life these difficulties press upon and around him in many subtle ways. On the one hand he is feared for his capacity, on the other influence spins a web around him to use him in opposition to his past work. Now he will find the black list openly cutting off his avenues of existence, and again he will meet the concealed hatred of former foes grinding at his security and comfort. No matter how he may feel or how he may think, he becomes convinced that the long years of toil in labor's cause have fixed a certain mortgage on his life and left him unfree. Truly there is no more melancholy figure in society than the man who has, the greater part of his life, neglected his own welfare in fighting for others, and who seeks, as the evening shadows of life settle, to gather his affairs together so that he may live a few passing years for himself and family. The man of business may retire with satisfaction, the craftsman may, if he has the means, rest his labors, but the labor leader, the aggressive fighter who dared the enemy, fought it, and perhaps by reason of his personally developed plans turned defeat upon it, faces isolation, insecurity and often extreme privation at every turn. It may be urged that he has been compensated, that he is well paid, or that whatever energy he puts forth was but for his best interest. This latter conclusion is a byproduct of that damnable philosophy of misery which has filled the movements of men with dissension and chaos, and placed the metaphysics of a phrase above the decision of need. However artfully the question may be met, the fact remains that any man or woman who sacrifices health and financial success in order to build for others makes a great sacrifice, and it is not a human act to assert otherwise. In the armies of destruction the soldier may look forth to a pension. In the armies of construction the soldier may look forth to privation. It is sheer stupidity to contend that a policy of indifference or indecision which confronts the vital intellectual element of a movement with the prospect of poverty is nothing short of inhuman and suicidal. The policy of pensioning men and in Europe of honoring great thinkers with independence is based upon a clear concept of self-interest. If it be to the interest of nations to conserve the physical and mental strength of those who have laid out a new path of progress, or assisted in the national defense, it can not be to the interest of the labor movement to see the men and women who have organized, defended or educated it, turned upon the intenser drifts of adversity. Somehow the solidarity of the labor movement does not extend to those who have carried its burdens after these men and women enter private life. There is a brutality in this limitation that has been most damaging to the interests of the wage-workers, and it can not be defended on any grounds of self-interest. The law of compensation just as certainly returns its rewards or penalities in these cases as in any others. There is something tragic in the fact that both society and organized labor allow their creative workers, the most vital intellectual element, to wander upon the shores of adversity. It would seem a wise and economic plan for the labor movement to seriously consider the future of its intellectual workers, and its duty to them, and it would be eminently justified in establishing a pension system for those who had given their life services to its advancement. TRADE UNION FINANCES IN GERMANY. W By HANS FEhlinger. MUNICH, June 15, 1908. ITHIN the last few years trade unionism has made rapid progress in Germany. The unions affiliated to the general federation of German trade unions increased from 677,510 members in 1901 to 733,206 in 1902 (increase 8 per cent), 887,698 in 1903 (increase 21 per cent), 1,052,108 in 1904 (increase 19 per cent), 1,344,803 in 1905 (increase 28 per cent), 1,689,709 in 1906 (increase 26 per cent), and to about 1,900,000 members in 1907 (increase 10 per cent). No less important than the numerical growth of the movement is the financial progress. The following table gives the total income of all unions and the average income per member for the years 1901 to 1906. The figures for 1907 are not yet published. More than 90 per cent of the total income has been derived from regular contributions of the members. 14 per cent in 1902, 48 per cent in 1903, 23 per cent in 1904, 38 per cent in 1905, and 50 per cent in 1906. In each year the income of the trade unions increased at a higher rate than the membership. The average amount of weekly dues is about fifty pfennigs (12 cents). In some unions the contributions are much higher, while in some others they remain below the average; but in the unions with low dues the benefits are practically nil, except in the event of a strike or lockout. The unions which exact high dues provide for the latter liberally; they also provide benefits of a more permanent character, all of which exerts a lasting influence upon relations between capital and labor, though its effects are less obvious to the uninformed than to the student. If the 66 trade unions which in 1906 were affiliated to the general federation are grouped according to the average annual amount contributed by the individual members, it appears that in eight unions with 29, 195 members, the average contributions per member were less than 15 marks; in 16 unions, with 542,417 members, they were from 15 to 20 marks; in 34 unions, with 899,480 members, they were from 20 to 30 marks; and in the remaining eight unions, with 218,617 members, the average contributions per member were from 40 to 70 marks. During the six years under review 112,423,435 marks have been spent by the same unions; of this amount 40,148,145 marks have been spent on strike, lockout, and victimization benefits; 14,394,554 marks on unemployed benefits; 14,987,762 marks on other benefits, and 42,892,974 marks on the payment of working and miscellaneous expenses. The following table shows the total and per capita expenditure of all unions for the single years: they increased to 6.09 marks, in 1905 to 7.55 marks, and in 1906 to 8.61 marks. The material resources which denote the fighting force of a union consist of the immediately available funds at its disposal, in the event of a conflict. The funds of the national trade unions in Germany increased from 8,798,333 marks in 1901 to 10,253.559 marks in 1902, 12,973.726 marks in 1903, 16,109,903 marks in 1904, 19,635,850 marks in 1905, and 25,312,634 marks in 1906. Without the accumulation of large funds it would have been impossible to secure the reductions of the hours of labor and the increases of wages which were obtained in all trades. The mere knowledge, on the part of the employers, that a union has large material resources has a tendency to deter many of them from refusing the demands of the workmen and risking a prolonged struggle. Lockouts occur most frequently in those trades where the unions have not accumulated the necessary funds which would enable them to support their members a considerable period, while in other trades the employers are much less aggressive. CONGRESSIONAL EDITORIAL. By SAMUEL GOMPERS. So Congress has adjourned; it has turned a deaf ear to Labor's appeal for relief from the most tyrannous and intolerable situaPERFIDY-THE tion in which the workers have been placed in a RESPONSIBILITY century. The protest which the great conference of LABOR'S DUTY. the officers and other representatives of the laborers' and farmers' organizations presented to Congress has been ignored, so contemptuously ignored that even those of them who were primarily responsible for the course pursued, themselves were astounded at their own audacity, so brazen was their conduct. Due to the thousands of letters, resolutions, and protests which were sent by workmen and their friends throughout the country to their Senators and Representatives in Congress, supplemented by the officers and legislative committee of organized labor, insisting that legislation should be enacted to relieve the toilers from cruel injustice, a number of Republican members of the House of Representatives insisted upon and secured a conference to consider the advisability of passing some labor measures. The conference lasted two evenings and far into the nights. The discussions were bitter and acrimonious. Cannon, Dalzell, Payne, Littlefield, Sherman, Jenkins and others represented, not the interests of the people, but the interests and policies of the Parry-Post-Van Cleave outfit. The proposition pledging the majority to the enactment of legislation went by the board and the conference adjourned without action. Under the decision of the Supreme Court the labor organizations of the country are now regarded as trusts, combinations and conspiracies in restraint of trade. They are subject to the provisions of the Sherman antitrust law, a law never intended to apply to organizations of men and women who have nothing to sell but their power to labor, and yet these voluntary associations and their members may be subject to suits involving threefold damages, fines to the sum of $5,000 or imprisonment for one year, or both such fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the court. Labor asked Congress for an amendment to the anti-trust law that shall accord to the toilers the right to organize, to unitedly protect their personal freedom. The party in power responsible for legislation, or its failure, point-blank refused to grant the relief desired or any relief at all. The abuse of the beneficent writ of injunction was presented not only to past Congresses, but to the consideration of the one just adjourned. Labor did not and does not ask for special privileges, nor, as some mischievously and untruthfully assert, does it ask or expect to become "a privileged class of wrongdoers." In Labor's bill on injunctions we would re-establish the fundamental principles upon which the equity power of the courts is based. The writ of injunction was intended to be exercised for the protection of property rights and property rights only; it was never intended to either protect or curtail personal rights, personal freedom. Labor insists, and has the right to demand, that workmen shall have the full guaranty of equality before the law, to be regarded and treated as every other citizen of our common country and to have equally the guarantees of constitutional, statutory, and natural rights applied to all; not one process of law to one class of citizens and another wholly unwarrantable process to workmen, and not even to workmen unless they are engaged in a dispute with their employers. Even this modicum of justice which Labor asked at the hands of Congress was completely and without ceremony refused. Congress, like the courts, was not unwilling to guarantee to the workers academic "rights" which are of little or no value, but refused the slightest favorable consideration to secure the important rights which the toilers demand and which are so essential to their protection, advancement and welfare. Indeed, any legislation involving the restoration to the workers of personal liberty, of human freedom, the right of the worker's ownership of himself-these were flagrantly, totally, and contemptuously disregarded. We have said that the majority party in Congress is responsible for legislation or failure of legislation. That this position is undisputed, we quote the statements of the responsible leaders in the House of Representatives. The majority leader on the floor of the House, Mr. Payne, of New York, on May 9, 1908, declared: "We are doing this business; we are legislating; we are responsible for what we do, and we are responsible for what we do not do, and we propose to assume the responsibility for it from beginning to end." Representative Dalzell, of Pennsylvania, a member of the committee on rules, another Republican leader, on April 3, 1908, said in the House: "I think we will be able to demonstrate from this time out, not only that the minority shall not enact legislation, but that the legislation of the majority shall be such as the majority desires to pass in its own way, and in its own time." On April 8th Representative Sherman, of New York, another leader of the House and a member of the committee on rules, stated that "the Republican party in this House, the Republican party in this nation, is prepared today to accept full responsibility, not only for everything that is done, but for that which is not done in the way of legislation and administration." The majority in Congress evidently differed from Lincoln, for they evidently believed that they can fool all the people all the time, and that by gilding the chains which have been riveted upon labor, they would be the less galling. The workmen of our country are by the constitution, by |