"I know all about her," she said, "and will be happy to inform you."

"Is she"

Treadwell was about to ask if she was young, but a girl came in with a pile of books to return and he decided to finish his question the next day.

In the morning he received some mail with instructions, which served only to delay his business matters and promised an indefinite prolonging of his stay in B. He was not sorry. He was quite satisfied with the library, the story he was reading, his double heroine and the librarian, though the last was the only living one of the three. He reached the library about 11, and, no one being there, he asked the librarian to tell him what she knew about Eleanor Trimble.

"I have been thinking about my promise," she replied, "and would recommend your waiting till you have finished the story.'

Treadwell was quite satisfied to do so and, going to his alcove, buried himself in his book.

One stormy afternoon when the rain was keeping every one indoors, Treadwell, sitting in his alcove, closed the book he had been reading and took it to the librarian.

"I've got it into my head,” he said, "that there is some connection between Eleanor Trimble and the heroine of that story. At any rate, I am in love with the two. I don't know why I include Miss Trimble, but if she is a real living young woman you will confer a favor on me by offering her my hand and heart."

The girl's unusual sphinxlike expres sion broke with a very pleasant smile, while over her passed the faintest blush.

"She is and yet she is not a real living being," she said. "It is 5 o'clock and time to lock up. Come with me and I will show you her picture." "Her picture!"

"Yes, and her too."

"Is she single or double?" "Neither. She is triple."

"I give it up," said Treadwell. "I shall have to wait."

Taking the girl under his umbrella, he walked to a cozy cottage where she lived.

Ushering him into a living room, she pointed to the portrait of an old woman hanging on the wall and said:

"Eleanor Trimble."

Treadwell's face fell. His dream was shattered.

"Come across the hall," said the girl, "and I will show you the double."

The double was a portrait also, but of a woman of about 35. Treadwell was not comforted. "You told me that she also lived."

Coloring, the girl said, "I am also Eleanor Trimble."

A very different expression came over the man's face. He started to say something pleasant, but the situation was embarrassing. He had commissioned Eleanor Trimble to offer herself his heart and hand. The girl relieved the embarrassment by continuing:

"My grandmother, Eleanor Trimble, was the model for Marcia Colfax. She owned the copy of the book you have read and marked certain passages. My mother, the second Eleanor Trimble, made other marks, sometimes doubling grandma's. I have made still others. Sometimes when one of us has been displeased by some sentiment or act we have made a crossmark."

"A diagonal!" interrupted Treadwell. "Yes. We have all three been naturally interested in the character, and both mother and myself have been often told we and Marcia are triplets."

"Singular, isn't it," said Treadwell, "that I should have had a vague knowledge of the combination?"

Miss Trimble explained that the copy of the book that Treadwell had read was lent to the library.

Treadwell made a failure in the business matter he went to B. to transact, but achieved what was of more impcrtance to him. He got a wife.

President of the United States, in a message to Congress on February 2, recommended the appointment of such a commission.

Following President Taft's recommendation, Representative William Hughes of New Jersey and Senator William E. Borah, of Idaho, introduced in the House and the Senate identical bills providing for the creation of a federal commission of nine members to make inquiry into industrial relations. One hearing upon the HughesBorah bill has already been held and the proposal is now being considered very carefully by the members of Congress. Although very many of the members agree with the President upon this matter, they are waiting to learn what are the wishes of organized labor.

Let us see what are the advantages and possible dangers of an official study of the complex problem of industrial relations in these United States.

The idea of a Federal Commission on Industrial Relations first took definite shape after the startling close of the McNamara case. Labor will not soon forget that the press of the country, at once voicing and shaping public opinion, was filled with expression of hostility; that in more than one quarter exultation at having at last downed labor was followed by a determination to keep it down.

Yet many men and women saw in the revelation of the desperate means made use of in the fight against the open shop, more than the breaking of the law and a resort to violence.

A small group in New York who saw great provocation in the attitudes of some employers, wished to call public attention to the underlying causes for the desperate remedy applied in one series of industrial conflicts, leaving to others who were lacking neither in number nor vehemence of expression, the congenial task of denouncing labor methods, labor leaders and labor unions. On December 30, this group of students of industrial matters presented to the President a petition asking for the appointment of a Federal Commission on Industrial Relations.

So much for the origin of the proposal. And now for the matter to be investigated and the merits of the case.

We would like to learn "what channels are open to labor to secure industrial justice?" We would like to know what part in industrial unrest is played by the "discharge of those workmen, who, refusing to rely for fair play and security upon the good-nature of foremen and superintendents, have attempted organized action." We would like to have brought out into the light of day "the spy system and the strikebreaking organizations equipped to man a job and break the backs of local strikes." We would like to have the American public learn from an official inquiry and report, the truth about injunctions and evictions, those legal methods turned from their old-time uses to new-found ways of oppression.

Another and more definite subject for inquiry would be the scope and methods and resources of existing bureaus of labor, state and federal. We all want to know, and labor most of all, what those bureaus are doing, and why they do not do more. Has the public, always mindful of the tax rate, given them sufficient money properly to inspect factories, workshops, mines and tunnels? And if not, why not? And why do we calmly accept it as natural and unavoidable, that American bureaus of labor do not safeguard men, women and children with the efficiency displayed by labor bureaus across the seas?

The growth of employers' associations and the growth of trade unions, and their relations to each other, would also come in for study by the commission. Exactly what is the position of the unorganized worker when he comes to make his "free contract" of employment is one question it would be well the American people should have answered. Another subject to be covered should be conciliation and arbitration.

This matter of conciliation and arbitration illustrates as well as any the dangers involved in the whole proposal, and the need for deliberate thought before union men and women decide wholeheartedly to indorse this plan for enlightening the public.

It may be said, for instance, that the commission will recommend compulsory arbitration, or, an extension to all indus

women, who today are working to make other men and women rich and idle; here is a chance to prove that the wageearner is not getting a fair show. That children who in a few years will be directing with their ballots the policies of this country are being drafted from our school houses to grow up dwarfed in body and mind amid the ever faster speeding wheels of factories. That working men and women all over this country are dying of a single industrial disease which in this New York of superabundant wealth and congested misery cuts them down at the rate of 10,000 a

away, and which can be abridged only by mutual consent. Commissioners who know what they are about will see that any such perversion of Canadian procedure as has been sometimes urged, which would have every strike preceded by a month's public notice, must of necessity lead to the engaging of full complements of strikebreakers and to the smashing of unions.

The whole matter comes down to this: Here is an opportunity to place before an impartial commission and by that commission before a public at present in large part uninformed and misinformed, the shameful situation of men and

year. The commission, if it knows its business, will have something to say of this tuberculosis which has been declared easily preventable and which for all that is still very much "the disease of the masses." The victims of this "disease of the tenements" and of low wages have been given tracts to read on the need of fresh air, "winter and summer, night and day," as if with the thermometer below the freezing point, coal by the pail was to be had for the picking, and as if meat and milk and butter and eggs were medicine to be bought as cheaply as the fake "sure cure" at the corner drug store.

You union men and women have everything to gain and nothing to lose by this public and official inquiry. Is it not a matter so evident as to have become an accepted handicap to your progress, that you cannot get the plain truth about any strike or industrial dispute set before the public? If you are content with the present sort of publicity and with one-sided grand jury investigations, do you not say that the public is so prejudiced nothing will shake it? Do you not thus go back upon your own persistent effort to convert the convertible part of the public to your view of your struggle for justice?

That struggle, after all, must always remain yours and you must bear the brunt of it. No commission can so gather facts and so present them as to leave you free to depend more upon public enlightenment than upon your own. compact, hard hitting union ranks.

But it is not the standing of the commission upon which you are asked to rely, important as it is that you should insist that the right sort sit and weigh the evidence you shall present. The crucial point is that evidence itself.

You must show that in this Christian land, Sunday labor is often a part of your "free contract." You must show how seasonal work throws tens of thousands into unemployment; that welfare work is often but a cheap blind to low wages, that great masses among your unorganized brothers toil only that they may maintain a life of unceasing toil.

You must help to show how your ranks are decimated by preventable accidents and how cruel and unnecessary industrial processes poison you and finally cast you out to end your days without sick benefit or old age pension. You must show by facts, how little of protection the law gives to you, how much is needed.

The commission will not be the last work in your conflict. That must still go on and until you have the other side all on your side, it will go on. But there is still an opportunity by the plain force of facts to convert to your views a large number of your fellow citizens who without this inquiry must remain indifferent or opposed.

It is for the unions of this country to decide whether this commission will be a help to them. If they favor the proposal they will understand the importance of sending immediate formal endorsement thereof to the proper representatives in Congress. If the unions want a commission on industrial relations it is theirs for the asking.

Change of Public Sentiment.

Speech of Howard Elliott, Railway Record. The tragedy of "Julius Cæsar" furnishes a striking example of a rapid change of public sentiment. The appeal of Mark Antony so completely changed the views of the populace that whereas a few hours before they had applauded the act of Brutus in assassinating the emperor, they now were ready to "burn and pillage" the homes of Brutus and his followers and to avenge the death of Cæsar. When Antony commenced his speech he was careful not to offend the populace, so he qualified his accusation with, "But Brutus is an honorable man." Finally the first citizen answered "Honorable man" with that tinge of sarcasm which suggested a change of attitude. But the remarks of the second citizen, following in the wake of the first, indicate to me the dramatic climax of the play: "Methinks there is much reason in his sayings." From that time on the conversion of the populace was rapid.

We are fighting today for a cause that is as vital to the interests of our country as were the issues involved in Rome at that time. As railroad men, "attorneys for the defense, we shall probably not achieve the signal success that rewarded the effects of Antony, nor do we wish to go to such extremes or to be animated with vengeance. But we should be thoroughly satisfied if we can bring the average man to the point where, like the second citizen, he will say: "Methinks there is much reason in his sayings." We can then be content with the thought that the inherent sense of fair play of the American people will ultimately effect a complete change.