THE CHICAGO CAR STRIKE

The unavailing demand for higher wages led to the strike of fourteen thousand employees of the traction companies of Chicago, after many efforts to arbitrate the issues between them and their employers had failed. The result was the complete tie-up for two days of the surface car and elevated railway systems of Chicago; and two and a half million persons resorted to buses hastily converted from motor trucks and express wagons, and even to roller skates, for transportation.

Features which made this strike a most remarkable one were its completeness, its brevity, and its freedom from violence. It was called off as the result of the arduous efforts of Mayor Thompson to bring about a compromise just as the dawn of the third day of this industrial conflict was breaking, and not a single case of violence was traceable to the strikers. Great credit is due to Mayor Thompson, who, after working for arbitration before the strike, notified the strikers in unmistakable language that his single task thereafter would be "to guard the rights, lives, and property of the citizens of Chicago."

Before the strike had been in progress a day the City Council of Chicago passed an ordinance calculated to restrict the employment of strike-breakers, but Judge C. C. Kohlsaat, of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, promptly ordered the receiver of the Chicago and Oak Park Elevated Railroad Company, which recently went into the United States District Court for a receivership, to employ "such men as may be available" to resume operations on the road, and strike-breakers soon began to pour into Chicago from St. Louis, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, and Detroit, only to be paid off and sent back whence they came.

The three-year agreement between the companies and the employees recently expired, after the operators had frequently expressed their dissatisfaction with it. When

it went into effect, it gave the men higher pay than any street-car men east of the Rocky Mountains then enjoyed, but recently in Detroit, Cleveland, and Boston higher average wage rates were adopted, and the Chicago motormen, guards, and conductors became dissatisfied. They offered to submit. their demands to arbitration before striking, but were willing to accept as an umpire only Governor Dunne, ex-Mayor Harrison, or one of several other gentlemen all held by the companies to be" pro-labor" in sympathy. The companies offered to name one arbitrator, let the employees name a second, and have these two select a third, but this the employees would not do.

An all-night conference at the City Hall in which the Mayor, strike leaders, officials of the car companies, and members of the special Aldermanic Strike Committee took part, managed to find a compromise. Mayor Thompson was accepted by both sides as a third member of the Board of Arbitration, each of the sides to the controversy to appoint another member, and the men agreed to go back to work for their former wages, on the understanding that the wage question and some other points would be arbitrated, and that any changes that may be granted in wage rates will date back to June 1.

Although the strikers gave in on some points, they claim that the outcome was a victory for them. So it was. It was also a victory for the car companies, for the city officials, and for the public, in that it was a victory for the practice of dealing with disputes between labor and capital in a spirit of fairness and open-minded magnanimity.

LABOR CONDITIONS IN

PENNSYLVANIA

Governor Brumbaugh, of Pennsylvania, has just signed some bills of great importance to the betterment of labor conditions in that State.

The most talked of is the series of acts establishing a plan of employers' liability and

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workmen's compensation. It comprises a modification of the Act prepared by the Pennsylvania Industrial Accidents Commission. As the State Constitution does not permit the adoption of a compulsory act, the plan is elective; an amendment to the Constitution, however, permitting the adoption of a compulsory act has been passed for the second time and goes to the people for ratification in November.

The rates of compensation are based upon fifty per cent of the wages received at the time of the accident, the maximum duration of payment being limited to five hundred weeks. The plan will probably avoid some of the difficulties of the systems operative in other States. Taken as a whole, it would seem as if the new law were a very good measure. It was one of the chief planks in the platform on which the Governor made his campaign.

A further Act removes the obstacle which has prevented coal-miners from coming under any workmen's compensation plan. The passage of all these bills will further establish the Brumbaugh prestige, already marked by the new Child Labor Law.

The Governor has also signed the Housing Bill, which also means better conditions for labor and society. The state of the congested districts of Philadelphia, where the tenements have been a menace to life, health, and morality, moved the State Legislature two years ago to pass a housing bill, which became law. It had every promise of becoming effective and efficient. In order to become so, however, it had to be enforced by appropriations from the City Councils. The Councils, controlled by the Republican ring, refused to appropriate the necessary moneys. The Court issued an order compelling the Councils to surrender the money or be in contempt of court. Under these circumstances the Republican organizations hastened a new bill through the Legislature, as a negativing substitute for the one which never had been tried. The bill was not even given a hearing and was rushed up to the Governor. reached him during his long fight for workmen's compensation, child labor, and local option. He needed every possible vote for the measures embodying these reforms. He was thus placed in a hard position. Hence he deserved special credit for killing the bill.

It

In vetoing the measure the Governor suggested that those who were back of it and its

opponents should get together and see if they could not agree upon a new bill. They did get together, and brought forward a new measure, which was accepted both by the reformers and the City Councils. That bill has just become law.

We are glad to record this turn of affairs in a State in which social reform has been increasingly necessary.

THE CASH REGISTER CASE

The denial by the United States Supreme Court of the Government's motion for a writ of certiorari to review the decision of the Circuit Court of Appeals, reversing the judgment of guilt on the part of officials of the National Cash Register Company, which was handed down by a Federal district court in Ohio, is a severe blow to the Government's efforts for the enforcement of the criminal clauses of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law.

This case, which grew out of the conviction of Mr. John H. Patterson, President of the National Cash Register Company, and of some of his associates for a conspiracy to monopolize the cash register business by unfair and injurious methods of competition, was considered one of the strongest of the series of several which the Department of Justice has handled under the Sherman Law. In commenting on the Supreme Court's action in this case, many editorial writers profess to see in it the beginning of the end of the practical enforcement of the Sherman Law.

By sustaining the reversal of the original decision the Supreme Court apparently indorses the view that evidence was admitted that should have been excluded, and that the growth of the Cash Register Company was due, not to alleged unfair practices, but to proper advantages in owning basic patents. There is one count on which a retrial can be had, but it is a question whether such retrial will be attempted.

This decision does not necessarily mean that the "teeth of the Sherman Law" have been, drawn, but, apparently, that the evidence did not show the culpability under that law which the Government alleged.

We repeat what we have often urged, that, if bad practices are to be curbed, it ought not to be by straining the word monopoly in criminal proceedings, but by giving power and effectiveness to the Federal Trade Commission for the prevention of unfairness in business.

JUDGE LINDSEY

NO "SNITCHER"

Judge Lindsey, of the Juvenile Court of Denver, has had many hard fights in his career. From the beginning of his public activity he has been under the persistent attack of political opponents who found no weapon too low to use against this champion of the rights of childhood. Traps have been laid to undermine his personal reputation, his Court has suffered repeated investigation, he has been knifed in the back by political organizations on every possible occasion, and attempts have been made in the Legislature to abolish the Juvenile Court itself in an effort to reach its Judge. Now, with the aid of the District Attorney, Judge Lindsey is under fire from a new and unexpected quarter.

One of the most interesting phases of his work as a juvenile judge has been the creation of a spirit of self-respect in the boys under his charge and in creating in their minds an abiding trust in the justice of his court. Early in his work he learned that the clan loyalty of boyhood could be made one of the strongest weapons in his work of reform. The boy delinquents that come to his Court have always been encouraged to confess, but never to turn State's evidence against their partners in crime. As Judge Lindsey has phrased it, each boy" was encouraged to' snitch' on himself and himself only." Now, strangely enough, in the latest attack upon his work in the Juvenile Court an attempt has been made to make of Judge Lindsey himself a snitcher, and to force him to violate this cardinal principle of boyhood and manhood honor by men who are technically associated with him in the furtherance of justice in the city of Denver. Here is the story of this attempt:

On a Sunday afternoon in April John Wright, an employee at the City Hall of Denver, was shot in an attempt to enter his own house. He died three days later. Before his death, however, he left a declaration to the effect that when he opened the door his wife appeared in the hallway with a gun and shot him. When the officers came to arrest her, she admitted that she had shot her husband because he was a drunken, beastly man who had repeatedly beaten her and her twelve-year-old son. She testified that her husband had returned intoxicated the night before, and, after threatening, abusing, and beating herself and her child, had left in a

frenzy with a threat that he would return the next day and "clean out" the house. A few days after her arrest for murder her twelveyear-old son, a bright, intelligent, manly, and self-respecting boy, came forward with a statement that it was he, and not his mother, who had fired that fatal shot, and that his mother had told him to suppress that fact and lay the blame on her, since she was a consumptive and had not long to live. The District Attorney claimed that this was a frameup and part of the plan of the defense to free Mrs. Wright. The District Attorney brought against the defendant various charges of improper conduct, which he claimed led to the trouble with her husband, instead of the drinking and gambling which she claimed was the cause. A minister, the Rev. S. G. Dorey, a friend of the Wright family, brought the boy into Judge Lindsey's Court in order that the Judge might subject him to certain psychological tests to ascertain the truth of his story. This action was agreed to by the boy's mother, his lawyer, and all others concerned.

AN IMPROPER DEMAND

He

This is the story of Judge Lindsey's connection with the murder of John Wright, a story which would have ended here but for Denver's District Attorney. The District Attorney has contended that Judge Lindsey sounded the truth of the boy's story and that his conclusions were in confirmation of the theories of the District Attorney as to the frame-up. Because Judge Lindsey declined to testify in the case or to divulge the results of the confidential communications made to him by the boy, the District Attorney became very much embittered. denied that these communications were privileged. Judge Lindsey asserted that they were, that even though the boy had confessed to what the District Attorney claimed, as a judge it was not his duty or right to testify in court on this subject. Notwithstanding Judge Lindsey's claims of privilege, the District Attorney persistently sought to force him to testify. Finally, Judge Lindsey was forced into court, and on the witness stand, despite his protest, was ordered to testify or take the consequences-and such an order from the Court usually means a jail sentence. Meanwhile the case against the boy's mother was fought to a conclusion. She was finally acquitted, after the jury had divided for some

time on the truth of the boy's story. Following the conclusion of the trial the District Attorney indicted Judge Lindsey in the public press before the community as a protector of a murderess and as a conniver at perjury. He further made these charges under oath, and asked that Judge Lindsey be punished. Accordingly, Judge Lindsey will be brought to trial in a criminal court.

Judge Lindsey has taken his stand on the ground that to compel a juvenile judge to testify in court to statements made by a child to him under such circumstances as we have here recorded, especially where it involves the life of his own mother and where the child might be made the medium of her execution, would be detestable and outrageous. Judge Lindsey claims that his communication was of the highest privileged character. He maintains that by consenting to testify, for or against the boy, he would have jeopardized, if not destroyed, the strength of the Juvenile Court. He is fighting, therefore, to establish a precedent that such confidence cannot be disclosed in any court proceedings or in any public manner whatever. He believes that in making the fight for this principle he is working, not only for the Juvenile Court of Denver, but for the juvenile courts throughout the country. The district judge who presided at the murder trial has held such a communication not privileged, but released Judge Lindsey for the special trial on the information and complaint of the District Attorney. The outcome of this new trial will be watched with interest and concern throughout the country.

Whatever the law may be found to be-and doubtless if this preliminary trial goes against Judge Lindsey the case will be carried to the Supreme Court-certainly no one can have the slightest doubt that the principles of honor, justice, and public interest are all to be found on Judge Lindsey's side. The State which demands testimony from a man in Judge Lindsey's position is attempting to violate the sanctity of its own judicial confessional.

THE MAYO FOUNDATION

One of the most remarkable combinations of educational facilities in this country is that which has been effected between the Mayo Foundation and the State University of Minnesota. It represents an exhibition of private benevolence and public spirit of more than noteworthy proportions.

The University of Minnesota already pos

sesses an excellent medical school which has cost the State more than a million dollars. It maintains a hospital and a dispensary at an expense of $80,000 a year. The total annual budget for medical education in Minnesota is more than $230,000.

This medical education by the State, however, has been handicapped by the lack of graduate facilities. At present the development of such facilities has proved beyond the power of the University and of the State. Into this breach, however, has come the Mayo Foundation.

The Mayo Foundation is, in brief, a gift by Dr. William J. Mayo and Dr. Charles H. Mayo of a million and a half dollars, and the use of the extensive hospital and clinical facilities which they control, to the State University for the benefit of the cause of medical education. A six-year agreement has been entered upon between the Mayo Foundation and the University of Minnesota, at the end of which, if the experiment proves successful, it is expected that the connection between the Foundation and the University will be made permanent under conditions guaranteeing complete control to the University of the endowment funds and over the appointment of all directors, teachers, investigators, and others connected with the Mayo Foundation.

Known all over the country both in and outside of the medical profession as the Mayo Brothers, these two eminent surgeons have made of the small town of Rochester, Minnesota, a great surgical center.

An arti

cle by Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell in The Outlook for June 22, 1907, described their achievement when it was comparatively unknown. To-day their great hospital has an international reputation.

In making their remarkably generous offer to the State of Minnesota the Mayo Brothers have rendered a notable service to the cause of surgery, a cause which has already benefited so largely by their technical skill and by their patient research.

eighth anniversary of the adoption of the Stars and Stripes by the Continental Congress was celebrated in the house of Betsy Ross, who made the first flag. At Independence Hall the Louisiana State flag was raised over the old State House in commemoration of the fiftieth year of internal peace since the close of the Civil War.

At Washington President Wilson, who was the principal speaker in the Flag Day exercises in that city, declared that "there are no days of special patriotism. There are no days when you should be more patriotic than on other days. . . . I am sorry that you do not wear a little flag of the Union every day instead of some days, and I can only ask you, if you lose the physical emblem, to be sure that you wear it in your heart, and the heart of America shall interpret the heart of the world."

But it was in the schools that the flag was most highly honored. From the Philippines to Maine the school-children gathered about the National emblem to pledge to it their allegiance. In many of the schools of New York State, and probably elsewhere, was read the splendid Flag Day address delivered last year by Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, to the clerks of the Interior Department. Here is part of it. The flag is. The flag is speaking:

The work that

Let me tell you who I am. we do is the making of the real flag. I am not the flag, not at all. I am but its shadow. I am whatever you make me, nothing more. I am your belief in yourself, your dream of what a people may become. I live a changing life, a life of moods and passions, of heart-breaks and tired muscles. Sometimes I am strong with pride, when men do an honest work, fitting the rails together truly. Sometimes I droop, for then purpose has gone from me, and cynically I play the coward. Sometimes I am loud, garish, and full of that ego that blasts judg ment. But always I am all that you hope to be and have the courage to try for.

I am song and fear, struggle and panic, and ennobling hope. I am the day's work of the weakest man and the largest dream of the most daring. I am the Constitution and the courts, statutes and statute-makers, soldier and dreadnought, drayman and street-sweep, cook, counselor, and clerk. I am the battle of yesterday and the mistake of to-morrow. I am the mys tery of the men who do without knowing why. I am the clutch of an idea and the reasoned purpose of resolution. I am no more than what you believe me to be, and I am all that you believe I can be. I am what you make me, noth

ing more. I swing before your eyes as a bright gleam of color, a symbol of yourself, the pictured suggestion of that big thing which makes this Nation. My stars and my stripes are your dreams and your labors. They are bright with cheer, brilliant with courage, firm with faith, because you have made them so out of your hearts, for you are the makers of the flag, and it is well that you glory in the making.

DR. DERNBURG

Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, late German Secretary of State for the Colonies and a member of the Prussian upper house, has just sailed from the United States for Europe, by the Norwegian steamer Bergensfjord.

Dr. Dernburg's long sojourn in America. has been noteworthy. Ostensibly a private citizen, he has been universally believed to be an agent of the German Government. This was entirely natural. The high office which Dr. Dernburg formerly filled and the character of some of his utterances have pointed to no other conclusion. Dr. Dernburg has spoken in this country in an effort to influence and modify American sentiment concerning many phases of the war. For instance, he has given us the benefit of his views concerning neutrality and the shipment of munitions of war, concerning gas-charged bombs, concerning submarine warfare, concerning the diplomatic history of the war, concerning the retention of Belgium by Germany, and concerning the possible close of the war.

Dr. Dernburg's attempts to mold public opinion in this country in favor of Germany, and especially his most recent remarks concerning the Lusitania atrocity, have caused much popular resentment. Some of this resentment, we think, has been unjustified. The whole German propaganda, however, as inspired by him, has been, we believe, an element in the manufacture of sympathy for Germany's opponents.

HOW THE

FIGHTING GOES

Temporarily checked during the first days of the week, the German offensive that has cleared the Carpathians and smothered Slavic resistance in Przemysl has picked up its momentum and as this is written is only thirty-seven miles from Lemberg, the keystone of Galicia.

Two important towns have fallen to the Austro-Germans-Stanislau, in southeastern Galicia, on the railway that connects the