288 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 477. 



must be paid. The taxes, the general ex- 

 penses and the cost of insurance and other 

 charges continue. 



In a rough-and-ready way one may take 

 as a standard proportions which are almost 

 an example of general average. We find 

 the cost of materials which are converted 

 in the factory or workshop into finished 

 forms ready for final sale comes to fifty or 

 sixty per cent, of the total cost of the 

 finished product. The fixed charges come 

 to about five per cent. The wages of the 

 workmen come to from twenty to thirty 

 per cent, seldom more. The plan for this 

 organization of capitalists is that each shall 

 make a small annual contribution or pre- 

 mium, so called, to a mutual insurance com- 

 pany, which shall assure to each member so 

 many dollars during the term of a strike, 

 at the rate of about five per cent, of the 

 value of the total product for one year. 

 Other similar combinations prove that 

 such an organization for mutual insurance 

 against loss by strikes would be simple, sure 

 and safe at a very small ratable charge each 

 year upon each member. 



It may be here remarked that the mid- 

 dle body of non-union workmen, the most 

 competent and capable of the number, 

 may be the victims of a lockout on the 

 part of the employers or of a strike on 

 the part of the union. They may be 

 ground between the upper and the nether 

 millstone, with no fund except their own 

 savings, and with no organized body to 

 protect them by legal or other service 

 against the abuses either of the employers 

 or of the unions. As the oppression of 

 trades unions has become plain, we wit- 

 ness what may be called the beginning of 

 an organization of free laborers in many 

 parts of the country. Workmen are now 

 combining to bring to the support of their 

 individual rights the funds that they may 

 subscribe, and to do what is yet more im- 



portant, to organize and direct public opin- 

 ion in support of the free laborers. 



What next? It would be a very plain 

 and simple work for the corporations or 

 individual owners of capital, who are now 

 organizing and combining for mutual in- 

 surance against loss by strikes, to call upon 

 the non-union Avorkmen or free workmen 

 of the country to join in that organization 

 —each workman to contribute such small 

 premium as will be required and to assure 

 to himself such number of dollars a day as 

 his contributions will warrant during the 

 term during which the free laborers are 

 deprived of Avork by the strike on the part 

 of the trades unions. If this organization 

 of labor and capital for mutual insurance 

 and support we're once established, many 

 of the workmen, who are now joined in the 

 trades unions because there is no other 

 place where they can go, would leave them 

 to join the mutual union of the free labor- 

 ers and the free employers. In this way 

 the antagonism of laborer and capitalist 

 would be displaced by the mutual service 

 of labor and capital. 



When Labor is King: Alisan Wilson, 

 Washington, D. C. Read by title. 



Status of Social and Economic Science in 

 High Schools: W. J. S. Bryan, Prin- 

 cipal, St. Louis High School. 

 To ascertain what work is done and what 

 estimate is placed by high school men upon 

 the value of the study of social and eco- 

 nomic science in high schools, letters were 

 written to the principals of seventy-five 

 representative high schools. They were 

 asked to answer four questions : 



1. What instruction in social and eco- 

 nomic science is given im your school? 



2. In what grades is such instruction 

 given ? 



3. How many pupils are engaged in such 

 study ? 



