June 5, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



885 



The Right of the Laborer to His Job: 



Walter S. Logan, New York city. 



The question is considered under two 

 heads: (1) The moral right, and (2) the 

 legal right. 



Under the first head Mr. Logan shows 

 that the human species is of such a com- 

 plicated structure, and the requirements 

 of its existence and development so multi- 

 form, that labor is a necessity. Besides, 

 we alone, of all the species that inhabit the 

 earth, have organs which make productive 

 and sustained labor on any considerable 

 scale possible. 



Labor, therefore, must have been not 

 alone the necessity of our existence, but the 

 intention of our creation. 



Mr. Logan then argues that if labor is 

 the necessary condition of our existence, 

 and by labor alone can the apparent end of 

 our creation be fulfilled, the right to labor 

 — that is, the right to have a chance to 

 labor — must be considered one of the pri- 

 mary rights of humanity. 



Mr. Logan, summing up this branch of 

 the subject, says: 



"Theology and science both agree as to 

 the substantial import of the decree which 

 emanated from the garden of our nativity, 

 whenever that garden and wherever that 

 nativity was. By the sweat of man's brow 

 he is to earn his daily bread. Call it a 

 doom or a birthright, whichever you 

 choose. The right is the necessary conse- 

 quence of the necessity. If man miost earn 

 his daily bread he has a right to do so. ' ' 



Under the second head, 'The Legal 

 Right, ' Mr. Logan argues that a legal right 

 is only the formulation of a natural right. 

 The statutes which punish killing do not 

 make murder a crime; they simply recog- 

 nize it as such. Mr. Logan says : 



"If a man has a moral right to work 

 there is some legal recognition of that 



right, or such legal recognition must be 

 formulated whenever it is required. 



"If the right was omitted from the 

 enimierations in the Magna Charta or the 

 Declaration of Independence, it was be- 

 cause those were times in which work, 

 though comparatively unproductive, was 

 plentiful. There was always enough to be 

 done. ' ' 



Mr. Logan's paper concludes with a de- 

 scription of the legislation which he con- 

 ceives to be necessary to place the right of 

 the workman to his job upon a solid legal 

 basis. He concludes as follows: 



"I think the time has come when we 

 must rewrite the Declaration of Independ- 

 ence so that it will read, 'AH men are en- 

 titled to certain inalienable rights, and 

 among those rights are life, liberty and a 

 job.' 



"Perhaps that is the way the distin- 

 guished author of the Declaration intended 

 it to be read. The phrase ' the pursuit of 

 happiness' may have been only his syn- 

 onym for 'a job.' " 



Recent Aspects of the Immigration Prob- 

 lem: Professor Roland P. Falknek, 

 chief of the Division of Documents, 

 Library of Congress. 

 The fact that in the last fiscal year immi- 

 gration rose to a height almost unparalleled 

 in our experience draws attention anew to 

 the immigration question. In the closing 

 decade of the century it had fallen off con- 

 siderably and some felt that its end was 

 drawing near. But it has taken a fresh 

 start, and it behooves us to examine what is 

 its contribution to our population and 

 what are the questions which it raises. It 

 is a mistaken idea to suppose that the for- 

 eign-born element grows apace with immi- 

 gration. There are deaths in the ranks of 

 the older settlers to be made up by the new 

 before there can be a net gain. Though 



