January 8, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



59 



You will find the United Mine "Workers de- 

 scribed as a body too strongly influenced 

 by bituminous coal interests to be a safe 

 factor in the anthracite industry. You will 

 find that boys voted at its meetings and 

 gave a reckless tone to its management. 

 You will find that the period of the great 

 strike was one of lawlessness and violence, 

 which the leaders of the organization could 

 not or, at any rate, did not effectively 

 check. So much the gentlemen of the com- 

 mission gathered from unimpeached and 

 unimpeachable testimony, and so much 

 they clearly, concisely and fearlessly set 

 down in the permanent record of their ar- 

 duous and graciously accepted task. But 

 after bravely announcing these facts in 

 terms quite equivalent to declaring that 

 the strike had no justification, the commis- 

 sion yielded, as any other arbitrators 

 would have yielded and as nearly all arbi- 

 trators will yield in future controversies, 

 to the impulse, commendable in itself, to 

 deal generously with those who have rela- 

 tively little and awarded a general advance 

 in wages. 



' COMPULSORY ARBITRATION. ' 



The term compulsory arbitration in the 

 literal sense of the words is a verbal ab- 

 surdity, but it refers to a definite idea and 

 one fairly understood by all. Those who 

 favor it urge that when men will not rea- 

 sonably agree on a contract relating to 

 wages or other conditions of employment, 

 and will not agree to let some third party 

 make a contract for them, they ought to be 

 compelled to adopt the latter course. The 

 adherents of this view are very apt to begin 

 their argument vrith the assertion that 

 'there are three parties to every strike' — 

 the strikers, the employer and the public. 

 They quite understate the number; there 

 are five. There is, of course, always the 

 public or rather the consuming public. 

 Then on the side of labor there are always 



those, mistaken and- misguided, perhaps, 

 but American freemen after all, and en- 

 titled to that liberty under the law which 

 has been described as ' freedom to do as you 

 please and take the consequences,' who are 

 willing to work on the terms rejected by 

 the strikers; as well as those who have de- 

 clined to work. On the side of capital, 

 there may be supposed always to exist some 

 one, over-sanguine, perhaps, but entitled to 

 experiment as he would with his own, who 

 would employ the strikers on their own 

 terms; as well as the former employer. 

 Compulsory arbitration shuts its eyes to 

 both those willing to work for the rejected 

 terms and those willing to become em- 

 ployers on the terms demanded. It sees 

 only the old employers and the old em- 

 ployees, and would force them to continue 

 the industry on terms very likely to be un- 

 satisfactory to both. Manifestly, when 

 this court of so-called arbitration has issued 

 its decree containing the terms of a new 

 labor contract, it must have some effective 

 means for its enforcement. But by what 

 process, consistent with freedom, is an em- 

 ployer to be compelled to pay wages that 

 he believes must lead to bankruptcy, or 

 employees to work on terms which they 

 regard as so unjust that they prefer idle- 

 ness to their acceptance? Such power is 

 beyond the limits of governmental au- 

 thority as they are established in the con- 

 ditions essential to the preservation of 

 human liberty. Men must be free to con- 

 tract or not to contract, to work or to refuse 

 to work, to remain in an employment or to 

 leave it, to utilize their wealth as capital 

 or to withhold it from the fields of produc- 

 tion, to open their workshops or to close 

 them, and there can be no limitation upon 

 their rights in these particulars except as 

 fixed by their own voluntary contracts, 

 which does not dangerously reduce the 

 liberties of the citizen. Public opinion 

 may praise or condemn the manner in 



