The Clayton Bill, H. R. 15657, the passage of which by the lower house of Congress we announced in the July issue is still pending in the U. S. Senate. The Judiciary Committee of that body to which the bill was referred, reported the measure to the Senate on July 22d with the labor and farmer organizations exemption features considerably modified. It is the least that the Senate can do and the very least that labor should demand and expect in the premises that this bill be passed by the Senate with the provisions relating to labor and farmer organizations precisely as they were when the measure was passed by the House. One of the principal arguments brought to bear on members of the U. S. Senate against these provisions was that the enactment of the measure containing the provisions exempting labor and farmer organizations from the operations of the anti-trust law would be "class legislation" and hence unconstitutional. This, of course, is a question that would be finally settled only by a decision of the U. S. Supreme Court and that that court recently rendered a decision demonstrating the fallacy of such a contention is of the utmost importance in clearing up any doubt in this connection that the members of the U. S. Senate may have entertained-in removing the chief obstruction in the way of the passage of the measure and successfully controverting the main argument its opponents have advanced against it.

This decision makes clear the classification powers of legislatures in the premises as distinguished from unconstitutional discrimination.

It does not deny the right of a state legislature to enact laws prohibiting labor organizations as combinations in restraint of trade but it does confirm the right of state legislatures to exclude labor organizations from legislation prohibiting combinations in restraint of trade. In the exercise of their powers of classification they may enact laws prohibiting combinations in restraint of trade which laws while not applicable to labor organizations will nevertheless be constitutional; and of course the same principle applies to Congress. The case in which this decision was rendered is officially styled International Harvester Company of America, Plaintiff in Error, vs. The State of Missouri, on the Information of its Attorney General-in error to the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri (June 8, 1914). The action was brought in the Supreme Court of Missouri to exclude the International Harvester Company from the "corporate rights, privileges and franchises exercised or enjoyed by it under the laws of the State," and to have same forfeit such portion of its property as the court might consider proper or a fine imposed on it in lieu thereof in "punishment of the perversion, usurpation, abuse and misuse of franchises," the ground of action being the alleged violation of certain specified anti-trust laws of the state. The following are the facts alleged in the information:

"Plaintiff in error is a Wisconsin corperation engaged in the manufacture and sale of agricultural implements, binders, mowers, etc., and was licensed on the fifth of April, 1892, to do business in Missouri under the name of the Milwaukee Harvester Company, and on September 18, 1902, became licensed to do and engaged in such business in the State. In that year the International Harvester Company of New Jersey was organized with a capital stock of $120,000,000 for the purpose of effecting a combination of plaintiff in error and certain other companies to restrain competition in the manufacture and sale of such agricultural implements in Missouri, and the New Jersey company has maintained plaintiff in error as its sole selling agent in Missouri. Before the combination the companies combined were competitors of one another and of other corporations, individuals and partnerships engaged in the same business in the State and that thereby the people of the State, and particularly the retail dealers and farmers of the State, received the benefit of competition in the purchase and sale of farm implements. The combination was designed and made with a view to lessen, and it tended to lessen, free competition in such implements, and thereby the said corporations entered into and became members of a pool, trust, combination and agreement. In furtherance thereof and for the purpose of giving the International Harvester Company of New Jersey a monopoly of the business of manufacturing and selling agricultural implements in the State, and for the purpose of preventing competition in the sale thereof, plaintiff in error has compelled the retail dealers in each county of the State who desire to handle and sell or act as agent for it to refrain from selling implements manufactured or sold by competing companies or persons. By reason thereof competition in such implements has been restrained, prices controlled, the quantity of such implements has been fixed and limited, and plaintiff in error has been able to secure, and for several years enjoy from 85 per cent to 90 per cent of the business, all to the great damage and loss of the people of the State, and by reason of its participation in the pool, trust and combination and by reason of the acts and things done by it plaintiff in error has been guilty of an illegal, wilful and malicious perversion and abuse of its franchises, privileges and licenses granted to it by the State."

Ono of the Harvester Company's defenses was that the Missouri statute under which action was brought against it "violated the equality clause" of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States,

"because said statute arbitrarily discriminates between persons making or selling products and commodities and persons selling labor and service of all kinds: In that each section of said statute applies only to articles of merchandise and not to labor or services and the like, the prices of which are equally and similarly determined by competition, and may be equally and similarly the subject of combination and conspiracy to the detriment of the public."

In other words that because this Missouri statute did not also prohibit labor organizations as "combinations in restraint of trade," the Supreme Court of

Missouri erred in deciding against the Harvester Company and pronouncing against it the sentence that its license "be forfeited and cancelled and the company ousted from its rights and franchises granted by the State to do business in the State, and a fine of $50,000 imposed upon it." (This sentence was, however, modified with the provision that if the fine were paid before a certain date and it had severed all connection with the International Harvester Co. of New Jersey and the corporations and copartnerships with which it had combined, etc., etc., the judgment of "ouster" would be suspended, and it could continue to do business in the state.)

The Harvester Company appealed to the United States Supreme Court, and that tribunal, in setting forth the relevant provisions of the statute bearing on the case says:

"that all arrangements, contracts, agreements, combinations or understandings made or entered into between two or more persons, designed or made with a view to lessen, or which tend to lessen, lawful trade, or full and free competition in the importation, transportation, manufacture or sale" in the State "of any product, commodity or article, or thing bought or sold" and all such arrangements, etc., "which are designed or made with a view to increase, or which tend to increase, the market price of any product, commodity or article or thing, of any class or kind whatsoever, bought and sold," are declared to be against public policy, unlawful and void, and those offending "shall be deemed and adjudged guilty of a conspiracy in restraint of trade, and punished" as provided.

The U. S. Supreme Court quotes from the decision of the Missouri Supreme Court in State vs. Standard Oil Co. as follows:

"the anti-trust statutes of the State 'are limited in their scope and operations to persons and corporations dealing in commodities, and do not include combinations of persons engaged in labor pursuits.' And justifying the statutes against a charge of illegal discrimination, the court further said that it must be borne in mind that the differentiation between labor and property is so great that they do not belong to the same general classification of rights, or things, and have never been so recognized by the common law or legislative enactments.'"

Continuing the U. S. Supreme Court says that the contention of the Harvester Company, charging that the law discriminates and is therefore repugnant to the equality clause of the United States Constitution because it does not "embrace vendors of labor," invokes a consideration of the power of classification that may be exerted in the legislation of the state and declares that that power has a "very broad range" and that a "classification is not invalid because of simple inequality."

The decision continues:

"We said in Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Matthews, 174. U. S. 96, 106, by Mr. Justice Brewer, The very idea of classification is that of inequality, so that it goes without saying that the fact of inequality in no manner determines the matter of constitutionality.' Therefore, it may be there is restraint of competition in a combination of laborers and in a combination of purchasers, but that does not demonstrate that legislation which does not include either combination is illegal. Whether it would have been better policy to have made such comprehensive classification it is not our province to decide. In other words, whether a combination of wage earners or purchasers of commodities called for repression by law under the conditions in the State was for the legislature of the State to determine." Further along in the decision we find the following:

"We are helped little in determining the legality of a legislative classification by making broad generalizations, and it is for a broad generalization that plaintiff in error contends-indeed, a generalization which includes all the activities and occupations of life, and there is an enumeration of wage earners in emphasis of the discrimination in which manufacturers and sellers are singled out from all others. The contention is deceptive, and yet it is earnestly urged in various ways which it would extend this opinion too much to detail.

"If this power of classification did not exist, to what straits legislation would be brought. We may illustrate by the examples furnished by plaintiff in error. In the enumeration of those who, it is contended, by combination are able to restrain trade are included, among others, 'persons engaged in domestic service' and 'nurses.' and because these are not embraced in the law, plaintiff in error, it is contended,

although a combination of companies uniting the power of $120,000,000 and able thereby to engross 85 per cent or 90 per cent of the trade in agricultural implements, is neverthless beyond the competency of the legislature to prohibit. As great as the contrast is, a greater one may be made. Under the principle applied a combination of all the great industrial enterprises (and why not railroads as well?) could not be condemned unless the law applied as well to a combination of maidservants or to infants' nurses, whose humble functions preclude effective combination."

"The foundation of our decision is, of course, the power of classification which a legislature may exercise, and the cases we have cited, as well as others which may be cited, demonstrate that some latitude must be allowed to the legislative judgment in selecting the 'basis of community.' We have said that it must be palpably arbitrary to authorize a judicial review of it, and that it cannot be disturbed by the courts unless they can see clearly that there is no fair reason for the law that would not require with equal force its extension to others whom it leaves untouched.' Mo., Kan. & Tex. Ry. Co. v. May, 194 U. S. 267, 269; Williams v. State of Ark., 217 U. S. 79, 90; Watson v. State of Maryland, 218 U. S. 173, 179."

"Whether the Missouri statute should have set its condemnation on restraints generally, prohibiting combined action for any purpose and to everybody, or confined it as the statute does to manufacturers and vendors of articles and permitting it to purchasers of such articles; prohibiting it to sellers of commodities and permitting it to sellers of services, was a matter of legislative judgment, and we cannot say that the distinctions made are palpably arbitrary, which we have seen is the condition of judicial review. It is to be remembered that the question presented is of the power of the legislature, not the policy of the exercise of the power. To be able to find fault, therefore, with such policy is not to establish the invalidity of the law based upon it."

Judgment affirmed.

MUST LABOR "WAIT?"

The Chicago Herald in its issue of August 3d comments editorially upon President Wilson's action in holding a conference at Washington, D. C., with representatives of the western railroads and the two brotherhoods, the B. of L. E., and B. of L. F. and E., with a view to averting on those roads the threatened strike of engineers, firemen and hostlers set for Friday, August 7th last.

After stating that the President pointed out to both sides that the disturbed condition of the whole world due to the present European war made the strike at present peculiarly untimely, that under ordinary circumstances he would not interfere, and suggesting that he, the President, evidently felt that he would be justified in putting forth the whole power of the government to avert such a disturbance, etc., the editorial proceeds to say:

"The energies of government are being put forth to assist the financial and business worlds to weather the squalls and swirls that are swinging our way from the European tempest of war.

"Patriotism demands that domestic discord shall be hushed.

"Now is no time to quarrel among ourselves. Whatever the merits, the controversy must wait."

That the Herald holds the wage earning class as absolutely unworthy of any consideration whatever at the hands of the Government is made clear by the paragraphs we quote. "The energies of government are being put forth to assist the financial and business worlds." Must we then infer that so long as the interests of the "financial and business worlds" are guarded by the government all is well-that labor is such an absolutely unimportant factor in the structure of the nation that so long as the "financial and business worlds" are being taken care of the demands of the toilers for a living wage and civilized working conditions must wait, that while the energies of the government are directed towards guarding and fostering financial inter

ests and business interests that patriotism demands that labor's plea for justice be "hushed?" Never has this much abused term "patriotism" been used more ignominously. Judged from the viewpoint of the Herald and of the class it represents patriotism consists of the absolute supremacy-the complete ascendancy of the interests of the privileged class and the entire and abject subjugation of the workers. By that class-the plutocracy-wage earners are. not regarded as a social factor worthy of consideration. So long as government concerns itself exclusively with "the financial and business" worlds all is well, sayeth the Herald, and "all is well" echoes the chorus from that entire crew of bediamoned parasites-the idle rich-all is well no matter what the workers wrongs may be.

Yet, the same "patriotism" (?) which, because of the European war, demands that "domestic discord shall be hushed," or in other words that labor shall submit indefinitely to wrong and injustice, eagerly takes advantage of the pretext (and a pretext it is and nothing more), furnished by that conflict to filch billions of dollars from the masses of the people by imposing on them an absolutely unwarranted and unjustifiable increase in the cost of life's necessities. A tribute levied by "Big Business" because it can.

Labor will not be deluded by such a brand of "patriotism." Labor is awake and realizing its own value to society, its own indispensibility, its own inestimable importance to the nation, will not quietly submit to being plundered under pretexts of "patriotism" advanced by an element in whose breasts greed has long since supplanted love for country and every other unselfish sentiment.

COLORADO; A CALL TO DUTY*.

The Colorado State Legislature author- John D. Rockefeller, Jr., has refused ized the Governor to forbid the use or to reconsider his ultimatum. Like the sale of firearms and to close saloons. It Bourbons, he forgets nothing and learns provided for a joint committee to inves- nothing. He will do nothing to retigate the strike. It refused to consider establish industrial peace. constructive legislation. It appropriated ture has refused to do anything to solve The legislaone million dollars to pay the State the problem. militia for strike service, although it has been established that the majority of the men in the militia were gunmen who to do about it?

What are the people of Colorado going

were hired by the coal operators and The people of Colorado are the final who served their interests though posing arbiters of the situation.

as employes in public service. This was Are the people of Colorado ready the total result of a special session. to accept industrial despotism? Are Federal troops now maintain law and they ready to sanction by passive agreeorder. The legislature has done nothing ment the overthrow of civil government? to provide for the protection of human Are they ready to give up the right of life and the maintenance of a republican trial by jury that the Colorado Fuel and form of government when Federal troops are removed.

Federal troops can not be kept in the field indefinitely Colorado must set her own house in order.

*From American Federationist.

Iron Company may pile up dividends
and continue its lawless policies? Are
they willing to see the hillsides fortified
and guarded by gunmen who shoot upon
women and children?

What are you going to do about it?
The mine operators have established a