792 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



zation, by its rules and acts, denies to the master plumbers the 

 right, as business men, to direct and manage their business affairs 

 according to their own ideas." * How great a difference it makes 

 whose ox is gored is disclosed again in the reply to the demand of 

 the jobbing houses of Salt Lake City that the master plumbers 

 of the town should, under the famous Baltimore resolutions,! 

 restricting the sale of plumbing supplies to master plumbers 

 only, purchase of them alone, "We hold the right," they said, 

 with the true American spirit, "to buy where we can buy the 

 best." X The same view as to the rights of labor are to be found 

 in the official essay that Mr. Edward Hayward, of Brooklyn, read 

 before the Milwaukee convention. " Such claim," he said, refer- 

 ring to the claim that " organized labor has rights superior to 

 those of the craftsman or laborer standing alone on his own 

 merits, and supporting the dignity of his manhood," " could never 

 have rooted well and can never flourish long in the atmosphere 

 of a people possessing equal rights and capable of maintain- 

 ing them. It would not," he added, in a tone of mild admonition, 



* Proceedings, Pittsburg, 1889, p. 55. 



f These resolutions were first adopted at Baltimore, June 26, 1884, and reaffirmed and 

 amended at subsequent conventions. The essential part of the original resolutions is as 

 follows : " Whereas, the manufacturers and wholesale dealers in plumbing material per- 

 sist in selling to consumers, to our injury and detriment, placing us toward our customers 

 in the light of extortionists, causing endless trouble ; and whereas, the system of protecting 

 us from this wrong, which draws in its wake other wrongs, is ineffective, it is absolutely 

 necessary to perfect such a system by united action that will remove these evils from 

 which we have suffered for years ; therefore be it resolved, that the members of this asso- 

 ciation confine the purchase of plumbing material to manufacturers and wholesale dealers 

 who sell goods to master plumbers only, as defined in these resolutions." The term master 

 plumber was defined in the following resolution adopted at Washington in 1892 and amend- 

 ed at Philadelphia in 1895 : " Resolved, that it is the sense of this convention that in the 

 future the interpretation of the term ' master plumber,' as set forth in the above resolutions 

 to entitle him to purchase plumbing material, be construed to mean a master plumber who 

 has an established place of business and represents the industry of plumbing, and who has 

 qualified under State or local enactments regulating plumbing and plumbers, where such 

 exist ; or, where no license is required, an individual or firm with an established place of 

 business and representing the industry of plumbing." The following important additions 

 were made at the Philadelphia convention : " Resolved, that the members of this associa- 

 tion should not sell plumbing material to consumers when they do not furnish the labor for 

 putting the material in. Resolved, that the supply houses doing a plumbing supply busi- 

 ness and contracting for plumbing work shall be considered unjust competitors." The fol- 

 lowing are at present exempt from the operation of these resolutions : The United States 

 Government, State, county, and city institutions. Sailors' Snug Harbor, railroad, gas, water, 

 and electric light companies only for such goods as are necessary for their respective lines of 

 business. 



X Proceedings, Cleveland, 1896, p. 68. See also p. 161, Proceedings, Milwaukee, 1893, 

 where the essayist says : '* When rules governing a household, the laws of a State, or of a 

 trade associate alike, are oppressive, they become inoperative by a general disregard of 

 them. The inability of the governing power to enforce them is seen, and contempt for it 

 follows." 



