EDITOR FORUM:-Please answer in your journal. Where a manifold order is given to report for orders at a certain time, is it necessary to have stated on the order you get after reporting for orders, that there is no further orders for you, or you may go. J. B. NEFF. Leadville, Colo.

ANSWER-No. If you report for orders at the time and place designated, you have fulfilled your order and the conditions existing at this time and place, so far as orders are concerned, should be considered the same as at a terminal point, where all trains have standing instructions to report for orders.

EDITOR FORUM; -In your August number I notice in your answer to H. R. Van Cott's question in regard to Eng. 2345 and Eng. 2346-Eng. 2345 has until 10:50 a. m. to make D. for Eng. 2346. You say Eng. 2345 can use main track at C. until 10:50 a. m. is all O. K. But Eng. 2346 could pass D. at 10:50, plus the time for variation of watches. Under standard code I fail to find any variation of watches. Yours truly,

Eagle Grove, Ia. E. H. M'ELROY. ANSWER-Our correspondent is right. In this answer it was our intention to say at 10:50, plus the time allowed for variation of watches, if any. As a great many roads using standard code modify it by making an allowance for variation of watches.

EDITOR FORUM:-Form 31, Order No. 5, to operator H.:

"Hold No. 2."

O. K. and complete.

On arrival of No. 2 at H. conductor finds order board displayed and reports for orders.

Operator informs him that he has orders to hold No. 2, but does not require conductor's signature to order or delivliver it to him.

QUESTION IS this proper manner to address order of this kind, and what authority is necessary for conductor to proceed with No. 2. E. S. LOWTHER. Litchfield, Ill.

ANSWER-Yes, this is proper under Standard Code Rules. When a train has been so held it must not proceed until the order has been annulled or an order given to the operator that "No. 2 may go."

EDITOR FORUM:-Kindly answer the following;

1. Extra leaves "A" to go to "B" for first class train, with running and clearing time. Half way between "A" and "B" extra stalls, and has to double. Who is supposed to protect against firstclass train? Extra south, first-class north?

2. What portion of train should conductor stay with?

Richmond, Va.

3. After engineer had been notified to look out for first-class train, could conductor do more for safety than this? READER. ANSWER-Answering your first question: The Standard Code provides that (Rule 87) "A train failing to clear the main track by the time required by rule must be protected as provided in Rule 99."

Rule 99 reads: "When a train stops or is delayed, under circumstances in which it may be overtaken by another train, the flagman must go back immediately with stop signals sufficiently distant to insure full protection. * The front of a train must be protected in the same way, when necessary, by

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Answering question 2: The conductor should remain with the rear portion of his train; however, this must not be understood to prevent him from the proper placing of his men. He should know that they understand what is expected of them.

As to question 3: Both (Rule 105) conductor and engineman are responsible for the safety of their train and, under conditions not provided for by the rules, must take every precaution for their protection.

It would seem that if the conductor notified the engineman to look out for the first-class train that this, under the circumstances, should be sufficient, as the engineman is virtually in charge of the front portion.

EDITOR FORUM:-Kindly give me your opinion through THE RAILWAY CONDUCTOR of the enclosed order:

"Engine 506 will run as No. 81, Canton to Asylum; and will run extra Asylum to Jackson, with right over all second and third-class trains."

I claim that under this order No. 81 has no special rights over second and third class train north bound, No. 81 being a third class train south, north bound trains of same class having right of direction. But that only after arriv

ing at Asylum and becoming an extrait has then rights over second and third class trains between Asylum and Jackson. Dispatcher putting this order out claims that No. 81 has right over all second and third class trains, as well as Ex. 506. But according to the wording of the order, I cannot see where No. 81 has any rights except Time Table rights, and that the only special rights given are to extra 506. W. H. SMITH. McComb, Miss.

ANSWER-In this order Forms F., C. and G. have been combined, but Form C has been only partially used, and this causes the misunderstanding. Form C. should not be used without a limit. The order should have read:

"Eng. 506 will run as No. 81, Canton to Asylum, and will run extra Asylum to Jackson, with right over all second and third class trains Canton to Jackson."

It is my opinion, however, that the order sent does, from a technical point, give No. 81 right over second and third class trains as the last half of the order is dependant upon the first half, and to be understood must be regarded as one sentence. This being the case the words "with right over all second and third class trains" would apply to the whole performance of Eng. 506 upon this order, and in this case it follows that No. 81 Canton to Asylum has right over second and third class trains.

As white as a sheet,

As dead as a door-nail,
As flat as a pancake,
As red as a beet.

As round as an apple,
As black as your hat,
As brown as a berry,

As blind as a bat,
As mean as a miser,
As full as a tick,
As plump as a partridge,
As sharp as a stick.

As light as a feather,
As hard as a rock,
As stiff as a poker,

As calm as a clock,
As green as a gosling,
As brisk as a bee.

And now let me stop,
Lest you weary of me.

-New Orleans Times-Democrat.

Labor Unions - Rival Organizations

Compelling Discharge.

In special term, Supreme Court of New York, nearly two years ago, the National Protective Association of Steam Fitters and Helpers secured an injunction restraining James M. Cumming and others, "walking delegates," representing several labor organizations and having an organization of their own composed exclusively of delegates from interfering with members of plaintiff organization. It appeared that plaintiff corporation was organized to supply workmen as steam fitters and helpers, and that defendants were authorized by their respective organizations to see that none of their members worked with inferior men, and were empowered to visit buildings in course of construction for that purpose. In performance of their duties said delegates had demanded that a contractor dismiss members of plaintiff organization, threatening that otherwise members of defendant organizations would quit work. The defendant organizations required an examination for admission, which the president of plaintiff association had failed to pass, when he with others formed the association. Defendants refused to work with its members because of their low standard of admission.

In the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court this order for an injunction was reversed. This decision has just been affirmed in the Court of Appeals, by a divided court.

Justice Vann, who dissented from the majority opinion, said: "It is not the duty of one man to work for another unless he has agreed to, and if he has so agreed, but for no fixed period, either may end the contract whenever he chooses. The one may work or refuse to work at will, and the other may hire or discharge at will. The terms of employment are subject to mutual agreement, without let or hindrance from any one. If the terms do not suit, or the employer does not please, the right to quit is absolute, and no one may demand a reason therefor. Whatever one

man may do alone, he may do in combination with others, provided they have no unlawful object in view. Mere numbers do not ordinarily affect the quality of the act. Workingmen have the right to organize for the purpose of securing higher wages, shorter hours of labor, or improving their relations with their employers. They have the right to strike (that is, to cease working in a body by prearrangement until a grievance is redressed), provided the object is not to gratify malice or inflict injury upon others, but to secure better terms of employment for themselves. A peaceable and orderly strike, not to harm others, but to improve their own condition, is not in violation of the law. The object of the defendants was not to get higher wages, shorter hours or better terms for themselves, but to prevent others from following their lawful calling. It may be argued that the employers were not obliged to yield to these threats, and this is true, but noncompliance meant ruin to them, for their work would be completely tied up and their business paralyzed. A threat, with ruin behind it, may be as coercive as physical force. The effect of such threats upon men of ordinary nerve is well known. They could not perform their contracts, and would thus be subjected to great loss. Hence, against their will, they yielded to unlawful demands. Personal liberty was interfered with through coercion of the will."

Chief Justice Parker, who read the majority opinion quoted the foregoing at some length, and followed with an extremely interesting opinion, a part of which is as follows: "Stated in other words, the propositions quoted recognize the right of one man to refuse to work for another on any ground that he may regard as sufficient, and the employer has no right to demand a reason for it. But there is, I take it, no legal objection to the employe's giving a reason, if he has one, and the fact that the reason given is that he refuses to work with another who is not a member of his organization, whether stated to his employer or not, does not affect his right to

stop work; nor does it give a cause of action to the workman to whom he objects, because the employer sees fit to discharge the man objected to, rather than lose the services of the objector. The same rule applied to a body of men, who, having organized, for purposes deemed beneficial to themselves, refuse to work. Their reason may seem inadequate to others, but, if it seems to be in their interest as members of an organization to refuse longer to work, it is their legal right to stop. The reason may no more be demanded, as a right, of the organization than of an individual; but, if they elect to state the reason, their right to stop work is not cut off because the reason seems inadequate or selfish to the employer or to organized society. And if the conduct of members of an organization is legal in itself, it does not become illegal because the organization directs one of its members to state the reason for its conduct.

"The principles quoted above recognize the legal right of members of an organization to strike (that is, to cease working in a body by prearrangement until a grievance is redressed), and they enumerate some things that may be treated as the subject of a grievance, namely, the desire to obtain higher wages, shorter hours of labor, or im-, proved relations with their employers; but this enumeration does not, I take it, purport to cover all the grounds which will lawfully justify members of an organization refusing in a body and by prearrangement to work. The enumeration is illustrative, rather than comprehensive; for the object of such an organization is to benefit all its members, and it is their right to strike, if need be, in order to secure any lawful benefit to the several members of the organization-as, for instance, to secure the re-employment of a member they regard as having been improperly discharged, and to secure from an employer of a number of them employment for other members of their organization who may be out of employment, although the effect will be to cause the discharge of other employes who are not members. And whenever the courts can see that a refusal of members of an organization to work with non-members may be in the interest of the several members, it will not assume, in the absence of a finding to the contrary, that the object of such refusal was solely to gratify malice, and to inflict injury upon such non-members. A number of reasons for the action of the organization will at once suggest themselves in a case like this. One reason apparent from the findings in this case, as I shall show later, is the desire of the organization that its own members may do the work the non

members are performing. And another most important reason is suggested by the fact that these particular organizations, associations of steam fitters, required every applicant for membership to pass an examination testing his competency. Now, one of the objections some times urged against labor organizations is that unskillful workmen receive as large compensation as those thoroughly competent. The examination required by the defendant associations tends to do away with the force of that objection as to them. And again, their restriction of membership to those who have stood a prescribed test must have the effect of securing careful as well as skillful associates in their work, and that as a matter of no small importance, in view of the state of the law, which absolves the master from liability for injuries sustained by a workman through the carelessness of a co-employe. So long as the law compels the employe to bear the burden of the injury in such cases, it cannot be open to question but that a legitimate and necessary object of societies like the defendant associations would be to assure the lives and limbs of their members against the negligent acts of a reckless co-employe; and hence it is clearly within the right of an organization to provide such a method of examination and such tests as will secure a careful and competent membership, and to insist that protection of life and limb requires that they shall not be compelled to work with men whom they have not seen fit to admit into their organization, as happened in the case of the plaintiff McQueed. While I purpose to take the broader ground, which I deem fully justified by the principles quoted, as well as by the authorities, that the defendants had the right to strike for any reason they deemed a just one, and, further, had the right to notify their employer of their purpose to strike, I am unable to see how it is possible to deny the right of these defendant organizations and their members to refuse to work with non members, when, in the event of injury by the carelessness of such co-employes, the burden would have to be borne by the injured, without compensation from the employer, and with no financial responsibility, as a general rule, on the part of those causing the injury, for it is well known that some men, even in the presence of danger, are perfectly reckless of themselves and careless of the rights of others, with the result that accidents are occurring almost constantly which snuff out the lives of workmen as if they were candles, or leave them to struggle through life maimed and helpless. These careless, reckless men are known to their

associates, who not only have the right to protect themselves from such men, but, in the present state of the law, it is their duty, through their organizations, to attempt to do it, as to the trades affording special opportunities for mischief arising from recklessness. I know it is said in another opinion in this case that 'workmen cannot dictate to employers how they shall carry on their business, nor whom they shall or shall not employ;' but I dissent absolutely from that proposition, and assert that, so long as workmen must assume all the risk of injury that may come to them through co employes, they have the moral and legal right to say that they will not work with certain men, and the employers must accept their dictation or go without their services.

"If it be true, as was recently intimated by the supreme court of Pennsylvania in Durkin vs. Coal Co., 171 Pa. 193, 33 Atl. 237, 29 L. R. A. 808, 50 Am. S. Rep. 801, that an act of the legislature which undertakes to 'reverse the settled law upon the subject, and declare that the employer shall be responsible for an injury to an employe resulting from the negligence of a fellow workman,' is unconstitutional-a doctrine from which I dissent (see Tullis vs. Railroad Co., 175 U. S. 348, 20 Sup. Ct. 136, 44 L. Ed., 192,) but which it is possible may receive the support of the courts-then the only opportunity for protection, in the future as well as the present, to workmen engaged in dangerous occupations, is through organizations like these defendant associations, which restrict their memberships to careful and skillful men, and prohibit their members from working with members of other organizations which maintain a lower standard or none at all. For the master's duty is discharged if the workman be competent, and for his recklessness, which renders his employment a menace to others, the master is not responsible.

"I have refrained from discussing the authorities, because it seemed unnecessary, for the reason already stated in this opinion. But it seems not out of place to suggest that the decisions of the English courts upon questions affecting the rights of workmen ought at least to be received with caution, in view of the fact that the later ones are largely supported by early precedents which were entirely consistent with the policy of the statute law of England, but are hostile not only to the statute law of this country, but to the spirit of

our institutions. In support of this view, reference to a few early statutes of England will be made. The statutes (for there are two) of 'Labourers,' passed in 1349 and 1350 (23 Edw. III. c. 1, and 25 Edw. III., stat. 1,) provided 'that every man and woman of what condition he be, free or bond, able in body, and within the age of three score years, and not having means of his own, if he in convenient service his estate considered) be required to serve, he shall be bounded to serve him which so shall him require.' And the statutes provide that, in case of refusal to serve, punishment by imprisonment might be inflicted, and that the laborer should take the customary rate of wages, and no more. These statutes not only regulated the wages of laborers and mechanics, but they confined them to their existing places of residence, and required them to swear to obey the provisions of the statutes. Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, in his History of the Criminal Law of England volume 3, p. 204,) says, 'The main object of these statutes was to check the rise in wages consequent upon the great pestilence called the Black Death."' Nearly 200 years later, and in 1548, a more general statute was passed which forbade all conspiracies and covenants of artificers, workmen or laborers not to make or do their work but at a certain price or rate,' or for other similar purposes, under the penalty, on a third conviction, of the pillory and loss of an ear, and to be taken as a man 'infamous.'' 2 & 3 Edw. VI. c. 15. Fourteen years later the prior statutes were to some extent amended and consolidated into a longer act entitled: An act containing divers orders for artificers, laborers, servants of husbandry, and apprentices.' It provided, in effect, that all persons able to work as laborers or artificers, and not possessed of independent means

or other elaborers are bound to work as

artificers or

on demand. The hours of work are fixed; power is given to the justices in their next session after Easter to fix the wages to be paid to mechanics and laborers, elaborate rules are laid down as to apprenticeship; and it further provides that for the future no one is to 'set up, occupy, use or exercise any craft, mystery or occupation, now used', until he has seved an apprenticeship of seven years. 5 Eliz. c. 4. This statute remained in force practically for a long period of time, and was not formally repealed until the year 1875. In the year 1720 an act was passed declaring all agreements between journeymen tailors for adyancing their wages, or for lessening their usual hours of work' to be null and void, and subjecting persons entering into such an agreement to imprisonment, with or without hard labor, for two months. 7 Geo. I. Stat. 1, c. 13. Similar enactments were passed as to employes in other manufactures and trades. The act of 1800 (40 Geo. III. c. 106) provided for a penalty of three months' imprisonment without hard labor or two months with hard labor, for every journeyman, workman or other person who 'enters into any combination to obtain an advance of wages or lessen or alter the hours of work who hinders any employer from employing any person as he thinks proper, or who being hired refuses without any just or reasonable cause to work with any other journeyman or workman employed or hired to work.' The same penalty is inflicted upon persons who attend meetings held for the purpose of collecting money to further such effort, and the act also makes it an offense to assist in maintaining men who are on a strike. This statute, as well as the others referred to, have at last been swept away, but necessarily their influence has been not inconsiderable in shaping the decisions of the courts of England."

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