, and will include practically all classes of workers
for whom insurance against invalidity and old age is or is to
be compulsory. On the one hand, the system will in future
include agricultural labourers, workers engaged for less than
one week, and assistants and apprentices, whose insurance is
not at present compulsory. On the other hand, it will include
such categories of workers as stage and orchestra
employés, and teachers who are not in the service of
the State, if their salaries do not exceed £100 a year. The
crews of seagoing ships, as well as of vessels plying on
inland waterways, are now brought into the general sick
insurance system."
{397}
LABOR PROTECTION:
Accidents to Workmen in the United States.
The Death Roll.
Appalling Statistics.
"Mr. Frederick L. Hoffman, of the Bureau of Labor, Department
of Commerce and Labor, has compiled some striking statistics
concerning the subject of accidents to workingmen. The
importance of this subject is apparent when it is considered
that between 30,000 and 35,000 workmen lose their lives in
accidents in the course of their employment in this country
during a year. Statistics have been secured from official
sources and from insurance experience which show that the
accident liability to which American workmen are subject is
indeed high. Census reports covering the years 1900 to 1906
show that out of over 1,000,000 deaths of males more than nine
per cent. were due to accident. The liability of workmen to
accidental injury or death is brought under five general
classifications, including factories and workshops, electrical
industries, mines and quarries, transportation by rail and
transportation by water. Of those employed in factories and
workshops, probably the most exposed class is the workers in
iron and steel. Of 8,456 accidents during the years 1901 to
1905, 4.1 per cent, of the accidents to men employed in
rolling mills resulted fatally. According to industrial
insurance experience, the fatal-accident rate of electricians
and of electric linemen is excessive. Of 645 deaths of
electricians, 14.7 per cent., and of 240 deaths of linemen,
46.7 per cent., were due to accidents. In the anthracite mines
of Pennsylvania state inspectors have found that during ten
years there have averaged annually 3.18 fatal accidents for
every 1,000 men employed, and the rate is even higher than
this for certain specific occupations in the mines. That this
rate is excessive is shown by comparison with the death rate
from accident of 1.29 per 1,000 in the British coal mines.
Reports of the Interstate Commerce Commission show that during
ten years 16,363 railway trainmen lost their lives in
accidents. This is equivalent to 7.46 deaths per 1,000
employés."
Electrical Review,
January 2, 1909.
LABOR PROTECTION:
Child Labor.
See (in this Volume)
CHILDREN, UNDER THE LAW: AS WORKERS.
LABOR PROTECTION: Employers’ Liability in Great Britain.
The Workmen’s Compensation Act of 1906.
The Workmen’s Compensation Act which passed the British
Parliament in December, 1906, has the core of its purpose in
the first of two appended schedules, which fixes the "Scale
and Conditions of Compensation," in the following terms:
"(1) The amount of compensation under this Act shall be—
"(a) where death results from the injury—
"(i) if the workman leaves any dependants wholly
dependent upon his earnings, a sum equal to his earnings in
the employment of the same employer during the three years
next preceding the injury, or the sum of one hundred and
fifty pounds, whichever of those sums is the larger, but
not exceeding in any case three hundred pounds, provided
that the amount of any weekly payments made under this Act,
and any lump sum paid in redemption thereof, shall be
deducted from such sum, and, if the period of the workman’s
employment by the said employer has been less than the said
three years, then the amount of his earnings during the
said three years shall be deemed to be one hundred and
fifty-six times his average weekly earnings during the
period of his actual employment under the said employer;
"(ii) if the workman does not leave any such
dependants, but leaves any dependants in part dependent
upon his earnings, such sum, not exceeding in any case the
amount payable under the foregoing provisions, as may be
agreed upon, or, in default of agreement, may be
determined, on arbitration under this Act, to be reasonable
and proportionate in the injury to the said dependants; and
"(iii) if he leaves no dependants, the reasonable
expenses of his medical attendance and burial, not
exceeding ten pounds;
"(b) where total or partial incapacity for work results
from the injury, a weekly payment during the incapacity not
exceeding fifty per cent. of his average weekly earnings
during the previous twelve months, if he has been so long
employed, but if not then for any less period during which he
has been in the employment of the same employer, such weekly
payment not to exceed one pound:
"Provided that—
"(a) if the incapacity lasts less than two weeks no
compensation shall be payable in respect of the first week;
and
"(b) as respects the weekly payments during total
incapacity of a workman who is under twenty-one years of age
at the date of the injury, and whose average weekly earnings
are less than twenty shillings, one hundred per cent, shall be
substituted for fifty per cent. of his average weekly
earnings, but the weekly payment shall in no case exceed ten
shillings.
"(2) For the purposes of the provisions of this schedule
relating to ‘earnings’ and ‘average weekly earnings’ of a
workman, the following rules shall be observed:—
"(a) average weekly earnings shall be computed in such
manner as is best calculated to give the rate per week at
which the workman was being remunerated. Provided that where
by reason of the shortness of the time during which the
workman has been in the employment of his employer, or the
casual nature of the employment, or the terms of the
employment, it is impracticable at the date of the accident to
compute the rate of remuneration, regard may be had to the
average weekly amount which, during the twelve months previous
to the accident, was being earned by a person in the same
grade, employed at the same work by the same employer, or, if
there is no person so employed, by a person in the same grade
employed in the same class of employment and in the same
district;
"(b) where the workman had entered into concurrent
contracts of service with two or more employers under which he
worked at one time for one such employer and at another time
for another such employer, his average weekly earnings shall
be computed as if his earnings under all such contracts were
earnings in the employment of the employer for whom he was
working at the time of the accident;
"(c) employment by the same employer shall be taken to
mean employment by the same employer in the grade in which the
workman was employed at the time of the accident,
uninterrupted by absence from work due to illness or any other
unavoidable cause;
"(d) Where the employer has been accustomed to pay to
the workman a sum to cover any special expenses entailed on
him by the nature of his employment, the sum so paid shall not
be reckoned as part of the earnings.
{398}
"(3) In fixing the amount of the weekly payment, regard shall
be had to any payment, allowance, or benefit which the workman
may receive from the employer during the period of his
incapacity, and in the case of partial incapacity the weekly
payment shall in no case exceed the difference between the
amount of the average weekly earnings of the workman before
the accident and the average weekly amount which he is earning
or is able to earn in some suitable employment or business
after the accident, but shall bear such relation to the amount
of that difference as under the circumstances of the case may
appear proper.
"(4) Where a workman has given notice of an accident, he
shall, if so required by the employer, submit himself for
examination by a duly qualified medical practitioner provided
and paid by the employer, and, if he refuses to submit himself
to such examination, or in any way obstructs the same, his
right to compensation, and to take or prosecute any proceeding
under this Act in relation to compensation, shall be suspended
until such examination has taken place."
Further clauses of this schedule, and of the second schedule,
which relates to the arbitration of disputed matters, are
prescriptive in detail of procedure for carrying out the
orders stated above. The liability of the employer and its
limitations are set forth in the body of the Act, as follows:
"I.
(1) If in any employment personal injury by accident arising
out of and in the course of the employment is caused to a
workman, his employer shall, subject as hereinafter mentioned,
be liable to pay compensation in accordance with the First
Schedule to this Act.
(2) Provided that—
"(a) The employer shall not be liable under this Act in
respect of any injury which does not disable the workman for a
period of at least one week from earning full wages at the
work at which he was employed:
"(b) When the injury was caused by the personal
negligence or wilful act of the employer or of some person for
whose act or default the employer is responsible, nothing in
this Act shall affect any civil liability of the employer, but
in that case the workman may, at his option, either claim
compensation under this Act or take proceedings independently
of this Act; but the employer shall not be liable to pay
compensation for injury to a workman by accident arising out
of and in the course of the employment both independently of
and also under this Act, and shall not be liable to any
proceedings independently of this Act, except in case of such
personal negligence or wilful act as aforesaid:
"(c) If it is proved that the injury to a workman is
attributable to the serious and wilful misconduct of that
workman, any compensation claimed in respect of that injury
shall, unless the injury results in death or serious and
permanent disablement, be disallowed.
"(3) If any question arises in any proceedings under this Act
as to the liability to pay compensation under this Act
(including any question as to whether the person injured is a
workman to whom this Act applies), or as to the amount or
duration of compensation under this Act, the question, if not
settled by agreement, shall, subject to the provisions of the
First Schedule to this Act, be settled by arbitration, in
accordance with the Second Schedule to this Act."
LABOR PROTECTION: In New Zealand:
Compensation for "Miners’ Disease."
In the later part of 1908 a singular labor strike was caused
in New Zealand by legislation making "miners’ disease" a
ground of compensation from employers. The men refused to be
examined for the disease, and the masters refused to engage
them without examination; while the Government, which
apparently expected masters to take the risk of engaging men
already diseased, itself refused to admit the miners to the
benefits of State insurance without examination.
A despatch from Wellington, January 9, 1909, announced: "The
Waihi miners have unanimously refused to submit to medical
examination, and 1,700 men will cease work on Monday unless
the owners concede the point. The outlook is serious and the
township is depressed. The Auckland coal miners remain idle,
and consequently part of the coast fleet is laid up and a
number of hands have been discharged." But a later despatch of
the same date added: "The Government have now resolved to
accept the risk of insuring the miners without examination,
pending an amendment of the Act next session.
LABOR PROTECTION: In the United States:
On Interstate Railways.
In his message to Congress, December, 1908, the President
referred to this enactment, which he had approved in the
previous April:
"Among the excellent laws which the Congress passed at the
last session was an employers’ liability law. It was a marked
step in advance to get the recognition of employers’ liability
on the statute books; but the law did not go far enough. In
spite of all precautions exercised by employers there are
unavoidable accidents and even deaths involved in nearly every
line of business connected with the mechanic arts. This
inevitable sacrifice of life may be reduced to a minimum, but
it can not be completely eliminated. It is a great social
injustice to compel the employee, or rather the family of the
killed or disabled victim, to bear the entire burden of such
an inevitable sacrifice. In other words, society shirks its
duty by laying the whole cost on the victim, whereas the
injury comes from what may be called the legitimate risks of
the trade. Compensation for accidents or deaths due in any
line of industry to the actual conditions under which that
industry is carried on should be paid by that portion of the
community for the benefit of which the industry is carried
on—that is, by those who profit by the industry. If the entire
trade risk is placed upon the employer he will promptly and
properly add it to the legitimate cost of production and
assess it proportionately upon the consumers of his commodity.
It is therefore clear to my mind that the law should place
this entire ‘risk of a trade’ upon the employer. Neither the
Federal law, nor, as far as I am informed, the State laws
dealing with the question of employers’ liability are
sufficiently thorogoing. The Federal law should of course
include employees in navy-yards, arsenals, and the like."
{399}
The following is the text of the Act:
"Section 1.
That every common carrier by railroad while engaging in
commerce between any of the several States or Territories, or
between any of the States and Territories, or between the
District of Columbia and any of the States or Territories, or
between the District of Columbia or any of the States or
Territories and any foreign nation or nations, shall be liable
in damages to any person suffering injury while he is employed
by such carrier in such commerce, or, in case of the death of
such employee, to his or her personal representative, for the
benefit of the surviving widow or husband and children of such
employee; and, if none, then of such employee’s parents; and,
if none, then of the next of kin dependent upon such employee,
for such injury or death resulting in whole or in part from
the negligence of any of the officers, agents or employees of
such carrier, or by reason of any defect or insufficiency, due
to its negligence, in its cars, engines, appliances,
machinery, track, roadbed, works, boats, wharves, or other
equipment.
"Section 2.
That every common carrier by railroad in the Territories, the
District of Columbia, the Panama Canal Zone, or other
possessions of the United States shall be liable in damages to
any person suffering injury while he is employed by such
carrier in any of said jurisdictions, or, in case of the death
of such employee, to his or her personal representative, for
the benefit of the surviving widow or husband and children of
such employee; and, if none, then of such employee’s parents;
and, if none, then of the next of kin dependent upon such
employee, for such injury or death resulting in whole or in
part from the negligence of any of the officers, agents, or
employees of such carrier, or by reason of any defect or
insufficiency, due to its negligence, in its cars, engines,
appliances, machinery, track, roadbed, works, boats, wharves,
or other equipment.
"Section 3.
That in all actions hereinafter brought against any such
common carrier by railroad under or by virtue of any of the
provisions of this Act to recover damages for personal
injuries to an employee, or where such injuries have resulted
in his death, the fact that the employee may have been guilty
of contributory negligence shall not bar a recovery, but the
damages shall be diminished by the jury in proportion to the
amount of negligence attributable to such employee:
Provided, That no such employee who may be injured or
killed shall be held to have been guilty of contributory
negligence in any case where the violation by such common
carrier of any statute enacted for the safety of employees
contributed to the injury or death of such employee.
"Section 4.
That in any action brought against any common carrier under or
by virtue of any of the provisions of this Act to recover
damages for injuries to, or death of, any of its employees,
such employee shall not be held to have assumed the risks of
his employment in any case where the violation by such common
carrier of any statute enacted for the safety of employees
contributed to the injury or death of such employee.
"Section 5.
That any contract, rule, regulation, or device whatsoever, the
purpose or intent of which shall be to enable any common
carrier to exempt itself from any liability created by this
Act, shall to that extent be void: Provided, That in
any action brought against any such common carrier under or by
virtue of any of the provisions of this Act, such common
carrier may set off therein any sum it has contributed or paid
to any insurance, relief benefit, or indemnity that may have
been paid to the injured employee or the person entitled
thereto on account of the injury or death for which said
action was brought.
"Section 6.
That no action shall be maintained under this Act unless
commenced within two years from the day the cause of action
accrued.
"Section 7.
That the term ‘common carrier’ as used in this Act shall
include the receiver or receivers or other persons or
corporations charged with the duty of the management and
operation of the business of a common carrier.
"Section 8.
That nothing in this Act shall be held to limit the duty or
liability of common carriers or to impair the rights of their
employees under any other Act or Acts of Congress, or to
affect the prosecution of any pending proceeding or right of
action under the Act of Congress entitled ‘An Act relating to
liability of common carriers in the District of Columbia and
Territories, and to common carriers engaged in commerce
between the States and between the States and foreign nations
to their employees,’ approved June eleventh, nineteen hundred
and six."
Statutes of the United States of America
passed 1st at Session of the 60th Congress, 1907-1908,
part 1, chapter 149.
LABOR PROTECTION: HOURS OF LABOR:
Judicial Limitation of Police Power to regulate them
in the United States.
By a decision from the Supreme Court of the United States, in
April, 1905, an Act of the Legislature of New York, limiting
the hours of labor to be exacted from workmen in bakeries, was
pronounced unconstitutional. The law in question provided that
"no employee shall be required or permitted to work in a
biscuit, bread or cake bakery or confectionery establishment
more than sixty hours in any one week, or more than ten hours
in any one day, unless for the purpose of making a shorter
work day on the last day of the week; nor more hours in any
one week than will make an average of ten hours per day for
the number of days during such week in which such employee
shall work." The New York Court of Appeals had passed on this
enactment and declared it constitutional, as a measure for the
protection of public health. A majority of the Supreme Court—
five to four—rejected this view, saying, in the opinion
written by Justice Peckham: "We think the limit of the police
power has been reached and passed in this case. There is, in
our judgment, no reasonable foundation for holding this to be
necessary or appropriate as a health law to safeguard the
public health or the health of the individuals who are
following the trade of a baker." In the dissenting opinion of
Justice Harlan, Justices White and Day concurring, it was
said: "The rule is universal that a legislative enactment,
Federal or State, is never to be disregarded or held invalid
unless it be, beyond question, plainly and palpably in excess
of legislative power. If there be doubt as to the validity of
the statute, that doubt must therefore be resolved in favor of
its validity, and the courts must keep their hands off,
leaving the Legislature to meet the responsibility for unwise
legislation."
LABOR PROTECTION: LIMITATION OF WORKING HOURS FOR TRAINMEN.
See (in this Volume)
RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1907.
{400}
LABOR PROTECTION: THE "ENGLISH COAL MINES (EIGHT HOUR) ACT."
The Act so called, passed in 1908, came into force on the 1st
of July, 1909, except as respects mines in the counties of
Northumberland and Durham, where its operation was deferred
until the 1st of January, 1910. The Act provides that "a
workman shall not be below ground in a mine for the purpose of
his work, or of going to and from his work, for more than
eight hours during any consecutive twenty-four hours"; but
this is qualified by the condition that "no contravention of
the foregoing provisions shall be deemed to take place in the
case of a workman working in a shift if the period between the
times at which the last workman in the shift leaves the
surface and the first workman in the shift returns to the
surface does not exceed eight hours." This rule, it is said,
makes the nominal working day of eight hours "one that will
vary, according to local conditions, from eight and a half to
nine hours." On the other hand, the Coal Owners’ Association
of South Wales and Monmouthshire, in a manifesto issued
shortly before the Act became operative, declared: "The Act
does not permit eight hours’ work underground, but a
considerable portion of this time is taken up in travelling to
and from the actual place of work, and in many of the older
collieries not more than 6½ hours’ effective work will be
performed. The owners are strongly of opinion that it will be
found impossible to work such collieries and maintain them in
repair with all the pumping of water, boilers, engines,
horses, officials, and attendants necessary for 24 hours per
day on 6½ hours’ productive work, especially in view of the
fact that in South Wales a much larger proportion of the
collier’s time is occupied in other work than in producing
coal than is the case in most other coalfields."
The conditions are described as being different in the Welsh
mines from those in other British coal fields, and it seems to
have been there only that trouble arose when the Act came into
effect.
LABOR PROTECTION:
Germany’s Latest Code.
"The coal miners of Prussia have secured a legal eight-hours
day for underground work, but in industry generally the number
of hours worked is ten daily, or sixty weekly, and these hours
generally fall between six and six or seven and seven. In some
industries, and especially the textile industries, from
sixty-three to sixty-six hours per week are commonly worked by
both sexes. … Just as there was once a time when the textile
industry of the Rhineland worked to a large extent seventeen
hours a day in order to facilitate competition with England’s
more highly developed factories and more skilled workers, so
now a day of ten and eleven hours is maintained in the same
industry purely out of fear of the foreigner. … The only
limitation of hours introduced by the amendment to the
Industrial Code which was passed in 1908 applied to female
workers, and it merely fixed the rule of sixty hours, subject
to many exceptions. An investigation made in 1902 by the
Government into the hours worked by females employed in
factories and workshops showed that of 813,560 such
workpeople, employed in 38,706 works, 86,191 (in 6,768 works),
or 10.6 per cent., worked nine hours or less, while 347,814
(in 18,267 works), or 42.8 per cent., worked from nine to ten
hours (inclusive), so that over half already enjoy the
protection which the new law is to afford. The Socialists at
present demand a ten-hours day for both sexes, for the whole
country and for all industries, but they regard this no longer
as their final objective, but as a stage on the way towards
the goal of an eight-hours day, via a halfway house of nine
hours."
William H. Dawson,
The Involution of Modern Germany,
pages 129-131
(Unwin, London; Scribners, New York, 1909).
"On December 28 last [1908] an industrial amendment Act was
passed by the German Reichstag and became law. It introduces a
number of new and more stringent regulations for the
protection of women and children, which will have the effect
of securing a large reduction of the hours of labour in many
manufacturing industries. In its application it goes beyond
the existing factory law, which applies to Fabriken,
and it includes all Betriebe (industrial
establishments) in which ten or more persons are employed. It
reduces the maximum number of hours for women from 11 to 10 on
ordinary week days and from 10 to 8 on Saturday. That is to
say, it reduces the statutory maximum week from 65 to 58
hours. It extends the period during which night-work is
prohibited by an hour, and fixes it from 8 p. m. to 6 a. m.,
instead of from 8.30 p. m. to 5.30 a. m. as heretofore. It
further provides that after each day’s work an unbroken
interval of 11 hours’ rest must elapse; and this also applies
to workers of both sexes under 16. The latter, who already
enjoy the daily and weekly maximum now granted to women, will
also have the statutory times of beginning and leaving off
work altered from 5.30 A. M. to 6 A. M. for beginning and from
8.30 A. M. to 8 P. M. for leaving off."
LONDON TIMES,
MARCH 15, 1909.
LABOR PROTECTION:
Japanese Legislation in Prospect.
The following report from Japan came to the American Press in
a telegram dated December 15, 1909, at Victoria, British
Columbia: Factory owners of Japan, who employ 642,000 hands,
of whom 392,000 are women and a big percentage children, are
excited over factory laws to be advocated at this session of
the Diet, according to news brought here yesterday. The law
will provide against employment of children less than twelve
years old, but those above ten now employed will be permitted
to continue. Workers under sixteen and females may not be
worked more than twelve hours a day, and must be given two
days rest each month. In days of ten hours, an hour’s rest
must be given.
LABOR PROTECTION:
Report of the United States Industrial Commission in 1902.
Recommendations for State Legislation.
Child Labor and Woman’s Labor.
The Utah Law on Labor in Mines.
"Perhaps the subject of greatest public interest to-day is
that of the regulation of the hours of labor permitted in
industrial occupations, and especially in factories. Most of
the Northern and Eastern States prohibit the employment of
persons under the full age in factories or other mechanical
establishments for more than a prescribed time per diem,
usually ten hours, and not exceeding sixty hours per week.
Obviously, Congress has no power without a constitutional
amendment to legislate directly on this subject. The
Commission are of the opinion that a uniform law upon this
subject may wisely be recommended for adoption by all the
States.
{401}
We believe that such legislation can not, under the Federal
and State constitutions be recommended as to persons, male or
female, above the age of 21, except, of course, in some
special industries where employment for too many hours becomes
positively a menace to the health, safety or well-being of the
community; but minors not yet clothed with all the rights of
citizens are peculiarly the subject of State protection, and
still more so young children. The commission are of opinion,
therefore, that a simple statute ought to be enacted by all
the States to regulate the length of the working day for young
persons in factories (meaning by 'young persons’ those between
the age of majority and 14); and in view of the entire absence
of protection now accorded by the laws of many States to
children of tender years we think that the employment of
children in factories in any capacity, or for any time, under
the age of 14, should be prohibited. The question of shops and
mercantile establishments generally appears even more subject
to local conditions than that of factories; therefore the
Commission see no need for even recommending to the States any
uniform legislation upon this subject. But child labor should
be universally protected by educational restrictions,
providing in substance that no child may be employed in either
factories, shops, or in stores in large cities, who cannot
read and write, and, except during vacation, unless he has
attended school for at least twelve weeks in each year.
Further regulation, especially in the line of bringing States
which now have no factory acts up to a higher standard, is
earnestly recommended.
"The Supreme Court of the United States has affirmed the
constitutionality of the Utah law limiting the length of the
day’s labor in mines or under-ground workings, even in the
case of male citizens of full age. The Commission would
therefore recommend that the provisions of the Utah
constitution and statutes be followed in all the States, by
which the period of employment of workmen in all under-ground
mines or workings shall be eight hours a day, except in cases
of emergency, when life or property is in imminent danger, and
also that the employment of children under the age of 14 and
of all women and girls in mines or under-ground quarries and
workings shall be forbidden."
Final Report (1902) of Industrial Commission,
pages 946-948.
LABOR PROTECTION:
Hours of Labor for Women.
Right of the State to put other Limitations than on Men.
U. S. Supreme Court Decision.
The constitutional right of a State to put other limitations
on the hours of labor for women than it puts on the hours of
labor for men was questioned by the proprietor of a laundry in
Oregon, and the question was carried to the Supreme Court of
the United States. The decision of that tribunal was rendered
early in 1908, affirming the right of a State to make such
distinction in labor limitations between the two sexes, and
the ground of the decision introduces a principle of enormous
importance into law. A legal limitation of the hours of labor
touches the contractual rights of the individual, and the
Court conceded that in those rights women stand on the same
plane as men; but the State, it declares, has the

constitutional right, for the public good, to limit the
contractual right of the individual, and its reasoning on the
matter before it turns therefore on the question whether the
protection of women by this special limitation of contractual
rights is or is not for the public good? On this question the
counsel for the State of Oregon, Mr. Louis D. Brandeis, had
submitted a remarkable mass of testimony, social and
physiological, which the Court accepted as conclusive, and
founded its decision thereon. This testimony the Court
declared to be "significant of a widespread belief that
women’s physical structure, and the functions she performs in
consequence thereof, justify special legislation restricting
or qualifying the conditions under which she should be
permitted to toil." Though "constitutional questions … are not
settled by even a consensus of present public opinion," yet
the Court held that "when a question of fact is debated and
debatable, and the extent to which a special constitutional
limitation goes is affected by the truth in respect to that
fact, a widespread and long-continued belief concerning it is
worthy of consideration." Applying that principle in this
case, the Court affirmed that "as healthy mothers are
essential to vigorous offspring, the physical well-being of
woman becomes an object of public interest and care in order
to preserve the strength and vigor of the race." On account of
her physical constitution, "she is not an equal competitor
with her brother." In spite of the removal of legal and other
disabilities, "she will still be where some legislation to
protect her seems necessary to secure a real equality of
right." Such legislation to defend woman, to use the Court’s
phrase, "from the greed as well as the passion of man," is not
merely for her benefit, but for the well-being of the race.
"The two sexes," said Justice Brewer, who delivered the
decision of the Court, "differ in structure of body, in the
functions to be performed by each, in the amount of physical
strength, in the capacity for long-continued labor,
particularly when done standing, the influence of vigorous
health upon the future well-being of the race, the
self-reliance which enables one to assert full rights, and in
the capacity to maintain the struggle for subsistence. This
difference justifies a difference in legislation and upholds
that which is designed to compensate for some of the burdens
which rest upon her."
LABOR PROTECTION: ORIENTAL COMPETITION:
The Force of the Objection to it in Countries under
the Protective Tariff System.
See (in this Volume)
RACE PROBLEMS; UNITED STATES.
LABOR PROTECTION: A. D. 1900-1909.
Study and Treatment of Industrial Problems in
the United States by the National Civic Federation.
See (in this Volume)
SOCIAL BETTERMENT: UNITED STATES.
----------LABOR PROTECTION: End--------
{402}
----------LABOR REMUNERATION: Start--------
LABOR REMUNERATION.
Cooperative Organization.
Pensions.
Profit-sharing.
Wages Regulation, etc.)
LABOR REMUNERATION:
The Bonus System.
Its Working in the Shops of the Bethlehem Steel Company.
"Awarding extra compensation for extra work has long been the
practice of successful manufacturing; but the particular
method of awarding a bonus above referred to is of
recent origin, and fills an important need in modern systems
of management. It may be briefly described as follows:
Alternative ways of doing a piece of work are carefully
investigated by the most competent expert available and the
results recorded. The best method is determined and taught to
an ordinary workman, who is awarded extra compensation in
addition to his day’s pay for doing the work in the time and
manner specified. This method of compensation was the outcome
of an attempt to introduce in complicated work equitable piece
rates determined as nearly as possible by scientific methods."
The original working out of this method into a system is
ascribed by the writer of the above to Mr. Fred W. Taylor, in
the early eighties, he being then in the employ of the Midvale
Steel Company. After setting forth the principles involved in
the system, this writer concludes his article by stating:
"The principles above outlined were applied during the spring
and summer of 1901 to the ordnance and armor-plate machine
shops of the Bethlehem Steel Company, and resulted in a short
time in more than doubling the output of those shops. The
system is still in use substantially as introduced, and the
superintendent, Mr. Archibald Johnston, in his testimony
before the House Committee on Labor, February 13, 1902, makes
the following statement regarding it:
"This arrangement has worked very satisfactorily, both to the
men and the company, for it has enabled us to get work out
more quickly, and to add to the producing capacity of our
invested capital; while for the men it has been a great
benefit, as we have many instances of employees who have
bought homes for themselves principally from their extra
earnings on the bonus system, and from overtime work. The
system has been a stronger incentive to industry than any
other we have been able to put into effect in our plant."
H. L. Gantt,
The Bonus System of Rewarding Labor
(American Review of Reviews).
LABOR REMUNERATION: COÖPERATIVE ORGANIZATION:
France, Italy, etc.
Cooperative Production.
A book published in 1905, entitled "Labor Problems," by T. S.
Adams and Helen L. Sumner, gives an interesting account of
coöperative associations for contract labor in France, of
which there were 296 on the 1st of January, 1901, seemingly
having considerable success, 106 of the number being in the
building trades. Similar organizations were reported in Italy
and New Zealand. In France, the law provides for dividing
public contracts, and for making payments on them in such ways
as to bring them within the means of these associations of
workmen. In Germany and Holland there is said to have been a
less degree of success in organizing this mode of productive
coöperation.
LABOR REMUNERATION: GREAT BRITAIN:
The Coöperative Union and Coöperative Congress.
Recent Statistics of Membership, Organizations, and Operations.
Rapidly increasing Coöperation in Agriculture.
As reported at the annual Coöperative Congress of 1905, the
Coöperative Union of Great Britain had then a membership of
2,200,000, conducting coöperative undertakings with a total
capital of £36,500,000 and a trade of £92,000,000. At that
meeting a proposition to act with the Labor Representation
Committee, for increasing the representation of labor
interests in Parliament, was defeated by 801 votes against
135.
Four years later, at the Congress held in May, 1909, the
reported membership of the Coöperative Union had increased to
2,516,194, in 1560 affiliated societies. Among other
statistics reported for the previous year were the following:
"The two large wholesale societies—one in England and the
other in Scotland—had a membership of 1414 in 1908, or a
decrease of three as compared with the total for 1907; the
shares held amounted to £1,984,676, a rise of £190,131; the
loans were £5,114,201, an increase of £382,990; the sales for
the year amounted to £32,433,968, an increase of £43,940, and
the interest on capital was £96,350, an increase of £5,498.
The year’s trading, however, resulted in a decrease of profits
amounting to £137,197, the total profits being £731,124. There
were 1428 distributive societies, a decrease of 15, but the
membership rose to 2,404,595, or 81,217 more; the shares held
went up to £30,037,352, an increase of £998,703; the loans
amounted to £4,558,021, a rise of £212,377; the sales
increased by £1,635,749, the total being £60,783,278; but the
profits dropped to £10,773,005, or a decrease of £126,327.
"Coöperative production forms a large and important branch of
the movement. Some facts relating to it are given from the
last annual report of the Chief Registrar of Friendly
Societies in order to supplement the figures of the central
board. According to the Chief Registrar’s report, 1251
societies, including distributive, wholesale, and productive
societies, made returns showing that, they carried on
production to the extent of £16,989,764 in the year,
calculated on wholesale prices. The workpeople employed in
production numbered 44,188—men, 25,809; women, 12,212; boys,
6167—and the wages paid to these (exclusive of bonus) amounted
to £2,324,674. The board’s annual summary of the operations
carried on by the productive societies and the productive
departments of the two wholesale societies shows a total
production in 1908 of £11,112,220. To this is added an
estimated production of £7,750,000 by the distributive
societies, making the total production of the coöperative
movement for the year about £18,862,000. The number of
productive societies to which the Board’s returns relate is
122, a decrease of five as compared with the total for the
previous year. The number of people employed by these
societies during the year was 28,575, an increase of 1637; the
capital invested was £4,610,072, an increase of £259,137; the
trade, as stated above, was £11,112,220, an increase of
£450,802; the profits amounted to £352,398, a decrease of
£15,317; and the losses amounted to £68,650, as against £8336.
{403}
"Among the industries engaged in coöperative production, corn
milling had a trade last year amounting to £4,564,706, which
was considerably higher than the total for the previous year.
Increases were also recorded in the cotton, linen, silk, and
wool industries, and by societies engaged in woodwork,
building, and quarrying, printing and bookbinding, baking, and
laundry-work. But the societies producing boots, shoes, and
leather, metal and hardware, and various other goods had a
reduced trade."
In an article on "The Coming of Coöperation," in Agriculture,
the London Times of May 3, 1909, made the following
statements: "The coöperative movement, on which more than
anything else the success of all small farmers and many big
farmers depends, is advancing with a rapidity very little
realized even by farmers themselves.
"The position at present is this. In Ireland, in Scotland, and
in England exist three organization societies which decided in
July of last year to amalgamate for certain purposes. Under
the lead of Sir Horace Plunkett the three societies decided
that joint action would be effective in all the three branches
of cooperative trade—
‘(1) The acquisition of farmers’ supplies of the best
quality at the lowest price;
(2) the marketing of produce in the most economical manner; and
(3) the interchange of certain products.’
"Into this third attribute of cooperation it is worth while
inquiring closely. The idea, which may mean an immense advance
in the production of the farm, small or great, has not become
familiar even to some of the best local coöperative societies
we have. A few examples will illustrate the possibilities. No
one will doubt the value of geographical knowledge to the
farmer. One of the biggest successes made on the Fen farms in
recent years resulted from the accident that a Fen farmer went
to shoot snipe in Ireland, and there came upon a potato which
proved to be exceptionally suited to the Fen soil. Many small
fortunes have been made in potato farming by the use of Scotch
seed. To-day, of course, every one is aware of its excellence,
due partly to the red soil, partly to the wise custom of the
Scotch farmer in digging his potatoes before they are mature.
But this knowledge penetrated very slowly. …
"An admirable instance, illustrating the same point, may be
found in the unpublished history of the French wheats recently
introduced into England. The whole tale is full of suggestions
for English farmers and for the organization societies. French
farmers, as we all know, are very closely federated; and every
sort of work—in buying, in marketing, and in advancing
money—is carried on by the local and federated syndicates.
Some years ago the leaders of these syndicates came to the
conclusion that their wheats greatly improved by a year or two
in English soil. They preferred their own varieties, but found
them more prolific when the seed was imported from England.
Several difficulties met them. They had first to persuade
English growers to grow these varieties, and secondly they had
to compel them to keep the stock pure. The second difficulty
might have been insuperable without joint action, but it was
soon overcome by the syndicates.
"At present Ireland is a long way ahead of England, and
England of Scotland, in co-operative organization; but
certainly in England, as well as Ireland, co-operation has
advanced more rapidly in the last year or two than seemed at
all likely at the beginning of the century. The Agricultural
Organization Society, which was formed for propaganda work, is
already able to give proof of valuable results from joint
action towards what may be called the self-sufficiency of
Britain. The advance has been made possible by the new
federations of farmers, as well as by the multiplication of
local co-operative societies."
LABOR REMUNERATION:
Exhibition of Coöperative Productions.
An exhibition of coöperative productions was opened in August,
1909, at the Crystal Palace, London, in connection with a
National Co-operative Festival. On the one side goods were
shown from the various co-partnership productive societies,
including boots and shoes, baskets, cloth, velvets, cutlery,
watches, and printing; and on the other side were specimens of
the Co-operative Wholesale Society’s goods, such as working
exhibits of sweet-boiling, soap-milling, and cigar and
cigarette making. In addition to the exhibits from workshops,
the Tenant’s Housing Societies showed plans of their houses
owned on the coöperative principle by groups of workmen and
others. It was pointed out by the promoters of the exhibition
that such houses may be completely equipped for habitation
with articles produced under cooperative conditions.
LABOR REMUNERATION: India:
Rapidity of the Movement.
"The co-operative movement in India, which was started five
years ago by the passing of the Cooperative Credit Societies
Act, has made steady and satisfactory progress in all the
Provinces, and there are now 2,000 societies with 185,000
members and a working capital of over half a million sterling.
Each Province has its official registrar and staff of
inspectors, whose business it is to preach the benefits of
co-operation, to encourage the formation of new societies, to
help each society to draw up its by-laws, to check and audit
its accounts free of charge, to point out mistakes, and to put
things right. The ordinary type of co-operative society is the
village bank of from 50 to 100 members, all residents of the
same neighbourhood, who know intimately each other’s needs and
resources, and, above all, each other’s character."
Correspondent London Times,
December 17, 1909.
LABOR REMUNERATION: New Zealand:
The Labor Group Method.
"What distinguishes New Zealand as a State is the way in which
governmental powers have been used, not to stop competition in
the socialistic sense, but to force a higher and fairer level,
on which it acts for the many rather than for the few. Every
startling step has been of this nature. New Zealand is
democratizing competition. If the public is there threatened
with monopoly prices in coal or in insurance, the State acts
competitively for the whole people. Our great interest in this
method is that it may have immeasurable development without
landing us in Socialism. It has the soul of democracy in it
while preserving great areas on which those forms of private
property may be maintained which Socialism usually attacks.
Even more significant is the other illustration which New
Zealand offers.
{404}
"It is the allotment of work to labor groups under the
co-operation method. It unifies at once the political and the
industrial practice. If the digging and laying up of a cellar,
a section of roadway, or the foundations of a bridge are
assigned to twelve laborers for the sum of fifty pounds, they
elect their own manager, agreeing upon the distribution of the
work. A standard of efficiency is set, which the inspector
enforces. The lump sum of fifty pounds is assumed by the
authorities to give first a ‘fair wage,’ but beyond that a
margin is given which extra zeal and fidelity may very
materially increase. Under private contractors working for
profit, this is of course a very old story. It is not an old
story for the State or town to do it, with the express purpose
of avoiding certain evils of competition, like insecurity and
lack of work."
John Graham Brooks,
Industrial Democracy
(The Outlook, November 17, 1906).
LABOR REMUNERATION: Russia: A. D. 1903.
Statistics of Consumers’ Associations.
In 1903 "the number of co-operative consumers’ associations in
Russia was 824. In order to compile some statistics, in regard
to these, the ‘Permanent Commission for Co-operative
Associations’ sent out some inquiry blanks which, in 204
cases, were properly filled out and returned. From these
reports is gathered that the 204 associations had together
91,417 members and 26,402 annual subscribers, making a total
number of about 118,000 customers. The average membership of
the associations was 577. The number of employees was 3258, or
16 per association, and the expenses for wages and maintenance
of these amounted to 1,131,307 rubles, or averaging 5515
rubles for each association. The total capital reached a sum
of more than 4,000,000 rubles, which item was counterbalanced
by a total indebtedness of nearly an equal amount. Of the
entire net profit,—1,270,000 rubles,—256,539 rubles were
distributed as dividends on shares, 590,857 rubles as premiums
on purchases, and 68,155 were paid into the government as
taxes."
Herman Rosenthal
(American Review of Reviews).
LABOR REMUNERATION: United States:
Coöperative Distribution and Coöperative Production.
"Today in Utah are eighty-seven coöperative distribution
societies and in California sixty; and elsewhere are signs
that the excellent principles of united effort may soon enter
upon another and very likely its most notable revival. In San
Francisco before the earthquake the coöperators had a large
wholesale store doing a good business. At Lawrence,
Massachusetts, the flourishing Arlington Store Society, an
admirably conducted Rochdale venture, has 4,360 members and
does an annual business of more than $500,000, and at
Lewiston, Maine, is a store managed on lines of modified
coöperation with annual sales of more than $600,000. Through
the country the coöperative stores number about 250, with
60,000 or more members and $7,000,000, of annual business; a
showing that looks small compared with the gigantic operations
of the British societies. But with the development of the
Cooperative Association of America, a new enterprise managed
by men like Frank Parsons, B. O. Flower, Charles E. Lund and
other advanced thinkers, there is likely to be in the next few
years a new and very different story to tell of coöperation in
America.
"Coöperative production has already made a different story,
although even that is flecked with enough of failure. … So far
back as 1868, in Minneapolis, four journeymen coopers had
formed a cooperative society, steadily enlarged as the milling
interests increased. In 1874, when the flour output was about
500,000 barrels a year, so many coopers had come to town that
the Coöperative Barrel Manufacturing Company was formed and
twelve years afterwards two-thirds of all barrels made in
Minneapolis were made in coöperative shops. And then somehow
the things began to decline. Of seven great coöperative shops
existing in 1886 only three survive. … In other lines of
productive effort Coöperation has often achieved notable
success. The coöperative creamery, for instance, has been a
boon to millions of farmers. Of such creameries in the United
States there are about 3,800 with a membership in their
associations of more than 300,000 and an annual product worth
more than $80,000,000. In Minnesota six-sevenths of all the
creameries are coöperative; six hundred have been organized in
the last ten years with a membership of 50,000. The idea is
steadily gaining; it is very strong in all the Western States,
and even in Massachusetts twenty-eight of fifty creameries are
coöperative. In the operation of these societies there has
been almost uniform success. The farmers indeed have done far
more than the workingmen to show the benefits of union. There
are in the United States about 4,000 farmers’ purchasing and
distributing societies with 500,000 members. Fruit growers’
associations have been formed in nine states and have now more
than 100,000 members. The Southern California Fruit Exchange,
organized in 1891, handles more than half the orange business
in California. It has seventy associations with 4,000 members.
One third of all the fruit grown in California is now handled
coöperatively.
"There are also coöperative bee keepers, coöperative sheep
herders, coöperative poultry raisers, cattle breeders, wool
growers, cotton growers and milk-dealers, and in six states
are flourishing coöperative grain elevators. …
See above,
LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1906.
Of coöperative insurance companies we have about 3,800,
including mutual life, fire, hail and live-stock insurance.
Three thousand of these are among the farmers, with a total
membership of 2,700,000 and total risks reaching the amazing
sum of $3,000,000,000. Premiums among the farmers’ coöperative
insurance companies average twenty-four cents for each $100 of
insurance against an average among all companies, as reported
by the United States census, of $1 for every $100 of
insurance. In Michigan, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska,
Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas farmers’ coöperative
telephone companies have had a phenomenal growth and have
effected in some degree a transformation of rural life. …
Coöperative distribution … has lately been revived in America
through the well-considered efforts of the Coöperative
Association of America, and still more recently through the
Golden Rule Fraternity.
{405}
The Coöperative Association began in Lewiston, Maine, in 1900,
as ‘A Trust for the People.’ It has utilized the ordinary
trust machinery towards communal good instead of personal
profit. There is a holding company called the ‘Co-Workers’
Fraternity’ and this owns a controlling interest in stock of
the Coöperative Association of America, in the National
Production Company of New Jersey, in the Massachusetts
Coöperative Society, and is to own a similar control in the
other coöperative societies now being formed. On this modern
and comprehensive basis coöperation is being reformed and
reorganized in America. Its pitfalls hitherto have been
chiefly those of management. On the new plan of organization
these should be avoided. … The revived prospects of
Coöperation in America are due chiefly to the altruistic
efforts of a certain band of thoughtful men and women that
believe this to be the first step towards a cure of the
national evils."
Charles D. Russell,
The Uprising of the Many,
pages 30-37 (New York, Doubleday, Page & Co., 1907).
"I spent nearly four weeks, from March 3 to March 27, [1908]
visiting a chain of co-operative stores, fifty-five in number,
in the vicinity of Minneapolis, Minnesota. These stores are
organized on the famous Rochdale plan, for the benefit of the
consumer instead of the capitalist. The profits are divided in
proportion to purchases, except that the general public who
have not yet chosen to become members or shareholders receive
only half-dividend or benefit. Goods are not sold cheaper; it
is aimed to create capital by earning good profits. An
accounting is had and the profits ascertained once in three or
six or twelve months. These profits are then distributed
between a surplus fund, an educational or propaganda fund, and
dividend on purchases, which is paid in cash if the shareholder
has paid in full, or credited on his share if only part paid.
This is the nub of the Rochdale System, departures from which
have been the cause of a long and almost unbroken line of
failure in American attempts in co-operative stores.
"These Minnesota and Wisconsin stores have all been organized
on a nearly uniform plan by a propaganda organization known as
the Right Relationship League, consisting of three active
officers, two additional directors, eight field organizers,
and an associate membership of all the store shareholders who
pay a fee of one dollar. The stores are incorporated by
counties; when there are several stores in one county, they
are ‘departments’ or branches. For example, the Polk County
(Wisconsin) company has ten stores, the Pepin County company
nine stores, and each has a general manager and a joint
warehouse. Instead of starting a new store with a new manager
and no established trade, the newly organized co-operative
company buys out the best or next best general store in the
town and continues the former owner as manager.
"Of the old guard who wrote and hoped for co-operation twenty
to thirty years ago, all gave up the fight long since, myself
excepted. Edward Everett Hale, Richard T. Ely, Carroll D.
Wright, Washington Gladden, E. W. Bemis, John R. Commons, will
be glad to know that the lost cause is reviving and may yet,
in their lifetime, justify their early faith and repay their
labors."
N. O. Nelson,
The Co-operative Movement in the United States
(The Outlook, July 4, 1908).
In February, 1909, it was reported that the stores of the
above League had increased in number to seventy-six; that the
membership and capital had been doubled within a year, and
that a wholesale company had been formed, each store
subscribing $1000.
In "Labor Problems," by T. S. Adams and Helen L. Sumner, a
considerable number of successful undertakings in producers’
co-operation in the United States are enumerated, including
establishments operated by labor unions in the iron, glass,
garment and cigar-making, box-workers, wood-workers, building
trades, etc., east and west; besides co-operative laundries
and restaurants. The most interesting of these organizations
appears to be that of the Workers’ Coöperative Association of
Boston, formed in 1900 by members of the building trades.
LABOR REMUNERATION:
The "New Protection": Australia: A. D. 1907-1908.
The "New Protection," so called, introduced in Australia, "is
an extension of the principle of the Wages Boards Acts, which
aim to preserve for the workers a certain assured
remuneration. Under the New Protection, the field of this
minimum wage legislation is extended to the trades subsidized
or assisted under protective duties, so as to compel the
manufacturers to share the accruing advantage with their
employees. The Tariff Excise Act is the first installment of
the new legislation. It came into force on January 1, 1907,
and was specially intended to protect the agricultural
implement industry from American and Canadian competition. It
placed upon imported harvesters a duty of sixty dollars. The
Federal Labor party supported the manufacturers in obtaining
the duty, on condition that there was inserted a clause
imposing upon locally produced harvesters an excise duty of
half the amount of the import duty. Manufacturers would,
however, be exempt from the payment of this excise upon
showing proof that their workmen had been paid ‘fair and
reasonable remuneration.’
"At the close of the manufacturing season one hundred and
twelve manufacturers of harvesters filed applications for
exemption from excise duty." This, at once on a test case,
carried the question, what is a "fair and reasonable
remuneration" for wage-paid labor into the Court of
Conciliation and Arbitration, and its judge, much against his
will, was required to determine it. He decided that not less
than $9.50 per week, in Australia, for the lowest class of
unskilled labor, could be regarded as a "living wage." "This
formed the basis of the entire Tariff Excise scale, since from
it the court calculated the rates of payment for all other
employees. This was the easier because there was but little
difference of opinion between the employers and the respective
unions as to the proportionate wages to be paid to various
classes of skilled labor, and, with the price for unskilled
labor raised, a similar increase followed in all the skilled
trades in the business of manufacturing harvesters.
"The Harvester legislation is only the fore-runner of plans
for extensive control over industry to be brought forward as
soon as the import duties under the recently introduced tariff
are decided.
{406}
"In this the three objects to be gained are not always easily
reconciled, and the detail work, besides, of drafting rules
and regulations to result in a moderately practicable working
Act will be enormous. These objects are:
1. To conserve the market for the Australian manufacturer.
2. To insure fair remuneration to the employee.
3. To protect the consumer by placing a limit upon the
price which may be charged.
The rough outline of the proposals is as follows: All dutiable
goods bearing the Commonwealth Trade-Mark (a sort of universal
label) as a guarantee that they have been manufactured under
fair and reasonable conditions as to remuneration of labor
will be exempt from excise. A board of excise, to consist of
three members, to be appointed to give effect to these
proposals. All goods manufactured under conditions which are
in accordance with the State or Commonwealth industrial award
or agreement, or which are declared to be fair and reasonable
by the newly created board of excise, will be entitled to have
the Commonwealth Trade-Mark affixed."
Alice Henry,
Australia’s "New Protection"
(The Outlook, February 8, 1908).
The constitutionality of the Tariff Excise Act was soon
brought to a test, and the Federal High Court decided in June,
1908, that wages could not be regulated in the method
proposed. In the following October proceedings were opened in
Parliament to secure such an amendment of the Constitution as
would empower the desired legislation.
LABOR REMUNERATION: Pensions:
The German State-aided System.
See (in this Volume)
POVERTY, PROBLEMS OF: PENSIONS.
LABOR REMUNERATION:
System adopted by American Railroad Companies.
On the 10th of November, 1909, announcement was made by the
New York Central Railroad Company that it had adopted an
employees’ pension system, by which 100,000 men would be
affected. Under the plan, employees reaching the age of
seventy years are retired. If they have been continuously in
the service of the company for at least ten years preceding
their retirement, they will be entitled to a pension. An
employee who has been at least twenty years in continual
service and has become unfit for duty may be retired with a
pension, although he has not reached the age of seventy. The
amount of the pensions is 1 per cent, for each year of
continuous service, based upon the average rate of pay
received for the ten years next preceding retirement. The
pension system became effective on January 9, 1910.
The latest government report on the number of railroad
employees puts the total for the country at 1,672,074. "Of
these," says the New York Evening Post, "approximately
665,000, or about 40 per cent., serve the roads which have
pension systems. These companies are the New York Central, the
Rock Island, the Pennsylvania, the Buffalo, Rochester and
Pittsburg, the Chicago and Northwestern, the Illinois Central,
the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, the Union Pacific, Southern
Pacific, and their affiliated lines, the Delaware, Lackawanna
and Western, the Baltimore and Ohio, the Atlantic Coast Line,
the Reading, and the Central of New Jersey."
LABOR REMUNERATION: Profit-sharing:
Plan of Furness, Withy & Company.
One of the greatest of the British ship-building and shipping
concerns, that of the incorporated firm of Furness, Withy &
Co. of which Sir Christopher Furness is the managing director,
announced in the fall of 1908 that it could not continue its
business unless the constant troubles between itself and its
employees over wages questions could be brought to an end.
With that view it was proposed to the workmen that they should
become partners in the business by taking shares of the
company’s capital stock and paying therefor by a five per cent
reduction of their wages until the price of their shares
should be covered. Additional shares of stock would be issued
for the purpose, on which four per cent of dividend would be
paid, whether the company divided any surplus on the general
stock or not. A certain percentage of the earnings of the
business would be allotted to capital, and to cover
depreciation and development, over and above which the
employee-partners would participate in all profits. With
reference to these allotments, to capital, etc., Sir
Christopher Furness, speaking to a Labor Union meeting on the
subject of his proposal, said: "I am aware that a section of
working-men criticise the amounts laid aside by some companies
for these various purposes as if they were devices for
stealing the real earnings of the company from their
employees, but, take my word for it, these allotments cannot
be dispensed with, that is to say, if the directors have any
regard for the continuance of the company with a reasonable
hope of prosperity. Possibly an arrangement might be reached
that nothing beyond a definite percentage on an average of
years should be put aside."
Importantly in connection with the arrangement of
profit-sharing co-partnery, Sir Christopher planned to
organize what he called a Works Council, to be composed of an
equal number of representatives of the workmen and
representatives of the company. It would be, he said, a kind
of Court of Reference and Committee of Counsel rolled into
one. The proposals of the firm were accepted by its employees
and the co-partnery arrangement was carried out.
A year and a half later, on May 22, Sir Christopher Furness
and two others purchased an extensive colliery, the Wingate
Colliery, and made a similar proposition to the workmen there,
offering them one quarter of the shares of the company to be
formed, on the same terms of payment as in the case of the
ship-building company. This gave evidence that the plan had
worked satisfactorily thus far in its earlier trial.
On the 15th of December, 1909, the secretary of the Company
addressed a letter to its Employé Shareholders, saying: "I
have to acquaint you that my board have had under
consideration the working of the company since the adoption of
the co-partnery scheme, and I am directed to say that they
consider the results, from every point of view, to be very
satisfactory." The substantial results to the employees were
thus stated:
"On the financial side you will also be pleased to hear that
the working results are equally satisfactory. The audited
accounts up to September 30 last, and the estimated results
from that date to the present time, show such a balance as
enables the directors to declare a dividend. They propose
therefore, to make a distribution on the agreed basis of the
scheme—viz., the guaranteed 4 per cent. to the employé shareholders, the fixed 5 per cent. to the Ordinary
shareholders, with a bonus of 5 per cent. to both classes of
shareholders. This will yield to the employé shareholders a return at the rate of 9 per cent. per annum,
and to the Ordinary shareholders at the rate of 10 per cent.
per annum, for the nine months ending December 81, 1909.
{407}
"For better convenience it has been decided by my board to
make the financial year end on December 31.
"The amount due to each employé shareholder will be
paid at the offices of the company at the respective
ship-yards on the pay-day, Friday, December 24."
Promising as this plan of profit-sharing appeared, it did not
prove satisfactory to the employés, and, on the 1st of April,
1910, they voted against its continuance, complaining that
their expectation of full employment had not been realized,
and that the system tended to break up trade unions, which are
labor’s surest support and defence.
LABOR REMUNERATION:
The Plan of the United States Steel Corporation,
and other Great Corporations.
"An occurrence of tremendous and far-reaching importance is
the success of the United States Steel Corporation’s
wage-earners’ investment and profit-sharing plan. When this
plan was announced, January 1, [1903], every thoughtful man in
the country gave it close attention. … With all, the question
of questions was, Will it succeed? … We have not been
compelled to wait long for the answer. The directors of the
Steel Corporation offered 25,000 shares of stock to their
168,000 employees. The books were to be kept open thirty days.
No one dared believe that within this month, while the plan
was so new, while all sorts of prejudices or fears might deter
subscribers, and while the great mass of employees would still
be studying and thinking about the offer which to them must
have seemed somewhat novel and complicated, all or even
one-half of the proffered stock would be taken up. Yet, when
the books closed Saturday evening, January 31, it was found
that the 25,000 shares offered had been subscribed for more
than twice over. Twenty-seven thousand six hundred and
thirty-three employees had subscribed for 51,125 shares. …
"The company’s proposal was to share profits with all
employees who would demonstrate their interest and thrift by
buying the company’s stock. Consequently, the great bulk of
the stock set aside for purchase by employees was offered to
the men who earn the smallest salaries. This was done by
dividing the 168,000 employees into six classes, according to
their salaries—Class A, over $20,000 a year; Class B, $10,000
to $20,000, down to Class E, $800 to $2,500 a year, and Class
F, under $800 a year—and then by limiting the amount of stock
employees could take to the following proportions of their
annual salaries: Class A, 5 per cent.; Class B, 8 per cent.;
Class C, 10 per cent.; Class D, 12 per cent.; Class E, 15 per
cent.; and Class F, 20 per cent. It will thus be seen why 90
per cent. of all the stock subscribed for in January goes to
the two classes of mechanics and workmen whose salaries are
under $2,500 a year.
"The method is really a very simple one. Employees subscribe
for stock, one or two shares apiece. The shares cost $82.50,
or less than the market value. Each employee pays in monthly
installments, taken from his wages, and he may have the
payments made small or large, as he likes, save that not more
than 25 per cent. of his wages may be so used in any month,
and he may not be more than three years in completing payment.
Dividends at the rate of 7 per cent. a year go to the
subscriber from the date of his first payment. Interest at 5
per cent. is charged on the deferred payments. In other words,
the corporation sells stock below the market price, on credit,
and pays the holder 2 per cent. a year in dividends more than
he has to pay in interest. Here is a direct inducement to the
investment of savings. But this is not all. Inducements are
offered the employee to complete payment for his stock and to
hold it. As soon as he has fully paid for it, the certificate
is issued in his name, and he is free to dispose of it. But to
make it worth his while to hold it and at the same time keep
his place as a working partner in the company’s service, the
corporation says to him: ‘If you hold your stock, and
beginning with January next year you show it to the treasurer
of your company, and present a letter from the proper official
that during the preceding year you have been in the employ of
the company, and have shown a proper interest in its welfare
and progress, and you do this each January for five years, we
will give you, in addition to the dividends paid you, a bonus
of five dollars per share for each year. During the second
period of five years, we will pay you a further yearly bonus,
as a reward for your continuous faithful service.’ The amount
of the second bonus cannot now be fixed, but it will doubtless
be larger than the first one. Ample provision is made for the
protection of subscribers who from one cause or another are
unable to complete payment. Subscribers who discontinue
payments get their money back and keep the difference between
the 7 per cent. dividends and the 5 per cent. interest. In the
case of subscribers who die or are disabled while faithfully
serving the corporation, after having paid for their stock,
the five dollars per share yearly bonus is not lost, but is
paid over to them or to their estates."
Walter Wellman,
The Steel Corporation Points the Way
(American Review of Reviews, March, 1903).
"On December 31, 1908, it was reported that 22,960 employees
had purchased shares under this plan and at that date either
held the certificates or were making monthly payments for them
on account. This is about 10 per cent. of the total number of
employees, so that the scheme has not failed to enlist
support. Indeed, it appears that in certain years, in 1907,
for instance, the allotments of stock to employees were
over-subscribed by 100 per cent. In May of this present year
it was announced that since the scheme went into effect
193,493 shares of preferred stock and 15,318 of common stock
had been sold to the employees at a total price of
$17,491,680. For 1909, the preferred was allotted at $110 per
share, and the common on the basis of $50 per share. Indeed,
one might opine that of late the attention of the lucky
employee-holders might have been concentrated more on the
ticker than on the steel hammer. Their paper profits have been
figured at over $6,000,000, and it is asserted that much of the
stock has been sold by the fortunate investors."
New York Evening Post,
July 29, 1909.
{408}
A plan of profit-sharing with its employees similar to that of
the United States Steel Corporation was introduced by the
International Harvester Company, 1909, and by the Youngstown
Sheet and Tube Company at about the same time. The plan of the
former company was described very fully to the National Civic
Federation, at its tenth annual meeting in New York, November,
1909, by Mr. George W. Perkins, chairman of the finance
committee of the company. The result of the plan is "that a
man begins to buy a share of the company’s stock at a price
below the market value; he is allowed to pay for it in
instalments, paying 5 per cent. interest on deferred payments;
he is credited with 7 per cent. dividends on the preferred
stock and whatever dividends are declared on common stock. In
addition to this, he is credited with, respectively, $4 and $3
per share, each year, on the preferred and common stock, and
at the end of five years receives a further benefit by way of
a share in a fund made up of such $4 or $3 deposits as are
made by the company on account of those who do not continue
under the plan. It will be seen that this offers the men an
exceedingly satisfactory form of investment in the business in
which they are employed, and gives to the company the great
advantage of anchoring its organization to the business.
"The stock offered last summer was largely over subscribed,
and the company to-day has more than 4,300 employees as
stockholders."
LABOR REMUNERATION:
Wages Regulation by Law.
The English Trade Boards Bill.
To Suppress "Sweating" in certain Industries.
A Bill known as the Trade Boards Bill, which had passed the
House of Commons already, had its second reading in the House
of Lords, almost without opposition or serious criticism, on
the 20th of August, 1909. The second reading was moved by Lord
Hamilton of Dalzell, who said in doing so that "its object was
the establishment of a minimum rate of wages in certain
sweated industries. The establishment by statute of a
minimum rate of wages was, he supposed, a new
departure, but the regulation of the conditions of labour in
certain trades was by no means new, and ever since the passing
of the first Factory Act Parliament had from time to time
agreed to legislation having that object. Every one knew what
sweating was, and every one acknowledged it to be a great
evil. It was not a new thing, but the Government were of
opinion that the time had now come when the only practical
remedy should be applied. He understood that in Germany
legislation dealing with this subject was imminent. He
commended that fact to any one who might be afraid that by
legislation of this sort the trade of this country would be
driven abroad.
"As a matter of fact there was no reason to believe that any
trade would be killed by the Bill. He did not know of any
better proof of that than was found in the fact that almost
all connected with the trades mentioned in the schedule, both
masters and men, warmly supported the bill. He imagined that
there would be a levelling up process. Employers who had paid
fair wages would continue to do so; employers who would like
to pay fair wages but were afraid of having their prices cut
by the class below would now be able to do so, while the
genuine sweater would have to pay fair wages whether he liked
it or not. Girls living at home with their families and
married women who had no children were often willing to work
at considerably less than the market rate for the purpose of
earning a little pocket money, and it might be said that if
both parties were agreeable to this arrangement there was no
reason to interfere. Seeing, however, that these people
dragged down the level of wages and inflicted a serious injury
on those who had to carry on trade for their living, they were
included in the Bill. If their work was worth having, it must
be worth paying for. The trades selected for the purpose of
the Bill were certain parts of the tailoring trade, the paper
box making trade, certain parts of the common lace finishing
trade, and certain parts of the chain making trade. These were
all trades in which sweating was acknowledged to exist. The
Bill could be extended to other trades by a Provisional Order
Bill, and in this way the control of Parliament would be
maintained. The minimum rate of wages in the specified
trades would be regulated by a Central Trade Board assisted by
local committees. Notice would be given when it was intended
to fix a minimum rate of wages, and there would be an interval
of three months to give those who desired to raise objections
an opportunity of being heard. During the intermediary period,
which would last six months, the rate of wages fixed by the
Board would not be compulsory. He admitted that the
establishment of a minimum rate of wages was a new principle.
In certain quarters it had been objected to as an undue
interference with freedom of contract, but the principle would
only be applied where the workpeople had shown themselves
incapable of any action for themselves. The conditions in
those extreme cases clearly called for legislative action, in
the interests of the community as well as of the workpeople
themselves."
Almost every speaker who discussed the Bill, Liberal and
Conservative alike, gave it cordial support.
LABOR REMUNERATION: Wages and Cost of Living:
Germany and England compared, 1908-1909.
Results of a statistical study of labor conditions in Germany,
compared with those in Great Britain, were published by the
British Government in the summer of 1908, and the showing
favors the British workingmen. As nearly as the different
housing of their class in the two countries can be compared,
the average of German rents is to rents in England as 123 to
100; while the cost of food to the Germans is to that of the
English as 115 to 100. On the side of necessary expenditure,
therefore, the wages of the German workman are drawn upon more
heavily than the Englishman’s by fifteen or twenty per cent.,
at the least. In other words, he would need to have higher
wages than the Englishman, by as much as fifteen or twenty per
cent., to put him on a footing of equality with the latter in
the circumstances of his living. Instead of which his wages
are lower by a number of points, the statistical ratio being
83 to 100 in the average of weekly wages, and 75 to 100 in the
average of hourly rates. But this does not end his
disadvantages, for he renders more hours of work, in the
measure of 111 to 100. Notwithstanding all which handicaps, it
is quite commonly conceded that the German workingman is
physically more vigorous than the English, as a rule, and
contrives, by more thriftiness in his living, to keep it on a
higher level. Which is an extraordinarily creditable fact.
{409}
That the German workman lives and labors under the conditions
produced by a high protective tariff, which is claimed to be
protective of high wages as well as high prices, while the
British workman’s conditions of life and labor are the product
of free trade in everything but a few tariff-taxed articles of
luxury, such as wines, tobacco, silks, jewels and the like,
are facts to be borne in mind when these comparisons are
considered.
The following is from a report by the British Consul-General
on the trade and commerce of the consular district of
Frankfort-on-the-Main for the year ending April 30, 1909.
"In last year’s report it was stated that the belief was
gaining ground that wages in Germany were not only approaching
those paid in the United Kingdom for the same class of work,
but in some cases even exceeded them. That the German workman
to-day lives better than he used to there can be little doubt.
The standard of life has been raised all round; the lowest
aspect and standard of years gone by no longer exists. Food
has improved, clothes have improved, Germany has become a rich
country without the lowest grades of poverty which exist
elsewhere. Wages have been increased in keeping with the
higher level. Yet I do not think that, generally speaking, the
German workman lives as well as the British workman."
After giving a table relating to savings bank deposits the
report says that while during 1900-1905 the number of deposit
books increased by 22.7 percent, and the total deposits by 44
per cent., during 1905-1907 they increased by only 7.95 and 10
per cent. respectively. This is considered to be attributable
to the increased cost of living, and also to the fact that
"with increasing wealth people are apt to become less
thrifty."
LABOR REMUNERATION: France, Germany, and England:
Workmen’s Living Expenses compared, 1909.
A British Board of Trade report on the conditions of
industrial life in France, published in May, 1909, summarizes
as follows, in a prefatory note, the conclusions drawn from
the mass of facts collected, as to the comparative cost of
living to workmen in France, Germany, and England: "As regards
rents, it appears that the French workman pays somewhat less
than the English workman for a corresponding amount of housing
accommodation, and therefore much less than the German
workman; but against this must be set the fact that his
housing accommodation is, as a rule, decidedly inferior in
quality. The difference between the rent-levels of the capital
and of the rest of the country is quite as marked in France as
in England or Germany.
"The range of town price-levels is not very wide in any one of
the three countries investigated, and in France, as in the
other two, the differences between one town and another in the
cost of living (so far as it relates to expenditure on food)
are, as a rule, by no means great. When the relative levels of
food-prices in the three countries are compared, so far as the
data permit, it appears that the general ratio of
French prices to English prices for corresponding
commodities is the same as that of German prices.
"On the assumption which has been adopted for the purposes of
these international comparisons it follows that an English
workman, with an average family, who should go to France and
endeavour to maintain there his accustomed mode of living,
would find his expenditure on rent, food, and fuel
substantially increased—though not to so large an extent as
if he had gone to Germany. On the other hand, he would find
his wages to be lower than in the latter country and much
below the English level, in spite of longer hours.
"The results of the comparison are somewhat modified if we
take as its basis the foreign rather than the English mode of
living. A French workman living in England according to his
French standard would find a certain reduction in the cost of

food, but a rise in the cost of housing accommodation. On the
whole his expenses of living would be somewhat decreased, but
in a proportion by no means so great as that by which the
English workman would find his expenses increased on migration
to France."
LABOR REMUNERATION: United States: 1905-1906 compared with 1890.
Gains to Labor.
Bulletin No. 71 of the United States Bureau of Labor,
published in July, 1907, is devoted mainly to an elaborate
report on Wages and Hours of Labor in Manufacturing
Industries, 1890 to 1906, exhibiting "the average wages per
hour, the average hours of labor per week, and the number of
employees in both 1905 and 1906, in the leading wage-working
occupations of 4,034 establishments in the principal
manufacturing and mechanical industries of the United States."
The report does not cover salaried employees in any
industries. With it, in a separate article, the retail prices
of food in different parts of the country, 1890-1906, are
tabulated. A summary of deductions from the figures detailed
is submitted by way of preface to the tables and from this the
following is taken:
"In the year 1906 the average wages per hour in the principal
manufacturing and mechanical industries of the country were
4.5 per cent higher than in 1905, the regular hours of labor
per week were 0.5 per cent lower than in 1905, and the number
of employees in the establishments investigated was 7 per cent
greater than in 1905. The average full-time weekly earnings
per employee in 1906 were 3.9 per cent greater than in 1905.
"The variation in the purchasing power of wages may be
measured by using the retail prices of food, the expenditures
for which constitute nearly half of the expenditures for all
purposes in a workingman’s family. According to that article
[on prices] the retail prices of food, weighted according to
consumption in representative workingmen’s families, were 2.9
per cent higher in 1906 than in 1905. As the advance in wages
per hour from 1905 to 1906 was greater than the advance in the
retail prices of food, the purchasing power of an hour’s
wages, as measured by food, was greater in 1906 than in 1905.
{410}
In 1906 the purchasing power of an hour’s wages as expended
for food was 1.4 per cent greater than in 1905, and the
purchasing power of a full week’s wages was 1 per cent greater
in 1906 than in 1905, or, expressed in other words, an hour’s
wages in 1906 in the manufacturing and mechanical industries
in the United States would purchase 1.4 per cent more food
than an hour's wages in 1905, and a full week’s wages in 1906
would purchase 1 per cent more food than a full week’s wages
in 1905.
"As compared in each case with the average for the years from
1890 to 1899, the average wages per hour in 1906 were 24.2 per
cent higher, the number of employees in the establishments
investigated was 42.9 per cent greater, and the average hours
of labor per week were 4.6 per cent lower. The average
earnings per employee per full week in 1906 were 18.5 per cent
higher than the average earnings per full week during the ten
years from 1890 to 1899.
"The retail price of the principal articles of food, weighted
according to family consumption of the various articles, was
15.7 per cent higher in 1906 than the average price for the
ten years from 1890 to 1899. Compared with the average for the
same ten-year period, the purchasing power of an hour’s wages
in 1906 was 7.3 per cent greater, and of a full week’s wages
2.4 per cent greater, the increase in the purchasing power of
the full week’s wages being less than the increase in the
purchasing power of hourly wages, because of the reduction in
the hours of labor."
In 40 of the 41 industries covered by this report the greatest
increase of wages "was in the manufacture of cotton goods,
where the average wages per hour in 1906 were 11.2 per cent
higher than the average wages per hour in 1905. In the
manufacture of electrical apparatus and supplies there was an
increase in wages per hour of 10.1 per cent. In street and
sewer work done by contract the increase in wages per hour was
8.7 per cent; in iron and steel, Bessemer converting, 8.5 per
cent. and in the manufacture of cigars, 8.4 per cent. In the
manufacture of bar iron the increase in wages per hour was 6.9
per cent, and in the building trades 6.1 per cent. Briefly
stated, two industries show an increase in hourly wages of
more than 10 per cent., 7 industries an increase of 5 per cent
but less than 10 per cent., and 31 industries an increase of
less than 5 per cent. In one industry, paper and wood pulp,
there was a decrease of wages of 1.1 per cent. In the
industries as a whole, weighted according to importance, the
increase in wages was 4.5 per cent. …
"The per cent of change in hours of labor in 1906, as compared
with 1905, was not so great as the per cent of change in wages
per hour. In 5 industries there was a decrease of hours of 1
per cent or more, while in 25 industries there was a decrease
of less than 1 per cent. In 5 industries there was an increase
in hours of labor per week; in no instance, however, was the
increase more than 0.3 per cent. Five industries show no
change in hours of labor. The hours of labor were not reported
for slaughtering and meat packing, for the reason set forth in
footnote on page 58. The decrease in hours of labor in the
industries taken as a whole was 0.5 per cent.
"In 1906 there was an increase in the retail price of food,
weighted according to family consumption of 2.9 per cent as
compared with 1905, an increase of 3.6 per cent as compared
with 1904, an increase of 4.9 per cent as compared with 1903,
an increase of 4.3 per cent as compared with 1902, and an
increase of 10 per cent as compared with 1901. The retail
price of food was 21.2 per cent higher in 1906 than in 1896,
the year of lowest prices, and 15.7 per cent higher than the
average price for the ten years, 1890 to 1899."
----------LABOR REMUNERATION: End--------
LABOR TRAINING:
Technical and Industrial Education.
See (in this Volume)
EDUCATION.
LADRONES.
See (in this Volume)
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1901-1902.
LAFAYETTE, Marquis de:
Representatives of the Family invited Guests
of the United States.
See (in this Volume)
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902 (MAY).
LA FOLLETTE, Robert Marion.
See (in this Volume)
WISCONSIN: A. D. 1900-1909; also,
PUBLIC UTILITIES, REGULATION OF.
LAGERLOF, Selma.
See (in this Volume)
NOBEL PRIZES.
LAKES-TO-THE-GULF DEEP WATERWAY.
See (in this Volume)
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: UNITED STATES.
LALLA R’KIA.
See (in this Volume)
MOROCCO: A. D. 1903.
LAMA, The Dalai.
See (in this Volume)
TIBET.
LAMSDORFF, Count: Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs.
See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1901-1904.
LAND: In the United States:
Reclamation of Arid Lands.
Wasteful Culture.
See (in this Volume)
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES.
LAND: The Small Holdings Act in Great Britain.
See (in this Volume)
ENGLAND: A. D. 1907-1908.
LAND: Taxation proposed in the British Budget of 1909.
See (in this Volume)
ENGLAND A. D. 1909 (APRIL-DECEMBER).
LAND LAWS, IRISH: THE WORKING OF THE SUCCESSIVE LAWS.
The Act of 1903.
See (in this Volume)
IRELAND: A. D. 1870-1903, 1905.
LAND LAWS, RUSSIAN: THE AGRARIAN LAW.
See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (APRIL).
LAND OFFICE FRAUDS.
See (in this Volume)
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1903-1906.
LAND PURCHASE ACT, of 1909, IRISH.
See (in this Volume)
IRELAND: A. D. 1909.
LAND QUESTION, IN AUSTRALIA.
See (in this Volume)
IMMIGRATION AND EMIGRATION: AUSTRALIA.
LAND, RUSSIAN CROWN: SALE TO PEASANTS OPENED.
See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA: A. D. 1906.
LAND SYSTEM, OF NEW ZEALAND.
See (in this Volume)
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1905.
LANDIS, Judge K. M.:
Judgment against the Standard Oil Company, imposing a Fine
of $29,000,000.
See (in this Volume)
COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &C.:
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904-1909.
LANDLORDISM:
Overthrown Politically in Denmark.
See (in this Volume)
DENMARK: A. D. 1901.
LANGLEY, Samuel P.
See (in this Volume)
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: AERONAUTICS.
{411}
LANSDOWNE, Henry Charles, Marquess of:
Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
Despatch explanatory of Agreements between England and France,
April, 1904.
See (in this Volume)
EUROPE: A. D. 1904 (APRIL).
On each of the Two Defensive Agreements with Japan.
See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1902, AND 1905 (AUGUST).
On the Budget of 1909.
See (in this Volume)
ENGLAND: A. D. 1909 (APRIL-DECEMBER).
LARRINAGA, Tulio:
Delegate to Third International Conference
of American Republics.
See (in this Volume)
AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
LATHAM, Hubert.
See (in this Volume)
SCIENCE AND INVENTION; RECENT: AERONAUTICS.
LATIN BIBLE, Revised Translation of.
See (in this Volume)
PAPACY: A. D. 1907-1909.
LAURIER, Sir Wilfred, Premier of Canada:
At Colonial Conference in London, 1902.
See (in this Volume)
BRITISH EMPIRE.
At the Imperial Conference of 1907.
See (in this Volume)
BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1907.
LAURIER MINISTRY:
Supported in the Canadian Elections, 1904.
See CANADA: A. D. 1904.
LAVERAN, Charles L. A.
See (in this Volume)
NOBEL PRIZES.
LAW AND ITS COURTS: England:
Institution of a Court of Criminal Appeal.
An important innovation in the administration of criminal law
was introduced in Great Britain by an Act of Parliament "to
Establish a Court of Criminal Appeal," approved August 28,
1907. In part, the enactment was as follows:
"1.
(1) There shall be a Court of Criminal Appeal, and the Lord
Chief Justice of England and eight judges of the King’s Bench
Division of the High Court, appointed for the purpose by the
Lord Chief Justice with the consent of the Lord Chancellor for
such period as he thinks desirable in each case, shall be
judges of that court.
"(2) For the purpose of hearing and determining appeals under
this Act, and for the purpose of any other proceedings under
this Act, the Court of Criminal Appeal shall be summoned in
accordance with directions given by the Lord Chief Justice of
England with the consent of the Lord Chancellor, and the court
shall be duly constituted if it consists of not less than
three judges and of an uneven number of judges.
"If the Lord Chief Justice so directs, the court may sit in
two or more divisions. The court shall sit in London except in
cases where the Lord Chief Justice gives special directions
that it shall sit at some other place. …
"3. A person convicted on indictment may appeal under this Act
to the Court of Criminal Appeal—
(a) against his conviction on any ground of appeal
which involves a question of law alone; and
(b) with the leave of the Court of Criminal Appeal
or upon the certificate of the Judge who tried him that it
is a fit case for appeal against his conviction on any
ground of appeal which involves a question of fact alone or
a question of mixed law and fact, or any other ground which
appears to the court to be a sufficient ground of appeal;
and
(c) with the leave of the Court of Criminal Appeal
against the sentence passed on his conviction, unless the
sentence is one fixed by law.
"4.
(1) The Court of Criminal Appeal on any such appeal against
conviction shall allow the appeal if they think that the
verdict of the jury should be set aside on the ground that it
is unreasonable or cannot be supported having regard to the
evidence, or that the judgment of the court before whom the
appellant was convicted should be set aside on the ground of a
wrong decision of any question of law or that on any ground
there was a miscarriage of justice, and in any other case
shall dismiss the appeal: Provided that the court may,
notwithstanding that they are of opinion that the point raised
in the appeal might be decided in favour of the appellant,
dismiss the appeal if they consider that no substantial
miscarriage of justice has actually occurred.
"(2) Subject to the special provisions of this Act, the Court
of Criminal Appeal shall, if they allow an appeal against
conviction, quash the conviction and direct a judgment and
verdict of acquittal to be entered.
"(3) On an appeal against sentence the Court of Criminal
Appeal shall, if they think that a different sentence should
have been passed, quash the sentence passed at the trial, and
pass such other sentence warranted in law by the verdict
(whether more or less severe) in substitution therefor as they
think ought to have been passed, and in any other case shall
dismiss the appeal.
"5.
(1) If it appears to the Court of Criminal Appeal that an
appellant, though not properly convicted on some count or part
of the indictment, has been properly convicted on some other
count or part of the indictment, the court may either affirm
the sentence passed on the appellant at the trial, or pass
such sentence in substitution therefor as they think proper,
and as may be warranted in law by the verdict on the count or
part of the indictment on which the court consider that the
appellant has been properly convicted.
"(2) Where an appellant has been convicted of an offence and
the jury could on the indictment have found him guilty of some
other offence, and on the finding of the jury it appears to
the Court of Criminal Appeal that the jury must have been
satisfied of facts which proved him guilty of that other
offence, the court may, instead of allowing or dismissing the
appeal, substitute for the verdict found by the jury a verdict
of guilty of that other offence, and pass such sentence in
substitution for the sentence passed at the trial as may be
warranted in law for that other offence, not being a sentence
of greater severity.
"(3) Where on the conviction of the appellant the jury have
found a special verdict, and the Court of Criminal Appeal
consider that a wrong conclusion has been arrived at by the
court before which the appellant has been convicted on the
effect of that verdict, the Court of Criminal Appeal may,
instead of allowing the appeal, order such conclusion to be
recorded as appears to the court to be in law required by the
verdict, and pass such sentence in substitution for the
sentence passed at the trial as may be warranted in law.
"(4) If on any appeal it appears to the Court of Criminal
Appeal that, although the appellant was guilty of the act or
omission charged against him, he was insane at the time the
act was done or omission made so as not to be responsible
according to law for his actions, the court may quash the
sentence passed at the trial and order the appellant to be
kept in custody as a criminal lunatic."
{412}
LAW AND ITS COURTS: France:
Reform of Judicial Procedure in Criminal Trials.
Criticism of French judicial procedure in criminal trials,
under the system which puts the duties of a prosecuting
attorney on the judge, was much sharpened in the autumn of
1909 by the attention drawn to a sensational murder trial at
Paris—the Steinheil case. The result was to impel the
Government to undertake measures of reform, beginning with the
appointment, November 20, of an extra-Parliamentary commission
to study the whole question of reform. Within a month after
the appointment of the commission one of its leading members,
in an article in the Matin, indicated the main points
of the recommendations which the commission was already
prepared to make. It would recommend that the authority of the
President of the Assize Court should remain intact, and that
the Judge should as heretofore continue to direct the jury and
preside over the whole process of the instruction or
preliminary inquiry. In the view of the Commission the Judge's
moral authority cannot but be augmented by the proposal to
relieve him of the duty of cross-examining a prisoner at the
bar. It would be recommended that in future a summary
statement of the case by the Public Prosecutor, or in a civil
suit by the plaintiff, should be followed by a presentation of
the defendant’s case on the part of counsel for the defence.
The jury would thus be made acquainted with the issue, and the
witnesses would then be called. Each witness would be liable
to cross-examination on behalf both of the defence and of the
prosecution, and the Judge, remaining aloof from the
discussion in his new rule as arbitrator, could not but gain
moral authority in a degree which would materially promote the
ends of even-handed justice.
A Bill on these lines was introduced by the Minister of
Justice in the following month.
LAW AND ITS COURTS: International:
Naval Prize Court, and proposed Judicial Arbitration Court.
See (in this Volume)
WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1909 (OCTOBER).
LAW AND ITS COURTS: United States:
The Question of Injunctions in Labor Disputes.
The question of the issuance of writs of injunction by the
courts in connection with labor disputes came much into
discussion during the canvass preliminary to the American
presidential election of 1908, and was a prominent subject of
declaration in the platforms of the political parties.
See (in this Volume)
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908, APRIL-NOVEMBER).
Subsequently, President Taft, in his first annual message to
Congress, cited the pronouncement of the Republican party on
this question, and said: "I recommend that in compliance with
the promise thus made, appropriate legislation be adopted. The
ends of justice will best be met and the chief cause of
complaint against ill-considered injunctions without notice
will be removed by the enactment of a statute forbidding
hereafter the issuing of any injunction or restraining order,
whether temporary or permanent, by any Federal court, without
previous notice and a reasonable opportunity to be heard on
behalf of the parties to be enjoined; unless it shall appear
to the satisfaction of the court that the delay necessary to
give such notice and hearing would result in irreparable
injury to the complainant and unless also the court shall from
the evidence make a written finding, which shall be spread
upon the court minutes, that immediate and irreparable injury
is likely to ensue to the complainant, and shall define the
injury, state why it is irreparable, and shall also endorse on
the order issued the date and the hour of the issuance of the
order. Moreover, every such injunction or restraining order
issued without previous notice and opportunity by the
defendant to be heard should by force of the statute expire
and be of no effect after seven days from the issuance
thereof, or within any time less than that period which the
court may fix, unless within such seven days or such less
period, the injunction or order is extended or renewed after
previous notice and opportunity to be heard."
LAW AND ITS COURTS: National and State Legislation.
Need of Uniformity.
Movements to secure it.
Speaking in 1906 at a dinner of the Pennsylvania Society, the
Honorable Elihu Root, then United States Secretary of State,
addressed, in a few words, a very pregnant suggestion and
admonition to the lawmakers of the States in the American
Union. He spoke first of the strongly nationalized sentiment
of patriotism that has had its rapid growth of late in the
country, saying: "Our country as a whole, the noble and
beloved land of every citizen of every State, has become the
object of pride and devotion among all our people. North and
South, within the limits of the proud old colonial
commonwealths, through out that vast region where Burr once
dreamed of a separate empire dominating the valley of the
Mississippi, and upon the far distant shores of the Pacific:
and by the side of this strong and glowing loyalty to the
nation, sentiment for the separate States has become dim and
faint in comparison." Then he added, warningly: "There is but
one way in which the States of the Union can maintain their
power and authority under the conditions which are now before
us, and that way is by an awakening on the part of the States
to a realization of their own duties to the country at large.
Under the conditions which now exist, no State can live unto
itself alone and regulate its affairs with sole reference to
its own treasury, its own convenience, its own special
interests. Every State is bound to frame its legislation and
its administration with reference not only to its own social
affairs but with reference to the effect upon all its sister
States."
Quoting and affirming these remarks of the thoughtful
statesman, the National Civic Federation Review, of
July, 1909, says: "The plain truth is that the movement of
people and of merchandise goes on in our day without any
regard to State lines; and it is becoming increasingly clear
that unless the States will legislate with substantial
uniformity on a number of subjects the tendency toward
centralization and a corresponding increase of Federal power
cannot permanently be resisted."
In its preceding issue, of March, the Review had made
the following announcement: "The National Civic Federation,
through its experience in holding national conferences on such
subjects as the trusts, taxation, immigration and election
reform—conferences to which the Governors of States sent
official representatives—has become impressed with the
necessity for a systematic national effort toward securing,
within reasonable limits, more uniform legislation in the
States of the Union.
{413}
"There are useful national organizations of farmers,
manufacturers, wage-earners, bankers, merchants, lawyers,
economists and other organizations which hold national
meetings for the discussion of affairs peculiar to their own
pursuits and callings. The Civic Federation, however, provides
a forum in its annual conference for representatives of all
these elements to discuss national problems in which they have
a common interest. Heretofore there has been no effort to
crystallize into State organizations this representative
membership for the accomplishment of concrete aims.
"A committee has been appointed to organize a Council of one
hundred representative men in each State. Mr. John Hays
Hammond has accepted the chairmanship of this committee, of
which the following are also members: Messrs. Alton B. Parker,
New York; Myron T. Herrick, Ohio; David R. Francis, Missouri;
Curtis Guild, Jr., Massachusetts; Nahum J. Bachelder, New
Hampshire; Edwin Warfield, Maryland; Herman Ridder, New York;
C. F. Brooker, Connecticut; Bruce Haldeman, Kentucky; Victor
Rosewater, Nebraska; Clark Howell, Georgia; P. I. Bonebrake,
Kansas; James Lynch, Indiana; Harry Pratt Judson, Illinois; A.
H. Revell, Illinois; John B. Lennon, Illinois; John H.
Holliday, Indiana, and Benjamin Ide Wheeler, California.
"The continued existence for eighteen years of the Annual
Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, created by
the different States at the instance of the American Bar
Association, shows that the State Executives and Legislatures
are fully alive to the importance of this subject. The
last-named organization has been instrumental in securing the
passage in thirty-five States of a uniform negotiable
instruments law, and is promoting other commercial measures,
including a uniform food law to conform to the national law.
"This necessity for uniform legislation is further illustrated
by the proceedings at the annual meetings of the National
Association of the State Attorneys General and of the State
Labor Commissioners, Insurance Commissioners, etc., etc."
Discussing the subject in the July issue of the Review,
President Amasa M. Eaton of the Commissioners on Uniform State
Laws, said: "The subject of uniform legislation is in the air
all over the United States. At the instance of the President,
a National Conference to secure the conservation of our
national resources has been held in Washington, and to carry
into effect the conclusions of this Conference there must
follow uniform State legislation. At the instance of Governor
Guild a conference of the Governors of the New England States,
with other delegates, met in Boston last fall on the subject
of forestry, shell fisheries and automobiles, all subjects
calling for uniform legislation. A similar conference of the
Governors of New York and the adjoining States has met in New
York, at the instance of Governor Hughes of New York, to
consider a uniform automobile law. A National Divorce
Congress, called by Governor Pennypacker by virtue of an act
of the Legislature of Pennsylvania, has framed a uniform
divorce law which has been indorsed by the Conference of
Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. In March a Conference on
Uniform Child Labor Laws in the Southern States was held in
New Orleans at the call of the Governor of Louisiana, at which
the Governors and Delegates of those States were present. The
result was the formation of a permanent organization, with the
Governor of Louisiana as Chairman, and the executive committee
of that organization is to draft a Uniform Child Labor Law and
to submit it to the legislatures of the several Southern
States.
"All these are but expressions of the deep-seated necessity
for uniform legislation that has existed ever since we
acquired our independence of Great Britain, intensified by the
requirements of a progressive civilization knitting us ever
more and more closely into union as a nation."
The whole movement was planned to receive effective
organization at a National Conference in Washington which the
National Civic Federation, after consultation with other
bodies, announced, in the summer of 1909, its intention to
call, for January 5-7, 1910. The Conference was held
accordingly, in conjunction with a meeting of the Governors of
States, which gave attention to the same subject.
LAW AND ITS COURTS:
President Taft’s Recommendations for Expediting Procedure.
The following is from President Taft’s first annual Message to
Congress, December, 1909:
"The deplorable delays in the administration of civil and
criminal law have received the attention of committees of the
American Bar Association and of many State Bar Associations,
as well as the considered thought of judges and jurists. In my
judgment, a change in judicial procedure, with a view to
reducing its expense to private litigants in civil cases and
facilitating the dispatch of business and final decision in
both civil and criminal cases, constitutes the greatest need
in our American institutions. I do not doubt for one moment
that much of the lawless violence and cruelty exhibited in
lynchings is directly due to the uncertainties and injustice
growing out of the delays in trials, judgments, and the
executions thereof by our courts. Of course, these remarks
apply quite as well to the administration of justice in State
courts as to that in Federal courts, and without making
invidious distinction, it is, perhaps, not too much to say
that, speaking generally, the defects are less in the Federal
courts than in the State courts. But they are very great in
the Federal courts. The expedition with which business is
disposed of both on the civil and the criminal side of English
courts, under modern rules of procedure, makes the delays in
our courts seem archaic and barbarous.
"The procedure in the Federal courts should furnish an example
for the State courts. I presume it is impossible, without an
amendment to the Constitution, to unite under one form of
action the proceedings at common law and proceedings in equity
in the Federal courts, but it is certainly not impossible by a
statute to simplify and make short and direct the procedure
both at law and in equity in those courts. It is not
impossible to cut down still more than it is cut down the
jurisdiction of the Supreme Court so as to confine it almost
wholly to statutory and constitutional questions. Under the
present statutes, the equity and admiralty procedure in the
Federal courts is under the control of the Supreme Court, but
in the pressure of business to which that court is subjected,
it is impossible to hope that a radical and proper reform of
the Federal equity procedure can be brought about.
{414}
I therefore recommend legislation providing for the
appointment by the President of a commission with authority to
examine the law and equity procedure of the Federal courts of
first instance, the law of appeals from those courts to the
courts of appeals and to the Supreme Court, and the costs
imposed in such procedure upon the private litigants and upon
the public treasury, and make recommendation with a view to
simplifying and expediting the procedure as far as possible,
and making it as inexpensive as may be to the litigant of
little means."
See (in this Volume),
CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY.
LEAGUE, ALL-INDIA MOSLEM.
See (in this Volume)
INDIA: A. D. 1907 (DECEMBER).
LEAGUE OF LIBERATION.
See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.
LEAGUE OF UNION AND PROGRESS.
See (in this Volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER), and after.
LECOT, Cardinal.
See (in this Volume)
FRANCE: A. D. 1905-1906.
LEGARDA, BENITO.
See (in this Volume)
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1901.
LEGISLATION.
See (in this Volume)
LAW AND ITS COURTS.
LEGUIA, Augusto B.:
President of Peru.
See (in this Volume)
PERU: A. D. 1908-1909.
LENARD, PHILIPPE.
See (in this Volume)
NOBEL PRIZES.
LEO XIII.: Death.
See (in this Volume)
PAPACY: A. D. 1903 (JULY-AUGUST).
LEOPOLD II., KING OF BELGIUM:
His Administration of the Congo State.
See (in this Volume)
CONGO STATE.
LEOPOLD II., KING OF BELGIUM:
His death.
See (in this Volume)
BELGIUM: A. D. 1909 (DECEMBER).
LERROUX, Señor:
Socialist-Republican Leader in Spain.
See (in this Volume)
SPAIN: A. D. 1907-1909.
LÈSE MAJESTÉ:
Prosecutions in Germany.
See (in this Volume)
GERMANY: A. D. 1903 .
LETCHWORTH PARK.
See (in this Volume)
NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1907.
LEWIS, THOMAS L.:
President of the United Mine Workers of America.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909.
LEWIS AND CLARK EXPOSITION.
See (in this Volume)
PORTLAND, OREGON.
LEWIS ESTATE, Evicted Tenants of the.
See (in this Volume)
IRELAND: A. D. 1907.
LHASA: A. D. 1904.
Reached by British Expedition under Colonel Younghusband.
See (in this Volume)
TIBET: A. D. 1902-1904.
LIAO-TUNG PENINSULA.
See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-JULY).
LIAO-YANG, Battle of.
See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).
LIAUTEY, General:
Operations in Morocco.
See (in this Volume)
MOROCCO: A. D. 1907-1909, and 1909.
LIBERAL-CONSERVATIVE SEPARATIST PARTY.
See (in this Volume)
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1904.
LIBERIA: A. D. 1904-1905.
Good Relations between Colonists and Natives.
Improved Prospects.
"When it was decided in the United States to found a home for
repatriated Africans, the prior experiment of Sierra Leone
turned attention toward the same coast, and in 1821 and at
subsequent dates settlements were effected, firstly at
Monrovia, and later on at Roberts Port, Grand Basa, Sino, and
Harper (Cape Palmas). Usually those who conducted the
enterprise went through the form of buying small plats of land
from local headmen or chiefs; but, as a rule, the promoters of
this movement did not trouble overmuch about the rights of the
‘bush niggers,’ as the indigenous natives were termed.
Consequently the first fifty years of the history of Liberia
were marked by constant struggles between the
American-Liberian invaders and the native blacks. During the
last ten years, however, there has been a marked advance in
good relations between the American settlers and their native
subjects, as many of them may fairly be called. The wise
policy of President Barclay has greatly promoted this good
feeling since 1904. He has been able to assemble at different
times at the capital chiefs or their representatives from
almost all parts of Liberia, even from the Mandingo districts
just beyond the limits of the coast belt. Therefore they have
no subject of disagreement. Curiously enough one example of
this mild rule of black by black is that the white man in
Liberia is everywhere received with great friendliness,
because he is not associated in the minds of the natives with
anything like conquest or oppression.
"How far the original experiment will succeed the next twenty
years will, perhaps, indicate. The negroes of American origin
who have settled in Liberia have not, as a general rule, been
able to stand the climate very much better than Europeans,
and, as a rule, they have not been able to rear large families
of children. Yet it seems to me as though Liberians of the new
generation born in the country are beginning to take hold, but
this is partly due to the increasing and I think very sensible
practice of intermarriage with women of the fine, vigorous,
indigenous races. Probably the future of Liberia will be a
negro state very like Sierra Leone in its development, with
English as its government language, and such English or
American institutions as may prove to be suited to an African
country, a coast belt inhabited by negroes professing
Christianity and wearing clothes of European cut, and a
hinterland of Mohammedans dressed in the picturesque and
wholly suitable costume worn at the present day by the
Mandingos and by most Mohammedan negroes between Senegal and
the White Nile."
Sir Harry Johnston,
Liberia
(Annual Report, Smithsonian Institution, 1904-1905,
pages 254-255).
LIBERIA: A. D. 1907-1909.
English, French, and American attention to Conditions
in the Republic.
"The policy of the Liberian Republic has caused anxiety for
some time past both to England and to France, the Powers whose
territory adjoins the Liberian boundary. Some two years ago
President Barclay came to Europe to discuss the situation with
the British and French Governments. As a result of this
exchange of views, Liberia appointed Europeans to her Customs
Department, secured a gunboat to patrol her coast-line, and
arranged for a frontier force. These measures were approved by
the British and French Governments and also by the American
Government, and their execution was facilitated by a loan
negotiated on behalf of Liberia by the Liberian Development
Company.
{415}
The growth of British interests in the Republic led the
Foreign Office to appoint a Consul-General at Monrovia, the
capital, in the person of Captain Braithwaite Wallis, formerly
acting district commissioner in Sierra Leone. So far as the
first part of the reform programme was concerned the
consequences have been eminently satisfactory. Liberia has
been able to pay off some of her debts, and her revenue has
increased."
Correspondent London Times,
April 22, 1909.
While these movements were in progress, in June, 1908, three
commissioners from Liberia came to Washington asking for aid
in maintaining and administering its government. Probably in
course of this application, the American Ambassador in London,
Mr. Reid, addressed a note to the British Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs, on the 29th of June, in which he wrote:
"We should be glad to have your views as to how the two
Governments could best co-operate at the present time towards
promoting the welfare of Liberia."
In his reply to this Sir Edward Grey said:
"As I had the honour to explain in March last to the United
States Charge d’Affaires, his Majesty’s Government have in any
measure they may be called upon to take in Liberia no designs
whatever upon the independence or integrity of the country,
and they do not intend to undertake any responsibility with
regard to it. The services of British officials have been lent
to the Liberians solely with a view to the better preservation
of order, more particularly in that part of Liberia which
marches with Sierra Leone, and improved administration.
"The French Government also, as your Excellency is doubtless
aware, takes a special interest in the affairs of the
Republic, and his Majesty’s Government have already assured
them that they would have no objection to the services of some
French officials being lent for the same objects as the
British officials. It is doubtful, therefore, whether there is
at the present time any scope for the co-operation of the
United States Government in the Customs or police, and if they
desire to render active assistance to the Liberian Government
they will perhaps prefer to direct their attention to other
branches of the administration which are as urgently in need
of reform.
"That reforms are required in one other branch at least his
Majesty’s Government have reason to know, for among the chief
difficulties which his Majesty’s Government experience in
regard to Liberia are the frequent complaints received from
British subjects as to the treatment they receive in the
Liberian Courts. If therefore the United States could see
their way to introducing reforms into the judiciary, either by
lending the services of an official to act as judicial advisor
or in some other manner, much good would in the opinion of his
Majesty’s Government be derived not only by the various
subjects of foreign nationalities resident in the country but
also by the Liberians themselves.
"While calling attention more specially to this one branch of
the administration, which has been a frequent source of
trouble, I need hardly add that his Majesty’s Government would
welcome the co-operation of the Government of the United
States with them in Liberia in any other manner which may
appear more suitable or more desirable on a consideration of
all the circumstances."
This and other information obtained by the State Department
led President Roosevelt, on the 18th of January, 1909, to ask
Congress for an appropriation of $20,000 to pay the expenses
of a commission to go to Liberia "to examine into the
situation, confer with the officers of the Liberian
government, and with the representatives of other governments
actually present in Monrovia, and report recommendations as to
the specific action on the part of the United States most apt
to render effective relief to the Republic of Liberia under
the present critical circumstances." The conclusion reached by
the State Department was that it "is quite clear that Liberia
is very much in need of assistance, that the United States can
help her substantially, and that it is our duty to help her."
The seriousness of the situation was set forth by Secretary
Root in a memorandum to the President. Between forty and fifty
thousand civilized negroes, for the most part descendants of
the original colonists from the United States, occupy a
territory comprising 43,000 square miles, in which there are
also over a million and a half members of uncivilized native
tribes. The civilized part of the population have been to a
great degree cut off from any intimate relation with the rest
of the civilized world for two-thirds of a century. They began
with little education, with no acquired skill in the art of
government, and they have had little opportunity to improve
through intercourse with other and more advanced communities.
They find it especially difficult to control the native
tribes, or to conduct their own government in accordance with
modern requirements.
The British colony of Sierra Leone to the north and the French
possessions closing in their hinterland to the east are almost
continuously complaining of the failure of Liberia to maintain
order upon the border. "Notwithstanding the very kindly
disposition on the part of Great Britain, and the similar
disposition on the part of France, there is imminent danger
that the republic, unless it receives outside assistance, will
not be able to maintain itself very long," said Secretary
Root.
The Commission to visit Liberia was appointed in the following
April, and was conveyed soon afterward to Monrovia by a
squadron of three cruiser scouts. It was composed of three
members, Mr. W. Morgan Shuster, who had been for a number of
years in the Philippine service of the United States, Dr.
George Sale, and Mr. Emmett J. Scott, private Secretary of Dr.
Booker Washington. These Commissioners were accompanied by
Captain Sydney A. Cloman, as Military Attache, and by Major
Percy W. Ashburn, of the United States Of America Medical
Department, who would study the sanitary conditions in
Liberia.
Early in October the Commission returned, but its report to
the State Department was not transmitted to Congress until the
25th of March, 1910. It recommended an extension of prompt and
effective aid to the Liberian Government, in the refunding of
its debt, the reform of its finances, the settlement of its
boundary disputes, and the organizing of a competent
constabulary force. Also that the United States establish in
Liberia a naval coaling station and a research station.
{416}
LICENSE LAWS.
See (in this Volume)
ALCOHOL PROBLEM.
LIFE INSURANCE.
See (in this Volume)
INSURANCE.
LILIENTHAL, Otto.
See (in this Volume)
Science and Invention: Aeronautics.
LIMA, WENCESLAO DE.
See (in this Volume)
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1906-1909.
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM.
February 12, 1909, the 100th anniversary of his birth, was
made a legal holiday by act of Congress. The same bill
appropriated $50,000 for making a highway from Washington to
Gettysburg, to be known as the Lincoln Way.
LINDSEY, JUDGE BEN D.:
His Juvenile Court at Denver.
See (in this Volume)
CHILDREN, UNDER THE LAW; AS OFFENDERS.
LINEVITCH, General.
See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (SEPTEMBER-MARCH).
LIPPMAN, GABRIEL.
See (in this Volume)
NOBEL PRIZES.
LIQUOR QUESTION.
See (in this Volume)
ALCOHOL PROBLEM.
LLOYD-GEORGE, David:
President of the Board of Trade.
See (in this Volume)
ENGLAND: A. D. 1905-1906.
LLOYD-GEORGE, David:
Address at the Imperial Conference of 1907
on Preferential Trade.
See (in this Volume)
BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1907.
LLOYD-GEORGE, David:
Success in arranging for the Pacific Settlement
of Labor Disputes in the English Railway Service.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: ENGLAND: A. D. 1907-1909.
LLOYD-GEORGE, David:
Chancellor of the Exchequer.
See (in this Volume)
ENGLAND: A. D. 1908 (APRIL).
LLOYD-GEORGE, David:
On the Working of the Old Age Pensions Act and
its Disclosures of Poverty.
See (in this Volume)
POVERTY, PROBLEMS OF: PENSIONS.
LLOYD-GEORGE, David:
On the Development of the Natural Resources of Great Britain.
See (in this Volume)
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: GREAT BRITAIN.
LLOYD-GEORGE, David:
His Budget of 1909.
His speech on it.
See (in this Volume)
ENGLAND: A. D. 1909 (APRIL-DECEMBER).
LOCAL OPTION:
Progress in the United States.
See (in this Volume)
ALCOHOL PROBLEM: UNITED STATES.
LOCKOUTS.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION.
LODGE, SIR OLIVER.
See (in this Volume)
SCIENCE, RECENT: ELECTRICAL.
LODZ, Disturbances in.
See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905.
LOEB, WILLIAM, JR.:
Collector of Customs at New York.
His unearthing of Corruptions.
See (in this Volume)
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER).
LOISY, ABBÉ:
Appointment to be Professor of the History of Religions
in the College de France.
See (in this Volume)
FRANCE: A. D. 1909 (MARCH).
LONDON, ENGLAND: A. D. 1907-1909.
Control of the London County Council lost by the Progressives.
Defeat in Borough Councils Elections of 1909.
The local party of Progressives, so called, who had controlled
the London County Council since 1889, lost their majority in
the elections of the spring of 1907, and the Conservatives, or
Moderates, or Reformers, as they are variedly styled, were
brought into power, electing 120 members, against 85. The
Progressives, in their eighteen years of ascendancy, had
wrought immense changes in the great city, widening congested
streets, such as the Strand, opening great new thoroughfares
and new parks, electrifying the street railways, remodelling
antiquated public institutions, and the like. The cost of
their works had been heavy, and ratepayers had become
persuaded that there was extravagance in the progressiveness
of the party. It had antagonized many powerful interests in
the city, moreover, and the wonder seems to be that it had
been permitted to conduct the City Government so long.
Again, in elections to the borough councils, in 1909, the
Progressives lost heavily, and the Conservatives, who have
taken the name of Municipal Reformers, are strongly entrenched
in most of the boroughs. Several women were elected, 61 of
their sex having been candidates.
LONDON, ENGLAND: A. D. 1908.
Statistics of Elementary Schools.
See (in this Volume)
EDUCATION: ENGLAND: A. D. 1909.
LONDON, ENGLAND: A. D. 1908-1909.
International Naval Conference.
See (in this Volume)
War, The Revolt against: A. D. 1907
(appended to account of Second Peace Conference at The Hague).
LONG, John D.:
Secretary of the Navy.
See (in this Volume)
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1905.
LOPUKHIN, M.:
His exposure of the Police Spy, Azeff,
to the Russian Revolutionists.
See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (JANUARY-JULY).
LORDS, British House of:
Decision in case of the Free Church of Scotland.
See (in this Volume)
SCOTLAND: A. D. 1904.
LORDS, British House of:
Defeat of Education Bill, 1906.
See (in this Volume)
EDUCATION: ENGLAND: A. D. 1906.
LORDS, British House of:
Menaced Limitation of its Legislative Powers
by the House of Commons.
Its own proposals of Constitutional Change.
See (in this Volume)
ENGLAND: A. D. 1906 (APRIL-DECEMBER); 1907-1908;
1909 (APRIL-DECEMBER), and 1910.
LORDS, British House of:
Rejection of Licensing Bill.
See (in this Volume)
ALCOHOL PROBLEM: ENGLAND: A. D. 1908.

LORDS, British House of:
Rejection of Budget of 1909.
See (in this Volume)
ENGLAND: A. D. 1909 (APRIL-DECEMBER).
LORENTZ, HENRIK ANTON.
See (in this Volume)
NOBEL PRIZES.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA:
Recent Rapid Growth of the City.
"The advance of this city to the important position of
metropolis of Southern California falls into two quite
distinct periods, each, however, beginning with the advent of
a transcontinental railroad. The first period opened with the
completion of the Southern Pacific Railroad as a through line
from San Francisco to the East, in 1881, and saw the
transformation of Los Angeles from a sleepy, half-Spanish town
of about 12,000 souls into a bustling progressive city of
70,000 population. The second period of advance began with the
entrance of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad in
1885. This improved communication with the States east of the
Rocky Mountains gave an impetus to tourist travel, especially
in the winter season, and the fame of the city and of near-by
localities as places of winter resort spread far and wide. The
people of Los Angeles were quick to recognize the opportunity
for gain and the whole community joined in methods of
advertising of the most systematic character. By the aid of
its local press and through the agency of an energetic Chamber
of Commerce Los Angeles has become one of the best known
cities of North America.
{417}
"Since 1900, railroad communication has been further improved
by the opening of an additional road to San Francisco by way
of the ocean shore and the Salinas and Santa Clara Valleys.
This line, known as the Southern Pacific ‘Coast Line,’ avoids
the heavy grades of the Tehachapi Mountains and greatly
shortens the running time between Los Angeles and San
Francisco. The opening of the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt
Lake Railroad eastward of Los Angeles in 1903 gave the city
direct connection with the central Rocky Mountain region.
"Two other important influences within the past decade
contributed to the city’s remarkable advance in wealth and
population. These are the building of a vast system of
suburban electric railways making a large region of fertile
attractive land, now densely populated, directly tributary to
Los Angeles, and secondly, the introduction of cheap fuel
through the discovery of local supplies of oil. The net-work
of suburban electric railways of which Los Angeles is the
center is one of the most perfect in the world. These lines
reach out in every direction through distances of from 10 to
50 miles, and connect Los Angeles with the many rapidly
growing cities of Los Angeles County and its neighbor, Orange
County.
"Manufacturing in Los Angeles was for a long time handicapped
by the high cost of fuel. This difficulty has been removed by
the introduction of crude oil as fuel, and the city now has
over 1500 manufacturing establishments, employing over 12,000
people, with an annual output of over $40,000,000. These
include rolling mills, brass-works, paper-box factories,
manufactories of mining machinery, pumps, glass, etc. Los
Angeles is becoming a manufacturing center for the mining and
agricultural lands of Utah, Southern Nevada, Arizona, New
Mexico and the Northern parts of Mexico, as well as Southern
California itself.
"The steady expansion of Los Angeles has been maintained by a
policy of annexation of suburbs. The latest event in this line
of growth has elevated the city into the rank of a sea-port.
The city has long enjoyed abundant means of ocean traffic by
way of Santa Monica, Redondo and San Pedro, but by the
annexation of San Pedro and Wilmington, in 1906, with a
connecting strip of territory 19 miles long by ½ mile in
width, Los Angeles itself becomes a sea-port with the control
of traffic on San Pedro Bay. The city thus achieves an extreme
length from north to south of 33 miles."
Frederick H. Clark, Head of History Department,
Lowell High School, San Francisco.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA:
Experiments and Experiences in Municipal Government.
See (in this Volume)
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1905-1909.
Water Supply.
The Owens River Aqueduct.
"The present water supply of the city of Los Angeles is taken
from the flow of the Los Angeles River, supplemented by the
underground flow of the San Fernando Valley in which the river
lies. The demand for water within the city is supplemented by
the need for water for irrigation purposes in the surrounding
country. Some years ago it became evident that an increased
supply must be obtained, or the further development of the
city and its environs be brought to a standstill. Extensive
investigations resulted in the decision that Owens River
offered the best source of supply. This river, the principal
drainage of the Owens Valley region, at the base of the Sierra
Nevada Mountains, has a large number of tributaries, and
empties into Owens Lake, from which the waters escape by
evaporation only. The Los Angeles authorities adopted the plan
of an aqueduct to conduct the waters of this river along the
mountain slopes, over the Mojave Desert, and, by tunnel,
through the San Fernando Mountains, to their city,--a total
distance of 217½ miles. On the 7th of September, 1905, an
election was held at which the voters of Los Angeles, by a
majority of about fourteen to one, declared in favor of a bond
issue of $23,000,000 for the undertaking. Besides the
construction of the conduit, the project includes the building
of a large reservoir in Long Valley, above the Owens Valley
proper, for the storage of flood waters; also the construction
of a system of additional reservoirs along the line of the
aqueduct for the regulation of flow as well as for storage;
and a terminal reservoir from which the distributing system
proceeds. All of this work is well under way at this date
(1909), and according to the last published report of the
Aqueduct Bureau the chief engineer confidently expects that
this great project will be brought to completion within the
estimated period of five years--and within the estimated cost
of $23,000,000.
"Outside of the above estimates, the City also plans to build
a great electric power plant which will utilize the drop of
1500 feet where the aqueduct emerges from the San Fernando
Mountains. This plant is estimated to cost from $4,500,000 to
$5,000,000, and through the sale of electric power will become
the source of very considerable revenue to the City. Taken
altogether this Owens River Aqueduct is the greatest municipal
undertaking in California at the present time, and one of the
most important engineering achievements of recent years."
Frederick H. Clark, Head of History Department,
Lowell High School, San Francisco.
LOUBET, Emile:
President of France.
See (in Volume VI.)
FRANCE: A. D. 1899 (FEBRUARY-JUNE).
LOUBET, Emile:
Visit to the King of Italy.
See (in this Volume)
FRANCE: A. D. 1905-1906.
LOUBET, Emile:
Expiration of term as President of the French Republic.
See (in this Volume)
FRANCE: A. D. 1906.
LOUISIANA: A. D. 1908.
Enactment against Race-track Gambling.
See (in this Volume)
GAMBLING.
LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXPOSITION.
See (in this Volume)
ST. LOUIS: A. D. 1904.
LOW, Seth:
Mayor of New York.
See (in this Volume)
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1901-1903.
LOWELL, ABBOTT LAWRENCE:
President of Harvard University.
See (in this Volume)
EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1909.
LOWTHER, JAMES WILLIAM:
Elected Speaker of the House of Commons.
See (in this Volume)
ENGLAND: A. D. 1905 (JUNE).
LUBIN, DAVID:
Originator of International Institute of Agriculture.
See (in this Volume)
AGRICULTURE.
{418}
LUIZ FELIPE, CROWN PRINCE OF PORTUGAL:
His assassination.
See (in this Volume)
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1906-1909.
"LUSITANIA,"
The Turbine Steamship.
See (in this Volume)
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: TURBINE ENGINE.
LUZURIAGA, JOSÉ.
See (in this Volume)
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1901.
M.
McADOO, WILLIAM GIBBS.
See (in this Volume)
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1900-1909.
McANENY, GEORGE:
President of the Borough of Manhattan.
See (in this Volume)
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1909.
McCALL, JOHN A.:
President of New York Life Insurance Company.
See (in this Volume)
INSURANCE, LIFE.
McCLELLAN, GEORGE B.:
Mayor of New York.
See (in this Volume)
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1901-1903, and 1905.
McCURDY, RICHARD A.:
President of Mutual Life Insurance Company.
See (in this Volume)
INSURANCE, LIFE.
MACDONALD COLLEGE, The Founding of.
See (in this Volume)
EDUCATION: CANADA: A. D. 1907.
MACEDONIA:
The recent use of the Name.
As employed very commonly at the present time, the name
Macedonia simply signifies that part of the small remainder of
the Turkish Empire in Europe which coincides nearly with the
original Macedonia of ancient history. It is applied to the
three Turkish vilayets or provinces of Salonika, Monastir and
Kossovo, which have been the scene for years of conditions of
strife and misery that are worse, perhaps, than can be found
elsewhere in the world. Whether the wretched inhabitants have
suffered more from their political masters, the Turks, than
from their Bulgarian and Greek neighbors, who covet the ground
they occupy, seems to be much of a question. For some account
of the Macedonian troubles of late years.
See (in this Volume)
TURKEY.
MCKENNA, REGINALD: First Lord of the British Admiralty.
Speech on the Navy Estimates, 1909.
See (in this Volume)
WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: NAVAL.
MACKENZIE BASIN, Report on the.
See (in this Volume)
CANADA: A. D. 1909.
MCKINLEY, WILLIAM:
President of the United States.
His assassination.
See (in this Volume)
BUFFALO: A. D. 1901, and
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901 (SEPTEMBER).
MCKINLEY, WILLIAM:
Last public utterance.
See (in this Volume)
TARIFFS: UNITED STATES.
MACLAURIN, RICHARD C.:
President of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
See (in this Volume)
EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1909.
MACLEAN, Kaid Sir Harry:
Capture by Raisuli and ransom.
See (in this Volume)
MOROCCO: A. D. 1904-1909.
MACVEAGH, FRANKLIN:
Secretary of the Treasury.
See (in this Volume)
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909 (MARCH).
MACVEAGH, FRANKLIN:
On the corruptions in the United States Customs Service.
See (in this Volume)
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER).
MADAGASCAR:
Agreement of England and France concerning matters in.
See (in this Volume)
EUROPE: A. D. 1904 (APRIL).
MADRIZ, Dr.: President of Nicaragua.
See (in this Volume)
CENTRAL AMERICA: A. D. 1909.
MAGHRABI, AMINA HAFIZ.
See (in this Volume)
EDUCATION: EGYPT.
MAGHREB EL-AKSA.
See (in this Volume)
MOROCCO.
MAGOON, CHARLES E.:
Governor of the Panama Canal Zone.
See (in this Volume)
PUBLIC HEALTH: PANAMA CANAL.
MAGOON, CHARLES E.:
Provisional Governor of Cuba.
See (in this Volume)
CUBA: A. D. 1906 (AUGUST-OCTOBER), and 1906-1909.
MAHDI, THE MOORISH: BU HAMARA.
See (in this Volume)
MOROCCO: A. D. 1903-1904.
MAHDI, A New:
His summary destruction.
See (in this Volume)
AFRICA: A. D. 1903 (SUDAN).
MAHMUD SHEVKET PASHA:
Commander of the Turkish Constitutional Forces.
See (in this Volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (JANUARY-MAY).
MAHOMET and MAHOMETAN.
See (in this Volume)
MOHAMMED and MOHAMMEDAN.
MAKAROFF, Admiral.
See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-AUGUST).
MALARIA.
See (in this Volume)
PUBLIC HEALTH: MALARIA.
MALAY PENINSULA: A. D. 1909.
Cession of Three States to Great Britain.
See (in this Volume)
SIAM: A. D. 1909.
MANCHURIA: A. D. 1901-1904.
Persistent occupation by the Russians.
Remonstrances by the Japanese.
See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1901.
MANCHURIA: A. D. 1903.
Treaty opening two new Ports to Foreign Trade.
See (in this Volume)
CHINA: A. D. 1903 (MAY-OCTOBER).
MANCHURIA: A. D. 1904.
The Russo-Japanese War.
See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-JULY), and after.
MANCHURIA: A. D. 1905.
Treaty between China and Japan.
See (in this Volume)
CHINA: A. D. 1905 (DECEMBER).
MANCHURIA: A. D. 1908-1909.
The question of Municipalities on the line of the Chinese
Eastern Railway.
New Russo-Chinese Agreement.
See (in this Volume)
CHINA: A. D. 1909 (MAY).
MANICKTOLLAH GARDEN, The.
See (in this Volume)
INDIA: A. D. 1907-1908.
MANIKALAND.
See (in this Volume)
AFRICA.
MANILLA: A. D. 1900-1902.
The Stamping Out of the Bubonic Plague.
See (in this Volume)
PUBLIC HEALTH.
MANITOBA: A. D. 1901-1902.
Census.
Increased Representation in Parliament.
See (in this Volume)
CANADA: A. D. 1901-1902.
MANNESMANN CONCESSION, The.
See (in this Volume)
MOROCCO: A. D. 1909.
MANUEL II.: King of Portugal.
See (in this Volume)
PORTUGAL.
MARCONI, Guglielmo.
See (in this Volume)
SCIENCE, RECENT: ELECTRICAL.
See, also,
NOBEL PRIZES.
MARISCAL, Ignacio:
Honorary President of Second International Conference of
American Republics.
See (in this Volume)
AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
MARRAKESH (Morocco City), Events at.
See (in this Volume)
MOROCCO: A. D. 1907-1909.
{419}
MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE’S SISTER:
English Act to legalize it.
See (in this Volume)
ENGLAND: A. D. 1907 (AUGUST).
MARSEILLES: A. D. 1902.
Strikes of Dock Laborers, Sailors, and Stokers.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: FRANCE: A. D. 1902.
MARTENS, Frederick de.
See (in this Volume)
NOBEL PRIZES.
MARTINIQUE:
Volcanic Explosion of Mont Pelée.
See (in this Volume)
VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS: WEST INDIES.
MARYLAND: A. D. 1909.
Defeat of Disfranchising Amendment to the Constitution.
See (in this Volume)
ELECTIVE FRANCHISE; UNITED STATES.
MASCHINE, Colonel:
Leader of the Assassins of King Alexander, at Belgrade.
See (in this Volume)
BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: SERVIA.
MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1909.
Seeking a Leader for an Educational Revolution.
See (in this Volume)
EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909.
MASSACRES:
In Asia Minor.
See (in this Volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (APRIL-DECEMBER).
MASSACRES:
Of "Bloody Sunday" in St. Petersburg.
See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905.
MASSACRES:
Of Jews at Kishineff.
See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA: A. D. 1903 (APRIL).
MATOS, Manuel A.
See (in this Volume)
VENEZUELA: A. D. 1902-1904.
MATSUKATA, Count.
See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1903 (JUNE).
MATTER, New Theory of.
(See in this Volume)
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: PHYSICAL.
MAURA, Señor:
Prime Minister of Spain.
See (in this Volume)
SPAIN: A. D. 1901-1904, and 1907-1909.
"MAURETANIA,"
The Turbine Steamship.
See (in this Volume)
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: TURBINE ENGINE.
MAURETANIE, French.
See (in this Volume)
MOROCCO: A. D. 1909.
MAY LAWS, The.
See (in this Volume)
EDUCATION: PRUSSIA: A. D. 1904.
MECCA:
Railway from Damascus.
See (in this Volume)
RAILWAYS (TURKEY, ASIATIC: A. D. 1908).
MEDJLISS
MEJLIS:
The Persian Parliament or National Assembly.
See (in this Volume)
CONSTITUTION OF PERSIA.
Also
PERSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.
MELILLA:
Spanish hostilities with Moors.
See (in this Volume)
MOROCCO: A. D. 1909.
MENDEL, GREGOR, and his Law of Variation in Species.
See (in this Volume)
SCIENCE AND INVENTION: BIOLOGICAL.
MENELEK:
Emperor of Ethiopia.
See (in this Volume)
ABYSSINIA: A. D. 1902.
MERRY DEL VAL, CARDINAL.
See (in this Volume)
FRANCE: A. D. 1905-1906.
MERSINA:
Moslem attack on Armenians.
See (in this Volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (JANUARY-MAY).
MESSINA:
Its destruction by Earthquake.
See (in this Volume)
EARTHQUAKES: ITALY.
METCALF, VICTOR H.:
Secretary of Commerce and Labor, and Secretary of the Navy.
See (in this Volume)
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1905, and 1905-1909.
METCHNIKOFF, PROFESSOR ELIE.
See (in this Volume)
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: OPSONINS.
See, also,
NOBEL PRIZES.
MEXICO: A. D. 1901-1902.
Invitation and entertainment of Second International
Conference of American Republics.
See (in this Volume)
AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
MEXICO: A. D. 1902 (May).
Arbitration of the Pious Fund Question, between
the United States and Mexico.
From 1868 until 1902 a claim of the United States against
Mexico had been in dispute. It related to the right of the
Catholic missions in that part of old California which now
forms the American State of California to a portion of the
income from a certain fund which pious people of Spain and
Mexico, more than two centuries ago, had established for the
support of Catholic missions among the California Indians. In
1767 the Jesuits who held the fund were driven from the
country and the Spanish Government assumed the trust, which in
turn devolved on Mexico when that colony acquired
independence. When upper California was ceded to this country
Mexico ceased to pay to the missions there the portion of the
income due them. Their claim was finally taken up by the
American Government, to be pressed against, the Mexican, and,
after years of diplomatic controversy, was referred, May 22d,
1902, to the Hague Tribunal for arbitration. This has the
distinction of being the first controversy submitted to that
permanent tribunal. The decision of the Tribunal was rendered
on the 14th of October, 1902, in favor of the California
claim, requiring Mexico to pay $1,420,682 (Mexican currency)
of past dues, and $43,051 annually thereafter.
MEXICO: A. D. 1903.
New Legislative Palace, and other Government Buildings.
"The cities and towns of Mexico are improving at a surprising
rate, and the capital city especially is just now in the midst
of the greatest building boom that has ever, perhaps, been
known in any Latin-American city except Buenos Ayres. The
interesting monthly publication entitled Modern Mexico informs
us that the federal government alone is entering upon an
investment approximating $50,000,000 in new buildings in the
City of Mexico.
"The greatest of these buildings is the so-called Legislative
Palace, corresponding to our Capitol building at Washington.
The foundations of this building are now being laid, and it
will cost, perhaps, $20,000,000. The City of Mexico has
adopted the wise European plan of carefully regulating the
height of new buildings, and preventing the construction of
anything that would be inartistic or out of keeping with the
harmony of the city’s architecture. Next to the Legislative
Palace, perhaps the most imposing of the new Mexican buildings
will be the National Pantheon, which is to cost more than
$5,000,000, and is to be at once a memorial to Mexico’s
eminent men and a place for their entombment. Several of the
executive departments are to be housed in the buildings now
approaching completion."
American Review of Reviews,
October, 1903.
MEXICO: A. D. 1903.
Agreement for Settlement of Claims against Venezuela.
See (in this Volume)
VENEZUELA: A. D. 1902-1904.
{420}
MEXICO: A. D. 1904-1905.
Arbitration Treaty with the United States.
Reelection of President Diaz for a Seventh Term.
Extension of the Term.
Currency Reform.
End of the Free Zone.
"Mexico was one of the countries with which the United States
government negotiated an arbitration treaty early in the year
[1905], a treaty which was dropped, like its fellows, by the
Washington administration, because of the Senate amendments. …
Though the tentative arbitration treaty between the United
States and Mexico … fell through, another very practical and
useful arbitration convention was concluded between the two
nations during the year. This was the convention agreed to in
principle during the Pan-American Conference in the city of
Mexico in the winter of 1901-1902, which provides for the
settlement by arbitration of all international questions
growing out of pecuniary claims. The representatives of
several of the nations taking part in that conference affixed
their signatures to this preliminary compact, and it has since
become operative among a number of them. It was ratified by
the Mexican Senate during its spring sessions. As pecuniary
claims have in point of fact been one of the most fruitful
sources of difficulty between the United States and the other
nations of the western hemisphere, the conclusion of an
agreement, in a binding form, to dispose by arbitration of any
such cases as may arise in the future, is a distinct gain for
the cause of the rational adjustment of international
controversies, and is a guarantee, not indeed absolute, but
most substantial, of lasting peace among the nations of this
continent. …
"There were no striking developments in the political
situation in Mexico. On December 1 of the previous year (1904)
President Diaz had entered on his sixth consecutive term and
his seventh term in all. By a constitutional amendment, a
regular vice-president of the republic, for the first time
since the early days of Mexico’s history, took the oath of
office at the same time as the president, on December 1, 1904.
The gentleman previously elected, and now occupying the
position of vice-president, is the Honorable Ramon Corral,
formerly governor of the state of Sonora. By virtue of another
constitutional amendment, the present and future presidential
terms will be six years, instead of four as formerly. …
"A measure of vital importance to the economic well-being of
the nation was promulgated on March 25, 1905. This was the
decree for the reform of the currency, issued by the Executive
under an enabling Act of Congress, approved on December 9,
1904. The new monetary system, due to the initiative of the
very able finance minister Señor José Yves Limantour, went
into effect on the first of May, but the free coinage of
silver ceased on April 16. Broadly speaking, the new system
gives Mexico a fifty-cent dollar. It declares that the
theoretical unit of the monetary system of the United Mexican
States is represented by seventy-five centigrams of pure gold,
and is denominated a peso. …
"On July 1 that time-honored institution known as the Free
Zone ceased to exist."
F. R. Guernsey,
The Year in Mexico
(Atlantic Monthly, February, 1906).
MEXICO: A. D. 1906.
Celebration of the Centenary of Benito Juarez.
His relation to the Secularizing Movement a generation ago.
Present Pacific Relations between Church and State.
"Though Juarez is generally credited with the paternity of the
laws generically known as the Reform Laws, and although he
undoubtedly was the life and soul of the secularizing movement
of his day, it is worthy of note that he had no formal
participation in the chief measures framed against the Church.
… He was not a signatory of the Constitution of 1857, which
first attacked the existence of the religious orders; the law
for the confiscation of church property was framed by Miguel
Lerdo de Tejada, the Finance Minister of President Comoufort
(1856); and the constitutional amendments which definitely
established the separation of Church and State, instituted
civil marriage, placed monastic communities outside the pale
of the law, and forbade open-air religious services, were not
enacted until 1873 and 1874, after the death of Juarez, and
during the presidency of Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada.
"March 21, 1906, was, by a decree of Congress, observed as a
general holiday in Mexico. Pilgrimages to the tomb of Juarez
took place in the morning; commemorative tablets were unveiled
in the afternoon, and at night General Diaz, surrounded by his
cabinet, presided in the Arbeu Theatre at an apotheosis of
Juarez, during which the career and character of the reforming
president were extolled in an eloquent oration by Honorable
Justo Sierra, Minister of Public Instruction. On the stage
with the President during these exercises were the son and
other surviving descendants of Juarez, who are numerous.
"Curiously enough, a question involving the interpretation of
the Reform Laws arose soon after the celebration of the Juarez
centenary. The ministers of all denominations in Mexico had
been accustomed to conduct a service at the graveside in
connection with the burial of the dead. It was generally held
that this practice did not conflict with Article 5 of the Law
of December 14, 1874, forbidding all forms of religious
service other than those held inside the churches. But in May,
1906, the Interior Department issued a circular declaring
open-air burial services conducted in the cemeteries to be
illegal. This rule has led to the erection of mortuary chapels
in the cemeteries which previously were unprovided with them,
and the burial services are held inside these chapels.
"While this episode shows that there is no intention on the
part of the governmental authorities of Mexico to relax one
iota of the laws which curtailed the power of the Church, it
is worthy of note that there is no serious religious conflict
in Mexico at the present time; and, under laws which are
probably as restrictive as those recently enacted in France,
which have so agitated that country, Church and State in the
Mexican Republic move smoothly in their separate orbits, with
conciliatory if not cordial sentiments toward each other."
F. R. Guernsey,
The Year in Mexico
(Atlantic Monthly, March, 1907).
MEXICO: A. D. 1906.
Joint Action with the United States
in Central American Mediation.
See (in this Volume)
CENTRAL AMERICA.
{421}
MEXICO: A. D. 1906.
Participation in Third International Conference
of American Republics.
See (in this Volume)
AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
MEXICO: A. D. 1906.
Nationalizing the Railway System.
See (in this Volume)
RAILWAYS: MEXICO.
MEXICO: A. D. 1909.
Extended Governmental Control of Railways.
See (in this Volume)
RAILWAYS: MEXICO.
MEXICO: A. D. 1909.
The Last Year of the Sixth Consecutive Term of Porfirio Diaz
in the Presidency.
His long practical Autocracy, and its effects on the Nation.
A Mexican View.
Since Napoleon remodeled a French republic into an empire
there has been nothing of its kind in political workmanship to
equal the masterpiece of practical autocracy which Porfirio
Diaz has erected in Mexico, on a basis of nominal democracy,
within the last 30 years. He has not throned or crowned
himself, as Napoleon did, which saves his work from the
vulgarity that the Corsican could not resist; but he has
exercised more than the sovereignty that imperial seats and
trappings could invest him with.
On the 1st of December, 1909, Diaz entered the last year of
his sixth consecutive term in the presidency—his seventh term
in all—the previous term of four years having now been
lengthened to six. Since 1884 he has held the reins of
Government by what seems to have become sheer mastery,
whatever of free popular election there may have been at the
outset of his official career. If internal and external peace,
general good order, rapid progress on all lines of material
advancement, great gains in public education and a general
uplift of the country in its standing before the world were
sufficient fruits of his government to test its quality by,
then Mexico might well be satisfied with it and with him; for
the beneficence of his autocracy on this side of its working
appears to be beyond dispute. But Mexico appears to have begun
to feel the cost in public character and spirit which
paternalized government must always exact for the superficial
benefits it bestows, and the country is said to be filled with
more than discontent.
A notable Mexican writer, Rafael de Zayes Enriquez, who is
described as a lifelong friend and supporter of Diaz, has been
bold enough to give voice to the existing feeling in a recent
book. The long administration of the masterful president is
recounted and studied with honest friendliness, for the open
purpose of addressing plain truths to the man whose life and
work are discussed. "You have disarmed the judiciary and the
Legislature," he is told, "until they are impotent, and in
reality nothing more than branches of the executive."
"Imitating the high example, almost everyone in Mexico who has
any power abuses it, and the cowed public submits." "Everyone
is permitted to despise the public and to treat it
tyrannically." And the honest friend who thus commands the
attention of Diaz to the evil workings of his dictatorship,
appeals for the ending of it—for the restoration of a
nullified constitution, for free elections, for independent
legislatures and courts; for the averting of otherwise
inevitable storms of revolution, and for the saving of himself
from a verdict of history, that "he created a nation, but
destroyed a people."
On the other hand there are foreign observers in Mexico who
believe that Diaz holds the peace and prosperity of the
country in his hand. A Press correspondent wrote not long
since: "He, Diaz, alone saved us from a disastrous panic last
fall, the effects of which would have reached beyond our
boundaries. The Government compelled the Banco Nacional to
advance ready money to every institution that was in need and
intrinsically sound. The bank was likewise compelled to sell
exchange at a loss, so that the failure to keep silver at a
parity was less apparent. The Government stood this loss.
About January first one of the largest mercantile houses in
Mexico, with many branches, was in serious difficulty. Its
chief went straight to President Diaz, and said that he must
have a million dollars or fail. Recognizing that the failure
of this house would precipitate a panic, the Government let
him have the money. … In my opinion, the most serious menace
to the prosperity of Mexico is the fear that President Diaz is
not as strong physically as is popularly believed. … The least
of the evils which might come from his death, should it occur
soon, would be increase in business stagnation and in popular
unrest. Many politicians seem ready to avail themselves of the
present wide-spread dislike of foreigners. The ferment of
anti-foreign leaven is working among the masses."
Whatever may be the kind and quality of the domination he has
exercised for twenty-five years, Mexico must inevitably be put
to a crucial test when he drops the helm of state.
MEXICO: A. D. 1909.
Meeting of President Diaz with President Taft.
See (in this Volume)
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER).
MEXICO: A. D. 1909 (FEBRUARY).
Participation in a North American Conference on the
Conservation of Natural Resources.
See (in this Volume)
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: NORTH AMERICA.
MEYER, GEORGE VON L.:
Postmaster-General.
See (in this Volume)
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1905-1909; SECRETARY OF THE NAVY.
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909 (MARCH).
MICHELSEN, PROFESSOR ALBERT A.:
Inventor of the Interferometer.
See (in this Volume)
SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT.
See, also,
NOBEL PRIZES.
MICHELSEN, M.:
Premier of Norway.
See (in this Volume)
NORWAY: A. D. 1902-1905.
MICHIGAN: A. D. 1909.
Legislation giving Home Rule to Cities.
See (in this Volume)
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: MICHIGAN.
MIDHAT PASHA.
See (in this Volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER).
MIGNOT, Bishop.
See (in this Volume)
FRANCE: A. D. 1905-1906.
MIGUEL, Dom:
Pretender to the Crown of Portugal.
See (in this Volume)
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1909.
MIGUELISTAS.
See (in this Volume)
CUBA: A. D. 1906-1909.
MILIOUKOV, PROFESSOR PAUL.
See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.
MILLERAND, M.:
Minister of Public Works, Posts, and Telegraphs
in the Briand Cabinet.
See (in this Volume)
FRANCE: A. D. 1909 (JULY).
MILNER, Alfred, Lord:
In South Africa.
See (in this Volume)
SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1901-1902, and after.
MILWAUKEE REFRIGERATOR TRANSIT CASE.
See (in this Volume)
COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1906.
{422}
MIN, General: Assassination of.
See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA: A. D. 1906.
MINDANAO, Conditions in.
See (in this Volume)
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1901-1902.
MINE OWNERS’ ASSOCIATION, WESTERN.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1899-1907.
MINERS AND MINING.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR.
MINING, Wasteful.
See (in this Volume)
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES.
MINNESOTA: A. D. 1908.
Organization of Coöperative Stores.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR REMUNERATION: COOPERATIVE ORGANIZATION.
MINTO, Gilbert John Murray K. Elliott, Earl of:
Governor-General of Canada.
See (in this Volume)
CANADA: A. D. 1904.
MINTO, Gilbert John Murray K. Elliott, Earl of:
Viceroy of India.
His initiation of the Reform in Indian Government by
the Indian Councils Bill.
See (in this Volume)
INDIA: A. D. 1908-1909.
MIRSKY, Prince Svyatopolk.
See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905.
MISSIONS, Christian:
At Large: Notable Movements of 1910.
"The year 1910 will be notable in the annals of foreign
missions. The Laymen’s Missionary Movement, now holding
meetings in this city, plans an educative campaign covering
over seventy centres and culminating next May in a national
congress in Chicago. The Student Volunteer Movement, which
enrols in its mission study classes over 25,000 collegians,
and which has sent over 4,000 workers to the foreign field,
has just closed a conference at Rochester, where were
assembled nearly 3,000 college men and women. In this month
also is the gathering of medical missionaries at Battle Creek,
Michigan. Next June the important World Missionary Conference
takes place in Edinburgh. In October the country’s oldest
foreign missionary organization, the American Board,
celebrates its centennial in connection with the National
Congregational Council at Boston."
New York Evening Post,
January 10, 1910.
MISSIONS, Christian: China: A. D. 1906-1907.
"In view of the recent remarkable awakening in China, and the
strong desire on the part of the Chinese for a knowledge of
Western civilisation and science, an influential Committee,
‘The China Missions Emergency Committee,’ was appointed last
year, including in its membership an equal number of prominent
representatives of the Anglican Church as well as of the Free
Churches of Great Britain, to consider in what ways it might
assist the missionary societies and their representatives in
China in adjusting and extending their existing operations, so
that the momentous demands now made upon them by the
surprising changes of thought and policy that have so suddenly
emerged, may be adequately met. …
"It appointed as its representatives the Reverend Lord William
and Lady Florence Gascoyne-Cecil, of Hatfield; Sir Alexander
R. Simpson, of Edinburgh; Professor Alexander Macalister, of
Cambridge; and Mr. Francis William Fox, of London, to attend
the Missionary Conference held at Shanghai from April 26th to
May 7th last, and also to pay a series of visits to
missionaries and mission stations, for the purpose of learning
from the most experienced missionaries what measures should be
adopted to meet the new demands that had arisen."
"We found everywhere throughout the Chinese Empire that
greater religious liberty is enjoyed than is the case in many
other parts of the world, and that, so long as the laws of the
country are observed, there is, theoretically, no interference
with the conscientious opinions of individuals, with, however,
the exceptions that Chinese officials are required
occasionally to perform certain ceremonies of an idolatrous
character. …
"In the year 1906, as before stated, there were approximately
3,750 Foreign Protestant Missionaries residing in China. Of
these, 1,950 were British, 1,457 American, and some 343
Continental and Independent Workers.
The number of Bible Women:
In 1876, 90;
in 1889, 180;
in 1906, 894.
Number of Boys’ and Girls’ Day Schools:
In 1878, 289;
in 1906, 385.
Number of Scholars in Day Schools:
In 1876, 4,909;
in 1889, 16,836;
in 1906, 42,546.
Number of Intermediate, High Schools and Colleges:
In 1906, 389.
Number of Students in Colleges, etc. (male and female):
In 1906, 15,137.
Total number of Scholars and Students:
In 1906, 57,683.
"By the commencement of 1908 it is estimated that the total
number of Foreign Protestant Missionaries in China will be at
least 4,000. The number of Mission Stations (including the sub
or smaller ones) is about 5,750. The ordained Chinese Pastors
and other Chinese Preachers are now about 6,000. The number of
recognized Protestant Church (full) Members and Catechumens is
estimated as 250,000, which, with the addition of children and
others not regarded as in full connection, represents a total
of about 1,000,000 persons who are more or less closely
connected with the Protestant Christian Churches of China."
F. W. Fox, A. Macalister, and A. R. Simpson,
Christian Missions in China
(Contemporary Review, February, 1908).
See, also, (in this Volume)
EDUCATION: CHINA.
MISSIONS, Christian: India and Korea:
American Mission Schools.
See (in this Volume)
EDUCATION: INDIA, AND KOREA.
MISSIONS, Christian: Japan.
"Viscount Aoki, a former Minister for Foreign Affairs, is a
Christian, and so is Viscount Okabé, Minister of Justice in
the present Cabinet. There are 10 Christian members of the
Imperial Diet, all men of high character and enjoying the
respect of their fellow-countrymen, for there is no
constituency in Japan which would elect a Christian qua
Christian. It is perhaps among the commercial class that
Christianity is gaining most ground, and at Osaka, the great
industrial city of Japan, there are churches with Japanese
ministers, supported entirely by Japanese congregations, who
have at heart to remove the popular reproach that Christianity
is a foreign creed which cannot live without foreign subsidies.
Missionary activity has always had a free field in Japan, and
its philanthropic aspects have never received wider
recognition than of recent years. The Emperor himself has
frequently marked by handsome contributions his personal
interest in orphanages and hospitals conducted under
missionary auspices. But if Christianity should ever become
the national faith of Japan it will probably be in some new
national form impressed upon it by Japanese teachers rather
than in any sectarian form borrowed from the West.
{423}
What is meanwhile unquestionably increasing very steadily is
the influence of Christian ethics. … To quote a missionary:
‘If there are less than 200,000 professing Christians in
Japan, there are more than a million educated Japanese who
think in terms of Christian ethics, and who try to live up to
them more truly than many millions of professing Christians in
the West.’"
Correspondent of The Times, London.
In April, 1907, a great international mission conference was
assembled at Tokyo, Japan, of which The Outlook gave
the following account the next month:
"Over six hundred delegates, representing organizations in
twenty-five countries, assembled last month in Tokyo. They
constituted the seventh Conference of the World’s Student
Christian Federation. The body represented is a federation of
various national associations of Christian students. Some of
them are Young Men’s Christian Associations, organized in the
colleges; some of them are student organizations, not
affiliated with the Young Men’s Christian Association. The
delegates received many messages of greeting from officials of
high station; among these were messages from Viscount Hayashi,
the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs; Marquis Ito, who
sent a letter from Korea accompanied with a gift of five
thousand dollars; Count Okuma, Elder Statesman; the President
of the United States, the King of England, and the King of
Norway.
"The meetings were thronged by ten thousand students, mainly
Japanese and Chinese. The Conference was of course
distinctively Christian in character; it had a definite
purpose of proclaiming a Christian message: it advocated
ethical and intellectual progress by means of the Christian
religion; it assembled in a non-Christian land; yet its
existence, so far from arousing resentment or opposition,
evoked rather the warmest expression of appreciation and even
gratitude. That it stimulated emulation is not surprising. A
Buddhist Conference, for example, was summoned in the same
city at the same time; but at that Conference resolutions
expressing its ‘profound respect’ to the gathering of
Christians were passed, and a deputation to convey these
resolutions was chosen. Similarly, a Conference of Shinto
priests sent a letter to the Christian Conference expressing
their sense of the honor which the Federation had shown to
Japan by convening in Tokyo, and, in lieu of a reception which
could not be arranged for lack of time, presented material
‘mementoes and tokens of esteem,’ in order, to use their own
words, ‘to express our deep appreciation of your coming, and
to commemorate this bright event in Japan’s history.’ The
press of Japan was emphatic in its expression of good will."
MISSIONS, Christian: Turkey and the Near East:
American Mission Schools.
See (in this Volume)
EDUCATION: TURKEY.
MISSOURI: A. D. 1906-1909.
Successful Prosecution of the Waters-Pierce and
Standard Oil Companies.
See (in this Volume)
COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1904-1909.
MISSOURI RIVER RATE CASE.
See (in this Volume)
RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908-1909.
MISTRAL, Frederic.
See (in this Volume)
NOBEL PRIZES.
MITCHELL, JOHN:
President of the United Mine Workers of America.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902-1903.
MITCHELL, JOHN:
Resignation on account of ill health.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909.
MITCHELL, JOHN:
Chairman of Trades Agreements Department
of National Civic Federation.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908.
MITCHELL, JOHN:
Sentence for alleged Violation of an Injunction.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908-1909.
MITCHELL, John H.:

United States Senator, involved in Land Frauds.
See (in this Volume)
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1903-1906.
MODERATE-REPUBLICANS.
See (in this Volume)
FRANCE. A. D. 1909 (JANUARY).
MODERNISM, Papal Encyclical against.
See (in this Volume)
PAPACY: A. D. 1907.
Also,
TYRREL, FATHER GEORGE.
MODUS VIVENDI:
On American Fishing in Newfoundland waters.
See (in this Volume)
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1905-1909.
MOHAMMED ALI:
Lately deposed Shah of Persia.
See (in this Volume)
PERSIA: A. D. 1907 (JANUARY-SEPTEMBER).
MOHAMMEDAN CONFERENCE.
See (in this Volume)
INDIA: A. D. 1907 (DECEMBER).
MOHAMMEDANS OF INDIA:
Their present Feeling.
See (in this Volume)
INDIA: A. D. 1907-1909, and 1908-1909.
MOHAMID EL AMIN, a new Mahdi.
See (in this Volume)
AFRICA: A. D. 1903 (SUDAN).
MOHAMMID RESCHAD EFFENDI:
Made Sultan of Turkey as Mohammid V.
See (in this Volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1909 (JANUARY-MAY).
MOHONK (LAKE) PEACE CONFERENCE.
See (in this Volume)
WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1909.
MOISSAN, H.
See (in this Volume)
NOBEL PRIZES.
MOLTKE, COUNT KUNO VON:
His Libel Suit against Maximilien Harden.
See (in this Volume)
GERMANY: A. D. 1907-1908.
MOMMSEN, THEODOR.
See (in this Volume)
NOBEL PRIZES.
MONASTIR:
Beginnings of the Turkish Revolution.
See (in this Volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER).
MONETA, ERNESTO T.
See (in this Volume)
NOBEL PRIZES.
MONEY. See (in this Volume) Finance and
MONO-RAIL SYSTEM.
See (in this Volume)
SCIENCE AND INVENTION: RAILWAYS.
MONOPOLIES.
See (in this Volume)
COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL.
MONROE DOCTRINE:
Interpreted relatively to German Claims and Complaints
against Venezuela.
Its Recognition by Germany.
See (in this Volume)
VENEZUELA: A. D. 1901, and
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902-1903.
MONROE DOCTRINE:
Impliedly recognized by the Hague Tribunal.
See (in this Volume)
VENEZUELA: A. D. 1902-1904.
MONROE DOCTRINE:
In the case of San Domingo.
See (in this Volume)
SAN DOMINGO: A. D. 1904-1905.
MONROE DOCTRINE:
Stated as an All-America Doctrine by Secretary Root, at the
Third International Conference of American Republics,
at Rio de Janeiro, in 1906.
See (in this Volume)
AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
{424}
MONROE PALACE, The.
See (in this Volume)
AMERICAN REPUBLICS: THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE.
MONTAGUE, A. J.:
Delegate to Third International Conference
of American Republics.
See (in this Volume)
AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
MONTENEGRO.
See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES.
MONTES, I.:
President of Bolivia.
See (in this Volume)
ACRE DISPUTES.
MONT PELÉE, Volcanic explosion of.
See (in this Volume)
VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS: WEST INDIES.
MONTT, Pedro:
President of Chile.
See (in this Volume)
CHILE: A. D. 1906.
MOODY, William H.:
Secretary of the Navy, Attorney-General and Justice of the
Supreme Court.
See (in this Volume)
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1905, and 1905-1909.
MOOR, F. R.:
Premier of Natal.
At the Imperial Conference of 1907.
See (in this Volume)
BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1907.
MORALES, President Carlos F.
See (in this Volume)
SAN DOMINGO: A. D. 1904-1907.
MORENGA, Chief of Hereros.
See (in this Volume)
AFRICA: GERMAN COLONIES.
MORET Y PRENDERGAST:
Premier of Spain.
See (in this Volume)
SPAIN: A. D. 1907-1909.
MORGAN, J. Pierpont:
His Intervention in the Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902.
See (in this Volume)
labor organization: united states: A. D. 1902-1903.
MORGAN, J. Pierpont:
His organization of the International
Mercantile Marine Company.
See (in this Volume)
COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: INTERNATIONAL.
MORGAN, J. Pierpont:
Enlarged Control of Banking Interests.
See (in this Volume)
FINANCE AND TRADE: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909-1910.
MORLEY, John, Viscount:
Secretary of State for India.
See (in this Volume)
ENGLAND: A. D. 1905-1906.
MORLEY, John, Viscount:
On the Indian Councils Bill.
See (in this Volume)
INDIA: A. D. 1908-1909.
MOROCCO (Maghreb el-Aksa):
The Name.
Maroc or Morocco, the name given by Europeans to the empire of
the Moorish Sultan as a whole, is not so applied by the
natives of the country. According to them, the Maroc or
country of Marrakech, the Marruecos of the Spaniards, is only
one of three States submissive to the authority of the
Sultan-Shereef. At the north the kingdom of Fez, at the
southwest the oasis of Tafilet, make up his real empire.
Beyond these, vast territories occupied by numerous
independent tribes, stretch over the space that is marked on
our maps with the name Morocco. Its inhabitants have no common
name for it as a whole. Their country, indicated in a general
manner, with no precise delimitation, is the Maghreb
el-Aksa,—that is to say, "The Extreme West."
Élisée Reclus,
Nouvelle Geographic Universelle,
Volume 11, page 653.
MOROCCO: A. D. 1896-1906.
The Creeping of the French Algerian Boundary
into Moroccan Territory.
A Justification of the Encroachment.
"Something has happened during the two weeks preceding the
Conference at Algeciras [see EUROPE: A. D. 1904-1906], which
may or may not be brought to the attention of the
international diplomats. France from the start has refused to
submit her doings along the Algerian frontier to the
discussion of the conference. That concerns herself and
Morocco alone. What has been happening would in any case put
the conference in face of an accomplished fact. Some time ago
M. Jonnart, Governor-General of Algiers, was informed that
emissaries from Fez were notifying the frontier tribes, whose
submission to France dates only from the last few years, that
Germany would help the Sultan very shortly to force the French
to evacuate their tribal territories. … M. Jonnart at once set
out on a long and ceremonious visit to the tribes along the
extreme southern frontier. He was accompanied by General
Lyautey, the ‘pacificating’ general, who has been M. Jaurès’
bugbear in this Moroccan affair. The Governor-General returned
to Algiers Friday last, just in time to have his news ready
for the conference. He has reason to be satisfied. Except for
a vague idea that the Moroccan territory along the Algerian
frontier is a ‘hled-es-siba’—a country where the Sultan has
difficulty in collecting his taxes—the foreign press has not
kept pace with what has been going on for the last ten years.
In one word, during that time France has brought under her
domination a stretch of territory of some thousands of square
miles. It is true that this territory is sparsely settled by
wilfully independent tribes, who so far alternately aided in
the Algerian harvests and raided the French outposts. This
situation quite justifies the action of the French troops,
which has consisted in throwing forward the unbroken line of
outposts that enclose and keep in order the French dominion,
and not in any military conquest of volatile tribes. M. Jaurès
always fell foul of the latter policy, which he ascribed to
the military; but it would be as useless as it is absurd. What
General Lyautey has been doing all these years, without
Germany or any other friend of the Sultan giving sign of life,
is not only reasonable: it is better—it has proved effective.
And M. Jonnart’s tour has secured the formal submission of
these tribes whose territory geographers have all along made a
part of Tafilalt--the southeasternmost of the four ancient
kingdoms which, together, make up the empire of Morocco. The
boundary between Morocco and French territory in Algiers has
never been settled since the original treaty of 1845. That
drew a line from the coast southward about a hundred miles to
Teniet-es-Sassi, four degrees of longitude west from Paris,
and then stopped. Whatever was to the south—then a No Man’s
Land, so far as France was concerned—was to be divided
amicably along as natural a line as possible, leaving the east
to France as a sphere of influence (the word had not yet been
invented). During these sixty years the frontier line has
remained about the same on the maps. But France has steadily
prolonged her settled domination southward, gaining over a
Mohammedan population by serving their material interests
without offence to their religion. The railway now reaches
Beni Ounif, only a short distance from Fighig, whose Amel is
among those notified that Morocco with German help will soon
send the French over the desert and far away. At Beni Ounif,
besides the Grand Hotel for tourists, there are extensive
counting houses for the trade of all the Hinterland, with an
appropriate banking system, and everything to draw the
Moroccan tribes. There is no doubt that this territory has
always been nominally a part of Morocco. … And now M. Jonnart
has visited officially the great Zaouia, or religious centre
of Kenadsa, still farther to the west."
Paris Special Correspondence
New York Evening Post,
February 3, 1906.
{425}
MOROCCO: A. D. 1903.
State of Affairs in the Moorish Sultanate.
Abd el Aziz, the young Sultan.
His expensive tastes.
His enjoyment of the Playthings of Civilization and Science.
"Regarded as a Moorish ruler and leader, the late Sultan,
Mulai Hassan, was a strong man, almost, perhaps, a great man.
The loss of Morocco is that apparently she cannot produce his
like in the present generation. She was richer a few years
ago; and that is part of her decadence. Mulai Hassan had a
companion of his right hand: Ba Hamed, the Grand Wazeer. In
them Morocco could boast the possession of two strong men;
crude, narrow of vision, even brutal and merciless, if judged
by European standards, yet genuinely strong men. The greater
of them died, and his subordinate successfully hid the fact
(though the Court was journeying at the time) from all
Morocco, masquerading as one in close attendance upon a Sultan
whose corpse, as a fact, was tied in its litter, until city
walls were reached, preparations made, and the succession of
the youth Abd el Aziz assured. Be it remembered that Ba Hamed,
the survivor, was a strong man in his own right. Young Abd el
Aziz [who succeeded his father in 1894] was docile perforce,
and Ba Hamed ruled, without pity, with greed, and quite
unhampered by what Europe calls honour or justice. …
"Rather more than two years ago [1901], when already the
country was perturbed by news of the French advance upon and
occupation of Igli, the Moorish town which was regarded as the
depot and junction via which the caravan traffic of the desert
filtered through Morocco to the coast; at this critical
juncture, in the thick of conflicting intrigues, poisonings,
and official treachery, Ba Hamed, the greatly feared, greatly
hated, and rigidly obeyed Wazeer, died at Marrakish, leaving
many scheming heirs-presumptive to his office, but no single
successor to the mantle of his authority, the inherent
masterfulness of his personality.
"Still youthful Abd el Aziz IV. stretched forth both hands and
personally took up the fallen reins of government with a great
flourish of trumpets and display of energy. … Optimistic
Europeans, naturally gratified by the active good sense with
which Abd el Aziz checked his Filali tribesmen’s turbulent
resentment of contact with the French in Igli and its oasis,
freely predicted a new lease of life for the Moorish Empire.
They credited the new broom with powers which, in view of its
origin and environment, had been little short of miraculous.
And they omitted reflection regarding the hand which moved the
new broom. This was a power behind the Parasol, a latent
intelligence, not wholly Moorish, capricious, feminine,
subtle, unstable, and somewhat vitiated from long repression
in an unwholesome atmosphere. The late Mulai Hassan’s
Circassian wife, young Abd el Aziz’s mother, Lalla R’kia, had
also found a dangerous emancipation in the death of Ba Hamed.
…
"Casually observant Nazarenes saw rich, cruel officials swept
from their high estate by wholesale, and predicted the birth
of probity at Court. Notorious gainers by oppression were
loaded with chains in Kasbah dungeons; the young Sultan’s
brother, the One-Eyed, whom cautious Ba Hamed had kept secure
in Tetuan prison, was established on parole at Mcquinez, and
‘Here’s positive purity of administration!’ cried the
surface-reading hopeful in Christian-ridden Tangier.
"Of a sudden, all movement ceased. The young Sultan was lost
sight of—behind the curtain. … It is not given to us to know
anything of pale Lalla R’kia’s attitude during this breathing
space. … (Lalla R’kia died last year.)
"Speaking metaphorically, his Shareefian Majesty Abd el Aziz
reappeared on the arm of a commercial agent, a French
Israelite, with a genius for the ‘placing’ of imported
commodities. Allah’s Chosen had been initiated into the select
manias of Europe, and become addicted to golfing, the use of
the camera, the bicycle, and other less pretty pastimes from
the West. …
"Commercial agents continued to press upon the young Sultan
the latest and most expensive of electrical and other toys,
and those far-seeing gentlemen, the newspaper correspondents,
bade Europe take note of the remarkable enlightenment and
progressive wisdom of the ruler of Morocco, as evidenced by
his interest in motor cars and Broadwood pianos. And the
friends of these optimistic gentry criticised the present
writer as a croaker and a bird of ill-omen when he published
in The Fortnightly Review for July, 1901, the following
extract from a letter sent him by a Moorish friend:
"‘To sum all up, my friend, I grieve because I find the
affairs of my native land in parlous order, demanding as never
before in the history of Morocco the guidance of a strong,
clear mind, a veritable Sultan. That my country’s affairs most
urgently need. They have a governing power composed of half a
dozen corrupt creatures, of a corrupt, short-sighted, cruel,
and desperately greedy Wazeer, whose rightful Lord is occupied
exclusively in—Bah! We have spoken of those whose graves will
be defiled, and of the trumpery gauds from Paris bazaars. And
this, while the turbulent Sus is aflame, the far south-east a
mine charged by French aggression, waiting only the match of
knowledge of our Lord’s indifference; the country between
Tafilalt and Fas is openly given over to brigandage and
anarchy, and even Al Ksar, Arzila, and the Gharb, Tangiers
outskirts, are full of unrest and disorder, crimes and
indifference to crimes.’"
A. J. Dawson,
Morocco, the Moors, and the Powers
(Fortnightly Review, February, 1903).
{426}
"I have not seen the Sultan face to face, but I have conversed
with nearly all the leading Europeans who have been with him
either at Marrakesh or Fez, and from what they have told me I
have been forced to conclude that Mulai Abd-el-Aziz is a
charming, kindly, headstrong man, suffering badly from youth,
who delights in reforms for the sake of their novelty and
lacks the brain power that distinguished his father, Mulai el
Hassan, and his grandfather, Mulai Mohammed. While he stayed
in his southern capital he was comparatively free from the
attacks of commercial attaches and other rogues, whose designs
upon his treasury should have been obvious, though he was
guilty of many extravagances, including displays of fireworks
that made his envoy to England speak slightingly of the
special display arranged in his honour at the Crystal Palace.
In Fez the agents surrounded him like summer flies. He has
twelve motor cars and no roads to ride them over; he paid
between three and four thousand pounds for a yacht, sixty feet
long, that was to be used on the Sebu river, which is no more
than thirty feet wide; in spite of the Koran’s prohibition, he
has purchased a crown at a price I am afraid to name. He has
put some of his soldiers into European uniforms and boots,
only to find that they run away from Bu Hamara as readily as
they did when dressed in native garments. He has developed an
enthusiasm for photography—I have seen some of his work—and
in addition to cameras with cases of pure gold, he has one
apartment of his palace loaded from floor to ceiling with dark
plates, and he was persuaded to order ten thousand francs’
worth of printing paper. He has a menagerie in the grounds of
the palace at Fez, and on a day when it was reported that the
lion sent from England had quarrelled with and killed the lion
sent from Berlin, one of the European visitors to the court
suggested to him that a contest between the victorious lion
and the Bengal tiger would afford good sport. ‘No,’ said
Abd-el-Aziz, ‘the lion cost me three thousand pounds!’ All
Europe knows that the Sultan is poor."
S. L. Bensusan,
Britain, France, and the Moorish Empire
(Contemporary Review, November, 1903).
MOROCCO: A. D. 1903-1904.
Appearance of the Mahdi, Bu Hamara,
as a leader of Insurrection.
In 1903 there appeared in Morocco one of the prophetic
pretenders called Mahdis, of whom so many have arisen in the
Moslem world, to take advantage of occasions of religious
excitement, and to lead a rising of wild tribes. This Moorish
Mahdi, known as Bu Hamara, was helped to a leadership of
insurrection by an incident which greatly stirred the
religious temper of tribes wherever known. An English
missionary was killed at Fez, and the murderer, flying to a
sanctuary of special sanctity, was pursued thereto by the
Sultan’s guards, and slain within the sacred bounds. Against
this sacrilege, committed to satisfy hated Christians, Bu
Hamara roused the country, preaching extermination of all
Christians within it. The insecure throne of Abd el Aziz was
made more insecure, English influence in Morocco was shaken,
the French frontiers east and south were endangered, and Bu
Hamara’s revolt appears to have had much to do with the
producing of all that followed,—in the Anglo-French Agreement
of 1904, the Algeciras Conference, the dethronement of Abd el
Aziz, etc.
MOROCCO: A. D. 1904.
Declarations of England and France concerning Morocco
in the Agreements of the Entente of 1904.
Explanatory Despatch.
See (in this Volume)
EUROPE: A. D. 1904 (APRIL).
MOROCCO: A. D. 1904-1909.
Exploits of El Raisuli.
The Kidnapping and Ransoming of Messrs. Perdicaris and Varley.
The Capture and Ransom of Kaid Sir Harry MacLean.
Present Respectability of Raisuli as a Moroccan Governor.
One of the chiefs in that mountainous strip of northern
Morocco, nearly parallel to the Mediterranean, which is called
"The Riff," has played a startlingly troublesome part in
recent Moroccan history. His name is Mulai Ahmed ben Mohammed,
but he is commonly designated in all news-mentions of his
doings by the title he bears,—El Raisuli, chieftain of a clan.
The first exploit which made this title familiar to all the
world was in May, 1904, when he kidnapped, from their
residence near Tangier, a naturalized American and an
Englishman, Mr. Ion Perdicaris and his stepson, Mr. Varley,
carrying them into the mountains and holding them captive
until he had extorted a ransom of $70,000, despite the utmost
efforts of France, Great Britain, and the United States, with
the aid of the Sultan, to obtain their release on less
humiliating terms. This success failed, however, to satisfy
the audacious brigand, and in July, 1907, he laid hands on
another important hostage, this time a British officer, Sir
Harry MacLean, who had been long in the service of the Sultan
of Morocco, as military adviser, with the title of Kaid. Kaid
MacLean ventured to visit the brigand in his mountain retreat
for some negotiation, and was detained in pawn. Raisuli held
this notable captive until the following February, and
released him then on receipt of $25,000, cash down, with a
pledge of $75,000 more at the end of three years, if he gave
no fresh trouble within that time. Meanwhile, he and
twenty-eight of his family were to be under British
protection. Before this transaction was closed a new Sultan
had won the Moroccan throne (as will be explained below) and
he thought it wiser to employ the energies of Raisuli
officially than to try to maintain a contest of authority with
so unmanageable a subject. Accordingly, in February, 1909,
Raisuli was appointed governor of twelve tribes in Northern
Morocco, and is now one of the most respectable
representatives of government in the last of the Barbary
States.
MOROCCO: A. D. 1905-1906.
German hostility to the Anglo-French Agreement.
The Kaiser’s speech at Tangier.
The International Conference at Algeciras.
The resulting Act.
See (in this Volume)
EUROPE: A. D. 1905-1906.
MOROCCO: A. D. 1907-1909.
Mob-murder of Dr. Mauchamp at Morocco City.
Conflict with Tribesmen at Casablanca.
Bombardment by French and Spanish Ships.
Campaign against the Tribes.
Dethronement of Sultan Abd el Aziz by his brother Mulai Hafid.
Fresh friction between France and Germany.
Its Pacific Settlement by Arbitration at The Hague.
Organization of police forces for the service which France and
Spain were commissioned by the Powers at the Algeciras
Conference to perform in Morocco was retarded, necessarily, by
the prevailing anarchy in the Empire, and fresh causes of
disorder occurred before the means for prompt treatment of
them were prepared. In the spring of 1907 a French citizen,
Dr. Mauchamp, at Marrakesh (Morocco City), undertook to
install at his house the apparatus for wireless telegraphy.
His Moorish neighbors suspected some diabolical intention,
when he raised the necessary mast on his house, and proceeded
with fanatic enterprise to kill the man of too much science
and to demolish the house. The French Government demanded
punishment of the outrage, with indemnity to the family of the
victim, and put a force in motion, under General Liautey,
which occupied the city of Ujda, not far from the Algerian
frontier, to hold it until the demands of justice were
complied with. None of the Powers signatory to the Algeciras
Conference raised objections to this proceeding.
{427}
A more serious intervention was occasioned in July, 1907, when
the French took control of the collection of customs at the
ports, as directed by the Algeciras agreement. At Casablanca,
on the Atlantic coast, the tribesmen attacked a number of
European laborers, employed there in quarries, and killed
eight. All the foreign residents of the region were in danger,
and French and Spanish war-ships were hurried to the scene.
The local Moorish official confessed his inability to protect
the threatened foreigners, who had taken refuge in the French,
Spanish, and British consulates, with hostile tribes
swarming around the town, and he asked for help. Marines were
landed on the 4th of August and were attacked. "A sanguinary
battle followed between the Arabs and the European soldiery,
the French cruiser opening fire and shelling the Moorish
batteries. Scenes of great disorder and violence followed upon
the firing, a raging mob of Moors attacking and pillaging the
entire city. The Jews particularly were massacred by hundreds.
Another French warship soon appeared upon the scene,
accompanied by a Spanish cruiser, and troops were landed to
the number of 4000. General Drude, the French commander, was
chosen to head the allied troops, Spanish and French, and
reinforcements were hurried from France." A number of
encounters followed. "The most serious were the attacks, on
August 28, and September 2, upon Casablanca and its outskirts,
both resulting from a reconnaissance in force by the French
Algerian irregular cavalry and the famous Foreign Legion.
Seven or eight thousand Moors attacked the Europeans, sweeping
down from the hills with all the ferocity and courage
traditional in their race. By the aid of machine guns and the
batteries from their warships the French succeeded in
repelling the tribesmen with considerable loss of life."
Justification of the bombardment of Casablanca was somewhat
questioned at the time, and with good reason if the following
account of the circumstances, by an eye-witness, a Scotch
missionary, are to be believed. His statement was published in
the Glasgow Herald, and is given here as summarized in
The Outlook, of September 21, 1907.
"This missionary, Dr. Kerr, has lived many years in the
country, and he asserts that in many ways the French residents
and officials have continually irritated the Moors and
provoked them to anger. Dr. Kerr states that no further
outbreaks occurred after the massacre of French and Spanish
workmen on July 30, and that when the bombardment began on
August 1 there was absolutely no immediate provocation for it.
He denounces it as contrary to the usages of civilized war and
as ‘wicked and unjustifiable,’ adding that the British
merchants in Casablanca will probably sue the French
Government for damages caused to their property by what they
consider an unnecessary bombardment. The punishment of the
Moors concerned in the murder of the eight workmen, says Dr.
Kerr, no one could object to, but instead of this the
punishment took the form of an unprovoked massacre of persons
many of whom were entirely innocent. The details of the affair
as he gives them are certainly deplorable, and if his
assertion that the landing force of the French fired the first
shot is true, the succeeding episodes described are
unpardonable. One of these episodes may be quoted here:
"‘I saw two young women walking as quickly as they could. …
Suddenly a volley was fired into them by the Spanish marines.
They fell, but picked themselves up, and took refuge in a
ledge of a wall. After waiting a few minutes they made to
return, when another volley was fired at them, and they fell
again. … One of these brave daughters of Ishmael refused to
flee without taking with her the "khaik," or outer garment,
which fell from her [thus leaving her face uncovered, contrary
to Moslem law]. She turned back, picked up her garment, and
fled as fast as she could, bleeding all over.’"
In the fall of 1907 General Drude was succeeded in the command
at Casablanca by General d’Amade, who prosecuted a more
vigorous campaign against the obstinately hostile tribes of
the region, and made but slow progress in reducing them to
submission.
Meantime a rising against Sultan Abd el Aziz, in favor of one
of his brothers, Mulai Hafid, had been started and was making
rapid headway. Mulai Hafid was proclaimed Sultan at Marrakesh
on the 25th of August, 1907, and on the 4th of the following
January his supporters had gained possession of Fez and
proclaimed him there. Abd el Aziz kept the field against his
rival until August, 1908, when he had practically no following
left, and the direction of Government was assumed formally by
Mulai Hafid. His authority had soon become established so
fully that the German Government addressed a note to the
Powers proposing an immediate recognition of it. France and
Spain objected, insisting that Mulai Hafid must confirm
existing treaties, accept responsibility for the debts of the
previous regime, give pledges of indemnity for the Casablanca
outbreak, disavow the "Holy War" which he had countenanced and
which had given him his success, and take effective measures
for securing the safety of foreigners in the Empire. Their
objection was approved generally; Germany assented to the
requirements proposed, and it was not until Mulai Hafid had
satisfied them that he obtained recognition as the legitimate
sovereign of Morocco. This was given in the following note,
handed to his representative on the 5th of January, 1909, by
the doyen of the Diplomatic Body at Tangier:
"The signatory Governments of the Act of Algeciras have
received the letter which Mulai Hafid sent to them through the
agency of the Diplomatic Body at Tangier in reply to their
communiqué of November 18. The Governments represented
in Morocco received with satisfaction this reply, in which
they saw a proof that the explanations which they formulated
in their Note of November 18, in the interest of the relations
of friendship and confidence which they desire to maintain
with the sovereign authority of the Shereefian Empire, are in
accordance with the views of Mulai Hafid. In consequence the
signatory Powers of the Act of Algeciras have decided to
recognize his Majesty Mulai Hafid as legitimate Sultan of
Morocco, and have charged the doyen of the Diplomatic
Body at Tangier to notify their recognition of him to the
representatives of his Majesty in that town."
{428}
Before this settlement was reached an incident had occurred at
Casablanca on the 15th of September, 1908, which irritated the
chronic sensitiveness of feeling between Germany and France.
Five or six soldiers of the Foreign Legion in French service
at Casablanca, including three Germans, deserted, and the
German Consulate attempted to protect the Germans when their
arrest was undertaken by French gendarmes. There was some
struggle, but the arrest was accomplished, and the demand of
the Consul for the release of the three Germans was refused.
Germany demanded satisfaction for the treatment of her Consul.
France maintained that satisfaction was due to herself for the
interference of the Consul with her military rights; but
offered to submit the affair to the Hague Tribunal for
arbitration. Germany was willing to arbitrate the questions
involved if France would first express regret for the official
conduct on her side of the matter. France in reply suggested
expressions of regret by both parties; and on these terms,
supposedly vindicating national dignity on each side, the case
went to The Hague. The Court of Arbitration held its first
meeting on the 1st of May, 1909, and announced its judgment on
the 22d of the same month. As summarized in an English
despatch from The Hague, the opinion of the Court was as
follows:
"The Court considered that in this case there was a conflict
of jurisdiction between the Consular and the military
authority of two foreign Powers, the one Power exercising full
Consular authority over her subjects, who happened to be
soldiers in the Foreign Legion of the other Power. The latter
Power had effected the military occupation of a certain
territory, and in consequence exercised full authority over
that territory. As it was impossible to decide this conflict
by any absolute ruling, which might indicate in a general way
the precedence of either jurisdiction, the Court considered
that the question must be determined by the particular
circumstances of any given case.
"In this case the jurisdiction of the occupying force had
precedence because the persons in question did not leave the
territory occupied by that force. The Court decided that the
Secretary of the German Consulate at Casablanca wrongly and
through a grave and manifest error tried to embark in a German
steamer deserters of the French Foreign Legion, who were not
of German nationality. The German Consul and the other
officials of the Consulate were not responsible for that fact;
the Consul, however, in signing the safe conduct, which was
laid before him, committed an unintentional error.
"The German Consulate in the circumstances obtaining at that
time was not entitled to grant its protection even to
deserters of German nationality; the legal error, however,
which was committed in this connexion by the officials of the
Consulate could not be reckoned either as an intentional or as
an unintentional error.
"The French military authorities were wrong in not respecting,
as far as possible, the de facto protection exercised
over those deserters in the name of the German Consulate. The
circumstances did not justify either menace by revolver on the
part of the French soldiers, or the blows given to the
Moroccan soldier of the Consulate."
This proved satisfactory to all concerned, and the Casablanca
incident was happily closed.
A more important adjustment of matters between Germany and
France, aiming at a general clearing of causes of friction in
their relations, so far as concerned Morocco, had preceded the
Casablanca arbitration by nearly three months. All Europe had
been surprised and delighted on the 9th of February, 1909, by
the announcement of a Franco-German Agreement, just concluded,
in the following words:
"The Government of the French Republic and the German Imperial
Government, actuated by an equal desire to facilitate the
execution of the Act of Algeciras, have agreed to define the
significance which they attach to its clauses with a view to
avoiding any cause of misunderstanding between them in the
future.
"Consequently, the Government of the French Republic, wholly
attached to the maintenance of the integrity and of the
independence of the Shereefian Empire, decided to safeguard
economic equality there, and accordingly not to impede German
commercial and industrial interests, and the German Imperial
Government, pursuing only economic interests in Morocco,
recognizing at the same time that the special political
interests of France are closely bound up in that country with
the consolidation of order and of internal peace, and resolved
not to impede those interests, declare that they will not
prosecute or encourage any measure calculated to create in
their favour or in favour of any Power whatsoever an economic
privilege, and that they will endeavour to associate their
nationals in business for which these may be able to obtain
contracts (l’entreprise)."
This most important agreement resulted from negotiations that
were said to have been opened by a suggestion from the German
Foreign Secretary, Baron von Schön. Its importance to Europe
was hardly exaggerated by the Paris Matin, when it
said:
"It is a great and happy event, the importance of which need
not be emphasized. … This close of the Moroccan quarrel may,
if such be the desire, mark a date of capital importance in
the history of Europe. In fact, as Prince Bülow has said and
repeated, Morocco was only a pretext. If therefore it has
become an object of agreement, it is not merely because it has
been recognized that the local problem was not insoluble, but
also because the general situation has changed or because the
‘opportunity’ no longer exists."
MOROCCO: A. D. 1908.
A German Statement of the Moroccan Policy of Germany.
See (in this Volume)
GERMANY: A. D. 1908.
{429}
MOROCCO: A. D. 1909.
Discontent with the new Sultan.
His struggle with Pretenders.
Spanish War with the Tribes of the Riff.
Success of Mulai Hafid against his Rivals.
French operations in and around the Moorish Empire.
French Mauretanie.
French Demands.
The Mannesmann Mining Concession.
France and Spain were now strengthened in the execution of
their Algeciras commission, by a harmonious backing in Europe,
and the native Government in Morocco had acquired, seemingly,
a strong and capable man at its head. Sultan Mulai Hafid made
that impression very positively on a correspondent of the
London Times, to whom he gave audience on the 13th of
February, and who wrote of him that day: "It is quite evident
that Mulai Hafid is a man of large and independent ideas, with
a leaning toward democracy. In appearance and manner he is
most attractive, and both his looks and his conversation
betoken a character at once strong and of quick decision.
Everything he says is very much to the point, and his remarks
are often touched with humour and even cynicism. His
openmindedness and cordiality extend almost to breaches of the
rigorous Moorish etiquette."
Five days later the same correspondent wrote again: "The Fez
Moors had hoped at Mulai Hafid’s accession for material though
indefinite advantages, for they felt that the new Sultan, who
owed his throne not to inheritance but to election, would be
an instrument in their own hands, and that they would be able
to exert their influence for their own purely selfish ends.
But they had counted without Mulai Hafid. Once on the throne,
he consolidated, at all events locally, his power, and the Fez
population, who during the previous reign had undoubtedly held
and used considerable influence, found themselves in the hands
of a firm, masterful man, who did not hesitate to tax them to
an extent formerly unknown, and gave them clearly to
understand that he would brook no interference in matters of
policy. The effect was instantaneous. The Fezzis began openly
to regret the slack régime of Mulai Abdul Aziz, and
Mulai Hafid became unpopular, as any monarch who really
governs in Morocco must always be.
"But if Mulai Hafid was unpopular, he inspired at the same
time a wholesome fear. His indifference to public opinion, his
breaches of the absurd prescriptions of Moorish etiquette, his
personal supervision of every detail, and the publicity in
which he lives show not only remarkable courage, but also
remarkable knowledge of the people whom he governs. … Yet he
has but a small army, and he is financially hampered. He
receives Europeans publicly, and grants audiences in the
presence of the whole Court, often before the whole army. He
invites his guests to be seated, and chats in a natural and
sympathetic manner on all kinds of subjects. But it is quite
apparent that his entourage is in terror of him. Never
have the viziers had less freedom or fewer opportunities for
plunder. The Government is Mulai Hafid, and Mulai Hafid alone,
and yet Mulai Hafid is a democrat. He desires to put down—and
has already largely done so—the fanatical and always
mischievous influence of the great Shereefian families. He
works from morning till night, and keeps every one else
working. His negotiations with the French Minister are
progressing in a way that astonishes every one. … Mulai Hafid
obtained the throne by preaching a holy war against Europeans.
He will maintain himself upon the throne by a policy of reform
which will win for him the assistance of France against his
own fanatical people."
But subsequent events did not realize the confident
expectations of this writer. A month later he reported:
"Shereef Sid Mohammed Kittani, a descendant of a former
dynasty and chief of an important reactionary religious sect,
who was freely spoken of as possible Sultan before Mulai
Hafid’s proclamation, left Fez secretly yesterday. Apparently
he had previously succeeded in dispatching his family and
movable property from time to time to some spot in the Berber
tribelands without exciting suspicion. His flight has caused
what can only be described as consternation. His influence is
very great, and he is known to lay claim to the Throne."
Within another month this pretender had defeated Mulai Hafid’s
forces in a sharp engagement and had an army encamped about
eighteen miles east of Fez. French officers were reported to
be doing notable work in organizing and equipping the Sultan’s
troops. On the 8th of May there was alarming news that Mulai
el Kebir, another brother of Mulai Hafid and of the ex-Sultan,
Abd el Aziz, "who was accompanying the Southern Kaids to Fez,
had left their camp secretly by night and had fled into the
Zimmour country," and "many believe that he will take
advantage of the Sultan’s unpopularity to raise a rebellion."
Two days later "nothing is known of the whereabouts of Mulai
el Kebir," and "the Sultan does not conceal his anxiety.
Mulai-el-Kebir was on the best terms with his Majesty, but the
Sultan’s severe treatment of other members of his family no
doubt filled him with fear."
From Paris, on the 26th of May, it was telegraphed that the
Sultan’s Minister of Finance, El Mokri, then visiting Paris on
a financial mission, "observes that Mulai Hafid’s authority is
more solidly established at present than might at first sight
appear to be the case. At no time has any Sultan been
recognized over a much wider area of Moroccan territory. In
the Beled el Makhzen his sway is uncontested. The kaids of the
Haouz and the southern Atlas have always been his partisans.
El Mokri has no fear of the pretenders."
There were now two pretenders in the field: for Mulai Kebir
had been heard from, "beyond Mekinez," where he had raised the
standard of revolt. And Bu Hamara was on the stage of civil
war again, east of Fez, with an army which "is camped at less
than four hours distance from the capital," and which is
"actively pillaging the only tribe that remains loyal to Mulai
Hafid in that region." Troops sent against him a few days
later were said to have been badly beaten. The Sultan was
reported to be in quarrel with his viziers; was ill,—invisible
in the palace,—and the situation did not seem to look well for
him.
Then, suddenly, all news reports from Morocco became silent as
to Mulai Hafid and his rivals, and gave entire attention to a
serious outbreak of warfare in that northeastern corner of the
empire, known as the Riff, where Spain has had a long
recognized "sphere of influence," and where she had undertaken
the working of valuable iron mines near Melilla. Hostilities
were begun in July by an attack of tribesmen on the miners,
killing several, and the Spanish troops sent to the scene met
disaster, being insufficient in force. In the end, so
extensive a rising of Moorish tribesmen had occurred that
Spain was obliged to put a large army into the field against
them and organize a costly campaign. It was not until late in
September that much success attended the Spanish arms, and not
until late in November that the campaign was regarded as
closed, the Spanish forces having secured positions which,
when fortified, were expected to give them a firm footing in
the region, and having brought most of the tribes to terms.
{430}
Meantime, the war had been bitterly unpopular among large
classes in Spain, and the feeling had been manifested in
destructive rioting at Barcelona and elsewhere.
See (in this Volume)
SPAIN: A. D. 1907-1909.
What France had been doing meanwhile, in and around Morocco,
has been told by a writer in The Atlantic Monthly:
"During the year [May, 1908, to May, 1909] the French army
under General d’Amade, has continued occupying Casablanca, and
the fertile Chaouïa (Shawia) region. It has forced peace, law,
and order, and open markets on the inhabitants, to their great
advantage. Agriculture has revived; and German trade itself
has run up two million francs. Even so the ‘economic
interests’ of Germany in Morocco are scant indeed compared
with those of France and England; they are perhaps less than
those of Spain—and yet they have long threatened the peace of
Europe. … Meanwhile the interior of Morocco has been chiefly
occupied in the unmaking and making of Sultans. Toward the
German Emperor these fighting Moors have now a feeling much
like that of the Transvaal Boers when the Kruger telegram
failed to lead to eventualities. … The real success of France
is along the entire land-frontier of Morocco. For its whole
length this is now also the frontier of French
territory,--Algiers to the east, the Sahara with its line of
French posts to the south, and so on to the Atlantic Ocean
through the new French civil territory of ‘Mauritanie.’ Here
foreign geography will still be incomplete for some time; but
it is childish to dismiss these territorial stretches as so
many acres of sand. The empire which France might have had in
Canada was, in like manner, denounced by Voltaire as acres of
snow.
"France absolutely refused to allow any question concerning
this land-frontier to be brought up at the Conference of
Algeciras. It is no business of Europe; it concerns the two
neighbors, France and Morocco, only.
"General Lyautey has had its more than eight hundred miles
well under control. … Of late years France has successfully
occupied territory farther and farther to the south, pushing
forward the railway, and throwing out a long line of military
posts through the Sahara. People who amuse themselves marking
obscure changes of conquest on the map, may safely stick their
pins one full degree farther west all along this part of
Algiers, beginning where Spain at Melilla blocks the way along
the Mediterranean coast."
Stoddard Dewey,
The Year in France
(Atlantic Monthly, August, 1909).
When newspaper attention reverted to Mulai Hafid a great
improvement was found in his affairs. Seemingly, the
pretenders to his throne had disappeared, and Bu Hamara, the
rebel, now styled El Roghi, was decisively routed by troops of
the Sultan on the 16th of August, captured a few days later,
and taken to Fez in an iron cage. On the 13th of September it
was announced that he had been executed the day before. Later,
this was contradicted, and there seems to be no certainty as
to his fate.
The Moroccan Government was now being sharply pressed by
France with demands over which negotiation had proceeded
hitherto very slowly. M. Pichon, the French Minister for
Foreign Affairs, made a statement on the subject to the
Chamber of Deputies on the 23d of November, to the following
effect: "On August 14 the representatives of the Sultan
received a note summing up the conditions imposed by the
French Government. These conditions were the evacuation of the
Shawia region on condition of the organization by the Maghzen
of a force; the evacuation of Casablanca when the French
Government felt convinced that the organization of the Shawia
police had become sufficiently effective; the organization of
the police service on the Algero-Moroccan frontier; the
payment of the Maghzen’s debts and the reimbursement of the
costs of the French military expeditions. The Maghzen owed at
present £3,200,000, more than £400,000 of which was due to
private creditors. The French Government would allow the
Moroccan Government to raise a loan in France in order to
facilitate the payment of its debts. … The French conditions
had been acknowledged to be very moderate by all who had had
cognisance of them. Germany had recently informed the Maghzen
that it was high time to contract a loan. M. Pichon dwelt on
the loyalty with which the Franco-German Agreement had been
observed by the Berlin Government. Nevertheless the adhesion
of the Moroccan Government had not yet been obtained. That
Government had admitted the principle of the loan of
80,000,000f. and that of the indemnity of 70,000,000f. for the
French military expedition, but there was disagreement still
in regard to the guarantees required for the realization of
that operation. Mulai Hafid, moreover, demanded the immediate
evacuation of the Shawia and of Casablanca. On November 6 M.
Pichon informed the Sultan’s envoys that it was futile to
continue the pourparlers if France did not obtain a
satisfactory reply. It would not be without danger for the
Moroccan Government to persevere in its attitude."
A little later it was made known that the Sultan had yielded
to the terms prescribed by the French Government and was to
obtain the loan which would help toward the payment of his
debts.
By this time a new Morocco question had sprung out of a
sweeping mining concession which certain German exploiters,
the Brothers Mannesmann, had obtained from Sultan Mulai Hafid,
in distinct violation of the agreements at Algeciras which the
Sultan had been a party to. The Mannesmann mining rights under
this concession, if allowed, would swallow up all others, and
large interests, French, Spanish, German, English, Italian,
and Dutch, were arrayed against their claims. The backing of
the Mannesmanns in Germany, however, by commercial and
newspaper influence, appears to have been very powerful, and
it has not been easy for the Government to resist being drawn
into alliance with it. But the attitude of the Imperial
Government appears to have been strictly loyal to the
Algeciras agreements, and it has gone no farther for the
Mannesmanns and their partisans than to negotiate with the
other Powers concerned for a submission of the question of
legality in the Mannesmann concession to a Court of
Arbitration. That will probably be the mode of settling it.
{431}
MOROS, The.
See (in this Volume)
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1901-1902.
MORRIS, SIR EDWARD:
Premier of Newfoundland.
See (in this Volume)
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1908-1909.
MORTON, PAUL:
Secretary of the Navy.
See (in this Volume)
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1905.
MORTON, PAUL:
President of Equitable Life Assurance Society.
See (in this Volume)
INSURANCE, LIFE.
MOSCOW,
Risings and Disturbances in.
See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA.
MOSLEM LEAGUE.
See (in this Volume)
INDIA: A. D. 1907 (December); also, 1907-1909.
MOSQUITO TERRITORY, THE.
See (in this Volume)
CENTRAL AMERICA: A. D. 1905.
MOTIENLING.
See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).
MOVING PICTURE SHOWS.
See (in this Volume)
SCIENCE AND INVENTION.
MUIJTEHEDS:
The higher Persian Priests.
See (in this Volume)
PERSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.
MUKDEN: A. D. 1903.
Opened to Foreign Trade.
See (in this Volume)
CHINA: A. D. 1903 (MAY-OCTOBER).

MUKDEN: Battle of.
See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (SEPTEMBER-MARCH).
MULAI AHMED BEN MOHAMMED, EL RAISULI.
See (in this Volume)
MOROCCO: A. D. 1904-1909.
MULAI HAFID:
Sultan of Morocco by Dethronement of his Brother.
See (in this Volume)
MOROCCO: A. D. 1907-1909, and 1909.
MULAI HASSAN, Late Sultan of Morocco.
See (in this Volume)
MOROCCO: A. D. 1903.
MULLAH, ABDULLA MUHAMMED.
See (in this Volume)
AFRICA: SOMALILAND.
MULLAS:
The common Persian Priests.
See (in this Volume)
PERSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.
MUNICIPAL COMMITTEES IN INDIA.
See (in this Volume)
INDIA: A. D. 1907-1909.
----------MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: Start--------
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT:
American Democracy’s most Serious Problem.
Present Interest in it.
Hopeful Movements.
Americans have long been forced to acknowledge that political
democracy in the United States makes its worst showing in the
government of municipalities; and those who give any searching
thought to the matter have little dispute over reasons for the
fact. It connects very plainly with another fact, namely, that
municipal politics, as a political interest distinct
and apart from the interests of government in Nation and
State, has had no growth in the country as yet. Up to the time
of the formation of the national union, the few cities of
America had a quite positive political life of their own,
which might have carried them into conditions very different
from what they have realized since, if it had not undergone
the absorption that it did in the politics of a national
government. The national political parties formed then on
exciting issues, sectional, constitutional, and economic,
caught all political feeling into their embrace, not
instantly, but gradually, and surely, and appropriated the
whole mechanism of political organization to themselves.
Cities are the natural centers of such mechanism, and the
great parties of Federal politics were able easily to impose
on them a domination which left no free working of public
opinion on the immediate concerns of the cities themselves.
All political action was drawn into the mill which turns out
Presidents, Congresses, Tariffs, Bank Acts, etc., and the mere
by-product of Mayors, Aldermen, and City Ordinances which it
drops incidentally into the cities, receives almost no stamp
of quality or design from the local mind.
Until the wheels of local government are loosened in some way
from the clutch of the great party machines, and can work
independently, under motive forces of their own, to produce
the satisfaction of local needs, interests, and aims, there
will be little success in undertakings of municipal reform.
How to accomplish that political ungearing is one of the
greatest, if not the greatest, of the problems now occupying
the minds of the American people. Fortunately it is occupying
their minds. Within the last few years they have given more
thought to this subject than it ever received from them
before; and it has been bold thought, as well as profoundly
earnest. It has not been afraid of hospitality to new ideas
and new experiences, but is giving them fair hearings and fair
tests. The present attitude of the whole country in this
matter is of the happiest hopefulness, and every day brightens
the prospect of a better future for municipal government in
America.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: BOSTON: A. D. 1909.
A Plan of Government chosen by popular vote.
In connection with the election of November 2, 1909, the
citizens of Boston, Massachusetts, had two plans of City
Government submitted to their vote, and the charter under
which the City will be ruled and its business conducted after
the beginning of February, 1910, was determined by the choice
between these plans which a majority expressed at the polls.
One of the plans emanated from an official body, called the
Finance Commission, which had been appointed to investigate
bad conditions in the City Government, and whose
investigations had given rise to the demand for a radical
reform. This plan had the approval, moreover, of a citizens
Committee of One Hundred, which had given much attention to
the subject; but it was exceedingly unsatisfactory to the
party politicians, whose personal interests were flagrantly
disregarded in its scheme. These drafted a form of charter
which fitted their own purposes, and the two plans were
submitted to the Legislature in the winter of 1909. That body
escaped the responsibility of a decision between them by
referring both to the voters of Boston. The charter wanted by
the party managers was designated as "Plan No. 1"; that of the
Finance Commission and the Committee of One Hundred as "Plan
No. 2."
{432}
A strenuous campaign of education was fought for some weeks
before election day by the supporters of Plan No. 2, who seem
to have included practically all single-minded seekers of good
government, and an equally active campaign of wire-pulling was
carried on by the champions of Plan No. 1. The education was
successful in convincing 39,175 voters that Plan 2 should be
preferred, while 35,306 were persuaded to the contrary, and
about 34,000 remained so indifferent or undecided that they
gave the question no vote. But public considerations prevailed
over party motives and influences by 3869 votes, which is a
highly important fact.
The charter thus adopted for Boston differs in many features
from what has acquired the name of "the Des Moines plan," but
is fundamentally akin to it in principle and aim. Its prime
purpose is to divorce local politics from national politics,
freeing municipal elections from the baneful control of
parties which have nothing rightly to do with the city’s
affairs. Its secondary object is to concentrate official
responsibility in a moderated way. It subjects the mayor of
Boston, at the middle of his term, to a reconsideration of the
vote which elected him (in the nature of the Swiss "recall"),
but it does not introduce the initiative and referendum. The
operation of the new charter under its provisions was outlined
as follows by the Boston Herald on the day following
its adoption:
"By the acceptance of plan 2, party and all other designations
will be eliminated from the ballots for the municipal
elections, which will be held on the first Tuesday after the
second Monday in January of each year. The coming city
election will be held on January 11.
"Candidates for mayor must be nominated by petition of not
less than 5000 registered Boston voters. The candidate who
receives the highest vote at the city election will hold
office for four years, unless recalled at the end of two
years. The salary will be $10,000 a year.
"At the state election in the second year of the mayor’s term
the ballots will contain the question: ‘Shall there be an
election for mayor at the next municipal election?’ And this
will be answered by ‘Yes,’ or ‘No.’ If a majority of the
registered voters vote ‘Yes’ an election for mayor will be
held at the following city election.
"Whether recalled or not, the mayor holding office will have
his name on the ballot at the city election unless in writing
he requests the election commissioners not to place his name
on the ballot. The mayor then elected will hold office for
four years, subject to recall at the end of his second year.
"The city council will consist of nine members, all elected at
large. The salary will be $1500 each. In the election on
January 11 the voters may vote for nine candidates, and the
nine receiving the highest votes will be declared elected. The
three highest will have three-year terms, the three next
highest will serve for two years and the next three for one
year each. Each year thereafter three candidates-at-large will
be elected, and the voters may vote for three. All members of
the city council will be elected at large, and there will be
no ward members of the body. By the abolition of party
designations no primary elections or caucuses for municipal
offices will be held.
"All candidates for mayor, city council and school board must
be nominated by papers of not less than 5000 registered
voters. No voter may sign more than one paper for mayor, not
more than nine for council for the first election and for
three candidates thereafter, and not more than two papers for
the school board when there are two members to be elected.
"If a candidate for any of the offices decides to withdraw
from the contest before the election, vacancies in nominations
for any cause may be filled by a committee of not less than
five persons authorized in the nomination papers to fill such
vacancies.
"Members of the street commission, formerly elected at large,
will be appointed by the mayor, subject to approval by the
civil service commission, but without restriction as to their
political affiliation. All department heads will be appointed
by the mayor, subject to approval by the civil service
commission.
"The new municipal year will begin on the first Monday in
February, when the mayor and city council will be inducted
into office."
The election, held at the appointed time, January 11, 1910,
was managed so badly as to divide the vote of the reforming
element between three candidates, against one, the former
Mayor, Fitzgerald, whose scandalous administration had
afforded the prime incentive to the reform movement, and thus
giving opportunity for his election by a small plurality. A
committee of the reform leaders had chosen for their candidate
Mr. James J. Storrow, President of the Boston Chamber of
Commerce, and strove to concentrate the opposition to
Fitzgerald upon him; but the Mayor in office, who had secured
renomination, persisted in keeping the field, and won the
petty number of 1816 votes, which a little more than sufficed
to elect Fitzgerald. The vote given the latter was 47,142,
against 45,757 to Mr. Storrow, and 613 to the fourth
candidate, Taylor. A recount of the vote was secured, but made
no substantial change.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: California:
Charter-framing Power given to Cities.
"All cities in California except the very smallest are
permitted to frame their own charters, which become effective
upon ratification by the legislature. The cities are quick to
avail themselves of this privilege, with the result that
almost every possible experiment in municipal organization may
be found on trial somewhere in California. That the cities are
progressive is shown by the fact that within the past decade
every city of any size in the State has remodeled its
organization either by a new charter or by far-reaching
amendments. A high standard of efficient city organization has
been set by the recent charter of the city of Berkeley
[adopted 1909], which furnishes a very perfect example of the
‘commission’ plan. Elections are freed from the influence of
national parties, and the possibility of a final choice in the
direct primary is sufficient to bring out the entire vote of
the city.
"The popular initiative, the referendum, and the recall are
now generally established in all the larger cities of the
State, but outside of San Francisco and Los Angeles without
sufficient use to test their value for good government. In San
Francisco the popular initiative has been used more frequently
for bad measures than for good. In Los Angeles the spectacular
removal of the mayor in 1909 will doubtless be regarded as a
justification of the method of recall."
Frederick H. Clark,
Head of History Department, Lowell High School,
San Francisco, California.
{433}
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: Chicago:
The Municipal Voters’ League.
In 1896 there was thought in Chicago of attempting to organize
a strictly Municipal Party for action in municipal politics
alone, and a conference of citizens appointed a committee to
deal with the scheme. The committee decided this project to be
impracticable, but its deliberations resulted in the creation
of a Municipal Voters’ League, acting through a non-partisan
committee of nine, whose function was to scrutinize all
candidacies and nominations for the City Common Council, and
afford information concerning them to voters of all parties
who desired the election of honest and capable men. A
permanent office force was employed, and thorough
investigations made as to the record and character of every
nominee for the Council. The results of these investigations
were published, with recommendations for or against the
respective candidates. The league brought pressure to bear, in
the first place, to prevent the nomination of objectionable
candidates, and then exerted its influence to defeat such
candidates at the polls.
This has been done with such effect in election after election
as to produce a remarkable change in the character of the
Council. Similar agencies have been brought into action in a
number of cities within the few last years, with equally good
results.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT:
Chicago’s Struggles for a Better Charter.
A body known as the "Charter Convention," made up of delegates
appointed by or representing the Governor of the State, the
State Assembly, and the several branches and departments of
the City Government, was organized in December, 1905, and
labored at the framing of a new City Charter until the early
part of 1907, when the product of its labors was submitted to
the Legislature of Illinois. Some of the main features of the
charter were these:
Consolidation in the municipal government of Chicago of the
power vested in the board of education, township, park, and
other local governments within the city;
submission of propositions to popular vote;
aldermen to be elected once in four years;
the raising of adequate revenue by the issue of bonds and
by other means;
the power to own, maintain, and operate all public
utilities in the city, including intramural, railroads,
subways and tunnels, and telephone, telegraph, gas,
electric lighting, heating, refrigerating and power plants;
the parks to be under the management of a city department
of parks;
the public-school system to be a department of the city
government and under the control of a board of education of
fifteen members appointed by the mayor for terms of three
years;
the public library to be managed by a board of nine
directors appointed by the mayor for terms of six years.
As it went to the Legislature this draft charter represented
much compromising of divergent opinions, and, probably, was
not really satisfactory to anybody. The Legislature made it
less so by amendments, and when it went to the people of
Chicago, in September, 1907, for their verdict on it at the
polls, they rejected it by 121,935 votes against 59,786.
Early in 1908 the Charter Convention was reassembled and
revised its former work, cutting the requisite legislation up
into seven distinct bills, with a view to securing better
chances of success for some reforms, if the whole could not be
won; but the entire lot was killed in the Legislature.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: The Galveston or Des Moines Plan.
Its Features.
Extent of its Present Trial.
Curiously enough, the present trend of opinion on the
question, "What structure of municipal government will lend
itself best to the reforms that it needs?" is in a direction
that was given to it by accident, about ten years ago. Perhaps
nothing short of a great catastrophe, like that of hurricane
and flood, which wrecked the city of Galveston, on the 8th of
September, 1900, could have broken the conventional pattern on
which our cities were constructed so long. At all events, it
was that catastrophe which started a crack in the antique
pattern first. In improvising for the needs of a desperate
emergency, the wrecked community had sense and energy enough
to follow the plain instincts of business, and put itself, as
a municipal corporation, under the kind of administration that
any other corporation would construct. All the folly of
localized interests in this and that part of the town,
requiring to be "represented" by ward aldermen, went out of
their heads. Their common calamity compelled them to
understand that particular interests within the narrow bounds
of a civic commonwealth are either included in or superseded
by the common interests of the whole. They acted accordingly;
dismissed their locally representative aldermen, dropped their
old corps of administrative functionaries, and put the
undivided management of their affairs into the hands of five
commissioners, with a "mayor-president" at the head.
It would not seem to have needed much political wisdom to
predict the success of this experiment; but the quick effect
of its teaching was more than there could be reason to expect.
Houston, the near neighbor-city, was prompt to receive and
apply the lesson, but bettering it somewhat. For Houston
employed the whole time of its five business managers, paying
them fair salaries for the service; whereas Galveston
contented itself with less service and paid less.
The two examples then presented, of a municipal corporation
conducting its business in the plain mode and by the plain
methods of the commercial corporations, drew increasing
attention, in all parts of the country, west and east. Boston
was soon discussing the Galveston experiment with deep
interest, and at a meeting of the highly influential Economic
Club of that city, in January, 1907, President Eliot, of
Harvard University, declared that he saw in it the dawning of
a brighter day. "We have got down very low," he said, "in
regard to our municipal governments, and we have got dark days
here now, but we can see a light breaking, and one of the
lights broke in Galveston. I have personally been interested
in the enormous improvement in just one branch of municipal
business in our country within the last ten years—that is,
school boards and school administrations. There has been a
real wave of reform sweeping over the country, in the great
cities particularly, with regard to school boards, and every
bit of that experience goes the way I am describing it.
{434}
It is all in the direction of a few men not paid, originally
determining the general policy of the schools of the city and
trusting entirely to experts for executive action. Our whole
experience in Massachusetts with the commissions we have had,
tends the same way. If we ask what have been the best
performances of the governmental functions in Massachusetts
for the last twenty-five years, we have but one answer to
make, namely, the work of our commissions, water, sewage,
railroads, gas and electric lighting, public libraries where
owned by the city, hospitals where owned by the city. You can
think of numerous instances in Massachusetts where admirable
work has been done by commissions acting on the principles
which I have described. I say the day is dawning. What it
needs, that the light may grow and get to full noon, is that
the people, the great body of the people, should be convinced
that municipal government means nothing but good, intelligent
conduct of business."
Meantime, in the West, action was already following study of
the Galveston plan of city government, and the four states of
Iowa, Kansas, North Dakota, and South Dakota passed acts in
1907 to enable the adoption of it by any city so desiring. One
of the first to exercise the privilege was the city of Des
Moines, Iowa, certain of whose progressive young business men
had been studying the municipal problem of late, and who had
determined to bring some system of local government into
operation that would make their city what it ought to be. On
the basis of the Galveston plan they worked out the details of
a charter which has become the model of its species most
widely accepted, so that more has been heard latterly of "the
Des Moines Charter" than of "the Galveston Plan." What is
called the Des Moines charter, however, was no special
enactment for that city, but a legislative frame of municipal
government which any city in Iowa having not less than 25,000
inhabitants may fit itself into.
It confides the whole management of strictly local affairs in
the city to four councilmen and a mayor, all elected by the
voters of the city at large. It divides their administration
into five departments, namely:
The department of Public Affairs;
The department of Accounts and Finances;
The department of Public Safety;
The department of Streets and Public Improvements;
The department of Parks and Public Property.
The mayor, by virtue of his office, is chairman of the
council. He is also superintendent of the department of public
affairs, and exercises a general supervision over the whole of
the city administration.
The council thus composed, with the mayor at its head, is
invested with all executive, legislative and judicial
authority, formerly exercised by perhaps twelve different
officers, and twelve different boards. It appoints the city
attorney, the city treasurer, the city auditor, the city
engineer; and, in fact, every other appointive official. It
makes every appropriation, and conducts the entire affairs of
the city. "At the first meeting of this council, immediately
following the election of its members, the work of the city is
assigned to its most appropriate department; to one of these
five departments. Each of the members of the council is also
named as superintendent of a particular department; the theory
of the law being that the man who is best qualified, by reason
of his experience and training, will be placed at the head of
that department where his training and experience will be of
most value. As superintendent of this department, he is held
strictly accountable for all matters which come within his
jurisdiction; he is also charged with responsibility for all
that is done or not done in his particular department." In the
nomination and election of this important council, no party
names are permitted to be connected with the candidates, in
any manner whatsoever. Each candidate for the office becomes
so by the filing of a petition with the city clerk, bearing
the signatures of not less than twenty-five citizens, who make
affidavit to the effect that the man is of good moral
character, of age, and qualified to fill the office. "Ten days
before the election is held, the city clerk takes the
petitions which have been filed and prepares the ballot. He
does this by arranging the names of candidates in alphabetical
order. The candidates for mayor are arranged under the heading
‘Mayor’; the candidates for councilmen are also arranged in
alphabetical order under the heading ‘Councilmen.’ There is no
party designation, and because of this alphabetical
arrangement there can be no favorite position on the ballot.
The result is, that the candidate comes before the whole
people of the city on his own merit, and on his own record."
As a citizen of Des Moines has described the proceeding,
"after the primary has been held the general election is
called, and in order to secure names for the ballot in the
general election, we take the two candidates who have received
the highest number of votes for mayor at the primary, and
place their names on the ballot. In order to secure the
councilmen, we take the eight candidates for councilmen who
have received the highest number of votes at the primary and
place their names on the regular election ballot. This gives
us two opportunities to weed out undesirable men. In the first
place, we have the choice among all candidates at the primary.
At the election, we have the choice of one of two men for
mayor, and the choice of four out of eight candidates for
councilmen."
A most important provision of this Iowa charter for cities has
to do with the civil service. "At the first meeting of the
city council, after the election of these five commissioners
or five councilmen--they are not commissioners—they appoint a
civil service board composed of three members, and this civil
service board, in whose charge is placed the work of preparing
a civil service examination, is appointed for a period of six
years. Thus they are removed from any influence that might be
exerted by the councilmen, who are only elected for two years.
This civil service commission prepares once a year an
examination for all employees of the city, with the exception
of unskilled labor and the heads of the departments, such as
city attorney, city treasurer, city assessor, etc. (all of
whom are appointed by a majority vote of the council). Having
passed the examination successfully, the applicant is placed
in a position, and so long as his work is satisfactory and he
remains competent, he cannot be removed. He may be suspended,
but he cannot be removed, and he is entitled to a hearing
before the civil service board. This provision at once takes
away all chance of a machine being built up through
patronage."
{435}
This is a sufficient description of the official frame of
government that has been instituted at Des Moines and other
cities of Iowa under a general law of that State. The law goes
farther, and connects with this frame or system a
supplementary provision of methods for giving the whole body
of the people an immediate agency in municipal legislation and
a power to recall their election of any elected official
during his term. By the use of the Swiss process of
"initiative," a sufficient number of voters (25 per cent. of
the whole) can propose measures which the Council must either
adopt or else submit to the general vote, and can suspend
measures adopted by the council until the general body of
citizens has voted for or against them. These features, of the
initiative, the referendum and the recall, are no more
essential attachments to the Des Moines or Iowa form of
municipal organization than to any other. To what extent the
States and cities making trial of the general features of the
Galveston scheme of municipal organization have followed Iowa
in making the Swiss additions to it, information at present is
wanting. Apparently the Des Moines pattern is having wide
acceptance.
In the fall of 1909 the towns in the United States which had
adopted the so-called Des Moines plan of government were
reported to number 12 in Texas, 7 in Kansas, 6 in Iowa, 3 in
Massachusetts, 3 in California, 2 in Colorado, 2 in Missouri,
2 in Tennessee, 1 in West Virginia, 1 in Mississippi, 1 in
North Dakota, 1 in South Dakota, being 42 in all. Movements
looking to the introduction of the same system were on foot in
other cities. At the November election a draft of charter on
the lines of the Des Moines plan was submitted to popular vote
in the city of Buffalo, New York, and approved by 8848
electors, out of a total of 11,346 who expressed themselves on
the subject. The total vote, however, was only about one-sixth
of that cast for candidates at the election. On the strength
of the opinion expressed, the Legislature is now being asked
to enact the charter. Should it do so, the form of government
will have trial in the largest city that has yet introduced
it.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: London, England:
Defeat of the Progressives in the County and Borough Elections.
See (in this Volume)
LONDON: A. D. 1907-1909.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: Los Angeles, California:
Experiments and Experiences.
Since 1900, Los Angeles, California, has been going through
some interesting experiences, due to a series of charter
amendments. The former charter of the city had been of the
common pattern, organizing the municipal government under a
mayor and a board of aldermen elected by wards. The amendments
of recent years have created a Board of Public Works, with large
powers in the management of municipal work; have changed the
Board of Education from a body of nine members elected by
wards to a membership of seven chosen from the city at large;
have provided an elaborate system of municipal civil service
regulation; and finally have provided for a complete system of
popular initiative and referendum in municipal legislation,
and for recall of elective officers. Popular initiative in
legislation is made possible upon the demand by petition of 15
per cent of the voters, estimated upon the total vote for
mayor at the preceding municipal election; referendum in
ordinary legislation is required upon a petition of 7 per cent
of the voters; a recall election must be ordered upon the
demand of 25 per cent of the voters concerned in the filling
of the office. The official whom the petition seeks to remove
is made a candidate for reflection without other nomination,
unless in writing he notifies the city clerk that he is not a
candidate.
The recall methods, provided for in charter amendments of
1903, have been put into actual service; first, in 1906, when
a councilman was replaced by vote of the Ward, and again in
February, 1909, when a recall election was ordered for the
office of mayor. The proceedings in this case attracted
widespread attention and interest throughout the country. They
failed, however, to afford a perfect test of recall methods
for the reason that after the election had been ordered but
before the date had arrived the mayor in office resigned, thus
surrendering without a struggle to the opponents who had
sought his removal.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: Michigan:
Home Rule for Cities.
The lately revised Constitution of Michigan authorizes cities
and villages to frame, adopt and amend their charters, and to
pass laws and ordinances in regard to their municipal
concerns. Under this improved Constitution, the Michigan
Legislature of 1909 adopted the necessary legislation for the
formulation of action and for the limitation of taxes and
debts. The following, from the New York Evening Post,
is a summary of the more important provisions of the Act:
"Charters of new cities will be framed by a commission of nine
electors chosen by popular vote. Revised charters of existing
cities will be framed, after a vote of the electors in favor
of revision (submitted by a two-thirds vote of the local
legislative body or on an initiatory petition of twenty per
cent. of the total vote cast for Mayor), by an elected
commission of one member from each ward and three electors at
large. Candidates for charter commissioners are to be placed
on the ballot without party affiliations designated. Charter
amendments may be proposed by a two-thirds vote of the local
legislative body, or by an initiatory petition of twenty per
cent. of the vote for Mayor.
"Every charter and charter amendment, before submission to the
electors, must be submitted to the Governor of the State, but
if disapproved by him, and passed on reconsideration by a
two-thirds vote of the Charter Commission or local legislative
body, shall be submitted to the electors. Copies of charters
and charter amendments approved by the electors of the city
shall be certified to the secretary of state, and shall
thereupon become a law.
"The law names certain things which each city charter shall
provide, and imposes certain restrictions on the powers of
cities. There must be an elected Mayor and a body vested with
legislative power; the clerk, treasurer, and assessors, and
other officers may be elected or appointed. This permits the
establishment of a commission system, or of a Mayor and
council with distinct powers. Provision must be made for the
levy, collection, and return of State, county, and school
taxes, for annual appropriations for municipal purposes, and
for a system of accounts.
{436}
"Provision may be made for municipal taxes and for borrowing
money up to prescribed limits, for the regulation of trades,
occupations, and amusements, for the purchase of franchises,
for a plan of streets within three miles beyond the city
limits, 'for a system of civil service,' for the referendum,
and the following omnibus clause: for the exercise of all
municipal powers in the management and control of municipal
property and in the administration of the municipal
government, whether such powers be expressly enumerated or
not; for any act to advance the interests of the city, the
good government and prosperity of the municipality and its
inhabitants, and through its regularly constituted authority,
to pass all laws and ordinances relating to its municipal
concerns, subject to the Constitution and general laws of the
State.
"Limitations include the following: Existing limits to the tax
rate and borrowing powers to remain until a change is
authorized by vote of the electors, with a maximum limit of 2
per cent. of the assessed valuation for the tax rate and 8 per
cent. for loans; but, as authorized by the Constitution, bonds
may be issued beyond this limit for public utilities, when
secured only upon the property and revenues of the utility. A
sinking fund must be provided for bonds. A charter or charter
amendment may not be submitted oftener than once in two years.
The salary of public officials may not be changed after
election or appointment. Certain municipal property may only
be sold or vacated when approved by three-fifths of the
electors voting thereon.
"A separate act was passed for villages. This follows the main
features of the law for cities, but is briefer."
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: New York City: A. D. 1901-1909.
The Municipal Elections of 1901, 1903, 1905, and 1909.
See (in this Volume)
NEW YORK CITY.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: New York City: A. D. 1905-1909.
The Working of the Bureau of Municipal Research.
The Bureau of Municipal Research, instituted in New York City
by an organization of citizens in 1905, has proved to be as
effective an agency as has ever been employed for the
straightening of crookedness and the correcting of negligence
in the conduct of municipal affairs. Its working is described
fully in an article which appeared in the Atlantic
Monthly of October, 1908, by the head of the Bureau, Dr.
William H. Allen, under the title, "A National Fund for
Efficient Democracy." What the writer aims to do, and does
most effectively, is, first, to show how inefficient our
democracy is in its practical working, how demoralizing that
inefficiency is, how feebly education and religion are
struggling against its demoralizations, so long as they do not
work to make government efficient; and then he unfolds the
remedy indicated in results obtained already from the public
enlightenment—the citizen education—which the Bureau of
Municipal Research is developing in New York. His final
purpose is to plead for the great national fund that would
establish a central foundation for the extending and
organizing of similar educational work throughout the country
at large.
The simple object of the New York Bureau of Municipal Research
has been to make and to keep the public acquainted with the
working of things in its government; to make and keep it
attentive to the facts of efficiency or inefficiency in that
working, which proves to be the kind of political education
that bears the most practical fruits. The aim of the bureau,
says Dr. Allen, has been "educative, not detective. Infinitely
more interested in pointing out what is needed than what is
wrong, it realizes that the great problem of democracy is not
the control of the officer, but the education of the citizen.
It began, not by laying down principles of government or
discussing men, but by studying the needs of the community and
its official acts. It would educate democracy in facts about
democracy’s acts and methods, democracy’s need, and
democracy’s opportunity." Something of the results achieved is
set forth in the following passage:
"Three years, $150,000, and scientific method, have
accomplished results surpassing all dreams of those who
outlined its programme. So convincing are these results that
onlookers who said three years ago, ‘The tiger will never
change its stripes,’ are now saying, ‘You could hardly do this
in cities where the tiger marks are less obvious.’ Although
many phases of municipal administration have not yet been
studied, there is hardly an obstacle to efficiency and honesty
that has not been encountered and overcome by light. The
real-estate bureau that eluded all graft charges is being
reorganized to prevent either graft or one hundred per cent.
profits for land sold the city at private sale. While its own
staff, consisting of three investigators in 1907 and 40 in the
summer of 1908, can of itself do no inconsiderable educational
work, the bureau gauges its effectiveness, not by what its own
staff accomplishes, but by what the city’s staff of 70,000,
and through them the city’s population of 4,000,000, are
enabled to accomplish because of its educational effort.
"Methods that manufacture corruption and inefficiency, and
that for 50 years defied political reform, are giving way to
methods by which 70,000 employees must tell the truth about
what they do when they do it, about what they spend when they
spend it, in clear, legible form. … Tammany officials, when
interested, make excellent collaborators. The commissioners of
accounts, for 30 years, through reform and Tammany
administrations alike, a whitewashing body that condoned and
glossed over wasteful and corrupt acts, have become, as a
direct result of the bureau’s work, a great educational
agency."
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: New York City: A. D. 1909.
Proposed New Charter, not acted on in the Legislature.
A Commission appointed for the purpose by Governor Hughes,
after long and careful study of the subject of a new charter
for Greater New York, reported in March, 1909, submitting a
recommended draft, which was submitted to the Legislature then
in session, but obtained no action from that body before its
adjournment. The ruling principle in the work of the
Commission had been that of reducing the number of elected
administrative officers, of putting into separate hands the
power to appropriate and the power to spend money, and of
concentrating power and responsibility in a few.
{437}
As originally organized, the "Greater New York" City is
divided into five boroughs. At the head of each borough is a
Borough President, who has charge of the streets and the
public buildings within the borough. There is also a Board of
Estimate and Apportionment, consisting of the Mayor,
Comptroller, the President of the Board of Aldermen, and the
Borough Presidents. There is also a Board of Aldermen. The
Commissioners proposed that the Borough Presidents shall cease
to have administrative functions and shall devote their
attention exclusively to the great financial work of the Board
of Estimate and Apportionment; that the administrative work be
given to heads of departments responsible to the Mayor, and to
bureaus, some of them under the Board of Estimate and
Apportionment and some under the various departments; and that
the Board of Aldermen be supplanted by a Council of
thirty-nine members to serve without pay; to have enlarged
legislative powers, but none connected with the grant
franchises, which the Board of Estimate and Apportionment
should control. A new Department of Street Control was
proposed, to take over all street work, abolishing the
Street-Cleaning Department.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: Philadelphia: A. D. 1905.
A Temporary House Cleaning of the Municipality.
Mayor Weaver’s Conversion.
"Philadelphia has reformed. It is the swiftest and most
thorough municipal revolution known in American civic annals.
Without an election and without primaries, without warning and
without preparation, the great deep of small
householders,—which is Philadelphia,—moved from below. When
the work was over, Mayor Weaver, who led the revolution, had
not only changed the heads of the two executive departments,
with ten thousand employees, but he was in full control of
City Councils; he was recognized as the head of the city
Republican party organization; he had forced the city
Republican committee to withdraw the local ticket already
nominated and await the choice of another ticket by the reform
leaders; he had begun criminal prosecution, stopped work on
contracts for filtration plants, boulevards, and highways
amounting to some twelve million dollars, beginning a
searching investigation by a board of expert engineers, and
had defeated two grabs, one a contract for seventy-five years
in gas and the other a street-car grab of one hundred and ten
miles of streets, sought by the two local public-service
corporations, the United Gas Improvement Company and the
Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company. Both had been successfully
passed before this revolution broke, and both were recalled,
on the demand of the mayor, by the same councils that had
passed them.
"The coherent homogeneous vote of the myriads of small homes
which make up Philadelphia has made this sweeping victory
possible against great odds. The party majority in
Pennsylvania and Philadelphia is the strongest in the country.
The city machine is as well organized as Tammany Hall. It
holds city, State, and federal patronage. For ten years it has
without challenge chosen the executive officers at Harrisburg
and Philadelphia and held the Legislature and Councils. The
city ring, in a decade of unchecked rule, has issued
$40,000,000 of city bonds; let on the filtration plant alone
$13,660,000 of contracts; as much more on various public
improvements, and had pending work authorized, but not let,
costing about $30,000,000. The criminal investigation already
made indicates that on the filtration-plant contracts alone
the margin of loose profit is from 28 to 30 per cent. In this
period the city gas works have been leased for a term ending
in 1927, on provisions which yield $2,000,000 a year, twice
the expected profit to the lessee, the United Gas Improvement
Company. The other public-service corporation, the
Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company, has had a free gift of a
subway and over two hundred miles of street without payment
and without limitation. The combination, under an antiquated
law which threw no safeguards about the ballot of a venal vote
controlled by machine office-holders of the great
corporations, railroad and public-service, and of a corrupt
combination of contractors and politicians, seemed omnipotent.
By the adroit use of State and city appropriations for private
charities and educational institutions, the respectable were
placated. The leaders of this organization were also wise
enough to meet reforms non-political halfway. The last State
legislature passed excellent sanitary legislation, reorganized
on sound lines the city schools of Philadelphia, passed
efficient child-labor laws, and at many points improved State
legislation. Carefully separating political management and
elected officers, the leaders of the machine chose judicial
candidates usually unexceptionable, and elected as governor of
the State and mayor of Philadelphia men honest, dull, highly
respected, without stain but pliant.
"In April, so far as Philadelphia was concerned,
self-government seemed to have disappeared. Its charter was
amended, in the teeth of universal protest, so as to rob
future mayors of all powers. Senator Boies Penrose and
Insurance Commissioner Israel W. Durham made all nominations,
State and city. The former awaits investigation. Durham has
been shown to be a silent and secret partner in a contracting
firm holding $13,660,000 of contracts, under city ordinances
he passed, led by officers he chose, and yielding some 30 per
cent. profit. In Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, the
corporation pays the machine and the machine aids the
corporation. It is like this in other States, but preeminently
in that founded by Penn. After a long series of like gifts and
franchises, councils voted the Rapid Transit Company one
hundred and ten miles of streets, passed a costly boulevard
system, and in return for $25,000,000 intended for more
contracts proposed to lease the city gas works for
seventy-five years, postponing reduction in the price of gas
for three-quarters of a century.
"This ran the pliant fingers of the machine into the pockets
of every householder who had a gas bill to pay, some two
hundred and eighty thousand in number. Suddenly this great
mass moved from within. The pulpit of small churches knew it
before the press, the little division leaders before the ward
managers, and they before the chiefs of the organization. In a
week, the city seethed. Children of councilmen came crying
from the public schools. No one would play with them. Callous,
thick-skinned politicians found their mail, their telephones,
and their daily tours one hot rain of protest from their old
neighbors. Division leaders reported defection by the
avalanche.
{438}
The small householder, the narrow burgher, comfortable,
contented, owning his house, careless over ideals, education,
corruption, and venal voter, was aflame over a bigger gas
bill. It is the old story of ship money and stamp taxes. No
vote was necessary. No primary was needed. The leaders of a
political machine are ignorant of much, but they know the
voice of the voter in the land. John Weaver, the mayor, chosen
by the machine, and its lifelong friend and supporter, had
been a fair case lawyer and district attorney. Honest, narrow,
clean-lived, of a legal mind, restive at the way he was
treated as a mere figurehead, he recognized the civic
revolution because he was himself of the class that had risen.
He had, moreover, in his day won his division and was a ward
leader."
American Review of Reviews,
July, 1905.
The Israel W. Durham referred to above, who was the absolute
"boss" of Philadelphia from 1896 to 1905, died on the 28th of
June, 1909.
See, also,
PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1906.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: A. D. 1909.
The old Evil Conditions revived.
Defeat of Revolt against them.
The old mastery of the City Government by an all-powerful and
shameless political "machine" was recovered at the end of the
term of Mayor Weaver, and conditions were soon as rotten as
before the momentary and partial cleansing had been performed.
In 1909 a hopeful revolt against them was undertaken, under
the lead of D. Clarence Gibboney a young lawyer who as
secretary of an active "Law and Order Society," had shown
inspiring powers of leadership and high qualities of sincerity
and resolution. Gibboney had been put forward for District
Attorney in 1906 on Democratic and Independent tickets, and
had suffered defeat. Now he was brought again to the front,
for that office, from which the plunderers of the city could
be most advantageously attacked. A William Penn Party had been
organized in the interest of reform, and his nomination by
this was endorsed by the Democratic organization. A great
effort was made to rouse the conscience and the self-respect
of the city, to throw off the thraldom of blind partisanship
under which it submits to be corrupted and robbed. But the
effort failed. Gibboney was rejected by a majority of about
40,000 voters.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: Pittsburg:
Achievements of a Reforming Mayor.
George W. Guthrie became Mayor of Pittsburg in 1906. "When
Mayor Guthrie went into office there was no merit system in
Pittsburg; but he soon established an effective one of his
own, and at the 1907 session of the Pennsylvania Legislature
effectively co-operated with the Pennsylvania Civil Service
Reform Association and similar bodies, with Mayor Dimmick, of
Scranton, and the business bodies of second-class cities, to
secure a law which would permanently establish the merit
system in them. He and his colleagues succeeded. A short time
ago some one asked the Mayor how many Democrats he had
appointed to office. His immediate reply was, 'I haven’t the
least idea. The question of party has never entered into the
matter.’ …
"The tax levied in February, 1906, before Mayor Guthrie
assumed office, was 15 mills. That levied in February, 1907,
the first under his administration, was 12½ mills. This year,
had it not been for the annexation of Allegheny, the city
would have required only 10 or 10½ mills. The Mayor’s first
estimate was 11 mills; but the final figures, as made up by
the Finance Committee, showed that the lower figure would have
been sufficient. When the Mayor entered office, there was a
cash deficit of $400,000, caused by the payment of bills left
over from the previous administration. He closed his first
year with a small surplus, and the second (1907) with a large
one. The total tax valuation of the old city of Pittsburg is
$599,852,923. Its total bonded indebtedness is $24,956,001,
and its net indebtedness (arrived at by deducting bonds in the
saving fund) is $16,532,425, or .0275 per cent of the
valuation. This highly desirable financial result, however,
has not been reached by any false economy. Inadequate salaries
have been raised. All the street repairing for 1907 was paid
for out of the tax levy, and the work on the filtration plant
has been pushed unceasingly. Enough of the filter beds are
finished to provide for present needs, and as soon as they are
‘ripened’ and the pumping machinery rearranged the city will
have filtered water. …
"For many years, under the old regime, Pittsburg had been free
from many of the evils of an open city; but a syndicate of
Councilmen and politicians had made immense sums out of the
business. They controlled the leases of the houses, which they
sublet at exorbitant sums. They also controlled the supplies
which were furnished to them. The Mayor issued but one order
for the regulation of this district. He made no attempt to
solve the entire problem. As the law was plain about the sale
of liquor, he declared that that must stop absolutely; and
that no house could be run on streets on which there were
surface cars. This order proved to be the death-blow of the
combination that had previously existed. The politicians, when
they heard the order, laughed. They had fooled every other
Mayor, and they thought they could fool Guthrie. He would need
Councils and must necessarily ‘deal’ with them. But he needed
no one, and he ‘dealt’ with no one. He waited six weeks for
his warning to be taken, and then he acted. One Saturday night
the police drew a net around the district, and over one
thousand arrests were made. Then came the final blow that
stopped political interference. Under the old system police
magistrates had been in the habit of holding fines or delaying
sentences, which, under the pressure of political influence,
were remitted or suspended. Such money as was paid in was held
for a month before being turned over to the city treasury. …
Mr. Guthrie established the rule that all fines and jail
sentences, once imposed, would have to stand unless revoked by
the county courts. Not only have the revenues of the city
largely increased by this policy, as we have already seen, but
one of the greatest sources of political evil has been
removed. Since this policy was inaugurated there has been no
political or machine interference in the administration of the
law. Incidentally, I may mention that one Councilman went to
jail for his complicity with the protection of the social
evil.
{439}
"The situation in Pittsburg is so changed and improved that
the Secretary of the Civic Voters' League was able to say
recently; ‘While we have forced Councils to be good, elected
the best Mayor in the country, put in county offices men of
ability and honesty, forced the politicians to give us a good
civil service measure, I am convinced that our most important
victory has been to convince the political leaders and bosses
that there is a new era in politics, and that for the future
none but the best men can be elected to public office.’"
Clinton Rogers Woodruff,
A Mayor with an Ideal
(The Outlook, April 25, 1908).
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT:
Defeat of the Reforming Mayor in 1909, but no Discouragement
of the Reforming Activity of the Voters’ League.
Unparalleled Success in convicting Bribed Officials
and their Bribers.
Mayor Guthrie, nominated for reëlection in 1909, was defeated
by the nominee of a corrupt party "machine"; but this put no
check on the efforts of the Voters’ League behind him to hunt
down the corrupting influences and agencies which had mastered
the city once more. A fortunate accident gave the League a
single clue to the hidden labyrinth of rascality, and it
sufficed for astounding revelations. It tracked and caught,
first, a single ex-Councilman, who had handled large sums of
bribe-money, receiving and dividing it among his fellow
members of a gang known as the "Big Six." This man, John P.
Klein, when he found himself helplessly in the toils, and
likely to be the scape-goat for all his confederates and their
corrupters, made confessions which uncovered much, if not all,
of the bribe-giving and bribe-taking of several past years.
Down to the 23d of March, 1910, when the following summary was

published, the results coming from this confession had been as
follows:
In penitentiary—
W. W. Ramsey, ex-president of the German National Bank;
William Brand, ex-president of the Common Council;
Joseph C. Wasson, ex-Councilman, and H. M. Bolder.
Under sentence to the penitentiary—
John F. Klein, ex-Councilman.
Awaiting disposition of their cases—
E. H. Jennings, president of the Columbia National Bank, and
F. A. Griffin, cashier, who pleaded nolo contendere.
Under indictment—
Forty-one Councilmen.
Confessors of bribe-sharing—
Twenty Councilmen, former and present, Select and Common.
More confessors awaiting turn—
Ten former and present Councilmen.
As this goes to the printers, the bribe-givers, including some
of the multi-millionaires of Pittsburg, are being dragged into
court.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: St. Louis: A. D. 1900-1940.
The Unearthing of Thievery and Corruption
by Circuit Attorney Folk.
Prosecutions, Confessions, and Convictions.
One of the most notable and effective cleansings of a
corrupted municipality that has occurred in the United States
was accomplished in St. Louis by Joseph Wingate Folk, using
the powers of the office of Circuit Attorney of the City, to
which he was fortunately elected in the spring of 1900. That
bribery was active among the Aldermen and Councilmen of the
two chambers of the municipal legislature, and that
unscrupulous men of business were habitually employing it to
secure iniquitous franchises and jobs, appears to have been a
matter of common belief; but the belief had not roused feeling
enough to bring about any change, until the opportunity to act
was given to Mr. Folk.
One notoriously suspicious transaction, which consolidated the
street railways of the city, was outlawed for all but a single
actor in it by the Missouri statute of limitations, which bars
criminal proceedings after three years; but the one man had
been absent from the State during so large a part of those
three years that he could be reached by the law, and the
Circuit Attorney turned the search light of a grand jury
investigation on his case. This man, R. M. Snyder, of Kansas
City, was indicted, arrested, and held for trial under bonds
of $50,000. From that beginning Mr. Folk went on to the
probing of a more recent franchise grant, and unearthed the
fact that two deposits of cash, for sums of $60,000 and
$75,000 were boxed in safety deposit vaults, each guarded by
duplicate keys held on one side by a corporation agent, and on
the other side by agents of the Council and the Aldermanic
body respectively, waiting for distribution among the
officials who had sold the public franchise for those sums. A
rival corporation had, meantime, attacked the legality of the
grant, held it up by an injunction, and so kept these
corruption funds in suspension between the bribers and the
bribed.
By what resolute persistence, what shrewdness, what bold
ventures of surmise, Mr. Folk uncovered the cunningly secreted
facts, terrified the "boodlers" and the bribers into betraying
one another, and fastened their crimes upon them, cannot be
told here. Two of the wealthy buyers in the rascally trade, a
Mr. Turner and a Mr. Stock, became witnesses for the State
against the men whose crime they had bought. The two agents
for Aldermen and Councilmen, who held the keys of the
deposited bribe, J. K. Murrell and Charles Kratz, fled to
Mexico, forfeiting their bail. Three others of the accused,
Emil Meysenberg, Julius Lehmann and Harry Faulkner, were
tried, convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for three and
two years. The escape of Murrell and Kratz beyond reach of
extradition embarrassed the prosecution of the remaining
confederates, who seemed likely to go free for lack of
sufficient evidence; but unexpectedly, in September, 1902,
Murrell reappeared in St. Louis, saying that he could not
endure exile any longer and was ready to bear the penalty of
his wrongdoing. On his confessions eleven aldermen were
arrested, charged with bribery in two cases and with perjury
before the grand jury. Seven others made successful flights.
In the course of the next year another of the refugees from
justice returned, supposing his time of danger to have passed.
This was Charles F. Kelly, who had been Speaker of the St.
Louis House of Delegates and a ready tool of Edward Butler,
the St. Louis political "Boss" and legislative broker. Butler
had been involved in the prosecutions, and Kelly had fled to
avoid giving testimony against him, being paid, as he
confessed finally, $50,000 for his retirement into obscure
foreign parts. What happened to him later, and what
confessions he made were the subject of a brief story in THE
OUTLOOK of November 5, 1904, in part as follows:
{440}
"Returning when it was believed that his patron was secure
through the operation of the statute of limitations, Kelly was
arrested and sentenced to two years in the penitentiary for
perjury in his testimony in one of the boodle cases. He
appealed to the Supreme Court, and meanwhile was rearrested on
the charge of accepting a bribe in another deal. At, this
juncture he complained that Butler had deserted him and had
advised him to plead guilty. ‘It didn’t look right,’ he said
in an interview, ‘that we should take our medicine and that he
should go free.’ Therefore he determined to relate his
dealings with Butler in the bribery cases. In his statement he
says that he has reason to believe that boodling had been in
progress in the St. Louis Municipal Assembly for the last
twenty-five years. The boodlers did not fear exposure, because
they ‘knew that most of the politicians and many of the large
financiers of St. Louis’ would be with them. One prosecutor
who attempted to bring them to justice was ‘bluffed off.’ When
Mr. Folk began his work, there were threats of assassination,
and finally a deliberate plot was arranged to ruin the
prosecutor’s influence by falsehoods. ‘Prominent financiers’
as well as the boodlers were engaged in this attempt,
according to the confession.
"The general scheme of the boodle ‘combine’ is already fairly
well known, but Mr. Kelly adds some interesting details. There
were nineteen members, and the combine was ‘not along party
lines.’ ‘My experience,’ he remarks, ‘has been that boodlers
line up according to their interests, and not under party
standards.’ The members of the combine held regular meetings,
and decided by a majority vote on the prices to be charged for
various measures. There was a ‘fixed schedule of prices’ for
bills in accordance with the value of the privileges to be
given. The combine rarely sold out for less than a thousand
dollars, though once ‘some of the boys took five dollars each,
but were so ashamed of it they would not speak of it
afterwards, because the price was so small.’ The combine was
in the habit of selecting one of its members to act as agent
in the deals, and only in one or two instances did the
representative prove untrustworthy. ‘Among ourselves,’ says
this frank boodler, ‘we had a high code of morals, and it was
considered extremely dishonest for a member of the combine to
accept bribe money without dividing it among his fellows.’ A
particularly interesting feature of the confession is the
warning which it gives to St. Louis of the danger of a relapse
to the old conditions when Mr. Folk’s term as Circuit Attorney
shall have expired. Kelly asserts that Butler advised his
indicted friends to get continuances until a new Circuit
Attorney should be elected, and that he promised them that the
prosecutor should be ‘his man.’ ‘What,’ asks Kelly, ‘has been
done in St. Louis? Nothing at all. The prosecutor has, after
three years’ fighting, whipped us. But it seems to me, such is
the condition of public sentiment in St. Louis, that when the
new prosecutor, who of course will be Ed Butler’s man, takes
charge, boodlers will be in clover again.’ In his opinion the
great trouble is that ‘so many of the large corporations of
the city are mixed up in boodle one way or another’ that the
town is willing to tolerate corruption."
Here, as in all exposed cases, the power to organize "boodle"
or "graft" in municipal government is found to have been
derived from the "machines" of the national political parties.
The exhibit of character and ability made by Mr. Folk in his
extraordinary enforcement of law in St. Louis, to the
overthrow of the stronghold of municipal thieves and
corruptionists, so commended him to the people of Missouri
that they nominated and elected him Governor of the State in
1904, despite the most desperate endeavor of the party
organizations to defeat him. In his higher office he continued
his work of reform.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1901-1909.
The Struggle with Political Corruption.
"Before the enactment of the charter of 1899 the mayoralty in
San Francisco had little power, and successive political
bosses had ignored it. Instead of this, they aimed to control
the municipal Board of Supervisors, which had the awarding of
contracts and franchises. The charter of 1899 changed all
this, by concentrating vast powers of appointment and removal
in the mayoralty, the office being filled by biennial
election. The office was ably and honestly administered for
the first two years by Honorable Jas. D. Phelan.
"During the latter portion of Phelan’s term there occurred a
long and bitter industrial struggle, known as the ‘Teamsters’
Strike,’ in which the sympathy of other labor organizations
was deeply stirred. At the request of the employers Mayor
Phelan consented to placing the city police upon drays and
wagons as guards for non-union drivers. This action aroused
violent denunciation on the part of the union labor leaders.
It also served as a political object lesson. It was seen that
to gain possession of the mayoralty in the interest of union
labor would be a great political advantage, especially in a
recurrence of industrial strife.
"In the following election (1901) Eugene E. Schmitz, orchestra
leader at the Columbia theatre and head of the musicians’
union, the candidate of the union labor party, was elected
mayor by 21,776 votes as against 30,365 votes somewhat evenly
divided between the Republican and the Democratic candidates.
Two years later (1903) Schmitz was reëlected in the same way,
and in 1905 he was again successful, this time securing a
large majority over the fusion candidate nominated by the
Democratic and Republican parties combined. Throughout the
whole period Schmitz's chief political manager was Abraham
Ruef, a native of San Francisco, well educated, gifted and
ambitious, an adroit politician, previously affiliated with
the Republican party. In 1904 he was a delegate at large for
California in the Republican national convention at Chicago.
"Almost from the beginning of the Schmitz administration it
became recognized throughout the city that the most certain
way of obtaining favors from the mayor’s office was through
the law office of Abraham Ruef, who acted as the legal and
political adviser of Mayor Schmitz. Ruef steered a different
course from political bosses generally. He kept his office
open for all comers, high and low. He was thoroughly
accessible. He welcomed all applicants and dealt out
encouraging assurances to every request. It soon became a
matter of general belief that under the guise of legal
services Ruef was selling licenses, securing special
privileges for favored clients and protecting illegal
concerns. Ruef’s income increased enormously during the
Schmitz regime, but to the end he maintained this pretense of
‘attorney’s fees,’ and only a few months before he was
indicted for extortion he stoutly maintained before a public
meeting that he had never made a dollar out of politics.’
{441}
"In 1905 the grand jury made a thorough investigation of the
municipal administration and became convinced of the existence
of a wide-spread system of bribery and corruption. In its
report to the Superior Court, filed August 19, 1905, it
stated: ‘that wholesale and wide-spread violation of law is
open, notorious and flagrant; that it meets with the
acquiescence of the mayor; that it receives the approval of
the police commission; that it is aided, abetted and protected
by police officials. … We find that vice and crime have been
organized so systematically, and fostered with such vigilant
attention to detail, that nothing which business acumen or
political expediency could suggest has been neglected or
omitted.’ For lack of legal evidence, however, or the funds
with which to carry on an investigation for securing it, no
indictments in these matters were returned.
"The municipal election of 1905 gave to Ruef the control of
the Board of Supervisors as well as the administrative
departments of the city. The great upheaval in business
conditions produced by the earthquake and fire of April, 1906,
brought new and wealthier clients to his office. Evidence made
public in the later prosecutions goes to show that Ruef was
paid to secure from the Board of Supervisors for the United
Railroads permission to use an overhead trolley system for
operating its street cars instead of the cable system in use
before the fire; that the gas company had bribed the
supervisors to raise the price of gas from 75 to 85 cents per
thousand feet; and that the telephone companies had used the
same means to promote their interests.
"The work of securing the evidence upon which criminal
indictments could be based was performed by a few determined
men. Rudolph Spreckels, a young man of large fortune, came
forward with a pledge of $100,000 for the expenses of a
searching investigation. District Attorney William H. Langdon,
who had been elected on the same ticket with Schmitz,
announced that he would conduct the inquiry without regard to
party affiliations, and appointed Francis J. Heney, assistant
district attorney. A man of courage and devotion to public
honesty, Heney had gained distinction by the successful
prosecution of land frauds before the Federal courts in
Oregon. Heney requested and obtained the assistance of William
J. Burns, a detective in the United States Secret Service.
"Ruef and Schmitz were soon indicted by the grand jury,
charged with extorting money from restaurant proprietors.
During the progress of his trial Ruef changed his plea from
‘Not guilty’ to ‘Guilty.’ Judgment against him was delayed,
however, by the prosecution for the purpose of gaining
evidence against others. Schmitz was tried on a similar charge
and with the aid of testimony given by Ruef was convicted and
[July, 1907] sentenced to imprisonment for five years in the
state penitentiary.
"Meanwhile, some of the weaker supervisors having been caught
in a trap set for them by Burns, confessions of bribery were
obtained by the grand jury from fifteen out of eighteen
members of the Board. In return for these confessions the
district attorney entered into immunity contracts with the
supervisors, and became temporarily the directing power in the
municipal government. The office of mayor was declared vacant,
and Honorable. Edward R. Taylor, a learned and conscientious
man, a professor in the Hastings College of Law in San
Francisco, was appointed to the position. Gradually the whole
Board of Supervisors was replaced by honest and experienced
men.
"On the confessions of the discredited supervisors there
followed a large number of indictments against Ruef, Schmitz
and the various officers and employees of the public service
corporations concerned in corrupting the city government. By
May 25, 1907, the number of so-called ‘graft’ indictments was
137, against 19 persons. From collateral issues the number of
indictments later rose to 160. The indictments against a few
of the accused were subsequently dismissed. Five of the
original 19 accused persons had been put on trial one or more
times previous to January, 1910,—the expiration of the term of
office of District Attorney Langdon. These trials were carried
on with the utmost rancor on the part of opposing counsel. The
greatest difficulties were encountered in securing juries and
in several cases juries failed to agree. Throughout the
community and in the public prints there developed factional
division and bitterness. This factional hatred culminated in
acts of violence and terrorism. Two houses in Oakland, Alameda
County, one occupied, the other owned by James L. Gallagher,
former supervisor and lieutenant of Ruef, later a most
important witness for the prosecution, were dynamited and
nearly destroyed. For these crimes a culprit was discovered
and sent to the state prison for life by the courts of Alameda
County. On November 13, 1908, during the trial of Ruef on
bribery charges, Mr. Heney was shot from behind while at his
post in the court-room by a half-demented sympathizer with the
accused. A day later the assassin took his own life while in
jail. By the merest chance Mr. Heney’s wound proved not to be
fatal, and after a few months he returned to his duties.
"Even in the few cases in which convictions were obtained
judgment was arrested by appeals to the higher courts, which
uniformly resolved all technical questions in favor of the
accused. To the end of 1909, the record of these cases is as
follows:
"Number of indictments 160.
"Contracts of immunity 19.
"Tried and acquitted twice:
Tirey L. Ford, attorney for the United Railroads.
"Trials in which the jury disagreed:
Louis Glass, manager for the Pacific States Telephone Co.;
Tirey L. Ford;
Abraham Ruef;
Patrick Calhoun, president of the United Railroads.
"Judgments reversed by higher court,
Eugene E. Schmitz and Louis Glass.
"Plea of guilty nullified by higher court:
Abraham Ruef.
"Convicted, but appeals to higher court in progress:
Abraham Ruef and M. W. Coffey, a supervisor who broke his
immunity contract.
{442}
"Thus it is evident that the prosecution has so far failed to
punish extortion and bribery by criminal procedure. The real
results of the prosecution are to be found in the prompt
reform of the municipal government of San Francisco in 1907,
and, in a larger way, in an awakened public conscience and a
strengthened sense of civic duty. These results are not
limited to San Francisco, but are a part of the great work of
political regeneration in which the whole country is
concerned.
"The question of further efforts to secure convictions in
these ‘graft’ cases was made a political issue in San
Francisco by the candidacy of Mr. Heney for the office of
district attorney in 1909. That a large number of voters
considered such continued efforts useless or hopeless was
shown by his defeat by a decisive majority of 10,000 votes
against him."
The new Mayor placed at the head of the City Government by
this election was the nominee of the same Union Labor Party
which had seated Schmitz and his manager, Ruef, and it was
made plain that he represented the opposition to all that had
been done and attempted toward municipal reform.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: Spain: A. D. 1907-1909.
Municipal Reforms.
See (in this Volume)
SPAIN: A. D. 1907-1909.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: The Transvaal: A. D. 1909.
Introduction of Proportional Representation.
See (in this Volume)
ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: United States:
The "Municipal Program," framed
by the National Municipal League.
"At the joint invitation of the City Club of New York and the
Municipal League of Philadelphia, a Conference for Good City
Government was held in Philadelphia in January, 1894. Out of
this conference grew the National Municipal League, formally
organized in New York City in May, 1894. The League includes
in its affiliated membership, the leading municipal reform
organizations of the country, and, in its associated
membership the leading students of municipal government. At
the annual meeting of the League in 1897 held in Louisville, a
special committee was appointed ‘to report on the feasibility
of a Municipal Program which will embody the essential
principles that must underlie successful municipal government,
and which shall also set forth a working plan or system,
consistent with American industrial and political conditions,
for putting such principles into practical operation; and the
Committee, if it finds such Municipal Program to be
feasible, is instructed to report the same with its reasons
therefor, to the League, for consideration.’
"The Committee appointed under this resolution made a
preliminary report at the annual meeting of the League held in
Indianapolis in 1898, and a final one at the annual meeting of
the League held in Columbus in 1899. The Committee did not
claim that its report constituted the final word upon the
subject referred to it, but its members were convinced, as a
result of their studies and investigations, that ‘A
Municipal Program’ which would embody the essential
principles that must underlie successful municipal government
was entirely feasible, and they recommended certain
Constitutional Amendments and a general Municipal Corporations
Act, as setting forth a working plan or system consistent with
American industrial and political conditions, for putting such
principles into practical operation. The Committee’s
recommendations were unanimously adopted by the League at its
Columbus meeting."
Horace E. Deming,
The Government of American Cities,
page 203 (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York).
As originally published, the "Municipal Program" has gone out
of print, but Mr. Deming, under an arrangement with the
League, has reproduced it as an appendix to his book, with an
explanatory discussion of it. The main objects sought in it
are "to clothe the city government with such broad powers as
will enable it to perform all the appropriate functions of a
local government without resort to the State Legislature for
the grant of additional power"; and to "prevent the
interference by the State Legislature with the free exercise
by the city of the governmental powers granted it." Beyond
this, the designers of the "Program" have worked out what
seemed to them the most effective plan of organization in
municipal government for the exercise of such full powers.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: WISCONSIN:
Organization of a Municipal Reference Bureau
by the State University.
Within the past year a Municipal Reference Bureau has been
organized in connection with the Extension Department of the
Wisconsin State University, its purpose being to offer the
widest possible use of the material on questions relative to
municipal government which the University has collected, by
answering inquiries. The Bureau is under the charge of Mr.
Ford H. MacGregor, and will work in cooperation with the very
useful Legislative Reference Department of the Wisconsin Free
Library Commission, which was organized a few years ago and is
still conducted by Dr. Charles McCarthy.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.
See, also, (in this Volume)
ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: UNITED STATES, AND SOCIAL BETTERMENT.
----------MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: End--------
MURRELL, J. K.:
Confessions.
See (in this Volume)
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: ST. LOUIS.
MÜRZSTEG PROGRAMME, The.
See (in this Volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1903-1904, and 1905-1908.
MUSHIR-ED-DOWLEH.
See (in this Volume)
PERSIA: A. D. 1907-1908 (SEPTEMBER-JUNE).
MUSTAFA FAZIL PASHA.
See (in this Volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER).
MUTINY IN THE RUSSIAN NAVY.
See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA: A. D. 1905 (FEBRUARY-NOVEMBER).
MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY:
Legislative Investigation.
See (in this Volume)
INSURANCE, LIFE.
MUZZAFER-ED-DIN:
Late Shah of Persia.
See (in this Volume)
PERSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.
MYTILENE, International Occupation of.
See (in this Volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1905-1908.
{443}
N.
NABUCO, DR. JOAQUIN:
President of Third International Conference
of American Republics.
See (in this Volume)
AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
NACIONALISTAS.
See (in this Volume)
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1907.
NAGEL, CHARLES:
Secretary of Commerce and Labor.
See (in this Volume)
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909 (MARCH).
NAKAMURA, GENERAL.
See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (MAY-JANUARY).
NANSHAN, BATTLE OF.
See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-JULY),
A. D. 1904-1905 (MAY-JANUARY).
NAPOLEON I.:
Declining Worship of his Memory in France.
See (in this Volume)
WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907-1908.
NASR-UL-MULK: PRIME MINISTER OF PERSIA.
His exile.
See (in this Volume)
PERSIA: A. D. 1907-1908 (SEPTEMBER-JUNE), AND 1908-1909.
NATAL.
See (in this Volume)
SOUTH AFRICA.
NATHAN, ERNESTO: MAYOR OF ROME.
See (in this Volume)
ITALY: A. D. 1909.
NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION, The.
See (in this Volume)
SOCIAL BETTERMENT: UNITED STATES.
NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION, The:
Its notable Conference on Industrial Disputes.
Its great Committee for Intermediation and Conciliation.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902.
NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION, The:
Its Intermediation in Coal Strike.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902-1903.
NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION, The:
National Conference at Chicago, 1907, on Trusts
and Combinations.
See (in this Volume)
COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &c.: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1907.
NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION, The:
Its work in Promotion of Trades Agreements.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908.
NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION, The:
Its work for Uniformity in State Legislation.
See (in this Volume)
LAW AND ITS COURTS: UNITED STATES.
NATIONAL CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION.
See (in this Volume)
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: UNITED STATES.
NATIONAL FARMERS’ UNION.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902-1909.
NATURAL RESOURCES, The Conservation of.
See (in this Volume)
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES.
NATURALIZATION:
Convention between American Republics.
The following Convention was adopted and signed at the Second
Conference of the American Republics, at Rio de Janeiro, 1906.
See (in this Volume)
AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
"Article I.
If a citizen a native of any of the countries signing the
present Convention, and naturalized in another, shall again
take up his residence in his native country without the
intention of returning to the country in which he has been
naturalized, he will be considered as having resumed his
original citizenship, and as having renounced the citizenship
acquired by the said naturalization."
"Article II.
The intention not to return will be presumed to exist when the
naturalized person shall have resided in his native country
for more than two years. But this presumption may be destroyed
by evidence to the contrary."
"Article III.
This Convention will become effective in the countries that
ratify it three months from the dates upon which said
ratifications shall be communicated to the Government of the
United States of Brazil; and if it should be denounced by any
one of them, it shall continue in effect for one year more, to
count from the date of such denouncement."
"Article IV.
The denouncement of this Convention by any one of the
signatory States shall be made to the Government of the United
States of Brazil and shall take effect only with regard to the
country that may make it."
NATURALIZATION: In the British Empire:
Proposed Uniformity of Law.
See (in this Volume)
BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1907.
NATURALIZATION: In the United States:
The Question of Treatment of Expatriated Citizens who
visit their Native Country.
The Principle asserted to Germany.
New Law of American Citizenship.-
Consequent on an increasing disposition in Germany to curtail
the revisiting of their native country by Germans who had
become naturalized citizens of the United States, the American
Ambassador to Berlin discussed the subject with the German
Foreign Minister, on the 12th of August, 1902, and reported
the substance of the conversation to Washington: "Statements
were made on the part of the embassy as follows: No sympathy
whatever is felt with the person who deliberately emigrates
and avails himself of the American naturalization laws for the
mere purpose of escaping military service in Germany, and
there is no wish on the part of the American authorities to
enable such persons to make a convenience of their American
naturalization. The embassy has also consistently declined to
intervene in behalf of persons whose wish was to make their
permanent residence in Germany. It is thought, however, that
where German emigrants have fulfilled the conditions necessary
to entitle them to ‘be treated as American citizens’ they
should actually be so treated, and when they have emigrated in
good faith they should be permitted to sojourn in Germany, for
their business or pleasure, to visit at their former homes, or
to enjoy the benefits afforded by German watering places,
etc., in accordance with the terms of the treaty with Prussia
of 1828. The sovereign right of Prussia to expel persons whose
presence is not considered desirable is not contested, but it
is thought that the American Government has the right to know
why the presence of any American citizen is so considered.
"Dr. Von Mühlberg’s attention was called to a number of cases
now pending, where naturalized American citizens have received
orders to leave the country after a stay of a few weeks. He
said that he would take the matter up personally and would
communicate with the Prussian minister of the interior in
regard to it at once."
{444}
In reply from the Department of State at Washington, the
action of Ambassador White was approved, and it was said
further: "You should lose no suitable opportunity to press and
to emphasize the considerations which you advanced in your
interview with Dr. Von Mühlberg. The essence of the right of
expulsion which the German States claim is that it should be
reasonably and justly applied in cases obviously calling for
so extreme a measure. Expulsion should not be invoked
indiscriminately, so as to operate as a deterrent to the
exercise of the rights of expatriation and acquisition of new
allegiance granted under the naturalization treaties, or so as
to neutralize, by indirection, treatment stipulated thereafter
regarding the recognition of the new national character."
Papers relating to the Foreign Relations of
the United States, 1902, page 441.
The doctrine of citizenship stated by Ambassador White on this
occasion was embodied subsequently in a new citizenship law,
which came into force on the 2d of March, 1907. The new law
was based on a report made by an official commission, one of
the members of which has written of it as follows:
"When a future historian shall write an account of the
achievements of this the most remarkable administration of our
government since the Civil War, he will give prominent place
to the naturalization law of a year ago and the citizenship
law which was approved last March and is now becoming
effective; for these two measures are the culmination of a
hundred years of effort for reform, and affect the very
foundation of our political structure. …
"So far as the naturalization law is concerned, the objections
to it come chiefly from petty courts throughout the country
which are now not permitted to naturalize, and which formerly
derived part of their prestige and their fees from
naturalization business. Dissatisfaction with the new
citizenship law flows from those people who have been living
abroad in fancied security of their American citizenship, and
who now find themselves obliged to take positive steps to
preserve a status which they have heretofore supposed attached
to them indefinitely, without the performance of any
obligations on their part. Both of these laws originated in
the House of Representatives, but each resulted from a report
made by executive officers, and the Senate can claim little
agency in them. The citizenship law was based upon a report
made to Secretary Root by a board of officers of his
Department, the members being James Brown Scott, the Solicitor
for the Department of State, David Jayne Hill, our Minister at
The Hague, and the writer of this article, with Samuel B.
Crandall, Ph. D., of the Department as Secretary. … From this
report sprang a bill, introduced in the House by the Honorable
James Breck Perkins of New York, which became a law on March
2nd.
"The law does not change or even modify the American doctrine
of citizenship. That was already settled by the Constitution
and the decisions of the Supreme Court. Anybody born in the
United States, no matter what his race, unless he is an Indian
living with a tribe, or however ineligible to our citizenship
he may be for any other reason, is a citizen of the United
States. …
"Broadly speaking, an individual becomes a citizen of the
United States by birth or naturalization, and these facts have
been well settled; but how does he lose American citizenship?
This was the question to which the citizenship board chiefly
addressed itself, and which Congress settled a few months ago
by declaring that an American shall be held to have
expatriated himself when he becomes naturalized as a citizen
of another country, or when he takes an oath of allegiance to
another state, or when he lives permanently outside of the
United States without intent to return. …
"We have had a constantly increasing number of so-called
American citizens living abroad—men who have lived in the
United States for only five years and in many cases have
fraudulently secured naturalization papers after less than
five years of residence; who never were really domiciled
there; who never have performed any of the duties of American
citizenship and who never intended to do so. … Until the new
naturalization law went into effect, it was not actually
against the letter of the law for a man to commit this fraud;
for, when he applied for citizenship, he was required merely
to show that he had resided in the United States for five
years, and no inquiry was made concerning his future
intentions."
Gaillard Hunt,
The New Citizenship Law
(North American Review, July, 1907).
NAVAL CONFERENCE, INTERNATIONAL, AT LONDON, 1908-1909.
See (in this Volume)
War, The Revolt against: A. D. 1907
(appended to account of Second Peace Conference
at The Hague).
NAVIES.
See (in this Volume)
WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: NAVAL.
NAVIGATION LAWS:
Proposed British Imperial Policy.
See (in this Volume)
BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1907.
NEERGAARD, M.: PREMIER OF DENMARK.
See (in this Volume)
DENMARK: A. D. 1905-1909.
NEGRO PROBLEMS, IN THE UNITED STATES.
See (in this Volume)
RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES.
NELIDOW, M.:
President of the Second Peace Conference.
See (in this Volume)
WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907.
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1870-1905.
Increase of Population compared with other European Countries.
See (in this Volume)
EUROPE: A. D. 1870-1905.
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1902.
Offer of mediation between Great Britain and the Boers.
See (in this Volume)
SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1901-1902.
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1903.
Laws against Railway Strikes.
Failure of General Labor Strike to prevent their Enactment.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1903.
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1903.
Agreement for Settlement of Claims against Venezuela.
See (in this Volume)
VENEZUELA: A. D. 1902-1904.
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1904.
Military operations against the Atchinese.
A Dutch military expedition against the long-insurgent natives
of the old Sultanate of Atchin, in Sumatra, which was said to
have carried death to a thousand women and children, gave rise
to stormy scenes in the Netherlands when its session was
opened in September. The excuse of the Government was that the
warriors used the women and children as shields.
{445}
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1905-1909.
Defeat and Fall of the Calvinistic Party of the
Reverend Dr. Kuyper.
The Suffrage and Education Questions.
The six principal Parties.
Success of the groups of "the Right" in the latest Elections.
Elections to the lower chamber of the States-General, held in
June, overthrew the Conservative majority in that body and
gave the Liberals a small majority of 4. An important issue
between parties had been on the question of universal
suffrage, but the support given to its advocates was not
strong enough to justify immediate attempts on their part to
carry any measure of law. A royal Commission was appointed,
however, to investigate and report generally on the need or
expediency of a revision of the Constitution. The defeated
Ministry of Dr. Abraham Kuyper represented an
ultra-Calvinistic Church element in politics, and its defeat
appears to have been due in the main to educational laws which
it had carried through. According to the Dutch review, De
Gids, from which the following has been translated, the
aim of the new laws and the objection to them were much the
same as in the English controversy over the Education Act of
1902, when church and clerical influences carried the day
against the supporters of secular schools. "These educational
laws," said De Gids, "were unanimously supported by, if
they did not wholly originate with, the clericals, or the
Anti-Revolutionary party, as they call themselves, of which
Dr. Kuyper is the astute and able leader and head. They had
the undivided support also of the Catholics, but were
strenuously opposed by the Liberals and all the
anti-clericals, including the Social Democrats. The
Anti-Revolutionists and Catholics on the one hand, and the
Liberals and their allies on the other, form, respectively,
the Right and Left in the Chambers."
Since 1905 there seems to have been little if any change in
the Dutch parties. On the approach of the quadrennial general
elections of June, 1909, a correspondent of the London
Times wrote of "the complex grouping" of the political
parties contending in them: "There are six which may fairly
claim to be important. The largest is probably the Catholic.
It is estimated that a third of the population is Catholic by
religion, and of the Catholics a very large proportion belong
to the Catholic political party, and vote consistently in
accordance with the commands of its leaders. Next to the
Catholics come the strict Calvinists, who have been organized
by Dr. Kuyper into a compact and most formidable party,
generally called the Anti-Révolutionnaire party. It finds its
chief supporters among the rural population and the petite
bourgeoisie, and owes its name to the doctrine, sedulously
preached by Dr. Kuyper, that the Radical and Liberal parties
are fomenting an anti-religious revolution, and that it is
therefore necessary to choose between Christianity and
Heathenism. This doctrine is generally known as ‘the
antithesis,’ and, though its influence has waned somewhat in
the towns, it still has considerable influence in the country.
Closely allied to the Anti-Révolutionnaire party is the
Christlijk Historisch party, which is more aristocratic, but
less energetic, with many principles but no very definite
programme. It not infrequently speaks against the Calvinist
party, but as a rule joins it when it comes to voting.
"These three parties, Catholic, Anti-Révolutionnaire, and
Christlijk Historisch, form the Right. The Left is composed of
the Old and United Liberals, the Radicals or Vrijzinnige
Democraten, and the Socialists, representing all shades of
opinion from what in England might be called Whiggism to
extreme Socialism. The questions which really divide these
parties, as distinguished from the party cries on which the
election is being fought, are Clericalism and Socialism, and a
very large proportion of the electors are not quite sure which
enemy they most fear. There is no doubt that the
Anti-Révolutionnaire party and the Catholics represent two
forms of Clericalism, while the Socialists are openly
Collectivists. The other parties, with the exception of the
Vrijzinnige Democraten, can be better described as opposed to
the two extremes than as presenting any clearly marked
characteristics of their own."
The first balloting of this election took place on the 11th of
June and the second on the 23d. The Anti-Révolutionnaires came
out of it with 23, the Catholics with 25, the Christlijk
Historischs with 12, making 60 for the groups of "the Right";
against a total of 40 in the groups of "the Left." Of this
minority only 7 were in the ranks of the Social Democrats. Dr.
Kuyper was among the defeated candidates.
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1906.
At the Algeciras Conference on the Morocco Question.
See (in this Volume)
EUROPE: A. D. 1905-1906.
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1906.
The Second Peace Conference at The Hague convoked by the Queen.
See (in this Volume)
WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907.
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1908 (April).
Treaty with Denmark, England, France, Germany, and Sweden,
for maintenance of the Status Quo on the North Sea.
See (in this Volume)
EUROPE: A. D. 1907-1908.
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1908-1909.
Trouble with Castro of Venezuela.
See (in this Volume)
VENEZUELA: A. D. 1908-1909.
NEW BRUNSWICK: A. D. 1901-1902.
Census.
Reduced representation in Parliament.
See (in this Volume)
CANADA: A. D. 1901-1902.
NEWCOMB, PROFESSOR SIMON.
See (in this Volume)
SCIENCE AND INVENTION:
CARNEGIE INSTITUTION, AND AERONAUTICS.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1902.
British Colonial Conference at London.
See (in this Volume)
BRITISH EMPIRE.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1902-1905.
Negotiation and Senatorial Destruction of the Hay-Bond
Reciprocity Treaty with the United States.
In November, 1902, a Treaty of Reciprocity which would have
settled the long-standing disputes over American rights of
fishing on the Newfoundland coast, on terms of most equitable
advantage to both countries, and especially favorable to the
interests of the general public in the United States, was
concluded and signed at Washington by Secretary Hay and the
British Ambassador, Sir Michael Herbert. The Premier of
Newfoundland, Sir Robert Bond, had taken a principal part in
the negotiation, and the resulting document was known
consequently as the Hay-Bond Treaty. It secured to the New
England fishermen the coveted privilege of buying bait and
other supplies and hiring crews in Newfoundland ports; and it
admitted the greater part of American manufactures into the
island duty free.
{446}
On the other hand, it opened the markets of the United States
to the fish and fish products, the coal, oil, and ores of
Newfoundland, for the benefit of the consumers of the country.
The treaty was hailed with satisfaction by the general public
of the United States, but opposed by a few interests whose
gains might be lessened if any breach in their monopoly of the
sale of salted fish and coal and oil should be permitted. The
majority which has seldom failed of late to be retainable in
the United States Senate for the service of such private
interests, against the public good, was promptly organized by
Senator Lodge, first for pocketing the Treaty throughout more
than two years, and finally for amending it to death, in
February, 1905. The provisions that made it advantageous to
Newfoundland were cut out, and it was reduced to a state which
made it insulting as an offer of reciprocity. It suffered the
fate which, in late years, is quite certain to befall any
project of real statesmanship that has to go through the hands
of the United States Senate.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1904.
Convention between England and France touching Fishery Rights.
See (in this Volume)
EUROPE: A. D. 1904 (APRIL).
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1905-1909.
Renewed Disputes over American Fishing Rights
on the Treaty Coast.
Arrangement of a Modus Vivendi.
Agreement on Questions to be submitted to a Tribunal
of Arbitration at The Hague.
Constitution of the Tribunal.
The endless friction that has attended the exercise of
treaty-rights by American fishermen in the Newfoundland
fisheries was freshly roughened in the fall of 1905, by a new
enactment of the provincial legislature, to prevent the sale
of bait or outfits and supplies of any nature to foreign
fishermen, and by orders from the Minister of Marine and
Fisheries forbidding vessels of American registry to fish on
the Treaty Coast. This reopened debate between the State
Department at Washington and the Foreign Office at London,
over the intentions and meanings of that first article in the
Treaty of 1818 which has been a source of incessant dispute
for ninety-one years. The following is the language of the
article:
"Article I.
Whereas differences have arisen respecting the liberty claimed
by the United States, for the inhabitants thereof, to take,
dry, and cure fish, on certain coasts, bays, harbours, and
creeks of His Britannick Majesty’s Dominions in America, it is
agreed between the High Contracting Parties that the
inhabitants of the said United States shall have, for ever, in
common with the subjects of His Britannick Majesty, the
liberty to take fish of every kind, on that part of the
southern coast of Newfoundland, which extends from Cape Ray
to the Rameau Islands, on the western and northern coast of
Newfoundland, from the said Cape Ray to the Quirpon Islands,
on the shores of the Magdalen Islands, and also on the coasts,
bays, harbours, and creeks, from Mount Joly, on the southern
coast of Labrador, to and through the Streights of Belleisle,
and thence northwardly indefinitely along the coast, without
prejudice, however, to any of the exclusive rights of the
Hudson’s Bay Company. And that the American fishermen shall
also have liberty, for ever, to dry and cure fish in any of
the unsettled bays, harbours, and creeks of the southern part
of the coast of Newfoundland, here above described, and of the
coast of Labrador; but so soon as the same, or any portion
thereof, shall be settled, it shall not be lawful for the said
fishermen to dry or cure fish at such portion so settled,
without previous agreement for such purpose, with the
inhabitants, proprietors, or possessors of the ground. And the
United States hereby renounced, for ever, any liberty
heretofore enjoyed or claimed by the inhabitants thereof, to
take, dry, or cure fish on or within three marine miles of any
of the coasts, bays, creeks, or harbours of His Britannick
Majesty’s Dominions in America, not included within the
above-mentioned limits: provided, however, that the American
fishermen shall be admitted to enter such bays or harbours,
for the purpose of shelter, and of repairing damages therein,
of purchasing wood, and of obtaining water, and for no other
purpose whatever. But they shall be under such restrictions as
may be necessary to prevent their taking, drying, or curing
fish therein, or in any other manner whatever abusing the
privileges hereby reserved to them."
With reference to the present obstruction to American fishing
in Newfoundland waters, the contention of Secretary Root was
set forth in the following propositions:
"1. Any American vessel is entitled to go into the waters of
the Treaty Coast and take fish of any kind.
"She derives this right from the Treaty (or from the
conditions existing prior to the Treaty and recognized by it)
and not from any permission or authority proceeding from the
Government of Newfoundland.
"2. An American vessel seeking to exercise the Treaty right is
not bound to obtain a licence from the Government of
Newfoundland, and, if she does not purpose to trade as well as
fish, she is not bound to enter at any Newfoundland
custom-house.
"3. The only concern of the Government of Newfoundland with
such a vessel is to call for proper evidence that she is an
American vessel, and, therefore, entitled to exercise the
Treaty right, and to have her refrain from violating any laws
of Newfoundland not inconsistent with the Treaty.
"4. The proper evidence that a vessel is an American vessel
and entitled to exercise the Treaty right is the production of
the ship’s papers of the kind generally recognized in the
maritime world as evidence of a vessel’s national character.
"5. When a vessel has produced papers showing that she is an
American vessel, the officials of Newfoundland have no concern
with the character or extent of the privileges accorded to
such a vessel by the Government of the United States. No
question as between a registry and licence is a proper subject
for their consideration. They are not charged with enforcing
any laws or regulations of the United States. As to them, if
the vessel is American she has the Treaty right, and they are
not at liberty to deny it.
"6. If any such matter were a proper subject for the

consideration of the officials of Newfoundland, the statement
of this Department that vessels bearing an American registry
are entitled to exercise the Treaty right should be taken by
such officials as conclusive."
{447}
On the British side, Sir Edward Grey raised two principal
objections to these propositions of Mr. Root: First—that "the
privilege of fishing conceded by Article I of the Convention
of 1818 is conceded, not to American vessels, but to
inhabitants of the United States and to American fishermen;"
second, that "inhabitants of the United States would not now
be entitled to fish in British North American waters but for
the fact that they were entitled to do so when they were
British subjects. American fishermen cannot therefore rightly
claim to exercise their right of fishery under the Convention
of 1818 on a footing of greater freedom than if they had never
ceased to be British subjects. Nor consistently with the terms
of the Convention can they claim to exercise it on a footing
of greater freedom than the British subjects ‘in common with’
whom they exercise it under the Convention. In other words,
the American fishery under the Convention is not a free but a
regulated fishery, and, in the opinion of His Majesty’s
Government, American fishermen are bound to comply with all
Colonial Laws and Regulations, including any touching the
conduct of the fishery, so long as these are not in their
nature unreasonable, and are applicable to all fishermen
alike."
To the first of these objections Mr. Root replied;
"We may agree that ships, strictly speaking, can have no
rights or duties, and that whenever the Memorandum, or the
letter upon which it comments, speaks of a ship’s rights and
duties, it but uses a convenient and customary form of
describing the owner’s or master’s right and duties in respect
of the ship. … The liberty assured to us by the Treaty plainly
includes the right to use all the means customary or
appropriate for fishing upon the sea, not only ships and nets
and boats, but crews to handle the ships and the nets and the
boats. … I am not able to discover that any suggestion has
ever been made of a right to scrutinize the nationality of the
crews." As for the second objection, the American Secretary
appealed to history against it. "The qualification," he said,
"that the liberty assured to American fishermen by the Treaty
of 1818 they were to have ‘in common with the subjects of
Great Britain ’ merely negatives an exclusive right. Under the
Treaties of Utrecht, of 1763 and 1783, between Great Britain
and France, the French had constantly maintained that they
enjoyed an exclusive right of fishery on that portion of the
coast of Newfoundland between Cape St. John and Cape Raye,
passing around by the north of the island. The British, on the
other hand, had maintained that British subjects had a right
to fish along with the French, so long as they did not
interrupt them. The dissension arising from these conflicting
views had been serious and annoying, and the provision that
the liberty of the inhabitants of the United States to take
fish should be in common with the liberty of the subjects of
His Britannic Majesty to take fish was precisely appropriate
to exclude the French construction and leave no doubt that the
British construction of such a general grant should apply
under the new Treaty. The words used have no greater or other
effect. The provision is that the liberty to take fish
shall be held in common, not that the exercise of that
liberty by one people shall be the limit of the exercise of
that liberty by the other."
As between these chief disputants in the matter, the first
result of their exchange of arguments was a ready disposition
to arrange some modus vivendi, under which peace might
be kept on the fishing grounds until fresh undertakings could
be planned for a lasting interpretation of the old enigmas in
Article 1 of 1818. But the provincial Government of
Newfoundland resented bitterly the imperial interference with
its measures, charging that it was in violation of a pledge
"given by the late Lord Salisbury in the House of Lords in
1891, to the effect that the colony had been given unlimited
power with respect to its internal affairs." They were
promptly told, however, that what concerned action under a
British treaty went considerably beyond the internal affairs
of their colony.
Considerable correspondence on the terms of the proposed
modus vivendi brought an agreement on the 6th of
October, 1906, set forth in the following communication from
Ambassador Whitelaw Reid to Sir Edward Grey.
"I am authorized by my government to ratify a modus
vivendi in regard to the Newfoundland fishery question on
the basis of the Foreign Office Memorandum, dated the 25th
ultimo, in which you accept the arrangement set out in my
Memorandum of the 12th ultimo, and consent accordingly to the
use of purse seines by American fishermen during the ensuing
season, subject, of course, to due regard being paid in the
use of such implements to other modes of fishery, which, as
you state, is only intended to secure that there shall be the
same spirit of give and take and of respect for common rights
between the users of purse seines and the users of stationary
nets as would be expected to exist if both sets of fishermen
employed the same gear.
"My Government understand by this that the use of purse seines
by American fishermen is not to be interfered with, and the
shipment of Newfoundlanders by American fishermen outside the
3-mile limit is not to be made the basis of interference or to
be penalized; at the same time they are glad to assure His
Majesty’s Government, should such shipments be found
necessary, that they will be made far enough from the exact
3-mile limit to avoid any reasonable doubt.
"On the other hand, it is also understood that our fishermen
are to be advised by my Government, and to agree, not to fish
on Sunday.
"It is further understood that His Majesty’s Government will
not bring into force the Newfoundland Foreign Fishing-Vessels
Act of 1906, which imposes on American fishing-vessels certain
restrictions in addition to those imposed by the Act of 1905,
and also that the provisions of the first part of section 1 of
the Act of 1905, as to boarding and bringing into port, and
also the whole of section 3 of the same Act, will not be
regarded as applying to American fishing-vessels.
"It also being understood that our fishermen will gladly pay
light dues if they are not deprived of their rights to fish,
and that our fishermen are not unwilling to comply with the
provisions of the Colonial Customs Law as to reporting at a
custom-house when physically possible to do so."
To explain the stipulation relative to "purse seines" it
should be said that the New England fishermen claimed to be
driven to the use of them, by the local regulations which
hampered their fishing otherwise.
{448}
As formulated in the note of Ambassador Reid the modus
vivendi was accepted by the British Government and went
into effect. In due time thereafter the two Governments
entered upon a discussion of ways and means for accomplishing
a definite and final settlement of the whole question of
American rights in the Newfoundland fisheries. The outcome was
an agreement signed at Washington on the 27th of January,
1909, to the effect that the following questions shall be
submitted for decision to a Tribunal of Arbitration,
constituted as subsequent articles provide:—
"Question 1.
To what extent are the following contentions or either of them
justified?
"It is contended on the part of Great Britain that the
exercise of the liberty to take fish referred to in the said
Article, which the inhabitants of the United States have for
ever in common with the subjects of his Britannic Majesty, is
subject, without the consent of the United States, to
reasonable regulation by Great Britain, Canada, or
Newfoundland in the form of municipal laws, ordinances, or
rules, as, for example, to regulations in respect of
(1) the hours, days, or seasons when fish may be taken on
the Treaty coasts;
(2) the method, means, and implements to be used in the
taking of fish or in the carrying on of fishing operations
on such coasts;
(3) any other matters of a similar character relating to
fishing; such regulations being reasonable, as being, for
instance—
"(a) Appropriate or necessary for the protection and
preservation of such fisheries and the exercise of the
rights of British subjects therein and of the liberty which
by the said Article 1 the inhabitants of the United States
have therein in common with British subjects;
"(b) Desirable on grounds of public order and morals;
"(c) Equitable and fair as between local fishermen and the
inhabitants of the United States exercising the said Treaty
liberty and not so framed as to give unfairly an advantage
to the former over the latter class.
"It is contended on the part of the United States that the
exercise of such liberty is not subject to limitations or
restraints by Great Britain, Canada, or Newfoundland in the
form of municipal laws, ordinances, or regulations in respect
of
(1) the hours, days, or seasons when the inhabitants of the
United States may take fish on the Treaty coasts, or
(2) the method, means, and implements used by them in
taking fish or in carrying on fishing operations on such
coasts, or
(3) any other limitations or restraints of similar character—
"(a) Unless they are appropriate and necessary for the
protection and preservation of the common rights in such
fisheries and the exercise thereof; and
"(b) Unless they are reasonable in themselves and fair
as between local fishermen and fishermen coming from the
United States, and not so framed as to give an advantage
to the former over the latter class; and
"(c) Unless their appropriateness, necessity,
reasonableness, and fairness be determined by the United
States and Great Britain by common accord and the United
States concurs in their enforcement.
"Question 2.
Have the inhabitants of the United States, while exercising
the liberties referred to in said Article, a right to employ
as members of the fishing crews of their vessels persons not
inhabitants of the United States?
"Question 3.
Can the exercise by the inhabitants of the United States of
the liberties referred to in the said Article be subjected,
without the consent of the United States, to the requirements
of entry or report at custom-houses or the payment of light or
harbour or other dues, or to any other similar requirement or
condition or exaction?
"Question 4.
Under the provision of the said Article that the American
fishermen shall be admitted to enter certain bays or harbours
for shelter, repairs, wood, or water, and for no other purpose
whatever, but that they shall be under such restrictions as
may be necessary to prevent their taking, drying, or curing
fish therein or in any other manner whatever abusing the
privileges thereby reserved to them, is it permissible to
impose restrictions making the exercise of such privileges
conditional upon the payment of light or harbour or other
dues, or entering or reporting at custom-houses or any similar
conditions?
"Question 5.
From where must be measured the ‘3 marine miles of any of the
coasts, bays, creeks or harbours’ referred to in the said
Article?
"Question 6.
Have the inhabitants of the United States the liberty under
the said Article or otherwise to take fish in the bays,
harbours, and creeks on that part of the southern coast of
Newfoundland which extends from Cape Ray to Rameau Islands, or
on the western and northern coasts of Newfoundland from Cape
Ray to Quirpon Islands, or on the Magdalen Islands?
"Question 7.
Are the inhabitants of the United States whose vessels resort
to the Treaty coasts for the purpose of exercising the
liberties referred to in Article 1 of the Treaty of 1818
entitled to have for those vessels, when duly authorized by
the United States in that behalf, the commercial privileges on
the Treaty coasts accorded by agreement or otherwise to United
States trading vessels generally?"
Of the remaining articles of the Agreement, IV. and V. provide
for the determination of future questions that may arise, and
for the composition of the Tribunal of Arbitration, which is
to be chosen from the members of the Permanent Court at The
Hague.
The agreement above was formulated at a conference in
Washington between Secretary Root, Ambassador Bryce,
Honourable A. B. Aylesworth, Canadian Minister of Justice, and
Attorney-General Kent of Newfoundland. In March the following
were chosen from the general membership of the Permanent Court
at The Hague to constitute the Tribunal for this arbitration,
namely:
Dr. Luis Maria Drago, Argentina;
Jonkheer de Savornin Lohmnan, Netherlands;
Judge George Gray, United States; and
Sir Charles Fitzpatrick, Chief Justice of Canada, with
Dr. H. Lammasch, of Vienna, to be umpire on points of
disagreement.
The case for the United States was delivered to the British
Embassy at Washington, and that for Great Britain to the
American Embassy at London, on the 4th of October. A little
later it was announced that the modus vivendi of 1908
had been renewed until the termination of the arbitration
proceedings.
{449}
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1907.
Imperial Conference at London.
See (in this Volume)
BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1907.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1908-1909 (November-May).
Six Months of Political Deadlock.
From November, 1908, until the following May an extraordinary
deadlock resulted from a tie between rival parties in the
House of Assembly. The situation, as described by a
correspondent of the London Times, was as follows:
"Each side has 18 seats. Neither, therefore, can elect a
Speaker, much less undertake the control of public business,
when Parliament meets. Sir Robert Bond, who carried 32 seats
against 4 in 1900 and 30 seats against 6 in 1904, returns with
only half the House—18 men. In the former contests Sir Edward
Morris, who now leads the Opposition against him, had been a
member of his Cabinet and his ‘right-hand man,’ and the
November results prove that Morris’s withdrawal was a serious
injury to Bond. Morris went out a year or so previously owing
to a disagreement as to raising the rate of wages on public
works, and, being the leading Roman Catholic politician of the
Island, had 14 seats, of that creed, as a solid block in
Bond’s party during all this period. It was therefore felt,
when he resigned, that this ‘solid 14’ would be broken, and
this conclusion proved correct, because Morris carried half of
them in spite of the open and avowed hostility of many of the
priests in the diocese of St. Johns."
Sir Robert Bond retained the Prime Ministry until the end of
February, 1909, when, having failed to obtain a dissolution of
Parliament and a new election from the Governor, Sir William
Macgregor, he resigned. Sir Edward Morris then took office,
and the continued deadlock made it necessary, in a few weeks,
to command a dissolution and call a new election, which was
held on the 8th of May. It broke the tie of parties
effectually, Sir Edward Morris carrying 26 seats, against 10
filled by the partisans of Sir Robert Bond.
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1909.
A Year of Misfortune and Depression.
Scant earnings from the Fisheries and from Whaling.
Attitude of the people toward Confederation with Canada.
"The Fisheries represent fully eighty per cent. of the
exports, and in order to understand the financial stringency
which has now fairly settled down upon ‘Our Cousin to the
East’ it must be borne in mind that while the catch of fish
remains about the same from year to year, the price has been
steadily increasing for the past ten years, until last year it
was double what it was a decade ago. But this year the price
has suddenly fallen to what it was at the beginning of the
decade. In other words, the value of last season’s catch will
be just about half what it was the season before; and, instead
of the merchants receiving $7,800,000 for their fish, they
will receive considerably less than $4,000,000; and the
individual fisherman who at the former price was barely able
to earn $350 will receive this year probably less than $175,
on which to support himself and family for the year, and to
provide himself with an outfit for the next season’s work.
Many of course will not receive that much. … Although other
industries are springing up in Newfoundland, the codfishery
remains the great staple and dependence of the population—the
vast majority of which are fishermen, born and bred, who do
not readily adapt themselves to other methods of earning a
living. The present depression is widespread and far-reaching,
and every form of industry and trade, business and commerce in
the Colony is suffering seriously thereby. The latest ill
report comes from Bay of Islands, to the effect that the
winter herring fishery on the west coast—the scene of the
present controversy with the United States—is a failure. Last
spring’s seal fishery was not up to the average, and owing to
many accidents to the fleet, necessitating heavy outlay for
repairs, the promoters have realized much less than they
otherwise would have secured. The whale fishery, also, which a
few years ago had assumed enormous proportions, and was
yielding handsome returns, has now almost reached the
vanishing point. To complete the sum of the Colony’s
misfortunes comes the partial suspension of [iron] mining
operations at Bell Island, during the winter months, at the
very time when the men need employment most, and when, as a
result of the lack of it, they will probably emigrate to other
countries.
"This combination of misfortune is not only causing distress
among all classes of citizens, but the government will also
keenly feel the loss of revenue; for a conservative estimate
of the reduction in the customs revenue for the current fiscal
year puts the figures at $450,000; in other words, that the
revenue will not exceed $2,000,000.
"The great drawback in Newfoundland institutions is the
disproportion between the big machinery of government and the
small population to be governed. A local politician has aptly
described it as ‘the trappings of an elephant on the back of a
rat.’"
Edwin Smith,
The Land of Baccalhos
(Canadian Magazine, July, 1909).
Another writer in the same number of The Canadian
Magazine discusses the opposition in Newfoundland to union
with the Dominion of Canada as follows: "The political leader
who should to-day appeal to the Newfoundland electorate on the
question of Confederation would be disastrously defeated. But
on the day when the leader of a party in the Island Colony
makes up his mind to risk temporary defeat for the purpose of
accomplishing Confederation, that day brings union between
Newfoundland and Canada within the horizon of the proximate
future. That leader must—unless the financial exigencies of
the Island bring him extraneous aid—face an arduous campaign
of education, but it will be a campaign crowned with victory.
"These are the impressions left on my mind by a visit to St.
John’s made with the object of studying the political deadlock
and the causes which led up to it. … The residents of the
outports—all settlements except St. John’s are known as
outports—are opposed to Confederation because they have been
told that it would mean a heavy increase in their taxes; that
their windows, all their domestic animals and all their
personal property would be taxed. If this wrong impression
were dispelled by a campaign of education, and they understood
that instead of higher taxation Confederation would mean the
opening up of the country, bonuses for the fishermen, and new
markets for the fish in Canada and abroad through the services
of Canadian Commercial agents, instead of opponents of union
they would become its advocates."
{450}
NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1909. (July-August).
The Imperial Defence Conference.
See (in this Volume)
WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: MILITARY AND NAVAL.
NEW HEBRIDES: Arrangement between England and France.
See (in this Volume)
EUROPE: A. D. 1904 (APRIL).
NEW PROTECTION, The.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR REMUNERATION: THE NEW PROTECTION.
NEW YORK CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY.:
Fined for unlawful Rebates.
See (in this Volume)
RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909.
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1897.
Leadership in the Administrative Control of Tuberculosis.
See (in this Volume)
PUBLIC HEALTH: TUBERCULOSIS.
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1900-1903.
Beginning of Tenement House Reform.
By a steady process, accelerated in the last ten years, the
congested tenement districts of New York have become one great
aggregation of sunless and airless rooms. Immense buildings
have gone up by the thousands, five, six, and seven stories
high, in which practically no provision for ventilation has
been made; and in which the occupants are undergoing a slow
process of asphyxiation. Nor are these disadvantages confined
to the submerged proletariat. The New York tenement system is
pervasive. … Two-thirds of the total population of New York,
or 2,500,000 out of 3,500,000, live in tenement houses, a
proportion which is increasing every day. …
"It was not until Governor Roosevelt’s appointment of the De
Forest Tenement House Commission in 1900 that the necessary
remedial legislation took practical shape. This act itself was
the result of many years’ struggle against corrupt
politicians,—Tammany Hall, the self-appointed guardian of the
poorer classes, has been a bitter enemy of tenement
reform,—and against vested interests. Its long delay had
greatly exaggerated the problem; for meanwhile the conditions
described had accumulated in appalling Volume. The commission,
however, was of high civic character, and was composed of men,
several of whom had made an exhaustive study of the tenement
problem. The law which was passed as a result of their
investigation was the first sweeping and effective tenement
measure since the enactment in 1867 of the first tenement
house act. The newly elected Low administration found the
enforcement of this statute one of its most important
responsibilities. The law created a new branch of municipal
service,—the tenement house department; and gave the tenement
commission, in the shape of an elaborate code of housing laws,
important supervision over the building of new tenements and
the maintenance of old."
B. J. Hendrick,
A Great Municipal Reform
(Atlantic Monthly, November, 1903).
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1900-1909.
Subways and Tunnels.
It was not until 1900 that the building of subways for city
transit in New York was begun. The first line, from the City
Hall to Kingsbridge and the Bronx Park, was opened in 1904.
During its construction plans for its extension southerly and
under East River into Brooklyn were adopted, and contracts
were let. The original work was executed under an arrangement
with a company known as the McDonald Syndicate, whereby the
City gave its credit to secure the requisite funds and would
acquire the ownership of the subway and road at the end of
fifty years. In 1902 the interests of the McDonald Syndicate
were transferred to a new corporation, the Interborough Rapid
Transit Company, which ultimately acquired a general control
of the city railway service, and ran a crooked career to
results of disaster, so far as the public was concerned. In
1905 the Board of Rapid Transit Commissioners, then exercising
authority in this region of municipal affairs, under the New
York State Rapid Transit Act of 1891, approved plans for an
extensive additional system, comprehending as many as nineteen
routes, with various "spurs," and the Board of Estimate and
Apportionment consented to the execution of the plan.
The East River Tunnel to Brooklyn was finished early in 1908,
and the first two tubes of four Hudson Tunnels, connecting
Manhattan Island with New Jersey was opened in the last week
of February, the same year. This first pair of the Hudson
Tunnels realized a project which had been undertaken as far
back as 1878 and which had undergone two financial failures,
in 1882 and 1892. In 1902 its remains and its charter were
passed on to a third courageous company, organized by Mr.
William Gibbs McAdoo, who became the master-spirit of bold
enterprise at New York in this engineering field. In 1903 Mr.
McAdoo organized another company for the undertaking of a
connection of the Pennsylvania Railroad in Jersey City with
downtown New York, and also for connecting the uptown and
downtown tunnels by means of a north and south line along the
New Jersey water-front, so as to connect the Lackawanna, Erie,
and Pennsylvania Railroads with the tunnel system, and thereby
be able to give to their passengers an uptown and downtown
railway delivery.
The second pair of Hudson River tubes (the downtown link)
forming this New York and Jersey City Tunnel were opened on
the 19th of July, 1909. Writing of the event a few days before
its occurrence, the New York Evening Post summed up the
existing and prospective conditions of entrance to and exit
from the island of Manhattan by under-river passages as
follows:
"Since the city entered its rapid transit boom and the
practicability of sub-river tunnels was demonstrated to the
satisfaction of the leading engineers of the world, fourteen
such tubes have been under construction here. Four of them are
in operation. The downtown link of the Hudson Company’s system
will add two more, and the remaining eight are to be opened in
the course of the next two years, according to present plans.
{451}
"After the opening of the downtown Hudson tunnels, the
travelling public will look forward to the operation of the
other eight tubes, as follows: Two Pennsylvania Railroad
tunnels beneath the Hudson River and four under the East
River, meeting in Manhattan at the great terminal station now
nearing completion, between Thirty-first and Thirty-third
Streets, along Seventh Avenue; the pair of Steinway-Belmont
tunnels, deriving their name from the originator of the
franchise and the present controlling influence, running from
Forty-second Street to Long Island City and held practically
by the same men who control the operation of the
Manhattan-Bronx subway (the Interborough Company).
"The Pennsylvania tubes under the North (Hudson) River are
practically completed, and await only the finishing of the
depot, while the East River tubes, though a little behind hand
on account of difficulties met in the form of treacherous rock
ledges, are within possibly a year of opening. The
Steinway-Belmont tunnels are completed, and will be ready for
operation as soon as the company makes a satisfactory
arrangement with the Public Service Commission."
An official party in a passenger car went through the
Pennsylvania Railroad’s tubes between New Jersey and Long
Island on the 18th of November.
Work on a Fourth Avenue Subway in Brooklyn was begun November
13.
The Hudson Terminal at Cortlaudt and Church Streets is one of
the most interesting structures in the world. Below the street
is the terminal station, where all the trains "downtown"
arrive and depart. This station is wholly below tide level. It
is surrounded by a cofferdam of reinforced concrete 8 ft.
thick, 400 ft. long, and 177 ft. wide, and is sunk 95 ft. deep
to solid rock. Forty feet below the street is the track floor.
Twenty feet below the street is the great "Concourse," where
all traffic is collected and distributed to the various train
platforms underneath. On the Concourse the Pennsylvania, the
Lehigh Valley, and the Erie Railroads have ticket offices,
where tickets to any part of America may be bought. This
Concourse, which is about 1½ acres in extent, is one of the
show places of New York. Above the street level are two great
office buildings, each 22 stories in height, and containing
approximately 27 acres of rentable area.
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1901-1903.
Municipal Elections.
Tammany’s Loss and Recovery of the Government.
Tammany Hall suffered defeat in the municipal election of
1901, the Honorable Seth Low, formerly a notable Mayor of
Brooklyn and latterly President of Columbia University, being
carried into the Mayor’s office by a roused movement of reform
which fused the elements of opposition to the corrupting
Tammany power. Unfortunately the Mayor’s term of office had
been shortened to two years by the charter amendment of the
previous year, and the term was too brief for much depth and
thoroughness of reform; but the city was greatly cleansed
during those two years. When the next election came, in 1903,
Tammany had rallied its hungry forces and secured a highly
respectable nominee for Mayor, in the person of Honorable
George B. McClellan, son of the famous General of the Civil
War. Mayor Low, renominated by a second Fusion of opponents to
Tammany, experienced defeat.
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1904 (June).
The Burning of the Steamer Slocum.
A catastrophe of such horror as to be historical attended the
burning of the excursion steamer General Slocum, at New
York, on the 15th of June, 1904. The boat left a New York dock
in the morning with a Sunday-school picnic party aboard
numbering about eleven hundred,—nearly all women and children.
While passing through that part of the East River known as
Hell Gate, within the New York City limits, fire was
discovered in the forward part of the vessel. It was then
flood tide, and the eddies and currents in those waters are
very strong. The captain decided that it would be folly to
attempt to land on either shore, or to beach his boat. He
therefore headed the Slocum for an island two miles up
stream. As the boat went forward at full steam, the
fore-and-aft draught thus created fanned the flames and
hastened her destruction. On the discovery of the fire by the
passengers, the wildest panic ensued. It was found that the
life-preservers with which the Slocum was equipped were
worthless. No attempt was made to lower boats or life-rafts.
The crew were engaged in trying to cope with the fire, but
their efforts were futile. Within twenty minutes, the boat
went to her doom, and of the women and helpless children who
had embarked so gaily an hour before, more than nine hundred
were drowned or burned to death. Hundreds were saved by the
heroic efforts of policemen, river men, and the nurses on
North Brother Island, the seat of New York’s hospital for
contagious diseases, where the Slocum was finally
beached. Most of those who met this awful death had come from
a single densely populated district of New York’s great "East
Side." In some cases, whole families were wiped out.
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1905.
Institution of the Bureau of Municipal Research.
See (in this Volume)
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: NEW YORK CITY.
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1905.
The Municipal Election.
Especial excitements were given to the municipal election of
this year in New York by the appearance in it of William R.
Hearst, proprietor of several newspapers in the country which
are foremost representatives of the recklessly sensational
journalism called "yellow." The methods by which these papers
won a great circulation include much that can hardly be
described otherwise than as demagoguism, and many groups and
classes of people who are restlessly discontented in life,
whether reasonably or otherwise, had learned to look on Mr.
Hearst as a champion of human rights. This prepared material
from which to organize a personal following that took the
character, for a time, of a formidable political organization,
incorporated under the name of the Independence League; and
the great wealth which Mr. Hearst had inherited, and which his
prosperous newspapers replenished, was spent lavishly in
exploiting, supporting, and controlling the organization. His
political ambitions aimed high, and the mayoralty of New York
City, for which his Independence League nominated him in 1905,
was by no means the contemplated end.
The Tammany Democracy gave its nomination to George B.
McClellan, son of the famous General, while the Republican
party named William M. Ivins, a prominent lawyer of the city.
The canvas was a heated one, and as it progressed the League
of Mr. Hearst was seen to be dangerously large. As a
consequence. Republicans who feared its control of the City
government even more than they feared that of Tammany, threw
their votes for McClellan, giving him a plurality of about
3500 over Hearst, and leaving Mr. Ivins far behind.
{452}
Frauds were claimed and the election contested by Hearst and
his supporters, who secured, by order of a Justice of the
Supreme Court of the State, a recounting of the ballots in
four election districts, with the result of a gain of
seventeen votes for Mr. Hearst. Appeal was then taken to the
Appellate Division of the Supreme Court for an order directing
not only a recount but a recanvass of votes. Such an order was
granted, but set aside by the Court of Appeals, to which the
question went then; the court of last resort reversing, also,
the order under which the four boxes had been recounted. The
assertion of fraud was still maintained with vehemence, and
the legitimacy of Mayor McClellan’s title to the office he
filled was denied for more than a year. The Legislature then
passed an Act directing a recanvass and recount of the entire
ballots of the election, which had been preserved under seal.
This was a labor of months, performed under the direction of
Judge Lambert, of the Supreme Court. It gave a gain of 1094
votes to Hearst and a gain of 231 to McClellan, leaving a net
gain of 863 to Hearst, and diminishing McClellan’s plurality
in the total vote to 2791. The validity of his election was
thereupon declared.
A more successful and far more notable independent candidacy
than that of Mr. Hearst, in the New York City election of
1905, was conducted for the purpose of retaining Mr. William
Travers Jerome in the office of District Attorney for the
county of New York. He had been carried into the office on a
fusion ticket, four years before, and had performed its
important duties with a courage, a force, an independence and
a rectitude that were beyond praise. The machines of the
parties would not nominate him for reëlection; but an
extraordinary rally of the friends of good government in all
parties put him into the field, with an emergency organization
that sufficed to carry him triumphantly through. He was elected
by a plurality of about 16,000. So striking a proof of the
political popularity which a high quality of public service
can win has not often been given.
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1905-1909.
The Undertaking of Works for a Water Supply from
the Catskill Mountains.
In 1905 the City of New York procured authority from the
Legislature to construct the works necessary for an adequate
supply of water, additional to that which had been drawn for
many years from the Croton River for old New York and from the
Ridgewood system for Brooklyn. The source determined on was
in the Catskill Mountains, including several streams, called
creeks,—namely Esopus, Rondout, Schoharie, and Catskill,—
having a total water shed of 885 square miles, and estimated
to furnish about 770 millions of gallons daily, even in dry
years. The plan of the project in its entirety contemplates
the construction of eight great reservoirs for storing and
controlling the waters derived from these streams. The first
to be built and the largest of such reservoirs is named the
Ashokan, on Esopus Creek, about 14 miles west of the Hudson
River at Kingston, near Brown’s station on the Ulster and
Delaware Railway. Work on this was begun in 1907. It is being
constructed in the form of two basins, having a united length
of about twelve and a half miles, lying between hills which
are connected by numerous massive dams. The dams necessary to
complete the enclosure of the water have a total length of
more than five miles.
In a straight line the distance from the Ashokan Reservoir to
New York is 86 miles; but the windings of the course that will
have to be given to the great aqueduct from the reservoir to
the city will add six miles to its length. The aqueduct is to
pass from the western to the eastern side of the Hudson at
Storm King Mountain, through a tunnel in solid rock, far
beneath the river bed. From Breakneck on the western shore it
will cross a corner of the Croton watershed to a filter site,
and to two final reservoirs, the Kensico and the Hill View. In
connection with both Ashokan and Kensico reservoirs the plan
of the system contemplates an aeration of the water, by
flinging it to the air in thousands of fountain jets.
In the parts of the great concrete aqueduct that can be built
in an open cut its dimensions are seventeen feet of height and
seventeen and a half feet of width. Where it traverses tunnels
the width is reduced to thirteen feet. Its delivery of water
to New York is calculated to add 500,000,000 of gallons daily
to the water supply of the city. The undertaking as a whole is
claimed to be the greatest that any city has yet engaged in,
while the engineering work involved is said to be second only
in magnitude to that of the Panama Canal.
Alfred D. Flinn,
The World's Greatest Aqueduct
(The Century Magazine, September, 1909).
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1907 (April).
Great Peace Congress.
See (in this Volume)
WAR: THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1907.
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1909.
Unearthing of Corruptions in the Custom House.
See (in this Volume)
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER).
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1909 (June).
The Wall Street Investigation, so-called.
Report on the Operations of the Stock Exchange and
other Exchanges.
See (in this Volume)
FINANCE AND TRADE: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909.
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1909.
Renewed Struggle against Tammany, with Partial
but Substantial Success.
Although Tammany elected its candidate for Mayor in the
municipal election of 1909, its domination was practically
overthrown by the defeat of its nominees for all other offices
of importance in the City Government. A coalition of the
Republicans with anti-Tammany Democrats and other
organizations had presented a fusion ticket headed by a
prominent and much-trusted business man, Mr. Otto T. Bannard.
William R. Hearst entered the field again, as an independent
nominee, and Tammany named Judge William J. Gaynor, who had
been one of its opponents, as a Democrat, in the past. Judge
Gaynor was elected by a plurality of 73,016, the vote cast for
mayor being: Gaynor 250,678; Bannard 177,662; Hearst 153,843.
The City Comptroller, four of the five borough presidents, and
the President of the Board of Aldermen, were elected by the
Fusionists. By the election of Mr. McAneny to be President of
the Borough of Manhattan (the old New York City), a very
eminent political reformer and one of great force, was brought
into the City Government. As president of the energetic City
Club, which became a power in reform politics under his lead,
and as secretary of the National Civil Service Reform League,
Mr. McAneny had given abundant proof of his capacity and his
earnestness in work for good government.
{453}
By controlling twelve of the sixteen votes in the important
Board of Estimate, the opponents of Tammany stripped that
organization of all power over public "jobs." As the fact was
expressed exultingly in one of the journals of New York on the
day after election, "after January 1 Charles F. Murphy and his
associates no longer will say who shall have public
franchises; they, too, will no longer fix the budget, sell the
city’s bonds, and pay political debts with salary increases.
In other words, the Tiger has lost his grip on the city’s
purse-strings, and this fact, perhaps, more than any other,
has turned his den into a cavern of gloom."
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1909.
Proposed New Charter, not acted on in the Legislature.
See (in this Volume)
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: NEW YORK CITY.
NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1909-1910.
The Shirtwaist Makers’ Strike.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909-1910.
NEW YORK LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY:
Legislative Investigation.
See (in this Volume)
INSURANCE, LIFE.
NEW YORK, NEW HAVEN AND HARTFORD RAILROAD CASE.
See (in this Volume)
COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1906.
NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1899-1909.
The Barge Canal under Construction.
On the 8th of March, 1899, Theodore Roosevelt, then Governor
of New York, appointed a committee of private citizens, for
service without pay, in studying and reporting on the policy
to be adopted by the State of New York in dealing with its
canals. The appointed chairman of the committee was General
Francis Vinton Greene, and the following account of the
recommendations made by the committee is taken from a paper on
the subject contributed by General Greene to Volume XIII. of
the Publications of the Buffalo Historical Society, published
in December, 1909:
"The other members were Major Thomas W. Symons of the Corps of
Engineers, United States Army, then stationed at Buffalo in
charge of river and harbor improvements, Honorable Frank S.
Witherbee of Port Henry in the Champlain district, Honorable
George E. Green, State Senator from Binghamton in the southern
tier of counties, Honorable John N. Scatcherd of Buffalo, and
the two state officials most intimately connected with the
administration of canals, viz., Honorable Edward A. Bond,
State Engineer, and Honorable John N. Partridge,
Superintendent of Public Works.
"The request of the Governor was simply that we should study
the canal problem and advise him. … We devoted the greater
part of the year 1899 to a study of the subject, and made our
report to the Governor under date of January 15, 1900. … The
Governor promptly transmitted the report to the Legislature,
adopting the conclusions and recommendations which it
contained, and advising that legislation be enacted to carry
them into effect. This was done in successive years … ;
finally the project was ratified and adopted by an
overwhelming vote of the people in the election of 1903. …
"As to our conclusions and recommendations, the first question
to be decided was whether or not the canals should be entirely
abandoned. It was claimed by many that canal transportation
was antiquated and altogether out of date; that ‘the
railroads, with their large capital and scientific management,
their durable roadbeds, powerful locomotives, larger cars,
greater train loads, greater speed, and more certainty of
delivery, will be able now or in the early future to reduce
the cost of transportation below what is possible on the
canals.’ If it should seem probable that the railroads could
accomplish this, then it would be manifestly unwise and
improper to expend any more public money upon the canals.
"From a consideration of all [the] facts we reached our first
conclusion—which, like all the other portions of our report,
was unanimously adopted—to wit, ‘That the canals connecting
the Hudson river with Lakes Erie, Ontario and Champlain should
not be abandoned, but should be maintained and enlarged.’
"The next point to be considered was, to what extent should
they be enlarged, what size of vessel they should be adapted
to carry, and what would be the estimated cost of
construction.
"As to the proper size of the enlarged canal, widely different
views were held by engineers and by economists. Some contended
that the nine foot canal authorized in 1894 was sufficiently
large; others brought forward the supposed advantages of a
ship canal large enough to carry ocean-going steamers without
breaking bulk from Duluth to Liverpool, or any other port;
others contended that a canal of intermediate size would be
found to be the most economical, would cost the least amount
of money for the results produced, and would, in fact, produce
a lower freight rate than either the small canal on the one
hand, or the ship canal on the other.
"To these questions we gave the most careful study. The ship
canal had many glittering attractions, and there was a large
sentiment along the lakes which had found expression in Deep
Waterways conventions, which had been held in recent years and
had advocated a water route of either 21 or 28 feet depth from
Lake Erie to the Atlantic ocean. … But a careful examination
of the facts led us to the conclusion that while a ship canal
of 21 or 28 feet depth would cost enormously more than a barge
canal of say, 12 feet depth, it would not produce as low a
freight rate. …
"Having rejected the ship canal project, we had then to
consider what size of enlarged canal we should recommend. In
any event, we were satisfied that the route of the canal
should be changed so as to use the waterways of the Seneca and
Oneida rivers, Oneida lake and the Mohawk river in place of
the present route; but the question was whether the depth of
the canal should be 9 feet, capable of carrying a boat with
cargo capacity of 450 tons, or a depth of 12 feet, carrying a
boat with a cargo capacity of about 1,000 tons. With such data
as we could obtain in the short time at our disposal, and
without adequate surveys, we estimated the cost of the smaller
project at a little more than $21,000,000, and of the larger
project at a little less than $59,000,000.
{454}
"Our conclusion was in these words: ‘In our judgment, arrived
at after long consideration, and with some reluctance, the
State should undertake the larger project on the ground that
the smaller one is at best a temporary makeshift, and that the
larger project will permanently secure the commercial
supremacy of New York, and that this can be assured by no
other means.’ …
"We made a fourth recommendation in the following words:
"‘That the money for these improvements should be raised by
the issue of eighteen-year bonds in the manner prescribed by
the State Constitution, and that the interest and principal of
these bonds should be paid out of taxes specifically levied,
for benefits received, in the counties bordering in whole or
in part on the canals, the Hudson river and Lake Champlain;
such taxes to be levied in proportion to the assessed
valuation of the real and personal estate in such counties.
These taxes will amount to about 10 cents per $100 of assessed
valuation annually during the period of eighteen years.’
"Our object in making this recommendation was to disarm the
opposition of the non-canal counties. … We also submitted
statistics in tabular and graphic form showing that the
valuation of the river and canal counties was 90% of the
entire valuation of the State. In any event, they would bear
90% of the expense, and it was thought wise to suggest that
they bear the entire expense so as to remove every ground of
alleged injustice in taxing the counties which claimed to
derive no benefit.
"This recommendation was not adopted by the Legislature, nor
submitted to the people. …
"At the election the non-canal counties voted against the
project by large majorities, St. Lawrence county, for
instance, being 12 to 1 against it, and Steuben county, 10 to
1 against it; but, on the other hand, the canal counties voted
in favor of it by almost equally large majorities, New York
being 9 to 1 in favor of it; Kings, 8 to 1; Queens, 5 to 1,
and Erie, nearly 5 to 1. For some unexplained reason Monroe
county, in which Rochester is situated, and Onondaga county,
in which Syracuse is situated, voted against it. The
overwhelming vote, however, in the counties at the two
terminals, New York and Buffalo, made a majority of 245,312 in
the entire State in favor of the project, and a total vote of
1,100,708.
"Our fifth and final recommendation was as follows:
"That the efficiency of the canals depends upon their
management quite as much as upon their physical size, and that
no money should be spent for further enlargement unless
accompanied by measures which will accomplish the following
results:
"(a) The removal of all restrictions as to the amount of
capital of companies engaged in transportation on the canals,
and the encouragement of large transportation lines for
handling canal business, in place of hampering them, as has
hitherto been the case.
"(b) The use of mechanical means of traction, either steam or
electricity, in place of draft animals; and the use of
mechanical power in place of hand power for operating the
gates and valves, and moving boats in locks.
"(c) The organization of the force engaged on the public works
of the State on a more permanent basis, so as to afford an
attractive career to graduates of scientific institutions,
with the assurance that their entry into the service, their
tenure of office, and their promotion will depend solely on
their fitness, as determined by proper and practical tests.
"(d) A revision of the laws in regard to the letting of public
contracts by the State, so as to make impossible a repetition
of the unfortunate results of the $9,000,000 appropriation.
"Legislation has already been adopted to carry into effect (a)
and (c); the adopted plans for the canal are in accordance
with (b); and the specific form of contract which we
recommended in connection with (d) was not adopted, but
another form of contract was adopted which will practically
accomplish the same result.
"It only remains to speak of the cost of the project. With
such data as we had available and with such surveys as were
possible during the year 1899, we estimated the cost of the
project we recommended at $58,894,668 for the Erie Canal and
$2,642,120 for the Oswego and Champlain canals, making a total
of $61,536,788. This contemplated a canal with 12 feet depth
and suitable locks for carrying a barge of approximately 1,000
tons capacity from Buffalo to the Hudson river, but as to the
Oswego and Champlain canals, it recommended only the
completion of the work already undertaken to provide for boats
of six feet draft. … It was ultimately determined to enlarge
the Champlain and Oswego canals to the same size as the main
canal between Buffalo and the Hudson river, and also to
include the dredging of a 12 foot channel in the Hudson river,
which we had anticipated would be done by the Federal
Government. This enlargement of the project very materially
increased the cost, and in the interval between the time of
our report and the completion of the detailed report of the
State Engineer, the prices of labor and materials had very
largely advanced. In order to cover all possible
contingencies, the State Engineer carried his estimate to
$101,000,000, and this was the amount appropriated by the
Legislature and ratified by the people at the election of
1903."
Francis Vinton Greene,
The Inception of the Barge Canal Project
(Buffalo Historical Society Publications, Volume 13).
The first six contracts for the construction of the Barge
Canal were let in April, 1905. The state of the work at the
end of the year 1909 was announced by Governor Hughes in his
Message to the next Legislature as follows:
"The contracts in force for the Barge Canal improvement amount
in total price to $48,229,467, and the contract value of the

work performed to December 1, 1909, was $15,821,275. It is
estimated by the State engineer and surveyor that during 1910
work will be completed amounting to $16,000,000, and it is
expected that the work for the entire length of the Barge
Canal system will be under contract by April 1, 1910. At the
present rate of progress, it is said that it is not
unreasonable to expect that the Barge Canal system will be
completed by the end of the year 1914. It is further stated
that the work is being carried on within the original
estimates. This enterprise should be pushed to completion as
speedily, as economically, and efficiently as possible."
NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1901-1909.
Legislation developing the Parole System
of dealing with Convicts.
See (in this Volume)
CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY: INDETERMINATE SENTENCES.
{455}
NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1905-1906.
Legislative Investigation of Life Insurance Companies and the
State Superintendency of them.
Startling Disclosures.
Remedial Legislation.
See (in this Volume)
INSURANCE, LIFE.
NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1906-1910.
The Epoch of Governor Hughes.
The Special Significance of his Administration.
His Exemplary Fidelity to Fundamental Political Principles.
His Public Support against Hostile Party-Managers.
The election of 1906 is likely to be marked in the political
history of New York as the introduction of an epoch,—the Epoch
of Governor Hughes. The State has had a number of very notable
Governors, in both early and late times,—Governors who left a
deep and lasting impression of themselves on its history, and
who have been large contributors to its prestige and influence
as the Empire State of the American Union; but Governor Hughes
is of a type so different from any of his predecessors, and
his conduct of the Governor’s high office has been so
distinctive in principle and method, that his administration
can hardly fail, in the retrospect, to take on a special
significance of its own.
As counsel to the Legislative Committee which investigated the
scandals of life-insurance management in 1905-1906 (see, in this
Volume, INSURANCE, LIFE), the conduct of the investigation by
Mr. Charles Evans Hughes drew public attention, and made him
known so favorably that when in the autumn of 1906 the
Republican Party of the State had special need of a personally
attractive candidate for Governor, an unmistakable expression
of popular opinion directed the choice to him. The
Independence League which Mr. William R. Hearst had rallied
and organized, and which had served him the previous year in
his candidacy for the mayoralty of New York (see, above, NEW
YORK CITY: A. D. 1905), had been recruited so successfully
throughout the State, and had absorbed so much of some
elements of the Democratic Party, that the latter made terms
of combination with it, and adopted Mr. Hearst as its
gubernatorial nominee. The combination was one which the
ordinary forces acting for the Republican Party could hardly
hope to overcome; but the recent prestige of Mr. Hughes might
call out reinforcements that would save the day. It was not
willingly that the professional managers of the party
consented to his nomination, and it was not willingly that he
accepted it. He was heartily a Republican in politics, but
never active in its affairs, being devoted to his profession
and plainly reluctant to be turned aside at all from the
career it had just fairly opened before him. But he yielded,
as the party managers did, to a call from the public of the
party, and the result of the election afforded proof of the
reality and sincerity of the call. Hughes alone on the State
ticket of the Republicans was elected; Hearst alone on the
ticket of the Democratic-Independence-League combination was
defeated. Governor Hughes was thus placed, on the 1st of
January, 1907, at the head of an administration in which every
other elective office was filled by his political opponents.
This political aloneness of Governor Hughes in his office
would have mattered very little, however, if his own party
surroundings in it had been friendly and sympathetic; but very
quickly it was seen that he had conceptions of official duty
which those who controlled the machine-like "organization" of
the party, with consequent powers of influence over its
representatives in the legislature and in other official
places, could in no wise comprehend. With a degree of
precision and decision hardly matched by another executive,
this Governor had studied, constitutionally and ethically, and
had defined to himself, the obligations and limitations of his
office, and had resolved them into principles of action from
which he never swerved. In one particular, especially, this
held him to a course which some former governors had adhered
to in the main, but none, perhaps, with a consistency as firm.
In the use of two powers confided to the Governor, that of the
veto in legislation and that of appointment to many State
offices, there had always been more or less of giving and
taking between the Executive, on one side, and the Legislature
and the controlling leaders of party organization on the
other. A Governor actuated by personal motives, of ambition or
other self-interest, would use these powers freely, in
bargaining for or enforcing his desires; and a Governor who
cared for public interests alone would sometimes feel driven
to secure measures needful to that end at some price of
concession in appointments and in the approval of bills, or
some coercive use of the veto whip. Governor Hughes would do
neither, and his attitude in this matter stands out so
conspicuously as to mark in itself an epoch of great example
in the right exercise of executive power.
No Governor has ever interested himself more earnestly in the
work of the Legislature, with a watchful eye to the needs,
interests, and rights of the public and to the demands of good
government on every side. No Governor has ever taken a more
active and effective part in the production of important
legislation, and none has ever put his stamp on more of such
legislation within the same time. But all that he has done in
that line of executive duty has been strictly by
recommendation and by argument, addressed first to the
Legislature and then to the public behind it; never by any
other means. Legislatures have been coerced irresistibly into
compliance with his recommendations, by public opinion,
wakened by the Governor’s voice; never directly by him. There
has been no departure from the principle of action which he
stated once in these words: "I have not attempted, through the
use of political patronage or political machinery to coerce
anybody, and I don’t propose to do so. But under the
constitution, it is my privilege and my duty to recommend
legislation. If I mean what I say when I recommend, I ought to
be able to tell why it is recommended, and my constituency is
not the Legislature, and not any particular part of the
people, but my constituency is the people of the State, and I
propose, therefore, whenever I make a recommendation, and
there is any question about it, to tell as forcibly, as fully
and as frankly as possible why I stand for it. If it is wrong,
you will know it all the sooner; if it is right, you will give
it the support it deserves. I call that American government,
and if we had a little less trading, a little less wirepulling
and bulldozing, we would prosper to a far greater degree."
{456}
The Legislature of New York has been honored by this
highminded and respectful treatment of it, which the
highminded among its members have appreciated; but these have
been at most times a minority. The majority, obedient to
resentful party "bosses," have acted sullenly with him when
the lash of public opinion has driven them to his side, and
defiantly against him when they dared. His obstinate
antagonists have found a reflection hard to obtain.
The most signal showing of the attitude of the public toward
antagonists of Governor Hughes in the Legislature occurred in
connection with a bill, recommended by the Governor in 1907,
for the amendment of a disgraceful existing law relative to
race-track gambling. The State Constitution, as revised in
1894, prohibits all forms of gambling, and declares that "the
Legislature shall pass appropriate laws to prevent offenses
against any of the provisions of this section." In 1895 an
Act (known as the Percy-Gray Law) was got through the
Legislature, professedly in obedience to this mandate of the
Constitution, which verbally prohibited betting on races, but
penalized it only by providing that the loser of a race-track
bet might sue the winner and recover twice the amount of his
bet, while betting and gambling in other places were punished
heavily by imprisonment and fine. This scandalous favor to the
race-track interests carried a bribe at the same time to the
farmers of the State, in the form of a cunning provision of
the Act, which appropriated five per cent. of the gross
receipts of racing associations to the benefit of agricultural
societies. Repeated attempts to correct so contemptuous a
violation of the Constitution had failed; but Governor Hughes
renewed the attempt, with a feeling of reverence for Law and
for the honor of the State which could not tolerate defeat.
When the amending Bill that he recommended was put in suspense
by a tie vote in the Senate, the Governor called a special
session of the Legislature, and brought the question before
the people in speeches which made a mighty stir. The racing
interests in the State were so powerful that they almost
defied defeat, and all their influence came into play.
Meantime a special election to fill a vacancy in the Senate
was pending in Western New York, and the issue on the
race-track gambling bill was fought out there, with the
Governor in the field, contending for an honest enforcement of
the constitutional law of the State. The result of the
election gave support to that contention, and when, at the
special session, the Bill in question was again called up in
the Senate, as it could be, it was passed by a majority of
one. The Republican senators who voted against it were most of
them retired to private life by their constituents at the
senatorial elections of the ensuing fall.
Almost everything of importance in New York legislation since
Governor Hughes entered office has had its origin in his
recommendations, and has been carried by the weight of public
backing which belief in him calls out, against resisting
influences that would ordinarily have prevailed. This was
notably the fact in the case of the Public Service Commissions
Act of 1907 (See (in this Volume) PUBLIC UTILITIES), which
established an effective supervision and regulation of
corporations engaged in public services, by placing over them
two commissions, appointed by the Governor, one with
jurisdiction in New York City, the other in the remainder of
the State, both armed with large powers. The services covered
are those of railways, gas and electric light and power
companies, and the authority established over them extends not
only to their rates, but to their capitalization, their issues
of stock and bonds, their franchises, the labor conditions
under them, their equipment, and the sufficiency and quality
of the service they render. The excellence of the Act has been
proved by its working, in the hands of the commissions
appointed by Governor Hughes.
In the checking of improper legislation by his vetoes,
especially against encroachments on local rights of
self-government, and against special enactments that intrude
on general laws, Governor Hughes has been a teacher of
political principles, as importantly as in the legislative
advice which it is part of his constitutional duty to render.
He taught a great lesson to every legislative body and every
executive in the Union, when he disapproved a highly popular
bill which prescribed a fixed rate of railway passenger fares
at two cents per mile, on the ground that it was not a matter
to be dealt with summarily,—without careful investigation and
determination of the facts involved. So consistent, so
forceful, so effective a teacher, in fact, by precept and high
example, of the fundamentals of principle in political action,
has rarely appeared in any country.
That Governor Hughes was renominated and reelected in 1908 for
a second term was again by reason of a public insistence which
neither he nor the hostile manipulators of caucus-work in his
party could resist. If the election had not been coincident in
time with a presidential election the "bosses" of the party
would have refused the nomination to him at any cost. They
were able to secure a convention of delegates that would
eagerly have made that refusal; but when the Governor was
persuaded to say that he would accept renomination, they dared
not imperil the national interests of the party by flouting
demands which came from every quarter of the land. He had
become so national a figure that interest in his reelection
was nation-wide.
On the powerful movement in New York to break down the
practical exclusion of the people from the choosing of
candidates for office, which Governor Hughes inspired.
See (in this Volume)
ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: UNITED STATES:
DIRECT PRIMARY NOMINATIONS.
NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1906-1909.
Work of Reforestation.
See (in this Volume)
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: UNITED STATES.
NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1907.
The Gift of Letchworth Park.
A noble gift to the State was made in January, 1907, by the
Honorable William Pryor Letchworth, a gentleman of distinction
in benevolent work, officially as president for many years of
the State Board of Charities, and privately, at the same time,
as a profound student of and writer on, some of the gravest of
the problems of philanthropy, especially that of the treatment
of the insane. The home of Mr. Letchworth for many years has
been on a great estate which embraces the finest and most
famous scenery of the Upper Genesee River, lying on both sides
of the cañon [canyon] down which the river plunges in three
successive falls.
{457}
The thousand acres of the estate enclose all three of the
falls. This magnificent domain, preserved in all its natural
beauty and improved with careful taste by half a century of
Mr. Letchworth’s care, has been conveyed in trust to the
State, under the future custody of The American Scenic and
Historic Preservation Society, to be forever, after the death
of Mr. Letchworth, a Public Park. A generous citizen has thus
saved from destructive uses a piece of scenery which has
hardly its equal for picturesque and varied beauty in another
part of the State.
NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1907.
Enactment of the Public Utilities Law.
See (in this Volume)
PUBLIC UTILITIES.
NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1907-1909.
Creation of the Probation System.
See (in this Volume)
CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY: PROBATION.
NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1909.
Gas Company’s Refund.
See (in this Volume)
PUBLIC UTILITIES.
NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1909.
Historical Commemorations.
The Champlain and the Hudson-Fulton.
Three notable events of the far past were notably commemorated
in New York during the summer and autumn of 1909. The
tercentenary year of Champlain’s discovery, in July, 1609, of
the Lake which bears his name, was signalized by a week of
historical pageants, fêtes, and gatherings for speech and
ceremony, on and around the lake, beginning on the 4th of
July. France, England, Canada, and the United States were
represented in the addresses and exercises of the occasion, by
the British and French Ambassadors, the Postmaster-General of
the Dominion, President Taft and ex-Secretary Root, Governor
Hughes of New York and Governor Prouty of Vermont. A large
number of Indians took part in the pageants, occupying a
floating island constructed for the occasion on the lake, and
representing scenes of Indian life and warfare, the story of
Hiawatha, and other reminders of the time when men of their
race were the lords of the region of Lake Champlain. The
occasion was made one of great interest.
Still more of interest was given to the double commemoration,
in September, of Hendrick Hudson’s exploration of Hudson River
and of Robert Fulton’s first practically successful
undertaking of steamboating, on that river. The celebration of
the event first named was timed appropriately on its third
centennial anniversary. That of the second was belated by two
years; but the two were most fitly connected. The people of
Holland joined heartily in the Hudson commemoration, building
and sending over to New York an exact replica of Hudson’s
little ship, the Halve Maen, or Half Moon, in which his
voyage was made. Fulton’s steamboat, the Clermont, was
also reproduced for the occasion, and the two small, quaint
vessels, strikingly in contrast with the monster battle ships
and ocean liners that surrounded them, lent a singular
interest to the affair. Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy,
the Netherlands, Mexico, Cuba, and the Argentine Republic
accepted invitations to take part in the naval parades which
formed a grand feature of the celebration, and an imposing
assembly of great ships of war was shown. Eight days, from
Saturday, September 25th, until the following Saturday, were
filled with church services, school exercises, historical
exhibitions and processions, military and naval parades,
aquatic sports, carnival doings, aeroplane flights, banquets
to foreign guests, etc., at New York City, after which the
Half Moon and the Clermont proceeded up the
river and the celebration was continued in various towns.
NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1909.
Defeat of the Direct Primary Bill.
See (in this Volume)
ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: UNITED STATES:
DIRECT PRIMARY NOMINATION.
NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1909-1910.
Munificent Gifts of Land on the Hudson
for Park Purposes offered.
In his annual Message to the Legislature, January 5, 1910,
Governor Hughes announced the details of a munificent project
of gifts proffered to the State for the purpose of creating a
noble State Park on and near the Hudson River. Mrs. Mary W.
Harriman, widow of the late E. H. Harriman, offered to convey
to the State a tract of about ten thousand acres of land in
Orange and Rockland counties, to be held in perpetuity as a
State park; offering further to give the State $1,000,000 in
trust, to be used for the purchase of land lying between the
tract mentioned and the Hudson River, so that the park may
have the advantage of a river frontage. Other gifts for
similar purposes amounting to $1,625,000 were announced as a
result of the activity of the Palisades Park Commission, from
residents of New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia. John D.
Rockefeller and J. Pierpont Morgan each subscribed $500,000;
Margaret Olivia Sage, William K. Vanderbilt, George F. Baker,
James Stillman, John D. Archbold, Frank A. Munsey, Henry
Phipps, E. T. Stotesbury, E. H. Gary, and George W. Perkins
gave $50,000 each: Helen M. Gould and V. Everit Macy
contributed $25,000 each, and Ellen F. James and Arthur C.
James jointly gave a similar amount. These subscriptions were
secured upon conditions stipulating, among other things, that
New York State shall appropriate $2,500,000 for the acquiring
of land and the building of roads and general park purposes;
that the State of New Jersey shall contribute a fair share,
and that the State discontinue work on the new State prison at
Great Bear Mountain in Rockland County, where preliminary work
on the site for a new $2,000,000 structure has been under way
for several months.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1886-1893.
Extension of the Suffrage to Women.
See (in this Volume)
ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1896-1908.
Twelve Years of Local Option.
The working of the Law.
Warning to the Liquor Trade.
The Vote of Women.
See (in this Volume)
ALCOHOL PROBLEM: NEW ZEALAND.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1902.
Colonial Conference at London.
See (in this Volume)
BRITISH EMPIRE.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1903.
The Maori King a Colonial Minister.
The old fierce conflict of the Maoris with the English
colonists in New Zealand would seem to have been effectually
ended, since the Maori King accepted a seat in the colonial
Cabinet, as a responsible Minister, in 1903.
{458}
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1905.
Government Ownership and Long-leasing of Land.
Its working.
Government Loans to Farmers.
The land system of New Zealand, as it was in 1895, is
described in Volume VI. of this work (see NEW ZEALAND). It has
since been carried farther on social-paternalistic lines, by
extensive expropriations or compulsory sales of large estates
to the Government, and by the institution of public loans of
capital to farmers at a moderate rate of interest. The
operation and result are thus described in a recent work:
"So far the government has lent to the farmers about
$20,000,000, but it has saved them $20,000,000 in interest,
because as soon as it came into the field with its cheap
loans, interest rates dropped everywhere. You see Shylock has
fled from these shores and will not return. The government has
never lost a cent in these loans. Reform proceeded next, with
a land tax graduated to an ascending scale, to discourage
land-grabbing, and land speculation; so that the more land a
man owns the higher is the tax-rate upon it. Thus for farms of
ordinary size the rate is two cents in every $5 of assessed
valuation; but on estates of more than $25,000 the rate
increases in regular ratio to the maximum of six cents for
every $5, except for absentee owners. They must pay fifty per
cent. more than residents. You can see that in New Zealand the
chance for fine old families and landed gentry is slim. No
doubt the theory of these things is extremely reprehensible,
but the practice is excellent. What with seizing the big
estates, and what with the graduated land tax, the size of
holdings has been so reduced that of 115,713 landowners in
1905 only 22,778 came under the operations of the augmented
land tax. The others, having small properties, paid the
smallest rate. Under the land purchase act the government has
seized 691,594 acres, mostly hunting fields and uncultivated
family inheritances. These have been partitioned into small
farms and are occupied by actual settlers. Under the operation
of all the new land laws together, the produce of New Zealand
has trebled, and the New Zealand farmer has become the most
prosperous in the world."
Charles E. Russell,
The Uprising of the Many,
chapter 29
(copyright, 1907, by Doubleday, Page & Co., New York, 1907).
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1906.
The Democratizing of Competition.
Labor Group Coöperation.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR REMUNERATION.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1906-1909.
The Liberal Party and the Liberal Ministry.
Their years of Great Power.
Their Strength shaken in the latest Election.
Its Method and Result.
The new Ministry of Sir Joseph Ward.
In June, 1906, the Liberal Party in New Zealand experienced a
great loss, in the death of Mr. Richard J. Seddon, its strong
leader, and the Prime Minister of Government for some time
past. His place was taken temporarily by Mr. Hall-Jones, until
Sir Joseph Ward, then absent from the country, returned and
received the chief ministerial seat. Since 1893 the Liberal
Party had derived large majorities in Parliament from each
triennial election. The Liberal Administration had advanced
accordingly, says a recent letter to the London Times,
"under the banner of labour legislation, new land laws, and
State Socialism, and was strengthened in its position by the
general prosperity of the country and the expenditure of large
sums of borrowed money upon public works. At the end of last
Session, it was still at the head of affairs with a majority
(including the four Maori members) of no fewer than 46.
"In the meantime, however, the guiding hand of Mr. Seddon, the
great apostle of New Zealand democracy, had been removed from
the scene, the harsh working of the Compulsory Arbitration Act
had begun to alienate the sympathies of both employers and
workers; the anti-freehold tendencies of the present
Administration were effecting a change of feeling in the
country constituencies, and the drop in the prices of some of
our staple products, combined with the stringency in the local
money market, began to act as a check on our commercial
prosperity. Finally, the Government made some tactical
blunders." Hence the Opposition, at the Parliamentary election
of November, 1908, was greatly strengthened, though the
ascendancy of the Liberals was still maintained. The conduct
of the election and its result are described by the
correspondent already quoted, as follows: "An election in New
Zealand is conducted in a most orderly manner. The
distribution of literature, the wearing of badges, and any
touting for votes from electors on their way to the polls or
in front of the polling booths are strictly prohibited by law.
A half-holiday has to be observed in shops and offices, and
factory owners must allow their employés time off to
vote. The publichouses remain closed from noon until the polls
are closed, the closing hour being in the country 6 P. M., and
in the cities 7 P. M. Time was, in the very early days, when
the polling booths were in some cases located between two
drinking saloons that did a roaring trade, and the result was
much loud disputation, bad language, and fighting. Nowadays
all that is changed, and women can walk into the polling
booths with complete unconcern. For the 76 seats 213
candidates had been nominated. Of these 114 claimed to be
Ministerialists and 52 Oppositionists, while 46 were
Independents, among whom were a few Socialists and Independent
Labourites. The result of the first ballot was that 34
Government supporters, 16 Opposition candidates, and three
Independents were elected by absolute majorities. In 23
constituencies the candidates at the head of the poll failed
to secure absolute majorities of the total votes polled, and
it became necessary to hold second ballots, the number of
these being practically double what was estimated by the Prime
Minister. … Twenty-two of these were held a week later, and
resulted in a further strengthening of the Opposition party.
One—in a widely scattered country constituency—has yet to be
held. The Government secured 12 of the seats, the Opposition
nine, and Independent Labour one. …
"The result of the elections, as a whole, is greatly to
strengthen the Opposition, and correspondingly to weaken the
Government. The next most noticeable feature about it is the
unusual change it has made in the personnel of the
House of Representatives. While not a single Opposition member
of the last Parliament who stood has lost his seat, no fewer
than 17 followers of the Ministry have been relegated to
private life; while the new Parliament will contain 27 new
members out of 76.
{459}
The position of parties, with one second ballot yet to be
decided, is—Government, 45; Opposition, 25; Independent, 4;
Independent Labour, 1. At the end of last Session (excluding
Maori members) the Government were 59 strong, while the
Opposition, including one Independent, numbered only 17. Thus,
whereas in the last Parliament the Government could reckon on
a majority of 42, they cannot now be absolutely sure of a
majority of more than 15 of the European members on certain
issues. There are four Maori members still to be elected, and
as these generally vote with the party in power the assured
Ministerial majority will be 19. This should be amply
sufficient to enable Sir Joseph Ward to continue in power for
the full term of the Parliament—three years."
Early in January, 1909, the Ministry was reconstructed, the
Premier, Sir Joseph Ward, burdening himself with the
portfolios of Finance, Defence, Lands, Agriculture, and the
Post Office. This was said to be made necessary by the
inexperience in office of the new Ministers whom he called to
his side.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1907 (April-May).
Imperial Conference at London.
See (in this Volume)
BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1907.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1907-1909.
Working of the Compulsory Arbitration Law.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: NEW ZEALAND.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1908.
Population.
The population of the Dominion of New Zealand on December 31,
1908, was estimated as follows:
Europeans 960,000;
Maoris, 49,000;
Cook Islanders, 12,000.
There was an increase of Europeans during the year of 31,000,
being at the rate of 3.36 percent. The excess of immigration
over departures was 14,000—a record; while the natural
increase was 17,000. The death-rate was 9.57 per thousand, as
compared with 10.95 in 1907; and the birth-rate was 27.45 per
thousand, as compared with 27.30.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1908-1909.
Labor Strike caused by Legislation making "Miners’ Disease"
a ground of Compensation from Employers.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR PROTECTION: EMPLOYERS’ LIABILITY.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1909.
Announcement of Railway-Building Policy.
See (in this Volume)
RAILWAYS: NEW ZEALAND.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1909.
Act establishing compulsory Military Training.
See (in this Volume)
WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: MILITARY: NEW ZEALAND.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1909.
The Prime Minister’s testimony to the good working
of Woman Suffrage.
See (in this Volume)
ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1909 (July-August).
Imperial Defence Conference.
Offer of a "Dreadnought" to the Imperial Navy.
See (in this Volume)
WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: MILITARY AND NAVAL.
NIAGARA FALLS:
Preservation of their "Scenic Grandeur."
An Act of Congress, designed "to preserve the scenic grandeur"
of Niagara Falls, approved in June, 1906, authorized the
Secretary of War to grant permits for the diversion of water
for the creation of power to an aggregate amount not exceeding
15,600 cubic feet a second, and to grant permits for the
transmission of power from Canada to an aggregate quantity not
exceeding 160,000 horsepower. The then Secretary of War, Mr.
Taft, since elected President of the United States, after
careful investigations and hearings, granted permits for the
diversion of the maximum amount of water under the act and for
the admission of the maximum quantity of power. In reporting
his decision Mr. Taft explained why he believed that the
diversion authorized could be made without harm to the Falls:
"I have reached," he said, "the conclusion that with the
diversion of 15,600 cubic feet on the American side and the
transmission of 160,000 horse power from the Canadian side,
the scenic grandeur of the Falls will not be affected
substantially or perceptibly to the eye. With respect to the
American falls this is an increase of only 2,500 cubic feet a
second over what is now being diverted and has been diverted
for many years, and has not affected the Falls as a scenic
wonder. With respect to the Canadian side, the water is drawn
from the river in such a way as not to affect the American
falls at all, because the point from which it is drawn is
considerably below the level of the water, at the point where
the waters separate above Goat Island, and the Waterways
Commission and Dr. Clark agree that the taking of 13,000 cubic
feet from the Canadian side will not in any way affect or
reduce the water going over the American falls. The water
going over the Falls on the Canadian side of Goat Island is
about five times the Volume of that which goes over the
American falls. … If the amount withdrawn on the Canada side
for Canadian use were 5,000 cubic feet a second, which it is
not likely to be during the three years’ life of these
permits, the total to be withdrawn would not exceed ten per
cent, of the Volume of the stream, and, considering the
immense quantity which goes over the Horseshoe Falls, the
diminution would not be perceptible to the eye."
See, also, provisions of "WATERWAYS TREATY,"
in this Volume, under CANADA: A. D. 1909 (JANUARY).
NIAGARA MOVEMENT, The.
See (in this Volume)
RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES.
NICARAGUA.
See (in this Volume)
CENTRAL AMERICA.
NICHOLAS II., TSAR OF RUSSIA.
See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA.
NICHOLS, ERNEST FOX:
President of Dartmouth University.
See (in this Volume)
EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1909.
NICOLSON, SIR ARTHUR:
British Ambassador at St. Petersburg.
Convention with Russia.
See (in this Volume)
EUROPE: A. D. 1907 (AUGUST).
NIEL, M.:
The head of the Confédération Générale du Travail in France.
See (in this Volume)
LABOR ORGANIZATION: FRANCE: A. D. 1884-1909.
NIGERIA.
See (in this Volume)
AFRICA: FRENCH CENTRAL.
NIGHT RIDERS, of the Tobacco Farmers’ Union.
See (in this Volume)
KENTUCKY: A. D. 1905-1909.
NILE BARRAGE.
See (in this Volume)
EGYPT: A. D. 1902 (DECEMBER).
{460}
NOBEL PRIZES.
By the will of Alfred Bernard Nobel, the distinguished Swedish
engineer and chemist, pupil of John Ericsson and inventor of
dynamite and other explosives, five great prizes, averaging
nearly $40,000 each in value, were instituted, for annual
reward to persons who shall severally have made the most
important discovery or invention in the domain of physics,
chemistry and physiology or medicine; to the writer who has
produced in literature the most distinguished work of an
idealistic tendency, and to the person who has most or best
promoted the fraternity of nations, the abolition or reduction
of standing armies and the formation and increase of peace
congresses. The award of the two prizes first named to be made
by the Royal Academy of Science in Stockholm; the third by the
Caroline Medical-Chirurgical Institute in Stockholm; the
fourth by the Swedish Academy in the same city; the fifth by
the Storthing or Parliament of Norway.
The presentation of prizes on the first award was made with
impressive ceremonies on the 10th of December, 1901, that
being the fifth anniversary of Mr. Nobel’s death. Each year
since, the awards have been made on that anniversary day. The
recipients have been as follows:
PHYSICS.
1901
William Conrad Roentgen,
professor of physics at the University of Munich.
1902
Divided equally between Henrik Anton Lorentz, professor
of physics at the University of Leyden, and Peter Zeeman,
professor of physics at the University of Amsterdam.
1903
Half to Antoine Henri Becquerel, professor of physics
at the École Polytechnique and at the Museum d’Histoire
Naturelle, Paris, France, member Institut Française, and half
to Pierre Curie, professor of physics at the University of
Paris (Sorbonne) and teacher in physics at the Paris Municipal
School of Industrial Physics and Chemistry, and his wife, Marie
Sklodovska Curie, preceptress at the Higher Normal School
for Young Girls at Sevres.
1904
Lord Rayleigh, professor of natural philosophy,
Royal Institution of Great Britain, London.
1905
Philippe Lenard, professor of physics at the
physical Institute of Kiel.
1906
J. J. Thomson, professor of experimental physics
at the University of Cambridge.
1907
Albert A. Michelsen, professor of physics at the
University of Chicago.
1908
Professor Gabriel Lippman of the University of Paris.
1909
G. Marconi, Italy, and
Professor Ferdinand Braun of Strassburg.
MEDICINE.
1901
Emil Adolf von Behring, professor of hygiene and
medical history at the University of Marburg, Prussia.
1902
Ronald Ross, professor of tropical medicine at the
University college of Liverpool.
1903
Niels Ryberg Finsen, professor of medicine,
Copenhagen, Denmark.
1904
Ivan Petrovic Pawlow, professor of physiology in the
Military Academy of Medicine, St. Petersburg.
1905
Robert Koch, member of the
Royal Academy of Science, Berlin.
1906
Professors Ramon y Cajal and Camillo Golgi of the
Pavia university, Italy.
1907
Charles L. A. Laveran of the Pasteur Institute in Paris.
1908
Dr. Paul Ehrlich of Berlin and Professor Elie Metchnikoff
of the Pasteur Institute, Paris.
1909
Professor E. T. Kocher, Switzerland.
CHEMISTRY.
1901
Jakob Hendrik van’t Hoff, professor of chemistry
in the University of Berlin.
1902
Emil Fischer, professor of chemistry
in the University of Berlin.
1903
Svante August Arrhenius, professor at
the University of Stockholm.
1904
Sir William Ramsay, professor of chemistry
in the University college, London.
1905
Adolf von Baeyer, professor of chemistry at Munich.
1906
H. Moissan, professor of chemistry at the Sorbonne, Paris.
1907
Eduard Buchner, professor of chemistry in the
agricultural high school of Berlin.
1908
Professor Ernest Rutherford of the
University of Manchester, England.
1909
Professor W. Ostwald of Leipsic.
LITERATURE.
1901
Rene Francois Armand Sully-Prudhomme,
member of the French Academy.
1902
Theodor Mommsen, professor of history at
the University of Berlin.
1903
Bjornstjerne Bjornson, author, Norway.
1904
Half to Frederic Mistral of France and
half to José Echegaray of Spain.
1905
Henryk Sienkiewicz, the author of "Quo Vadis?"
1906
Professor Giosue Carducci of Bologna, Italy.
1907
Rudyard Kipling of England.
1908
Professor Rudolf Eucken of the University of Java.
1909
Selma Lagerlof, Sweden.
PEACE.
1901
Divided equally between Henri Dunant, founder of the
International Red Cross Society of Geneva, and Frederic Passay,
founder of the first French peace association, the
"Société Française pour l’Arbitrage Entre Nations."
1902
Divided equally between Elie Ducommum, secretary of
the international peace bureau at Bern, and Albert Gobat,
chief of the interparliamentary peace bureau at Bern.
1903
William Randal Cremer, M. P., secretary of the
International Arbitration league, London.
1904
The Institute of International Right, a scientific
association founded in 1873 in Ghent, Belgium.
1905
Baroness Bertha von Suttner for her literary work
written in the interest of the world’s peace movement.
1906
Theodore Roosevelt, president of the United States,
for the part he took in bringing the Russo-Japanese war to
an end. Money set apart by the president for the establishment
of a permanent industrial peace commission.
1907
Divided equally between Ernesto T. Moneta, president of
the Lombardy Peace union, and Louis Renault, professor of
international law at the University of Paris.
1908
K. P. Arnoldsen of Sweden and M. F. Bajer of Denmark.
1909
Baron d’Estournelles de Constant, Paris,
and M. Beernaert, Holland, ex-Premier.
[For a contemporary list see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates]
NODZU, General.
See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-JULY), and after.
NOGI, GENERAL.
See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1904 (FEBRUARY-JULY), and
1904-1905 (MAY-JANUARY).
NOMINATIONS, Political:
By Direct Primary Vote.
See (in this Volume)
ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: UNITED STATES.
NOMINAVIT NOVIS CONTROVERSY.
See (in this Volume)
FRANCE: A. D. 1905-1906.
NORD ALEXIS, GENERAL.
See (in this Volume)
HAITI: A. D. 1902 and 1908.
{461}
NORDENSKJÖLD, DR. OTTO:
Commanding Swedish Antarctic Expedition.
See (in this Volume)
POLAR EXPLORATION.
NORDEZ, BISHOP LE.
See (in this Volume)
FRANCE: A. D. 1905-1900.
NORTHCOTE, LORD:
On the Australian Land and Immigration Questions.
See (in this Volume)
IMMIGRATION AND EMIGRATION: AUSTRALIA.
NORTHERN SECURITIES COMPANY CASE, THE.
See (in this Volume)
RAILWAYS: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1905.
NORTH SEA AND BALTIC AGREEMENTS.
See (in this Volume)
EUROPE: A. D. 1907-1908.
NORTHWEST TERRITORIES, CANADIAN: A. D. 1896-1909.
Their Rapid Settlement.
The "American Invasion."
See (in this Volume)
CANADA: A. D. 1896-1909.
NORTHWEST TERRITORIES, CANADIAN: A. D. 1901-1902.
Census.
Increased Representation in Parliament.
See (in this Volume)
CANADA: 1901-1902.
NORWAY: A. D. 1902-1905.
Result of the Consular Question.
Secession from the Union of Crowns with Sweden.
Acceptance by King Oscar of his virtual Deposition.
Election of Prince Charles of Denmark to the Throne.
The discontent of Norway in its union with Sweden, especially
because it could have no distinct national representation,
consular or diplomatic, in foreign countries, is described in
Volume VI. of this work.
See (in this Volume)
SWEDEN AND NORWAY.
In 1902 a Swedish-Norwegian Consular Commission was appointed
to investigate the practicability of separate consuls for each
of the united kingdoms, with joint diplomatic representation.
The Commission produced a report very favorable to the
proposition. Prolonged negotiations followed, between
representatives of the two governments, and the outlines of a
system under which Norway should acquire a separate consular
service were definitely settled and accepted formally by the
King, on the 21st of December, 1903. When it came, however, to
the definite framing of laws for carrying the plan into
effect, irreconcilable disagreements arose. Several details of
the arrangement which Sweden insisted on implied a precedence
and superiority of standing for that kingdom in the union of
crowns which offended Norwegian pride. The Norwegian
Government objected to having its selection of consuls made
subject to the approval of the Foreign Minister of the dual
monarchy. It objected to having the King, in his commission to
them, entitled "King of Sweden and Norway"; and it rejected
the Swedish proposals on other points. When the Government of
Sweden replied that, while it might be willing to consider
some modifications of its proposals, it must maintain the
important parts of them, the Norwegian Government announced
that it had no further statements to make, indicating that
negotiation in the matter was at an end. Thereupon, on the 7th
of February, 1905, the King made public the following
statement:
"Under the present circumstances I do not see that I can
resolve otherwise than to approve of what the Foreign Minister
has proposed; but I cannot refrain from expressing to both my
peoples my hearty desire that the two kingdoms, which have now
been united for nearly a century, will never let any
difference of opinion be hurtful to the Union itself. This
Union is in truth the safest guarantee for the independence,
the security and the happiness of both my peoples."
Feeble health now compelled King Oscar to yield the functions
of royalty to his son, and the Crown Prince visited
Christiania, as Regent, to confer personally with the leaders
in Norwegian affairs. The outcome of his visit was the
resignation of the Ministry of M. Hagcrup on the 1st of March,
the formation of a new Cabinet, under M. Michelsen, and the
announcement by the latter that the Government would
steadfastly maintain the sovereignty of Norway, as an
independent kingdom, according to the words of its
constitution, the realization of which must depend on the
strength and will of the Norwegian people. All attempts in the
next three months to overcome or much modify the attitude of
Norway were unsuccessful. In May, the Storthing passed an
independent Consular Bill and laid it before King Oscar, who
had resumed his duties, and the King refused to sanction it,
saying: "The Crown Prince, as Regent, in Joint Council of
State of April 5, has already shown the only way in which this
important question can be advanced and all difficulties most
likely removed, viz., through negotiation. I entirely agree
with this view, and do not for the time being find it
expedient to sanction this law, which means an alteration of
the existing joint consular service which cannot be severed
except by mutual arrangement. … When I now refuse to sanction
this law I do so in accordance with the right conferred upon
the King."
See in Volume I. of this work
Section 30, Title 3, of the CONSTITUTION OF NORWAY.
"… It is my equally great love to both nations which makes it
my duty to exercise this right;"
On the 7th of June, M. Michelsen, the Prime Minister, and his
colleagues, gave their resignations to the Storthing,
whereupon that body, by unanimous vote, adopted the following
resolution:
"As all the members of the Council of State have resigned
their offices; as his Majesty the King has declared himself
unable to give the country a new Government; and as the
constitutional kingdom has thus ceased to function, the
Storthing authorizes the members of the Ministry, to-day
resigned, to exercise in the meantime, as the Government of
Norway, the authority vested in the King, in accordance with
Norway’s constitution and existing laws, with the alterations
necessitated by the fact that the Union with Sweden under one
King has ceased on account of the king having ceased to act as
Norwegian King." This action was proclaimed to the people on
the same day. On the 9th the Union flag was lowered from
Norwegian forts and war ships and the Norwegian flag raised in
its place. On the 28th of July with King Oscar’s consent, the
Swedish Riksdag adopted a resolution assenting to the
severance of the Union, on condition that it be approved by a
vote of the people of Norway. Accordingly the question was
submitted to the people on the 13th of August, and all but 184
out of 368,392 votes were given in favor of the separation. A
conference at Karlstadt in September arranged the future
relations of the two kingdoms with success, and the
dissolution was complete. It was formally acknowledged by King
Oscar on October 26th.
{462}
As he made it known that he did not wish any member of his
family to accept the crown of Norway if offered, the Storthing
authorized the Government to open negotiations with Prince
Charles of Denmark, with a view to its acceptance by him, if
its proffer should be sanctioned by a popular vote. Again a
plebiscite was polled and a large majority given in favor of
the proffer of the crown to Prince Charles. The Prince
accepted, with the permission of his grandfather, the Danish
King, and proposed to take the name of Haakon VII. The name
was well chosen for its significance, Haakon VI. having been
the last of the old royal line of Norway, which became extinct
at his death in 1387. The King-elect and his wife entered
Christiania on the 25th of November and took the oath of
fidelity to the Norwegian Constitution on the 27th. In the
following June King Haakon was anointed and crowned with
solemn ceremonies, in the ancient cathedral of Trondhjem, the
capital of the first King who reigned over the whole Norse
realm.
NORWAY: A. D. 1903.
Agreement for Settlement of Claims against Venezuela.
See (in this Volume)
VENEZUELA: A. D. 1902-1904.
NORWAY: A. D. 1907.
Treaty with Great Britain, France, Germany, and Russia
guaranteeing the Integrity of the Kingdom.
See (in this Volume)
EUROPE: A. D. 1907-1908, and 1908.
NORWAY: A. D. 1908.
Parliamentary Suffrage extended to Women.
See (in this Volume)
ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
NORWAY: A. D. 1909 (October).
Arbitration of the Frontier Dispute with Sweden.
The maritime frontier dispute between Norway and Sweden,
consequent on their separation, was referred to The Hague
Tribunal, and decided in October, more favorably to Sweden
than to Norway, but the decision was loyally accepted by the
latter.
NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1901-1902.
Census.
Reduced Representation in Parliament.