are going to say something about the way you are doing your business. They are saying 'if Socialists, demagogues, agitators, politicians of a certain type, emotional paragraph writers and sob story writers are causing people to think wrongly, what are business men doing to make people think rightly?' "The chief point which business men make is the necessity for employers, manufacturers and business men to do constructive work toward obtaining industrial conditions which shall be right and just for all. It is a general complaint that while business men have many organizations, they have little organization. To mold public opinion aright, to prevent unjust laws being passed and to get just laws there must be a federation or unification of these organizations. Our idea is that the manager or head of a concern should not regard his employes as Bull Moosers, Republicans or Democrats, but as good citizens, and should make them believe that the promotion of the welfare of their concern is their duty as well as to their interest. We want to impress upon these missionary workers it is their duty to get out and talk concerning industrial and legislative questions and get men to think and vote right. When action is decided on by the central body, the idea is to get precinct workers to do educational work in cigar stores, clubs, public conveyances and whereever voters are to be found. The average man in the labor unions is better informed on local questions than the average business man." This is an example that many other states than Ohio might well emulate. Ignorance and the indifference of business men to public opinion have been the undoing of many. Labor makes clamor enough in all conscience. Its real. or more often pretended, wrongs are constantly kept in the public mind in a, manner to enlist public sympathy. It has a powerful organization to present its demands. With such a body it takes more than scattered, independen: forces or mere individuals to cope. Business men ought not, therefore, to permit themselves to become engrossed in the management only of their own. affairs and remain in ignorance of what is going on in politics and the legislatures that might affect their interests and the interests of the public. They ought not to stand tamely by and permit irresponsible opponents to have their way when by a little broad thought and concerted action they could defend themselves against improper exactions. Of course there are always courts to appeal to, many of them say, but litigation is disturbing, time-consuming and expensive. "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” A Restricted Press Labor-unionists complain of unwarranted judicial restriction of the constitutional right of free press and free speech. Here is an instance that an exchange attributes to The Iron City Trades Journal “After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad and vampire, He had some awful substance left with which He made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal, with a cork-screw soul, a water-sogged brain and a combination backbone, made of jelly and glue. Where other people have their hearts he carries a tumor of rotten principles. When the scab comes down the street, honest men turn their backs, and the angels weep tears in heaven, and the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out. No man has a right to scab as long as there is a pool of water deep enough to drown his body in, or a rope long enough to hang his carcass with. Judas Iscariot was a gentleman compared with a scab, for after betraying his Master, he had enough character to hang himself, and a scab has not." We wonder what sort of remarks the labor press would print if it were not for such restriction. T THE INCOME TAX, Question Answered by Howard Brubaker in "The Masses" Q.: My income when I am working is $500 per year. As a married man I am entitled to an exemption of $4,000. (a) Does the government owe me $3,500? (b) Can I collect it? -D. U. B. A.: (a) Yes; (b) no. Question:-I am an unmarried man without income or prospects of any kind. But if I should marry a lady with an income of $3,000 a year, I would, as a married man, be entitled to an exemption of $4,000. Would I then have to earn $1,000 to keep out of jail?-Anxious. A. :-As we understand the law, you could not be sent to jail, for as one not living with his wife your exemption would then be reduced to $3,000 and they would have no case. Q. I have accepted a position in an office at a salary of $3 per week. My employer says that if I am a willing and industrious boy, working overtime without complaint, and not smoking cigarettes, maybe I will some day be a partner in the firm. I hesitate to do this because after I pass the $3,000, the more I earn the more the government will take from me. What do you advise me to do?-Willie. A. :-Go right ahead along the lines your kind employer suggests. Before you reach $3,000 by that route the government will be paying dividends. Q. I have been promised a good job as soon as order is restored in Mexico. Will the income tax collector come after me or do I have to go to him?-Casey. A. :-When he does come after you, better try to borrow something from him. are an amateur prevaricator. This work can be done better by profession als. Q. A bets B that President Wison will have destroyed the trusts and made everybody prosperous and contented by January 1, 1915. Will the winner have to include this sum in his income for 1914? A.: Yes; B will have to report his winnings, but can deduct his fine for violating the anti-betting law. You have nothing to worry about but the fine. Busy Days "Where's the president of this railroad?" asked the man who called at the general offices. "He's down in Washington, attendin' the session o' some kind uv an investigatin' committee," replied the office boy. "Where's the general manager?" "He's appearin' before th Interstate Commerce Commission." "Well, where's the general superirtendent ?" "He's at th' meetin' of th' legisla ture, fightin' some bum new law." "Where is the head of the legal department?" "He's in court, tryin' a suit.” "Then where is the general pas senger agent?" "He's explainin' t' th' commercia' travelers why we can't reduce th' fare' "Where is the general freight agent?" "He's gone out in th' country tattend a meeting o' th' grange an' tel th' farmers why we ain't got n freight cars." "Who's running the blame railroa anyway?" "The newspapers and th legishtures."-Pittsburgh Press. Financier. What's all the hubba in the directors' room? Steno. Some wise minority stockholder just found that the office cat is on the payroll for $3,000 a year under the name of T. Feline.—Mikakce News. To Regulate Convict-Made Goods Respective States to be Given Power to Control Recently, by a vote of 302 to 3, the national House of Representatives passed the bill providing "that all goods, wares and merchandise manufactured, produced or mined wholly or in part by convict labor, or in any prison or reformatory, transported into any state or territory of the United States, or remaining therein for use, consumption, sale, or storage, shall, upon arrival and delivery in such state or territory, be subject to the operation and effect of the laws of such state or territory to the same extent and in the same manner as though such goods, wares and merchandise had been manufactured, produced or mined in such state or territory, and shall not be exempt therefrom by reason of being introduced in the original package or otherwise." The report of the Committee on Labor concisely sums up the reasons given for the introduction of the bill and the arguments in support of it as follows: "The question of convict labor, in its moral and economic aspects, has been the subject of public discussion for many years. Owing to crime or misfortune, a considerable, and apparently increasing, number of our population are yearly compelled to lose their liberty and suffer confinement, more or less protracted, in penal institutions. Humanity and health alike require that these unfortunate individuals should have both employment and exercise; and sound policy dictates that such employment should be directed in channels capable in part, at least, of requiting the cost of their maintenance, lest they should become too great a charge upon the public. "Had the practice of all the states confined itself within the limits of health for the prisoner and such returns for his labor as would repay the cost of maintenance, it is not probable that any economic issue would ever have grown out of our prison system. But in course of time the enforced labor of numerous individuals under single management attracted both public and private cupidity; and in some American commonwealths the unhappy convict has been exploited not only to the profit of the state, but the products of his labor have become a menace to the economic welfare of the whole community. Hence have arisen the protests of labor organizations against the competition of convict goods with the products of free labor; hence the outcry of manufacturers at the control of the market in important lines of industry by prison plants; hence the efforts of various states to protect themselves by local laws against commerce in prison commodities; and hence the more recent efforts of publicists to curtail the evil through federal legislation. "According to the report of the Commissioner of Labor for the year 1905, the value of goods produced by convict labor in 296 of the larger penal institutions in the country in that year was, in round numbers. $34,000,000, representing the work of some 50,000 convicts. Of this output the leading product was that of boots and shoes, which aggregated, in round numbers, $8,500,000, or about 25 per cent of the whole. The leading industries which followed were farming, the manufacture of clothing, fur niture, brooms and brushes, binding twine, etc., and coal mining. (Twentieth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, p. 20.) EFFECT OF COMPETITION "This product is small, apparently, when compared with the great mass of the products of free labor in the whole country, but the uniform testimony of the manufacturer and the free workman is that, when convict goods are thrown upon the market, demoralization and depression is the invariable result, in some instances prices falling below the cost of production (p. 25). For example, the boot and shoe industry in the year 1904 suffered from prison competition in 11 states, where convict-made shoes exceeded, by 39 per cent, the export shoe trade of the whole United States for the year ending June 30, 1905. In furniture the competition is severely felt in certain lines, as a single company controls the entire product of seven prisons in five states. The same is true of cooperage in the Chicago market and likewise in certain lines of clothing, etc. (pp. 49-51). "As a result of such competition wages are forced to the lowest limit in the effort to lower the cost of production to that of the prison contractor, until in some cases it has resulted in a deterioration of quality of material used, and in others an entire abandonment to the prisons of the manufacture of certain grades of goods. "Some states, whose convicts are permitted to manufacture only for state and charitable institutions have sought to protect themselves by law against the sale of convict goods from without. Among those which have at various times sought to regulate or restrict the traffic in goods of this character are California, Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky, New York, Ohio, Wisconsin, Oregon, Oklahoma, Texas, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maine. But these restrictions have failed, either wholly or in part, in consequence of the inability of the states, under our system of government, to regulate their commerce with other states. Congress alone has this power in our gov ernment. 'The Congress shall have power * * * to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with the Indian tribes.' (Constitution, Art. I. sec. 8.; "Bills of similar import to the one under consideration have been reported favorably heretofore from this committee in several Congresses, and at the second session of the sixty-second Congress a bill of identical form passed the House of Representatives, but failed of report from the committee of the Senate to which it was referred. act OBJECT OF BILL AND CONSTI- "The object sought to be accomplished by this legislation is to lift the protecting hand of Congress from convict goods shipped from one state into another state-which shipment. of course, constitutes an act of interstate commerce--and subject them, upon arrival at their destination, to the local law of the state into which they are shipped. But for such permissive on the part of Congress such goods would remain interstate commerce, free from state control, until their delivery to the consignee at the point of destination, and beyond that. even, until the consignee had disposed of them or broken the package in which they were shipped. (Brown VS. Md., 12 Wheat., 419; Low vs. Austin. 13 Wall.. 29; Leisy vs. Hardin, 135 U. S., 100; Vance vs. Vandercook Co.. 170 U. S., 438; Lewis. Federal Power Over Commerce, pp. 4, 5.) "While the right to sell an article of interstate commerce in the original package, in the absence of Congressional legislation regulating the subject, is thus guaranteed by repeated decisions of the Supreme Court, yet that it is competent for Congress, by appropriate legislation, to subject this right to state control has been full illustrated by the history and adjudication of the Wilson Act, of August 8, 1890, dealing with another subject of interstate commerce, along lines identical with those involved in this bill. "The Wilson Act was as follows "That all fermented, distilled, or other |