Febeuaey 19, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



287 



for a new reformation. When the welfare 

 of their wives and children really becomes 

 the chief concern of their supporters, the 

 unions whose leaders insolently claim in- 

 fallibility of judgment and indisputable 

 rights of disposition will learn over again 

 the lesson long ago forced upon an intoler- 

 ant and intolerable eeclesiasticism. 



They will learn that the natural rights 

 of man are first in right, and will at the 

 last be first in fact, that nothing can stand 

 against the right and duty of a man to ex- 

 ercise his private judgment, to work out 

 his own industrial salvation, and to set 

 before every other loyalty the loyalty to the 

 highest and most sacred of human obliga- 

 tions. 



Mutual Insurance for Prevention of 



Strikes: Edward Atkinson, Boston, 



Mass. 



It is commonly believed that laborers 

 are organized, using that term in its ap- 

 plication to working people, male and fe- 

 male. This assumption is without any 

 foundation in fact. There are to-day over 

 30,000,000 male and female working people, 

 including farmers and farm laborers, earn- 

 ing their living for compensation in money, 

 or, according to the common expression, 

 mostly 'wage earners.' They are, as a 

 body, without organization. On the other 

 hand, a small fraction have organized what 

 are eonunonly called trades unions. 



It is not probable that five per cent, of 

 the working people of this country belong 

 in all these unions combined. They are not 

 federated or organized for any common 

 action and as they rarely fail to antagonize 

 ■one another they may be said to represent 

 the disorganization of labor rather than its 

 organization. On the other hand, large 

 amounts of capital are organized in cor- 

 porations, trusts and combinations. 



It is not to be inferred from this state- 

 ment that any exception is taken to the 



organization of trades unions. They are 

 a natural outcome of modern conditions of 

 industry and are due in a large degree to 

 the displacement of the individual manager 

 of mills and workshops by the corporations. 

 Trades unions are schools, but they are as 

 yet primary schools, in the study of social 

 economy. As their members become in- 

 dividually more and more competent to 

 manage their own affairs, they cease to 

 adopt violent and aggressive methods ; they 

 witness more and more the evils of strikes 

 and boycotts, and they are now passing into 

 the next stage above the primary school, 

 which will by and by qualify them for the 

 high school course in the organization of 

 labor. 



Neither is it intended to affirm that all 

 capitalists or greater employers act with 

 intelligence in dealing with workmen. 

 Strikes, boycotts, violence, force and lock- 

 outs are often indications of the ignorance 

 on the part of workmen and of ignorant 

 capitalists. Therefore they are evil. They 

 have destroyed the harmony or community 

 of interest which in the nature of things ex- 

 ists in the relation of labor and capital, 

 which harmony and community of interest 

 can only be disturbed by lack of intelli- 

 gence on the part of laborers and capitalists 

 alike, one or both. 



Is there any way in which the neces- 

 sary harmony between capital and labor 

 can be brought into effect by capitalists 

 and workmen? Possibly there may be. 

 Manufacturers and employers of labor in 

 many branches of industry and in many 

 parts of this country are now planning to 

 combine for mutual insurance against a 

 loss by strikes. When a great factory of 

 any kind is stopped by a strike, what are 

 called the fixed charges run on; only the 

 wages are saved. The officers, the heads 

 of departments, many of the highest class 

 of employees, who seldom belong to a trades 

 union, must be continuing the service and 



