A statement setting forth the facts in the case of the "lockout" at Peoria, Ill., which affects 122 girls in the factory of J. N. Ward & Co., manufacturers of working men's clothing, is before us. This firm manufactures overalls, shirts and jackets and employs about 150 girls. Of this number 122 organized into Local Union No. 146, United Garment Workers of America. This act alone constituted the offense for which they were locked out.

The objects of the organization are the same as those of all protective bodies and found its incentive under exactly the same conditions that have given rise to all other organizations of a similar nature. Their wages had been repeatedly reduced and undue advantage taken in adding hardships until they appealed for relief, but were told that if they did not want to work at the prices paid they could go home. This led to the establishment of a Union.

Mr. Ward, learning that 122 of his girls had taken this step, and fearing that through their united influence he might be called upon to pay living wages, took up the lash in the form of a notice which warned them that no employe could work for him who remained a member of a labor organization, followed by an ultimatum giving them until a certain time to decide between service in his employ and starvation (?) The girls chose to starve outside his factory. The firm boasts that union labor cannot interfere with them in their war against labor organizations. They claim that they have secured plenty of help at their own prices to carry on their work uninterrupted.

The extortions practiced by J. N. Ward & Co. will give the readers of THE CONDUCTOR an idea of the character of this man who has closed his doors against 122 out of 147 girls. The sum of five cents per day is deducted from each machine girl's wages for the purpose of paying for the power to run the Ward factory. This he knows would not be tolerated by the United Garment Workers of America, as they positively prohibit such sweat-shop methods.

The girls assert that Mr. Ward is sending out false statements to merchants who have refused to buy his goods, that the differences existing were caused by disorganization of his working system, and that those who went out would now come back at any price.

We

We hold that the right of man or woman to become and remain a member of a labor organization is as inalienable as their right to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience. condemn any employer who seeks to coerce his employes into withdrawing from or remaining outside of labor organizations. We favor the idea of union labor patronizing union firms and using union made goods. Any effort to secure the benefits to be derived through organization is, therefore, laudable, for by and through organization alone have the conditions which obtain for labor been made permanent.

When we see a firm who thus openly tries to coerce its employes to remain outside of labor organization we are safe in assuming that they do not even pretend to be fair. The existence of a union in any shop is no menace to that institution. The day for radical action in

It would be hard to find a place in the description of characters to fit a man who openly wages war against women who are not even given a right to organize for their common good. They fear the challenge to arbitration, for too well they know that the judges who would sit in judgment would unanimously turn thumbs down.

The statement that organization led to disorganization of the methods in operation in the factory of Ward & Co. was made prematurely. The effect of organization had no time to work before a notice was posted that they who remained with same need not apply for work. Organization is no disorganizer

of any method which accords fair treatment, but it is a disorganizer of sweatshop methods with all of the horrid brood which tends to fill our almshouses, prisons, asylums and places of ill-repute.

Not one of the 122 girls who worked for J. N. Ward & Co. have gone back to work under the hateful conditions he imposes. They are receiving through their secretary, Miss Myrtle Weber, at 103 Main St., Peoria, contributions that enable them to live until they can find employment elsewhere. We commend this spirit for it proclaims that spirit of independence that chcracterizes every true American woman. It breathes defiance to them that would force them into conditions of servitude whose influences tend to degrade their womanhood.

They have the sympathy of every true conductor and we hope will receive their support and assistance along lines which in their judgment prudence di

rects.

We present in another column a comprehensive abstract of the railroad law of Cuba, which has been established by the Military Governor, Major General Wood. This will be the railroad law of Cuba after American occupation of the island. The law contains many provisions which it would have been well to have had in force in the United States during the rapid development of railways therein. The railroad commission in Cuba is given a great deal of authority and power; but provision ismade for appeal to the Supreme Court from the commission's rulings.

Burdening railway properties with enormous debts, representing only inflation of values would seem to be impossible under this law.

Provision for safety of employes and public is sought in the requirement for

use of modern safety devices and for immediate reports to the commission of all accidents resulting in loss of life or injury to persons.

Train wrecking and robbery are properly made capital offenses if death is caused thereby.

The rights of employes are recognized and preserved in the provision that the commission shall not approve regulations affecting employes until after the employes or their representatives have had opportunity to be heard before the commission. It will be noted that the right of the employes to be heard through their chosen representatives is distinctly recognized. Major General Wood has had some good advisers in this work and has done a creditable job. It will be interesting to note the development of the railway systems of Cuba under this law.

Those who read Senator Farbanks' speech on the Chinese exclusion measure saw through the veil of the future, which he rent assunder, a condition to make every American working man tremble.

Among other things said by Mr. Fairbanks was:

"Much has been recently said of the need for more land and for more territory. We must not be too prodigal of our opportunities and of our resources. Our first care is for our own country and its citizenship, native-born and foreignborn alike. The admission of cheap labor may for a time stimulate enterprise on the Pacific coast and elsewhere, but in view of cheap productive agencies the question arises, what will be the result when we shall have a surplus of labor? A surplus of labor is in the nature of a calamity. We can conceive no worse misfortune than a great country with labor unemployed. A surplus in the labor market is one of the serious probabilities that often faces us."

Mr. Fairbanks' words pictures a situation that is possible under the present application of our immigration laws. It is true that he was discussing the Chinese exclusion measure when he made use of the above language, yet it is a safe proposition that the influx from other countries that threatens to bring upon us a surplus of labor, needs the same protection to the American laborer as that which has taken place in defending him against the yellow horde in shape of the Geary Law.

Since it has been established that the United States has an absolute right to enact such laws as will safeguard our citizenship against contaminating influences from any quarter of the globe, let congress go one step further in the good work which vitally affects the standard of our citizenship and so amend our immigration laws that there shall be an educational qualification demanded in addition to the other provisions to admission and citizenship. We do not as

sume that education is the crucible that insures to us only those citizens we want. Without the other provisions in our immigration laws protecting us against undesirable persons, many could pass the educational test. Still this number would be insignificantly small and their influence infinitely less upon the common good than the number which is now pouring in upon us under the provisions of our laws and threatening to swamp every job in the country.

The New York Labor Bulletin for March reports an increase in immigration of 26 per cent over a like period for the last three months of 1901. Twentynine per cent (22,720) of those who were 14 years of age and over were illiterate -could neither read nor write. Of this number 17,559 were Southern Italians. The Polish come next with about 30 per cent of their number-2,385 who were illiterate.

America has undoubtedly been pictured to these people as a land of promise and plenty-as an asylum for all who choose to come-where wages are high and demands for labor far beyond the supply. They come to us an ill-paid, ill-bred, ignorant class, who have never known else but squallor. They know nothing of the conditions which should obtain, and bred under tyrannical environments they submit to any proposition that affords a meagre existence, which, if it affords even the slightest improvement over that condition in which they once lived, it is accepted as an improvement.

But why had the American laborer ought to complain if 93,628 of this class arrive on our shores every three months if they are satisfied with such humble conditions themselves? No community, whether local, state or nation, can be said to be progressing when a part of its population is living in vice, ignorance and squallor. If we take nothing else into consideration these alone must taint the purity of the whole. But this

is not the vital reason. The labor market is fast producing a surplus, and in many localities there are more men than jobs. To accept employment under these conditions means nothing less than a proportionate decrease in wages in a ratio with the number employed. A well known manufacturer once said that he could get more work out of two men at a dollar a day each than out of one man at two dollars a day. We might go on on this same principle under conditions which forced men to accept service at any price and say that this man could get more work out of twenty men at ten cents a day than out of one man at two dollars, but what must be the environments of those who serve under conditions like these?

The letters of William E. Curtis in the Chicago Record-Herald depicting the condition of the people of Italy give us a good example of what must necessarily follow under wage conditions of this nature. Our progress as a nation depends upon our manner of living. We must not think of lowering that standard.

Senator Fairbanks said: "Our aim is to maintain a high wage scale upon the generally accepted theory and belief that well-paid labor means better citizens and a better country than we could possibly enjoy if wages were forced to a low standard. A low wage market is neither to the advantage of capital nor labor."

We cannot maintain a high wage scale if the labor market is overrun, especially is this true if the influx be com

posed of those who are ignorant of the conditions which obtain. We find these among the illiterate who come to our shores and not among those who are able to read and write. For this reason we advocate an educational prerequisite to citizenship. If we were to follow out a logical line of reasoning in this connection, admitting that the ability to read and write the native language would improve our conditions, we must admit that our common good as a people would only be best subserved by requiring that all immigrants read the English language. If we expect the greatest good to come to us let us so construct our laws that this good may result from a wholesome application of these laws.

There is no one but wishes to see our country grow in power, but power is not in numbers only, for we do not find in numbers our greatest national strength and chief glory. We find our chief pride in the character and quality of those who constitute the population of our country. We cannot maintain this quality if the standard of living be adulterated in influx of numbers or in injecting the virus of a degenerated race of Dagoes in our communities. We feel that legislation is as necessary in protecting us against the Dago as well as the Chinaman, but in justice to all, and ourselves in particular, let us have a law framed to bar out the horde of illiterates and thus maintain our pride in the character and quality of those who now constitute the most intelligent and enlightened race on earth.

The action of the House in passing the Anti-Conspiracy bill without opposition was certainly an evidence of the justness of that bill as it came from the hands of Mr. Grosvenor. In substance it repeated that old adage that is familiar to every schoolboy in the land"What is not right for one is not right

for all; and what is not right for all is not right for one." Every fair-minded person will concede that when the conditions surrounding employment are distasteful, whether arising out of unsatisfactory wages or the conditions by which the same are obtained, an individual has the inalienable right to choose

for himself any other employment under any other employer. If we were to deny this right to an individual we should be depriving him of the very liberty that our Constitution provides. The right of any man to engage his service or sell his labor is as inalienable as his right to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience. If this be the right of one man it is the right of two men or a hundred men and the right of the 80,000,000 people who are American citizens.

Courts have lately construed this right as a conspiracy against trade and have issued injunctions from time to time compelling men to serve against their wishes when conditions were not only distasteful but when the same were a hardship to those so serving. By this process of government by injunction men were deprived of their constitutional liberty and created slaves in every sense that the word implies without recourse to any tribunal. The House saw this injustice and by its action passed a bill, which, if it becomes a law, will forever establish the individual right of one as the right of all.

The action of the house in passing without a word of debate the so-called anti-conspiracy bill, which limits the use of court injunctions in disputes between employers and employes, is significant of the popular demand for some restraint upon the employment of this writ for purposes for which it was never intended.

The bill provides that no agreement or contract between two or more persons to do or procure to be done or not to do or procure to be done any act in furtherance of any trade dispute between employers and employes in any state or territory shall be deemed criminal, unless such act would be criminal if done by a single person. Under this bill those engaged in an agreement or contract not to work for a certain employer or to induce others not to accept the terms of an

employer would not be punishable for the crime of conspiracy if acts committed in pursuance of such agreement are not already punishable as a crime. Such an agreement or contract made as a result of a dispute between employers and employes will not be considered as in constraint of trade or commerce, and hence no restraining order or injunction can be issued with relation to it.

The passage of the bill is reported as a "signal victory for organized labor." As a matter of fact it is more accurately a victory for justice and common sense. If an agreement among employes to desist from work in a certain industry or to procure the refusal of other employes to work is to be adjudged a violation of the Sherman act, as being "in constraint of trade or commerce" or a crime punishable as a "conspiracy," or to be restrained by injunction, there is practically no limit to the provisions of the conspiracy act or to the employment of the injunction to restrain the liberties of men.

If the bill becomes a law it will bring the Sherman act nearer to a rational interpretation and a more practical and just application to offenses that are actually in restraint of commerce.

It will be remembered that an amendment by Mr. Hoar was offered in the Senate Committee and reported by that committee which practically killed the effect of the bill and legalized the issuance of injunctions in trade disputes whenever the judge of a court saw that in his opinion the action of workmen in leaving the employ of a concern tended to injure the business of that concern. Of course, such an amendment was directly in opposition to the very spirit of the Grosvenor bill which itself was framed to guarantee men their liberty of action in choosing for themselves any employment and leaving same when the conditions were no longer satisfactory. In short, it defined their liberty under the constitution while the Hoar amendment made it compulsory to serve if in the opinion of a judge their severance from service would injure a complainant's interests. Rather than legalize this sort of thing labor everywhere lifted up its voice in protest against the whole bill, preferring to leave the matter unsettled by any legislation rather than be bound under a statute making it compulsory to serve without the liberty of choice in the matter. The amendment