HD UC-NRLF ./Y3/ 7Mb LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Gl FT OF Class municipal and Private Operation of Public Utilities RELATIVE TO THE LABOR REPORT OF THE NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION Commission on Public Ownership and Operation By J. W. SULLIVAN ONE OF THE TWO LABOR INVESTIGATORS 123 BIBLE HOUSE NEW YORK 1908 LETTER TO SAMUEL GOMPERS. To Samuel Gompers, President American Federation of Labor : Being accountable directly to you, since you mainly were re- sponsible for me, in the municipal ownership inquiry, I address- these pages first of all to you. You, as the .foremost trade-union official of the labor group in the National Civic Federation, presided at the conference at which I was made a member of the Committee of Twenty-One on Investigation and the Labor member of the Committee of Five on Plan and Scope. Whether or not you named me, you were doubt- less consulted before I was placed on these committees. Besides, the trials of comradeship had settled in you some confi- dence in me. On being informed that I had further been appointed one of the two investigators of labor conditions, you wrote me : "I felt that no man in my wide range of acquaintance was better fitted than you to undertake a thorough, dispassionate, and impartial in- vestigation and to report the results as you found them." When you thus wrote we had been associated in the labor movement half a lifetime. On many occasions you had shown that you placed reli-- ance on me in serious work. You yourself nominated me at a con- vention of the. American Federation of Labor so that I became one- of its two delegates in 1896 to the British Trade Union Congress at Edinburgh. Through you the Executive Council made me Gen- eral Lecturer on Initiative and Referendum in the years 1892-95. You have repeatedly commended my writings on labor subjects dur- ing the last twenty-five years, appointed me on leading committees at conventions and conferences, and have invited me to preside at important Labor or public meetings. Our relations have invariably been such that, whatever our differences as to policies, you have never ceased for a day to manifest your expectation that on under- taking a task I would end it with a report satisfactory at least in exhibiting fair endeavor. It must, then, have arrested your attention when you read in my colleague's review his strictures on the character of my work while I shared his duties. You could only have felt dissatisfied thereaf- ter in not finding anywhere in the voluminous reports of the Com- mission any reply whatever from me to this attack. According to my fellow-investigator I had in my review done what to him was "impossible." I had been "one-sided" ; I had given "selected facts" and not "all the facts" ; I had "picked out sentences here and there' r favorable to private ownership and "discredited the sentences" fa- vorable to municipal ownership; I had not taken the report as a whole, with the facts brought together in their true proportions, as he had done ; his contradictions of me would lead the reader to in- fer that I had not summarized all the facts ; I had perverted, misin- terpreted and vitiated facts ; I was, as it seemed, also to be argued against as being among "the defenders of utility corporations." And, in the course of a personal explanation made "with the greatest reluctance," my colleague would make a cipher of me in our work 174071 2 LETTER TO SAMUEL GOMPERS. by asserting that he wrote our "entire report as it stands, except New Haven and Philadelphia," on the basis of facts which, irrespec- tive of me, he had "personally investigated/ 7 Were these representations exact, Samuel Gompers might well be justified in calling on me to explain why in this important mis- sion I had failed to be thorough, dispassionate and impartial. He and the officials of international unions who witnessed with appro- val my appointment, and union men in general, have a right to expect me to disprove what my colleague, become my adversary, has thus alleged. I herewith give my reply. I would print it for my own peace of mind and as a public duty even if it were not actually called for by any one interested. I want to be clean in character in order to be useful. I will not permit a hostile hand to exclude me from the fields I have selected for social service. I intend to let those read- ers in whose minds my colleague has sown the seeds of distrust have their opportunity to judge as to which of us in our work for the Commission did his best to bring out the truth. But I am by no means inspired to write what I do in the fol- lowing chapters solely through a necessity for placing myself aright before those interested. In his review, Investigator Commons, in making statements concerning the private agencies of public ser- vice, has gone to unwarranted extremes. Not permitted by me in such cases to embody his partisan notions in our joint report, he was able to put them forth only when I was no longer on hand to check him. I recognize my obligation to the public to publish evi- dences of his errors in these respects at my earliest opportunity. And, further, the circumstances of his attack on me justify me in looking into assertions he made with my consent in our joint report on his own unverified inquiries. Wherein he there did injustice 1 make amends. What I say against Investigator Commons' methods in the fol- lowing chapters has been forced from me. Had not my team-mate, alone among all the pairs of the investigators, so far forgotten him- self in my absence as to proceed not only to personalities, but to an unbridled license of misstatement, I would have continued to pass by in silence much of what I must now relate. The publication of this rejoinder and the impairment of standing certain to result therefrom to John R. Commons are wholly the direct consequences of his own unwise and wrongful acts. Yours fraternally, J. W SULLIVAN". RELATIVE TO THE LABOR REPORT. DID INVESTIGATOR COMMONS WRITE "THE ENTIRE RE- PORT AS IT STANDS?" ETC. HIS COLLEAGUE'S SHARE IN THE BRITISH REPORT. I take up first Investigator Commons' partition of the author- ship of our joint report : "The entire report as it stands, except New Haven and Phil- adelphia," he says in his review, (page 91, Vol. I, and same page in this volume-), "was written by myself on the basis of facts which I personally investigated." To begin with our work together in Great Britain two chap- ters in Part II, vol. II, "Eeports of Experts United Kingdom/' pages 1 to 112 and 550 to 627) : When Investigator Commons arrived from New York by way of Queenstown at Dublin, June 1, 1906, with others of the Commit- tee of Twenty-One, I had been at work in Great Britain three months. He and I were thenceforth at our investigations in Brit- ain together nearly eight weeks. At the end of that time he had ten days to go back over our route alone, taking passage then for Amer- ica from Liverpool in the first week of August. I sailed by a dif- ferent steamship line from London at the same time. I had been in Great Britain five months, he two months. On his arrival referred to in Dublin I passed over to Investi- gator Commons literally half a trunkful of written and printed matter relating to our labor inquiry which I myself had gathered. The mass of it was made up of the filled-out labor schedules from most of the eighteen British undertakings under investigation and printed matter relating to them, such as annual reports for several years, pamphlets, circulars, newspaper clippings. Besides were manuals of cities to be visited, letters to me from managers, and books and documents of sundry sorts pertaining to our mission. The collection, where possible classified by undertakings, was most- ly arranged in large manila envelope pouches, properly labeled. While I had gathered some of it through correspondence from Lon- don, the larger part I had received from the hands of works man- agers, councillors and labor union officials of the cities on our list. As one of the two from the Committee of Five representing the Com- mission in Great Britain, I had in March and April visited the men in control of the undertakings in the Provinces and obtained their consent to have their plants and books examined. I thus visited as pioneer of the Commission Birmingham, Leicester, Sheffield, Man- chester, Liverpool, Newcastle, and Glasgow. In each of these cities, while awaiting appointments with managers or between my inter- views with them, I called untiringly, day and evening, on other men who might give me pertinent labor information. I had introductory letters everywhere to such men ; I had already a personal acquaint- ance with many union secretaries and other labor representatives, having spent three weeks at Congress time at Edinburgh and trav- 4 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. eJed another four weeks among unionists in Britain in 1896. Thus, no stranger, I obtained satisfactory interviews. In London, previous to going to Dublin, I saw the President of the Dublin Tramways Company, the manager of the Norwich company and officials of every one of the London undertakings we were to visit. Hence, on meeting me in Dublin, Investigator Commons found a good part and the hardest part of his work and mine as labor investigators in the field done for every one of the undertakings. Not the least helpful was that I had ascertained in many cases which labor men that we were to meet were able, and which not, to impart to us knowledge from their experience. In our travels onward on our itinerary from Dublin Investigator Commons had therefore usually but to follow my lead. Pressed for time as we were, I knew the whereabouts of men and the way about the cities. Not being de- tained in making groundwork inquiries, which were answered in the data I had collected, we were enabled to proceed at once to ad- vanced queries. Councillors, managers and others interested, pre- viously invited through Dr. Maltbie and myself, met the Twenty- One in the various cities, and in not a few instances I had ascer- tained which among them could answer queries as to labor. In Lon- don my assistance to Investigator Commons became even greater, as, besides knowing the city itself through previous visits, I had since my arrival there in the first week in March sp^nt all the time possible with London County Councillors, Labor and other Eadical Members of Parliament, editors, and men prominent in gas. tram- way, and electricity undertakings. My colleague had never crossed the ocean before. Comparing notes, separating the chaff from the grain, to some extent summarizing, "checking up" on points as to which one of us might have more information than the other, blocking out the plan for our report this part of our labors immediately preceded our separation in London. For this purpose Investigator Commons and I met daily for two weeks, mostly at the First Avenue Hotel, Holborn, where the entire corps of experts were going over their work. Investigator Commons had proposed that on his return to his home in Madison, Wis., in August, he should write out the first continuous draft of our joint labor report for Britain. Consequent- ly, at our meetings at the hotel, while deciding on points to be in- corporated, a considerable part of our work was taken up in the discussion, and frequently adoption, of the results of my own ob- servations. I had, and still have, a pile of notebooks containing hundreds of pages of pencil notes entered from day to day in the course of my work. My colleague, pen in hand, as we talked, fre- quently took down my words or phrases, which now appear in our joint report. In these discussions I gave him reasons for correcting not a few of his impressions. I especially directed his attention to the modification among its intelligent labor supporters in Britain of demands for further municipal ownership, to the absence of forms of co-operation, or profit-sharing, in municipal undertakings, to the lack of identity between the various organizations of municipal em- ployees with true trade unionism, and to the fact that skilled work- men get from municipal employers only the trade union enforced scale, while the wages of the unskilled, who are mostly men of one grade, offer no true basis of comparison with the range of wages WHO WROTE THE BRITISH REPORT? 5 paid by companies to men of many grades. To a greater or less extent these ideas went into the joint report. Good reasons existed why one of us only should baste together a draft of the report in its complete verbal dress. We could not each have my collection of documents at once, now supplemented by further collections from us both. It would have proved an unnec- essary cost and a silly proceeding for each of us, with a prospect of differences as to facts to be sufficiently indicated in paragraphs, to duplicate a general paraphrasing of reports and quotation of tables and official circulars that made chapters. As to mere form and ar- rangement. Investigator Commons had an interest not affecting me. The investigation was to me an episode ; to him it was in line with his vocation and livelihood. He had a career as investigator to watch over. Conventionalities of college or government report makers, trifling to me, might look large to him. The probabilities of agreement in our reading of the facts increased with him as the recorder, since considering the developments I could afford lib- eral concessions. Besides, he told me he intended making up the manuscript during his summer holida} r s, the fructification being to him an extra ten dollars per diem. When I reached Madison, Oct. 1, to work with him on the re- port, Investigator Commons, his vacation over, had much of our British matter in manuscript. Students of the university were at work on the wage tables for the construction of which we had planned some uniformity. At Madison and later in New York, I read the worked over typewritten copies of the manuscript as the parts were turned out. My letters from my colleague at this time speak of my doing this work. When in type, the proof sheets were read by me. In these processes I changed words and sentences, added here and omitted there. The British report was thus our joint production, at every stage, even to its writing. 1 know of no whole set of facts in this part of the report that my colleague independently investigated. He had but one advan- tage of men in our work in Great Britain the freemasonry of the Socialists and perfervid municipalists. From these sources the two being much the same he drew a batch of stories the refutation of which I print herewith in subsequent chapters. He never ad-' vanced the British labor investigation by a considerable degree on any capital point except "Suffrage," the documentary foundation for which, however, he obtained in part from my trunk. I could sit with a jury and point out, page by page, throughout, what in the report is from my notes, the printed matter I collected, the schedules from managers or the interviews at which both of us were present. The interweavings of the product of our teamwork could be traced by the contents of my notebooks or documents with my marks of possession on them, or by pieces of work done by others under my direction. For example : The matter in small type, pages 9 and 10, Investigator Commons intended printing as our own until I wrote its introduction and gave it the form of quotation. The work of the Citizens' Union, described pages 14-16, was brought to his attention by me and another member of the Twenty-One, and its secretary, at our invitation, met our committee as a body. The Glasgow Council session, described pages 21-22, was attended by me when I Vi'as in Glasgow alone, and the notes of the speeches on the 6 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. occasion printed in small type are mine. The labored attempt to offset charges of favoritism in appointments made at that session, down to page 27, was drawn out by notes taken by me while the heated Councillors wrangled. The quotations relative to Glasgow employees, pages 28-30, came largely from printed reports first given to me personally. The interview with a Leicester Councillor re- ferred to on page 33 was mine. The matter descriptive of the Mu- nicipal Employees' Association, pages 36-38, I had obtained from its secretary in London in March and its Scottish District Organizer in Glasgow in April, with both of whom I had several interviews. Tn the compilations on pages 42-80 are points from my notebooks, re- ports, etc., as well as from my colleague's. More largely Investiga- tor Commons' than any other part of our joint report is the chapter "Profit-sharing or Copartnership/' pages 82-102, and in another chapter I deal with it as an example of his deliberate bias. The re- plies to the schedule questions, pages 550 to 627, were compiled by students at Madison almost wholly from schedule books filled out by me or through me at the works investigated. At this point I invite the reader to pause and re-read Investi- gator Commons' averment that our joint report and investigation, except New Haven and Philadelphia, were his personally. That done, I ask : What was the reader's impression when he first read that assertion? And what is it now? If his impression as to my share in the British work remains unchanged, Investigator Com- mons made thereanent a truthful statement. DID INVESTIGATOR COMMONS WRITE "THE ENTIRE REPORT AS IT STANDS?" HIS COLLEAGUE'S SHARE IN THE AMERICAN REPORT. We come now to the joint labor report on the American under- takings (four chapters in Part II, vol. I, "Reports of Experts United States," pages 136-158, "Waterworks"; 490-536, "Gas- works"; 749-758, "Electricity Supply"; 885-897, "Answers to Schedules"). The question as to the authorship of this division of our re- port does not turn on the various meanings of the words "written" in Investigator Commons' sentence, "The entire report as it stands except Xew Haven and Philadelphia was written by myself," etc. A rudimentary conscience might be satisfied by looking at his word "written" as signifying, in reference to the British report, spelling off the words on paper; and if the reader should happen to inter- pret the word as meaning authorship in all its drudgery of thought and expression, the fault might be found in the defects of our am- biguous vernacular. But no sophisms as to the faceted uses of words can pass as applied to the American report. I wrote, of our joint American chapters on labor, as printed, twenty-two of the forty-nine pages of the text, apart from Xew Haven and Philadelphia, and I assisted in the compilation of the tabular matter and small type quotations. To particularize : I wrote, except a few lines in each, the whole of the sub-chapters on Indianapolis, Atlanta and Richmond, and considerable passages in those on Chicago, South Norwalk and Allegheny, and somewhat of those on Cleveland and Wheeling. For proof, 1 hold in my pos- WHO WROTE THE AMERICAN REPORT? 7 session my original manuscript, which I saw to it was returned to me by the typewriter in Madison, and which compares with the parts I mention word for word, except eliminations made in the typewritten copy by Investigator Commons. The answers to sched- ules I wrote entirely, except a line here and there relating to Rich- mond. In much of the matter not thus included as mine appear sentences or parts of paragraphs just as they were written by me before Investigator Commons worked over portions of my draft to inject in it his own personal investigations of political conditions cutside the purview of our schedules after I had quit the field. Six weeks after my return in August from London, having alone meantime visited South Norwalk, Syracuse, Allegheny, Wheeling, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, and Chicago, I went to Madison, Wis., where Investigator Commons had been detained at the university, and during my stay there of more than three weeks I wrote 150 large pages (at least 15,000 words) as a first draft for our American report, from which we might select what should be approved by both. To Investigator Commons I gave a typewritten copy of this matter, which he has come to speak of as of his own composition. The final editorial reading of the American report was mine, as may be seen by my marks on -the proof sheets, which I have. The reader has here before him a case of point blank assertion and counter-assertion as to fathership of the joint labor report which needs no sword of Solomon to settle. No one need re-read often or ponder long my contradiction on this point to weigh whether or not I have convicted Investigator Commons of down- right falsehood. And there was much of his work for the Commission in which his moral dereliction was just as flagrant and shameless. Of this further charge, I produce the proofs in coming pages. "THE ABSENT ARE IN THE WRONG." How is it that I have not hitherto come forward to contradict the amazing misstatements of Investigator Commons? Why did I not confront him at the meeting of the Twenty-One on June 10 r 1907? On April 3, 1907, I sailed from New York for Europe, to 1)6 gone a ye-ir, or perhaps two years. I remained abroad thirteen months. By a series of events beyond my control I was kept in ignorance of the fact that my colleague Commons had turned upon me until long after the Twenty-One had had their meeting and all the reports had been made public. To set out giving a detailed and convincing correction of Investigator Commons' deviations from the plain facts was not possible until my recent return, my papers relating to our work in common being in New York. When I left for Europe it was with' the feeling that all was well with my Civic Federation duties. They were over and I wa& relieved. The Manager had expressed, verbally and in writing, only satisfaction at my course. The Chairman of the Five, my colleagues of that committee, and the Chairman of the Twenty-One with alt these gentlemen I was on excellent terms. My sole regret was that I could not continue waiting indefinitely, as I had during months waited, for the final meeting of the Twenty-One, when the general report was to be adopted. 8 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. I had the week before sent Investigator Commons the man- uscript of my own review of our joint report. I was not sensible of giving him just cause for offense in anything I had therein writ- ten. He had been made aware of our special differences in views, -cither as they had been developed during our investigations or while we were discussing them afterward. I had so frequently respected his wishes in minor matters, such as phraseology or arrangement, in our report that I took it for granted he would continue to proffer freely any suggestions tending to end our work in harmony, if not in unity. A remonstrance as to the paragraph on his practical pol- iticians would have received my earnest attention. So I went away looking forward to having his comments on my review in a few weeks. And a copy of his own review of our joint report, I felt certain, would soon follow. In truth, as to this last-named expectation, no doubt ever en- tered my mind. Sundry of Investigator Commons' doings had more or less at times disturbed my confidence in him. But every man of all the pairs of investigators in our corps, both Americans and British, had assented to an agreement not to publish anything, nor even to submit anything to the Twenty-One, until his colleague had read what he had written and the two had tried to come to- gether in case of difference. The good features of this pact were re- ferred to daily among the investigators while working at the Lon- don hotel. By discussing each other's writings a single joint report in each case might be arrived at, crudities might be cleared a\vay, errors corrected, omissions prevented. And in case of divergent re- ports language offensive to either side could be avoided. I had seen our experts at work striving for the happy term clothing the idea of each; I had read lists of corrections one had made out for an- other; I was witness to a consequent emulation in carrying out our good resolve. This manly endeavor for concord and exact truth was to help lift the reports to a high plane. To the very finishing touch of his task even- one concerned observed his contract with his colleague except Investigator Commons. I never received word from him after I sailed from Xew York, except that on May 13 Dr. Maltbie wrote me : Investigator Commons "says that he will send you a carbon copy immediately after it is finished." He has now "known for nearly a year that I hold him as a violator of his word, iind he has given no explanation. The first copy I saw of Investigator Commons' attack on me reached me September 1. The Committee of Twenty-One had met ^nd adopted its report June 10. Proof copies of the various reports had previously been mailed to the members of the Twenty-One from Dr. Maltbie's office by a secretary or an assistant. I received all of them, through my permanent European address, except Investiga- tor Commons' review. This may have been sent, by mistake in the editor's office, to the Clothing Trades Bulletin, to be mingled with its hundreds of exchanges, sometimes opened regardless of the ad- dress, or by accident it may never have been mailed me at all. A New York friend sent me in July a newspaper clipping, in which occurred the "personal explanation" directed against me '"with the greatest' reluctance" by Investigator Commons. I was as- tounded when I read it. I at once sent the Civic Federation Mana- ger a statement as to the points raised, which later I withdrew while THE FATE OF THE ABSENT. 9 awaiting a complete copy of Investigator Commons' article or news of his elimination of the personalities directed against me. I wrote a request that a letter be inserted somewhere in the forthcoming volumes of the reports, saying that I promised yet to reply. When this request reached the editor the forms containing the labor re- views had been printed. Thus, circumstances beyond me, one with another, contributed iu giving my one-time colleague a free field in which to parade his virtues as investigator, while I was far away, uninformed. Had I received Investigator Commons' review in time I would have re-crossed the ocean to expose him before the Twenty-One and the public. But, what is more to the point now, I should also without ques- tion have been obliged to withdraw my signature from whatever passages of our joint report were entirely of his authorship. Having violated his contract to put me before any one else in possession of his review, as I had put him in possession of mine, he could no longer expect me to accept any of his statements not verified by my- self. My signature being thus contingent on his acting in good faith, my right to withdraw it was vested in me up to the moment that, all observances of our agreement being respected and both parties satisfied, our joint report and separate reviews should go to the pub- lic. And now that he broke that agreement in my absence it would be an imbecility to assume that it is still binding on me. I have therefore within the last few months gone to his origi- nal sources and to employ one of the phrases of his professional patter "checked up" some of his grosser misrepresentations, not only in his review, but in those parts of the joint report in which I had accepted his word as fact, and I now give the truth regarding them as I proceed. HOW INVESTIGATOR COMMONS DELIBERATELY FALSL FIED VITAL FACTS. Investigator Commons, in his review, makes statements respect- ing crucial points that are in direct variance with the truth as he in some cases ascertained it, or in other cases could have ascertained it by going to the proper sources. Following are striking instances : I. Page 90, speaking of Glasgow: "In the midst of this socialistic tide, two anti-municipal ownership associations were organized the Citizens' Union and The Bate-Payers' Federation. They started an active agitation, and, along with other influences, the tide of mu- nicipalization has been checked or stopped. We were led to believe that from these two associations we could secure information that would correct the universal indorsement of municipal ownership found elsewhere in Glasgow, but were surprised to find that both associations indorsed all that had been done in municipalizing tram- ways, electricity, gas, and water. They onh* opposed the municipal- ization of other undertakings competitive in character. No more conclusive indorsement of the success of municipal ownership in Glasgow could have been brought to our attention," etc. This tardy "indorsement,"' sure to come from converted an- tagonists, has long been an alluring idea with Municipalists and Socialists. Despite itself the opposition is to be won over every- 10 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. where by the brilliancy of the communistic successes achieved. In- vestigator Commons wished to make this point for Glasgow in our joint report, but I asked him to produce his evidence. He spoke of the notes of the stenographer at the meeting between the Glasgow anti-municipal representatives and our Commission, as well as of the minutes of the Twenty-One's secretary, but he never produced his desired testimony. Next he introduced this "indorsement" in an instalment of a proposed joint summary, as he termed it, which he sent to me in New York from M'adison. I marked out the word "indorsed" in the places it occurred and substituted "acquiesced." He dissented. On several such differences we gave up the project of a joint review. Not one member of the Glasgow Citizens' Union or Rate-Payers' Federation "indorsed" to us the municipalization of the city's gas, electricity or tramways. Secretary Robert Bird, as the spokesman, and other members of the Citizens' Union and the Federation, met members of our Commission at the Central Hotel in Glasgow, June 4. My own notes are the fullest that exist regard- ing this meeting. In explaining the purpose of the two organiza- tions, Secretary Bird dwelt on their opposition, in theory and prac- tice, to the municipal telephone, now defunct, to the unnecessary municipal housing scheme that had cost 750,000, while private capital could have done better work at a lower social cost, to mis- applications of the Common Good fund, and to the numerous muni- cipal ventures fostered by Socialists and municipal communists. When asked as to gas, tramways and electricity, Secretary Bird said his two organizations were not actually opposing them, but accept- ing them as they stood, were opposing extensions "on their fringe" that entered upon legitimate competitive fields. The gas undertak- ing should not deal in gas stoves and gasoliers, the electricity depart- ment in fittings and the like. When the tramways department set out in 1903 to make extensions in the surrounding country districts the Rate-Payers' Federation compelled it to give service first to sections of the city "that were crying for it," and the same body of citizens endeavored to prevent the cost of street alterations or re- pairs made plainly for the benefit of the tramways from being charged to the city treasury in general. Such statements as these were construed by Investigator Commons as his sought-for con- clusive "indorsement" of the municipal operation of the three utili- ties in question. But if he had pursued the subject further, as did others of the Commission at the time, he would have seen clearly that the Citizens' Union was fighting the whole municipalization programme. I interviewed last April on this subject Mr. Arthur Kay, who, as all Glasgow knows, is the leader in both the Citizens' Union and the Rate-Payers' Federation. He said : "Mr. Commons' statement as to this indorsement of ours is totally incorrect. We merely ac- cept these existing municipal undertakings he mentions as 'fails accomplish As you put it, we acquiesce in what is not a live issue, just as we live under imperial laws of a century's standing which just at present are beyond correction in practical life. The mem- bers of our two organizations believe our tramways would be more justly as regards other traffic and better administered by a com- panv holding a license from the Corporation than by the Corpora- tion itself; and if the Electric Light and Power undertaking had CRUCIAL FACTS. 11 been worked with the Electric Tramway undertaking, both under license from the Corporation [municipality] experts agree that the result would have been more efficiency and less cost. The cleanli- ness and efficiency of our tramway system in Glasgow do not seem to me in any way to excel those of the privately owned tubes in London." At a meeting of tramway committeemen of the Glasgow City Council and the tramway manager with our Commission, June 5 r Bailie Alexander, chairman of the committee, said: "The Town Council is now agreed that the electricity for both departments should have been operated under one authority. There ought to have been one central control." The municipalization movement was not "universally in- dorsed" in Glasgow even by the radical parties. John Paul, rep- resenting the League for the Taxation of Land Values, a strong and active organization, said to me in an interview, the notes of which I gave to Investigator Commons: "All done, what's done? There's as much poverty in Glasgow as ever. The Social Democrat- ic Federation, at a meeting here ten years ago, upheld our munici- palization. But now it calls the movement municipal capitalism." A member of the League, for a decade a city councillor, told me he withdrew his support of municipalization, as its results were not socially good. Among other points he made was that the 15,000 city employees of Glasgow, working for their own ends, constituted a menace to good government on broad lines. In this instance Investigator Commons, contradicting me, pub- lished to American readers as truth the very reverse of the truth. II. It seemed to myself and several other members of the Com- mission that the rise in Great Britain of the Municipal Emplo}'ees' Association, as well as other unions made up of municipal employees, was significant as a growing public danger in connection with the development of municipal operation. As I have said, on his arri- val I had ready for Investigator Commons the data relative to this "spurious union," much of which he used in our joint report. He paid full attention to this aspect of municipalism, and was anx- iously interested in the action of the Trade Union Congress of 1906, which passed a resolution threatening to exclude organizations made up of municipal employees in mingled occupations from the sup- port of the trade unions. In his review (pages 98-99), he sketches the progress of the association, and after mentioning this action of the union congress, says: "Without the support of the regular unions the strength of the Municipal Employees' Association has disappeared. It was a temporary phase of the rapid increase of municipal ownership." In April, 1908, I showed this paragraph to Richard Davies, the present general secretary of the Association, in its new central of- fices in London. He said, as to the disappearance of his organiza- tion's strength: "This is far from an accurate statement. We have never lost a single member by this action in the trade union con- gress. We have now 15,000 members against 13,000 two years ag\ Here are our reports for 1907, in comparison with those for 1906, which show an improvement in our finances. As all the organized 12 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. workingmen of this country know, we have had serious internal troubles, resulting in ousting the former General Secretary, who has since started another organization among municipal employees. Nev- ertheless, our present reports, which are revised by chartered ac- countants and are therefore correct, show that our income for 1907 was more than 850 in excess of expenditures, which is better than the year before. We do not interfere with the unions of skilled tradesmen, but urge workmen of the trades employed by munici- palities to go into the unions of their trades. Hence, really a con- siderable membership of such unions, and in places almost whole organizations, while not connected with the Municipal Employees* Associations, are municipal employees organized to promote our principle of benefiting themselves through their votes. For exam- ple, Mr. Commons, in mentioning (pages 41 and 49) other unions made up mainly of municipal employees, says that six-sevenths of the members of the Tramway and Vehicle Workers' Union in the Kingdom are in municipal employment. Thus the municipal em- ployees in all other forms of organization are numerically stronger than is the Municipal Employees' Association itself. We are get- ting men in the tramways departments not reached by the Tram- way and Vehicle Workers. Here is the financial statement for March, 1908, of one of our tramway branches in Manchester, which lias 430 members, and we have four branches in Salford-Manches- ter. Of the laborers in municipal employment, nine out of ten belong to no trade sewermen, scavengers, street sweepers. The unskilled trade unions have never got these men, and we are get- ting them. The joint board of unions and the Labor Party have given members of the Municipal Employees' Association until May 1, 1910, to assimilate in national unions represented in the Trade Union Congress. Changes which we have made in our rules for organization may set aside the present apparent differences be- tween us and the unions, which meantime have not attacked us. The fact is, the unskilled municipal employees will not organize in the outside unskilled unions, such as the gas workers and dockers, who, with several other national unskilled workers, have added to their titles "and General Laborers' Union," and are open to all non-tradesmen. I look for a federation of government workmen and municipal employees. Commissioner Commons failed to under- stand the situation as it is regarding our organization and made an unfounded statement as to the disappearance of our strength. We have as much influence now on the election of Councilmen as we ever had, and it is growing. We contribute money to the elec- tion of Councillors favorable to us." I asked in 1906 many observers of public movements in Great Britain about the Municipal Employees' Association. The usual reply was that its possibilities had not yet been demonstrated; no man had yet come to the front in the organization who had shown the capacity necessary for a national leader. Secretary Davies, who has had experience as a Leicester Town Councillor, now gives promise of being the man for the occasion. On this question again Investigator Commons wrote as a fact what he wanted to be a fact but was demonstrably contrary to the fact. That municipal employees, whether teachers or tramway men, policemen or public building janitors, clerks or laborers, will enter THE MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES. 13 into alliances for their own purposes, so far from being a "tempo- rary phase" of increasing municipalization, may be reckoned on as a fact as well settled as office seeking. The only move made by the Trades Union Congress against the Municipal Employees' Asso- ciation was passing an indefinite resolution, never acted on, except in the way of negotiations, which are pending until May 1, 1910. III. In his review (page 102) Investigator Commons alleges that in Newcastle, one of the places visited by our Commission, where private companies operate some of the public utilities, the Munici- pal Council is "decidedly inferior in quality and ability to others." His judgment of the Council of Sheffield, where the gas is supplied by a company, is equally characterized by antipathy. The reckless- ness of such opinions may be inferred from the fact that Investiga- tor Commons spent, all told, less than one week in these two citieb together. Of Newcastle he says : "An equivocal class of labor agi- tators takes advantage of the situation to get elected to the Coun- cil." Of Sheffield he has this: "In that town there is a peculiar inducement for the eminent business men in charge of the gas com- pany to look with approval on the election of inferior Councillors, because the Council elects three of its members as directors of the company. The strength of the company is seen in the incompetency of these municipal directors, who are kept in ignorance of essen- tial details of its affairs. With Councillors of this inferior type, and with the indifference of business men to the management of municipal affairs, the result is seen in the absence of any protest against practices which are undermining the municipal undertak- ings." I showed the foregoing passage to two members of the Parlia- mentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress (corresponding to the Executive Council, American Federation of Labor). One of them, a member of the Newcastle Council, could hardly be ex- pected to give a reply, though he is one of the most popular and highly respected Labor members of Parliament. The other, C. W. Bowerman, M. P., whose duties on the Parliamentary Committee, in Parliament and the London County Council, and for many years as Secretary of the Typographical Union, have brought him in constant contact with the office-holding and other union officials of Great Britain, said : "I have never heard one word against the Labor members of the Newcastle and Sheffield Councils." He men- tioned several of his acquaintances among them. "Such inferior Councillors as are referred to by Commissioner Commons would be known to all of us," he continued. "They are not known, be- cause there are not any. I consider that an unfair report." I men- tioned Alderman Uttley, the only Sheffield Labor Councillor a gas director. Mr. Bowerman said : "He is one of the responsible men in the Hearts of Oak, a great popular national insurance associa- tion, and as a citizen has an unimpeachable standing." Hanbury Thomas, Managing Director of the Sheffield Com- pany, said : "That portion of Professor Commons' article which referred to this company was not submitted to myself or an official of the company for correction, and I may say that I have read with sur- 14 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. prise and amusement the rather remarkable deductions he has ar- rived at from information given by this company to the Commis- sioners. "The idea that the Gas Company, who are the largest rate- payers in Sheffield, should look with favor on the election of in- ferior Councillors is absolutely ridiculous. If the Professor were a business man he would know that business men of high capacity are far more easy to get on with on a Board than men of small ex- perience. "I am pleased to say that the City Council has always paid this company the compliment of sending good men to represent them on our Board. For many years Alderman Gainsford a Col- liery proprietor, and Chairman of the Derwent Valley Water Board, which is a huge scheme for supplying water to Sheffield, Leicester, Derby and one or two other towns was a Nominee Di- rector, and only recently resigned because his multifarious duties prevented his having the time to give that amount of attention to the Gas Company's business that he desired to. Alderman Batty Langley is a timber merchant in a large way of business, and is a Member of Parliament for the Attercliffe Division of Sheffield. Al- derman Stuart Uttley is a Trade Secretary, and I may say one of the most respected men of his class, a man of sound common sense, and certainly not a Socialist. He was for some years Chairman of the Highway Committee. It is certainly news to me that he has had more to do than any other Director in fixing the hours of labor and the rates of wages paid to the employees of the company. It has always been our custom to pay good wages, recognizing that there- by we insured good service, which has all helped to bring the com- pany into its present prosperous condition. "With regard to the City Council generally, I am sure it will compare favorably with that of any other city in the United King- dom. We have men in it of very high capacity, who are leading members in their various businesses and professions, and Sheffield is generally regarded throughout the country as a go-ahead town. "With respect to the Gas Company, I am pleased to say that its management stands high in the opinion of the City Council, and also of the whole of the inhabitants, who recognize that the company as been carried on as much for the benefit of the consum- ers as for the shareholders. The exceptionally low price at which gas is now sold, viz., Is. 4d. down to Is. per 1,000 cubic feet, is am- ple proof of this. Our Chairman, Sir Frederick Mappin, has for many years been looked upon as the foremost of Sheffield's citizens. He has been Mayor, Master Cutler, Member of Parliament for one of the Divisions", and Chairman of the Technical Department of the University (in fact, he was the making of this Department), and has occupied every position of honor it was possible for the town to place him in. Sheffield is his native place, and it has never possessed a son who has been more disinterestedly devoted to its welfare. "I think these facts are sufficient in themselves to refute the statement that there have been any practices on the part of the com- pany calculated to undermine municipal undertakings. "The Professor's other comments are equally unfortunate, and were I to go through them in detail I should find myself obliged to contradict most of the conclusions he has drawn/' DEFICIENCIES. 15 IV. Investigator Commons' statements against the Newcastle- upon-Tyne Gas Company brought out these comments from W. Doig Gibb, its Chief Engineer: "The sentence (page 102), 'The presence of private gas, electricity and water companies, with their representatives in the Council, prevents the leading business men from interesting them- selves in the success of the municipal government, while an equivo- cal class of labor agitators takes advantage of the situation to get elected on the Council' is absolute nonsense. I have never heard such an opinion expressed by any one in Newcastle. "It is next to impossible to have Councillors of any standing without a few of them being interested in the local semi-public enterprises, such as the gas company here is. But when any busi- ness connected with their company is being discussed in the Coun- cil Chamber the interested members very seldom take any part, and then only by way of explanation. Indeed, the Secretary and myself think that the gas company is probably handicapped by having two of their directors on the Council, inasmuch as they are both sensible men, and if not interested would vote for common sense proposals. As it is, they neither influence the Council nor vote. "The gas company at Newcastle does not pay its organized common labor the same minimum as the municipality (page 107). One or two isolated cases may have been taken to prove this, but the general practice is undoubtedly that the gas company pays from two to four shillings per man per week more. " 'The presence of a strong labor organization' (page 110) has nothing whatever to do with stokers working five hours for eight hours' pay. As a matter of fact, the stokers work as follows : Each eight-hour shift is divided into four periods ('charges'), each con- sisting of three-quarters of an hour work and one hour and a quar- ter rest. Thus in eight hours three hours is actually working time, and at the end of the fourth period of two hours the men are not kept to take their rest of an hour and a quarter, but can go home. The eight hours nominal shift, therefore, consists of three hours'* work and six and three-quarters hours in all at the works. The men are paid by 'charges' and not by hours. No stoker could work continually for eight hours, and the Newcastle custom is the or- dinary one throughout all gas works, whether union shops or other- wise. "After inquiries I am unable to find that Professor Commons submitted any manuscript or proof to any official of this company for correction. It is difficult to check his figures, but I am not in agreement with many of them." Investigator Commons' bold travesty of scientific observation in these instances brings him to print rash, foolish and evidently forejudged conclusions as facts he had ascertained and presumably verified. MAKING OUT A CASE AGAINST A COMPANY, NO MAT- TER WHAT THE FACTS. Investigator Commons was the sole writer of the sub-chapter, "Profit Sharing or Copartnership (pages 82-88, "Eeports of Ex- perts United Kingdom"), and he is the authority for references 10 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. elsewhere in the joint report to the South Metropolitan Gas Com- pany, London. My permission to him to proceed without me in this and several other cases of private undertakings came about chiefly through his baseless assumption, largely by insinuation, that somehow I was expected to defend the acts, questionable or other- wise, of the companies under investigation. To this point I shall refer hereafter, but enough to say here that when Investigator Commons on one occasion in London alluded to this idea I told him to go ahead and give all the evidence he had found of oppres- sions of labor by the British companies and I would accept what- ever he wrote. I added that of course he would set down such facts on honor and when published they would have to stand the criticism of interested readers. I was busy at the time with the management of the Commission's work, so I allowed him free rein in gathering material against the British companies. He was an adept in presenting such matter with a judicial pose ; besides, as in social standing he was a university professor and therefore pre- sumptively an American gentleman, why not trust him? In re- flecting on my turning over this work to Investigator Commons I have at times questioned myself as to whether there ought not to have been with us a third labor investigator a representative of the employers, to guard over their rights and interests at each step in the inquiry. To this my reply at this stage is, first, that I hoped for a fair degree of foresight from Investigator Commons in his unrestricted procedures, that he might not be tripped up after- wards, and, secondly, that I knew if he proved notably unfaithful I must give publicity to his shortcomings. That is what I am obliged to do now. Before Investigator Commons reached London I had inter- viewed Will Thome, Secretary of the Gas Makers' National Union, and Pete Curran, their organizer, getting from them their version of the South Metropolitan strike of 1889 and the development since of that company's labor copartnership. I had also hadi com- munication with the company's officials and given them our book of labor questions Schedule II. At our Commission's London office, engaged in occasional employment in transcribing and con- densing legal and other reports, was a Mr. S. D. Shallard, a Fabian editor and lecturer, and from him I heard the Socialist history of the labor developments at the South Metropolitan Works. In turn afterward Investigator Commons saw all these same men, of both sides. He let me know, from time to time, that he was heaping up facts, important ones, in the South Metropolitan case, greatly to the company's discredit. When, in October following, at Madison, he gave me his instalment of the report on this subject it seemed to me easily possible to get up what he had written, aside from the points given us in the company's replies and publications, by sim- ply quoting the union Socialists Thorne and Curran and the vis- ionary Shallard. He had managed to get from outsiders some- where allegations of facts or interpretations of passages in the com- pany's reports, to show that its benefit and profit-sharing schemes were methods by which the employees were overworked and in im- portant respects tricked out of the benefits and compensations due them by la\r. This latter point, insisted on by him as demonstrable bv his statistics, modified greatly my own favorable estimate of the THE SOUTH METROPOLITAN COMPANY. IT company's co-operative features. But he had not shown his matter to the company for its version of possibly inaccurate or controvert- ible statements. This I myself have done recently April, 1908- The officials of the company had already "checked up" Investigator Commons' errors on capital points. Following are examples : Page 84, "Reports of Experts United Kingdom" ; "In 1881> the compam 7 , in accepting the eight-hour s} r stem, had to meet a greatly increased cost of labor. The change from twelve hours to* eight, at the same rates of pay per day, meant an increase of 50 per cent, in the cost of labor in the retort house. In order to over- come this handicap the management endeavored in many ways to increase the amount of work, such as making the scoops larger, de- tailing men to keep them in repair and to see that they were kept full, and shortening the periods of rest," etc. To this the reply of the company is that "it was quite the other way. The men, instead of having more work put upon them, were constantly refusing to- do work that they had theretofore done." Scoops were not made larger; men had always been detailed to dress scoops even before profit-sharing was started. Machinery was introduced which les- sened the manual labor. Conditions as to periods of rest, etc., are the same now as in the non-profit-sharing companies. But no other company gives, as does the South Metropolitan, the many benefits of profit-sharing, plus those of its various forms of benev- olent associations, plus aftei ten months' services a week's holiday with pay to every man and boy, and after three years' services the same holiday with two weeks' pay. Instead of a growing oppres- sion of the company's laborers there has been constant ameliora- tion in their condition. The holidays were in vogue before the strike, also the superannuation and sick benefits. The benefits of the sick fund are now 12 shillings per week for thirteen weeks, (> shillings for another thirteen weeks, contribution of workmen 3d. per week; superannuation 3d. per week 10 shillings per week at the age of 65 years and 25 years' service. Additions to pay since the strike have been, first, hours per week reduced from 60 to 54 with an increase of i/^d. per hour; secondly, a few years ago an addi- tional quarter of an hour for breakfast, with no decrease of pay; the men are paid for 54 hours and only work 52% hours ; and third- ly, last year an additional %d. per hour, given to a large portion of the men. There is no need for any man to lose any time during the year unless he chooses. Christmas Day and Good Friday are paid for to the whole force. The employees pay but Is. 8d. for their gas to the public's 2s. 3d. per 1,000 feet. They get their coal and coke at cost, delivered by the company's vans. They have company garden allotments, free to all, at Old Kent Road, Greenwich, and East Greenwich. The average holding of company stock and sav- ings per man is now 60. The company makes all promotions from within its force. In the offices are thirty-six sons of workmen. When slot meters were introduced the 140 new collectors necessary were selected from the working force. The contributions of the company in 1907 were: To copartnership, workmen only, 38,663 (including officials, 45,590); workmen's accident fund, 1,264; workmen's superan- nuation fund, 4,428; \\crkmen's sick and burial fund, 1,615; cost of holidays given workmen (about), 16,000; to benevolent societies, hospitals, etc., 1,008. Through the company's building society its workmen have built or bought 230 houses. 18 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. Page 86, Investigator Commons : "The stock [of profit-sharing emplo3^ee] can be withdrawn or sold only when the employee leaves the service of the company. 7 ' Correction: "The members can withdraw their stock to buy a house, as many have done, or in any case of unforeseen unusual necessary expenditure not to be met by the weekly wage. The men who have drawn out to go to Amer- ica have each landed there with a round sum in his possession." Page 87, Investigator Commons : "The Copartnership Commit- tee is simply a means of registering the will of the company through its chairman, and the claim that it is a joint committee with equal representation is a fiction as well understood by the workmen as by its authors/ 7 (Investigator Commons originally ended this sentence with the words "is false 77 after "representa- tion 77 ; on my suggestion he adopted the roundabout phrase in- stead). Eeply by the company 7 s speakers: "The only foremen who are elected as company representatives are the head foremen at each station, who are in the position of officers, and as such would not be eligible for election by the workmen. There never has been any attempt at interference with the freedom of the men in select- ing and electing their representatives. Only very rarely have they elected a sub-foreman. All wage-earners, which includes many of the foremen, are eligible to serve if they possess the qualification. The sentence as to the 'fiction 7 is very unfair and quite incorrect. 77 The three workmen directors of the company united in saying: "The paragraph is a libel on the committee. We contradict every word of it. 77 Page 89, Investigator Commons: "The South Metropolitan scheme [of sick and death benefits] is the oldest, having been es- tablished for officers as early as 1842, and being extended to differ- ent classes of workmen at different times, 77 etc. It was the work- men^ sick and burial fund that was established in 1842 ; and their superannuation fund in 1855, while the latter for the officers was started in 1890. Same page As to the mutual benefit schemes: "Membership is nominally voluntary but actually compulsory. 77 Reply: "Practi- cally all the workmen contribute to the accident fund because tho benefits considerably exceed in the aggregate those obtainable un- der the Workmen 7 s Compensation Act, and they always get the compensation without difficulty or uncertainty, while the subscrip- tion by the workmen is nominal ; it used to be a half -penny a week, but it now ranges from Id. a month to Id. a quarter. The sub- scribers to the sick fund are fewer than to the accident fund, and still less to the superannuation fund. Thus it is seen that member- ship is really voluntary. 77 Page 90, Investigator Commons : "Engineers and heads of de- partments twice a year examine their lists of workmen and put on the fund all who are eligible. 77 Reply: "Workmen are simply no- tified that they can join if they like. It is a purely voluntary act, as the figures just given show. 77 Page 94, after referring to the intervention of the Registrar of Friendly Societies possible in case workmen send him a formal complaint that a benefit scheme is being violated or not fairly ad- ministered, Investigator Commons writes: "This provision is en- tirely worthless unless the workmen are protected from dismissal by THE SOUTH METROPOLITAN COMPANY. 19 a trade union or otherwise. Consequently the cases of inadequate compensation at the South Metropolitan Works, compared with what the act would require, do not provoke public complaint on the part of the workmen or investigation by the Registrar. The admin- istration of the fund is under charge of the Copartnership Com- mittee, which, as shown above, is a pretended joint committee of the company and workmen, but really a committee of the company." Eeply : "This is unfair and untrue. Further, no man has ever been dismissed from the company for his action regarding its benevolent or profit-sharing schemes/' Page 95, relative to legal compensation for injuries caused by "serious and wilful misconduct" of a member of a benefit scheme, Investigator Commons says: "In the South Metropolitan scheme the employer and not the court is the final judge." Eeply: "Not true. The twelve workmen jurymen are left absolutely alone to decide on and write their verdict. The jury do not hesitate to award blame to officer or workman if deserved." Same page, Investigator Commons: "In one case certified to before the departmental committee a man who cleaned machinery while it was in motion was debarred [from company benefits] be- cause he had wilfully done what he had instructions not to do." Eeply: "He could recover nevertheless his legal compensation." Pages 96 and 97, Investigator Commons: "Under the Work- men's Compensation Act, special protection is thrown about the medical examination" (of an injured employee) . . . "In the South Metropolitan scheme the only doctor provided when the claim is made is the company doctor, who also acts as surgeon to the sick fund." Then follows, as if a typical illustration, the de- tailed description of the case of a bricklayer, whose complaints against the company are still harped upon by its critics. He was on the funds for thirty-eight weeks and then complained that by law he should receive a higher grade of compensation. He did not get it and protested. Investigator Commons stands up for him as if protecting a group of the downtrodden. Eeply : "His fellow work- men began to regard this man as a malingerer as eight months passed by. He was examined not only by the company doctor, but by his club doctor and a doctor of his own choice. A few weeks after this protest he accepted the verdict of these doctors and the workmen's jury, and came back to work. He is working now for the company, the same as if he had never complained against its treatment. So far from being typical, this was the only disputed case ever up. Why cite it and overlook the many in which work- men have been dealt with liberally ? An instance : Laborer Dyball some years ago lost a leg and the heel of the other foot in an acci- dent at the works. Ity law he could not have got more than 300. Up to April, 1908, he had received more than 700 and was still receiving 1 per week." Page 97, Investigator Commons, as one of his counts against the company, cites that three of its twenty-three widow pensioners were paid less than the minimum stipulated in the rules. Eeply: "One of the three is a widow with no claim on the fund, as the fatal accident to her husband happened in 1895, three years before the fund was started. The other two are children, for whom ample provision was made." 20 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. Page 98, Investigator Commons : "Their [the employees'] con- tributions have paid all the extra benefits which the [South Met- ropolitan Company's] scheme provides and an additional amount of 380 as a contributon in aid of the company in paying the com- pensation for which under the [Workmen's Compensation] Act the company is responsible." Reply : "Instead of the employees paying 380 more in the eight years than the extra benefit received it was actually over 1,000 the other way, if the doctors' fees had been properly charged. The sick fund paid about 1,500 that should have been charged to the accident fund." Page 43, Investigator Commons: "The twelve-hour and two- shift system [instead of eight hours and three shifts] was restored in two stations by vote of the unorganized gas workers, on the ground that the increased amount of work was too much for eight hours." Investigator Commons fails to tell his readers that the twelve-hour shifts at one of the two stations, which together em- ploy about one-third the entire force, are worked in the winter only, when the three shifts of the summer force all find work with the change in demand. The fewer retorts in use in the summer give the hands work in the eight-hour shifts. On July 18, 1906, Sir George Livesey met the Commission at the company's offices, 709 Old Kent Road, Investigator Commons being present. I took full notes of Sir George's remarks and re- plies to questions, had them afterward typewritten, and gave Inves- tigator Commons a copy. He could therefore not plead that he was* not aware of these statements by Sir George regarding the twelve (really eleven) hour shifts: "There are three shifts at Old Kent Road and Vauxhall Works, and two at Greenwich. At Rotherhithe the men work two shifts of about 11 hours in winter and three of eight hours in summer. The two-shift man does about one-fifth more work than the three-shift man. He is paid in proportion to the amount of coal handled. The men at Rotherhithe say they would prefer two shifts throughout the year. The two shifts were started about six years ago." Page 110, Volume 1, in his review of the Labor Report ("La- bor and Politics"), Investigator Commons writes: "This twelve- hour system [at two of the South Metropolitan Company's stations], resulting from the smashing of the union and the overwork of the employees, is approved in some quarters as a 'genuine example of co-operation.' ' ; This sneer bears reference to what I had written in my review respecting labor conditions at the company's works (page 61) : "Its employees' stock in the company represents a larger sum than is similarly possessed by any equal number of laborers in England, and its provisions for sickness, death and old age are un- usual. Ninety-odd per cent, of the employees of these works save something. A Labor Liberal member of Parliament said of the Company to one of our committee : 'A gas worker can nowhere get a better job.' The Co-operative Union accepts the works as a genu- ine example of co-operation." Investigator Commons makes much of the strike of the gas workers in 1889 and joins with the embittered leaders of that strike and the Socialists in regarding the noteworthy results of the com- pany's labor copartnership methods as simply the outcome of union wrecking and labor sweating. He fails to give a true account any- where of the friendly attitude of the company toward trade union- THE SOUTH METROPOLITAN COMPANY. 21 ism or of the attitude of trade unions (other than that of the gas workers) toward the company. Nearly a decade ago, Sir George Livesey, the head of the gas company (Oct. 14, 1899), at a Labor Association conference at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, referred to the causes of the strike of 1889 and his attitude toward unions. After remarking that it was then twenty-five years since he suggested the sliding scale to identify the interests of gas shareholders and gas consumer, he said : "The relations of the South Metropolitan Gas Company with their work- men had always been of a friendly character until after the grant- ing of the eight-hour or three-shift system to the stokers in 1889. This had been offered to but not adopted by the men, both in 1887 and 1888; consequently, when the request was made, in the summer of 1889, on the instigation of the Gas Stokers' Union, it was grant- ed at once. All went well for a few weeks only ; the union had got all that it asked so easily that further demands some trifling, some serious were made and granted rather than risk a strike, which was imminent at any moment. In October, 1889, a suggestion was made, at the Board, that it would be better to make friends of the men than to fight them. The Directors agreed, and the same afternoon the outline of the profit-sharing scheme was explained to ten or twelve leading workmen. They all approved, but those who were members of the Gas Workers' Union said they must consult the delegates before committing themselves to its acceptance. The union refused its sanction, demanding that the profit-sharing money should be given in wages, thus excluding all the stokers about two-thirds of the company's workmen. At the time it was felt this put an end to the matter; but the yard men and mechan- ics let it be known that they did not see why they should be deprived of a good thing because it was refused by others. This was re- ported to the next meeting of the Board, when it was resolved to offer participation to any workmen, many or few, who chose to ac- cept it, leaving every man perfectly free to accept or reject it, with no restriction or condition as to membership of the union. The stokers to a man refused, the others about 1,000 in number ac- cepted within a fortnight. The act or condition of acceptance was the signing of an agreement for twelve months, with a proviso that any man might leave on a week's notice, with the consent of the engineer. "The agreements were signed during the month of November, and toward the end of the month three stokers signed. The union demanded their 'removal', which was refused, and two days later, on the 4th of December, 1889, the further demand was made for 'the removal from the works' of all the men who had signed agree- ments and the abolition of the profit-sharing scheme. This demand could not be complied with, and, being refused, the union gave a week's notice for each of the 2,000 stokers on the following day, but some of the notices were forged. . . . The company, however, neither before nor during the strike (of which the cost and losses direct and indirect exceeded 100,000) made any objection to the employment of members of the Gas Workers' Union, or to their joining the profit-sharing arrangement; but after the strike endec^ and the company had agreed to take back unionists to fill any va- cancies, the secretary of the union said publicly that they made a 22 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. mistake in giving a week's notice, and he warned the consumers of London that they would not give a week's notice next time, which threat was met by the company declaring that in order to protect the consumers of London they would not employ members of that union. This had no connection whatever with profit-sharing, and in proof I may say that when introducing a similar system at the Crystal Palace District Gas Works in 1894 the men were distinctly and emphatically told that they Were perfectly free to continue members of the Gas Workers' or any Union, and that they, or any of them for there must be no compulsion of any kind were equally free to accept or reject the profit-sharing scheme, and so it remains at those works to this day. These statements of facts without comment are given because I wish to conceal nothing. A life-long association with workmen has shown me that above all things they like to be dealt with fairly and squarely and honestly, and I have found that where confidence is given it will be re- turned." It is to be borne in mind that there never has been anv dis- pute at the company's works with the 1,000 yard men or the hun- dreds of the skilled workmen of various trades. These have been em- ployed at better than union conditions. There are engineers and other skilled tradesmen on the superannuation list not only of the company but of their trade unions. Excepting for a brief period after the strike the works have always been open, as they are now, to union gas makers. Leading trade unionists of England have attended Labor Co- partnership Association conferences with Sir George Livesey and spoken from the same platform with him and commended his com- pany's labor copartnership. Among these are D. J. Shackleton, M. P., the leading spokesman in the House of Commons for organized labor; Alexander Wilkie, M. P., National Secretary of the Ship- wrights' Union (both of whom have been sent as delegates from the British trade union Congress to Conventions of the American Federation of Labor) ; Hugh Boyle, President of the Xorthumber- land Miners' Association ; Thomas Burt, M. P., of the miners, and Henry Vivian, M. P., and F. Maddison, M. P., both of the Typo- graphical Union. The productive societies of the Labor Copart- nership Association now number more than one hundred, and all, including five gas companies, recognize trade union requirements. Another five gas companies have adopted the system this year, and several others intend to follow. Profit-sharing and Labor Copartnership are harmonious in their relations with the British Co-operative movement, though not strictly a part of it. In a letter to me, January 15, 1908, J. C. Gray, General Secretary, Co-operative Union, the executive head of the united co-operative societies of the Kingdom, writes : "I be- lieve the South Metropolitan profit-sharing scheme is quite genu- ine and advantageous to the workmen." On Wednesday, April 22, the present year, I attended a meet- ing of the company officials and over 900 delegates of the men on the occasion of the presentation to the employees of a new hall on the works grounds. The men in turn presented a testimonial to Mr. Bush, who had just become a director after serving the com- pany as secretary for twenty-six years. Sir George Livesey, in a THE SOUTH METROPOLITAN COMPANY. 28 speech, said the company and the men had no differences and had not had any in nearly two decades. Nothing was kept from the men. They were free to elect their own three directors and their committeemen. Any man could make complaints if he had any. Both the employers and the employed of the company desired to show England and the world how to preserve peace and substitute thrift for unthrift, how capital and labor could join hands, and how laborers in an industry could become capitalists. In June 400,000 of the company's eight millions of capital would be held by its employees. The day could be foreseen when the company's employees might hold the majority of the stock ! So far from being a scheme for getting the better of the men, the company's plan could in time at its present rate of progress permit the men to rule the company. Here was the possibility of a great, practical, and peaceable transformation of society. The hearty applause and cheering that greeted these remarks could never have been the result of coercion or cajolery. Two of the three workmen directors went over Investigator Commons' report with me and patiently pointed out its errors. Apart from these men, company officials gave me the same expla- nations. Mr. Austin, the third director, has since written me his replies on the same points. The three parties thus replying sepa- rately made the same statements. Mr. Austin complains that Com- missioner Commons' report contained not one word of a long con- versation between the two in my presence in July, 1906, when Mr. Austin had tried to impress on Mr. Commons the value of the company's exertions in raising the workmen to a higher level of comfort and happiness, as other of the employees when questioned by us had done. Mr. Austin knew nothing of dismissals of work- men because of their dislike of the copartnership scheme. He chal~ lenged this statement of Investigator Commons. On the whole, Investigator Commons' account of the South Metropolitan Gas Company's labor copartnership is (1) as to va- rious indisputable features, a mere transcription from the com- pany's reports and other publications which permitted little scope for incorrectness; and (2) as to points obtained from partisan faultfinders, misstatements and misinterpretations of the acts, spirit and intentions of the company wherein it is opposed by a small knot of extremist and Socialist enemies. The Investigator's unchecked bias in this matter was such as to deprive him of any chance for a reputation in Great Britain as a fair minded observer and recorder of the truth. The company's achievement?, the most notable of the kind in the world, have been thoroughly discussed by all classes, and it was left to Investigator Commons to adopt views of them no longer held to-day, even in trade union circles, except by men- forced by events to be irreconcilables. MANOEUVRING TO INJURE COMPANIES AND SUPPRESS FACTS FAVORABLE TO THEM. We have at this stage of our examination basis enough for keenly appreciating Investigator Commons' capabilities for uttering" false testimony, whether by audacious reversals of the truth or by labored perversion and obscuration. He now deserves attention as an adept in manoeuvring. Some of his acts in this capacity I al- lowed to pass by at the time I witnessed them as not to be mended 24 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. by discussion; on others I put a charitable construction; others, again, only cam well into the light after his review had been pub- lished. I. While I was in Chicago in September, 1906, just before going to Madison, one of the officers of the Chicago Edison Company gave me a copy of a confidential letter written by him to the Vice- President containing certain data, some of which was of possible value to our commission. This letter, of course, I turned over to Investigator Commons, with information as to its strictly private character for the time being. In November I received from the company a communication saying that City Electrician Carroll of Chicago had quoted to them from this private letter of the com- pany, stating that Investigator Commons had given him a copy of it. The Chicago Edison official wrote me : "I am somewhat sur- prised that this report . . . should have been turned over to Mr. Carroll, who is not a member of the Civic Federation, especially before such time as the complete report of the National Civic Fed- eration was approved and published." The President of the Chi- cago Edison Company wrote a letter of formal protest to the Exec- utive Manager of the Civic Federation in regard to this underhand breach of faith by Investigator Commons. Even had the letter not been a confidential deposit with us, to hand a copy of it to a busi- ness rival of the company would have been discreditable to our Commission. II. Investigator Commons, in the opening of his review (page 88), announces: "I shall take the report as a whole, and shall try to bring together all of the facts exactly as they are and in their true proportions." And he announces on the next page his intention "in weighing and interpreting the facts," to "summarize all the facts" which he asserts I had failed to do. The most careless reader of either the labor or the other in- vestigators' reports in the volumes issued by the Commission mu3t have observed that nothing more valuable to America from every point of view came from any undertaking than the exhaustive infor- mation from the United Gas Improvement Company of Philadel- phia. Investigator Commons and I spent ten days of energetic work looking into the labor affairs of the company in January, 1906. When not actually at one or other of the works or in the company's central offices, guided by competent informants, we were visiting the Central Labor Union's headquarters or the offices of the unions which might be represented in the company's works or in kindred occupations. In no wise did we unearth anything to the company's possible discredit regarding labor. Day by day our developments, instead of revealing a soulless corporation's neglect of the rights of work- ingmen, brought us convincing testimony of the company's liberal treatment of both office help and works forces as to wages, hours, methods of promotion, and the sanitation so important in the retort houses. But Investigator Commons could not grow enthusiastic. His conscience was troubled by a mysterious piece of knowledge which he hinted to me darkly at times and which overbalanced everything we saw to the company's credit. At length, when it THE UNITED GAS IMPROVEMENT COMPANY. 25 came out, it was that he already knew from Professor Bemis that the superintendent of one of the works had stated on the witness stand a decade before that he had put some men at work on the so- licitation of city Councilmen. This is the one point of the three or four he touches upon in relation to the company that is made to count in Investigator Commons' entire review. Yet in the mean- time a written statement of the facts had been made by the su- perintendent in question (page 520, Part II, Vol. I). In the early '90s, during a period of industrial distress, in a force of twenty to forty laborers he had given alternating spells of three months to out-of-works of the neighborhood, among others to men recom- mended by their usual social spokesmen their priests and Council- men. This one point especially is what Eeformer Commons carried away with him from Philadelphia to give to the people of the United States. The barest mention, in a brief phrase or two, is all he has in his review regarding the full statement printed after the joint labor report in which every feature of the employment, organiza- tion, conditions, and general treatment of the company's thousands of employees of to-day is considered. He had had far more oppor- tunity to know that all the facts of this statement were true than he had to inform himself as to the three undertakings of Glasgow, where he spent in all only a few working days, which receive ex- tended favorable notice both in the joint report and in his review. In the British tour he was for six weeks much in the society of the Third Vice-President of the Philadelphia company and two of its prominent operative officials, frequently hearing them describe its methods by comparison with others' in response to inquiries. While the Commissioners were in Philadelphia in December, 1906, Investigator Commons was by appointment several times in consultation with the Assistant to the Third Vice-President over the details to be embodied in our joint report. With that official he was one evening working over the very matter that appears in the report without his signature, leaving the task unfinished but under engagement to resume it next morning. He never returned; he resented my reminding him of his engagement ; he never explained his remissness. On receiving soon after from the company the manuscripts prepared by the various heads of departments in response to our schedule and verbal inquiries, I sent the package, untouched by me, to Investigator Commons in Madison for revision from his notes and other data. He returned it to me by mail February 16, unre- vised, writing : "I approve of sending this out to the Twenty-One [as part of our joint report] provided Rowe's report is sent. This is the spirit of my understanding that we would leave the write-up of our report to the U. G. I., provided Eowe wrote up iits history." Professor Rowe was in South America at the time ; some of the statements of his histo^ referred to were spoken of by M?. Walton Clark as being such as Professor Rowe himself would not make were he to see the evidences of their error that the company was prepared to furnish. I therefore proposed to Investigator Com- mons that I should go over the Philadelphia labor report manu- script first, carefully cutting out all that he and I might not be able to subscribe to as being pertinent, or in accordance with our notes, 26 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. or equally reliable as the information we obtained by word of mouth at other undertakings. By these tests I worked the manuscript over. I sent it to him February 24. He had it in his hands a month when, March 23, he wrote me : "I hope to get the U. G. I. matter to you [for the printer], but I have been delayed because I wanted to write to Philadelphia regarding a few of the points, in order to see whether I could properly sign the report without having made a visit to Philadelphia in order to verify statements." Only "a few of the points" were still in doubt with him there- fore ten days before I sailed from New York. Meantime I had written him that Mr. Clark would make no opposition to the pres- entation of Prof. Eowe's history to the Twenty-One. In my last letter to Investigator Commons before sailing I informed him I would trust him to finish his revision himself. He never had any further communication with the company on the subject. After I had gone he sent the manuscript to the printer with an introduction in which, by saying it was prepared under the direction of Mr. Clark and revised by me, he evaded responsibility for its statements. Thenceforth he almost ignored it. In his review (page 107) he sums up relative to an important conclusion : "In the United States the minimum paid for common labor by the private companies is in all cases except Atlanta lower than that of the municipality," etc. Then he leaves Philadelphia out of his list of comparisons; it would destroy his thesis. (See reference 58 in my analysis of his review.) Investigator Commons' omission of the Philadelphia company from his review, except mainly thus to misrepresent it in his wages summary and in his references to political appointments, is proof past question that he purposely blinked the facts of the largest im- port to our mission when they weighed against his side. This crime against the code of honor among investigators he could com- mit while advertising himself as an impartial witness and historian. When it is known that his misrepresentations were made in the circumstances just related, the reader has a measure of his capa- bilities as a trickster and dodger. III. Had I been within consulting distance, I should have opposed the omission from the joint report of a sub-chapter which, except the concluding sentences, had been written by me and accepted by my colleague in Madison, October, 1906, and which had been stand- ing in type for months when I left New York for Europe, April 3, 1907. Herewith reproduced, it related how the labor investigation was carried on and how the joint report took shape. I wrote this account in order that we as authors might not seem to be too sure of all of our statements, and to excuse ourselves for possible omis- sions, and in general to be candid with our readers. If printed, it would have extinguished Investigator Commons' claim : "The entire report as it stands, except New Haven and Philadelphia, was writ- ten by myself on the basis of facts which I personally investigated."" It was headed "The Labor Investigation" : "As a beginning, Messrs. Commons and Sullivan, as members of the Committee of Twenty-One, spent several days in Pittsburg in Novem- ber, 1905, during the annual convention of the American Federation of Labor, their purpose being to meet delegates from the cities which they MATTER OMITTED. 27 were to visit in the course of the investigation. They began systematic work in Philadelphia. January 16, 1906. Their labors in that city, Rich- mond, Atlanta, Pitteburg and Allegheny took up the next four weeks, when Mr Sullivan, after being summoned to a meeting of the Com- mittee of Five in Philadelphia, was selected to go to Great Britain in the Dlace of Mr W J. Clark, who was detained in America by press- ing duties with the company in which he is an official. Professor Com- mons returned to the University at Madison, Wis^, and Mr Sullivan joined Dr M. R. Maltbie in London on March o. On March 13, he set out to open up for the investigation the undertakings in the Provinces- tint had been placed on the list by the committee. He reached London a^ain in four weeks, collection of labor data having been difficult while pursuing the important task in hand. In London, waiting on the mana- gers of local undertakings and persons influential with them continually interrupted labor work. The office duties and the preparations for the comin/of the Committee of Twenty-One, work shared with Dr. Malt- bie had to be attended to. The tour of the committee, beginning at Dublin May 29, took up nearly a month on the way to London, where several weeks in July were spent in visiting plants, interviewing man- agers and others, and holding committee meetings. Professor Com- mons, whose time on this tour was much occupied by general commit- tee work, made a second trip to Leicester, Sheffield, Newcastle, Glas- gow, Manchester and Liverpool late in July, while Mr. Sullivan with Dr Maltbie finished up the Commission's business in London, finally himself after Dr. Maltbie's departure, attending to the details of clos- ing the offices and bringing the outside work and interchange of civili- ties to an end. Mr. Sullivan's stay in Great Britain was five months, of which but the smaller part could be allotted to the labor inquiry. Professor Commons, being detained in August and September at the Wisconsin University, arranged with the Committee of Five that Mr. Sullivan alone should visit the American cities. Accordingly the latter, Between August 13, the date of his arrival in New York, and Septem- ber 30, went to South Norwalk, New Haven, Syracuse, Allegheny, Wheeling, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis and Chicago, thence pro- ceeding to Madison, where he and Professor Commons discussed the data the two had collected together and separately and worked on their joint report until October 26. Between November 4 and December 15 Professor Commons visited Chicago, Indianapolis, Detroit, Syracuse, Wheeling and Allegheny, reviewing Mr. Sullivan's investigations. Work of the twojabor investigators on the text of their report was done in New York together December 20-22, while tabulating the wages returns, proof-reading and the insertion of additional matter, with the corre- spondence over it, took four months more. "Of the twenty undertakings in America selected by the Committee of Five, those in Norfolk, Utica, Geneva, Toledo and Pittsburg were not investigated. The method pursued in each city visited was one adapted to the time at the disposal of the investigator, or both. Usually a schedule was filled out during interviews with managers or other offi- cials, or in some cases given them to be written up, and inquiries there- upon suggested put to them, after which the leaders of the trade unions represented in the plants or the Central Labor Union officers were seen, as also city officials and such citizens possessing informa- tion as might easily be reached. While the restrictions of time occa- sionally limited the search for bottom facts in regard to controverted statements, the investigators believe that they have obtained the evi- dence essential to intelligent conclusions with respect to the part as- signed them in the general inquiry." IV. One of my returns of facts ignored by Investigator Commons was a tabular statement of the increase in wages and reduction in hours of about one hundred unions among the organized motormen and conductors of America. It would have established the point I advanced (page 63) in my review as to the improvement in labor conditions being much more marked under street-car companies in 28 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. America than under municipal tramway departments in Britain. This table, as designed by me, was drawn up by a university stu- dent at Madison from printed material given me at the general offices in Detroit of the Amalgamated Street Railway Employees of America, and it was later verified and additions were made to it in the same offices, under President W. D. Hahon's in- structions. It showed at a glance one of the most remarkable changes for the better that has ever taken place in any occupation, and it completely did away with any claim that municipal owner- ship was necessary in the United States to improve the well being of street-car employees, or, consequently, any class of employees organizable in unions. With this table in his possession, as well as the tables for British tramways to be compared with it, Investigator Commons, knowing I was anxious to get it, or part of it, in the report anywhere, saw that it was left out and then wrote (page 109) in his review: "The private [tramway] companies [of Great Brit- ain], although paying less than the municipalities, have also ad- vanced their rates of pay with the introduction of electrical trac- tion. The same is true of the traction companies in the United States, although our investigations have not included a survey of these companies, and we are unable to make a statistical compari- son." The desire for prevarication of Investigator Commons in this case becomes even more astonishing when it is known that I had directed his attention to a report on "Street Railway Employment in the United States," in the March, 1905, "Bulletin" of the Na- tional Department of Labor, which took up 98 of the closely printed pages of that publication. I had compared President Mahon's figures with the wage statistics of this report, the result being that the two sets were near enough alike to confirm those from the unions in general. Investigator Commons had before him both the Labor Bureau statistics of wages and the union's table of comparative wages, and ignored them ; but to make the point in his review (page 106) that the British Tramway and Vehicle Drivers' Union contained a larger proportion of tramway men in the muni- cipal undertakings than the American Amalgamated Association had members, he promptly found in the same Labor Bureau article statistics for 1902 that suited his purpose. The author, however, said that the union claimed 70,000 members; that it was difficult to arrive at the exact membership, but that payments of monthly assessments for six months would indicate the 36,000 members. Points to be noted are : The British union takes in vehicle drivers (who in America go into the teamsters' union), and all the work- men connected with tramway undertakings, while the Amalga- mated's membership in man}* places is almost solidly motormen and conductors. V. Page 896, Part II, Vol. I, our joint report, questions 5 to 10, inclusive, with their answers, were omitted by Investigator Com- mons. He says in the introduction he wrote, page 885, that the brief schedule answers were "not adequate." Complete, with the answers, they are in my manuscript as I made it up from the separate schedules, and they are in a typewritten copy I have of it. MATTER OMITTED. 29 These questions, with some of the answers relating to municipal undertakings, are as follows : Question 5 : "Have the votes of em- ployees affected city elections?" Cleveland, reply by Superinten- dent of Water Works "The present administration is undoubt- edly supported by the body of city employees." Richmond "Not in gas. Said to do in Police and Fire Departments." Allegheny (Williams) "All work for the men to whom they are under obli- gations for their appointment." Question 6: "Have they used political power to secure higher wages, fewer hours, etc. ?" Syra- cuse "As a body, no; individuals exert an influence." Allegheny (Williams) "Yes"; (method explained). Wheeling Secretary: "Only way to get higher wages and less hours." Question 7 : "Have candidates for office promised higher wages, better hours, etc., for employees?" Wheeling Secretary: "All do it." Chicago Water (bureau official) : "Candidates are at liberty to make prom- ises." Question 8 : "Are employees active in party work ?" Cleve- land Superintendent: "A minority are." Syracuse "Some are; party activity is to be expected." Question 9 : "Are they expected or required to pay political assessments?" Syracuse, Allegheny, Wheeling "A percentage, or two per cent." Cleveland "No; the superintendent supposes many contribute, but does not know who does." Detroit Employee of another city department: "The list is sent around in other departments; 'not compulsory/ the col- lectors say." Question 10 : "What evidence is there of the influence of private companies upon the nomination and election of mem- bers of the franchise-granting and franchise-controlling authori- ties?" Seven out of eight replies was that there was no such evi- dence ; the eighth was "no reply." Had such admissions been made by the managers of com- panies, instead of municipal undertakings, would Investigator Com- mons have found them "adequate" for the schedules as printed ? VI. While I was in Madison in October, 1906, I wrote for our joint report a chapter entitled "Working Class Conditions." This I submitted in the manuscript to Investigator Commons, saying that it seemed to me that the contrasting social environments of American and British workingmen ought to be given some notice in our report, but he might deem what I had written, in part or as a whole, as exceeding our instructions from the Committee of Five. When in a day or two he returned the chapter to me he said : "This is all right," with a stronger show of approval than I had expected. Thenceforth 1 regarded the chapter as accepted for our report. It was put in type in New York. But in December my colleague, without giving reasons for his change of mind, wrote me that he would not accept it. I decided then to print it after our joint report on the facts, with its separate chapter heading and author's name-line. In a letter to Investigator Commons, written March 21, one of the last I sent him, I made special mention that "Working Class Conditions" and my review were separate chapters. What he did in the matter is shown in the following letter from me to the editor of the reports : 30 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. Rome, Thursday, November 28, 1907. Dear Maltbie Page-proofs 33 to 192 came last Monday. These are the first cor- rected proofs I have seen of Professor Commons' review or my own. An uncorrected copy of each reached me September 1. Previously, my only knowledge of Professor Commons' strictures relative to my review was gained from an extract in the Tribune in July. I note that Pro- fessor Commons has inserted in these page-proofs a considerable addi- tion to his personalities. I see that you (or your substitute as editor) have made up my "Working Class Conditions" as part of my review, with a sub-heading. This was never my intention and is misleading to the reader. That chapter was written for the Labor Report, months before I wrote my review. It had in my manuscript a distinct chapter heading, while my review had" no sub-headings. It was in my proof cut off from my re- view by dash lines, had under it the author's line ("By J. W. Sulli- van ") and had a heading in large capitals, all signifying that it was a chapter by itself. I intended it as no more than a setting forth of im- pressions gained from passing personal observation and from a variety of sources apart from the specific and sifted testimony called for in our schedule queries. That such was its nature the reader, prompted by what I now 7 write, may be convinced through taking account of my warnings in it as to the difficulties of arriving at accuracy in thus sur- veving so broad a field. Had I seen a page-proof of this matter as it came from the editor's hand, before it went to press, I would have restored this chapter to its original form as to headings, author's line, etc and asked to have it made up apart from my review. My manu- script as you will remember, I edited as I expected it to be followed by the compositor, with even the type for headings particularized. But on your explanation that, answerable as you were for typographi- cal unity, you could hardly promise compliance, I withdrew this re- quest. I since have written you, in reply to queries in your letter of July 6, that I would leave to you the placing of my matter in the General Report, but it did not occur to me that you might so run them together as to efface the distinction between my two papers. Could I have foreseen their mingling, or had a look at the page-proofs in time, I know you would have helped me in preventing this error. In your letter of* July 6 you said: "After consultation with Commons I have printed what you have to say on 'Working Class Conditions' imme- diately following the other matter you wrote." This is a pregnant sen- tence as I read it now. Professor Commons, it seems, knew just how it was to be made up, and it suited him. You write as if you regarded it as separate matter from my review. I inferred it was to follow the review, but as a separate chapter. I could pass this matter over with less talk about it did it not give some apjarent support to Professor Commons' reference, in his addi- tional personalities, to "the practice of my colleague in going outside the matter actually investigated by us." I have just looked over my review proper, printed before the heading "Working Class Conditions," to find any possible evidence on w r hich it might justly be said I pursued such a practice. To my mind there is none. Professor Commons knew that "Working Class Conditions" was no part of my review. He saw that paper when it was written, months before I wrote my review, as I have s lid, and accepted it as a chapter of our joint "Labor Report," but later refused to stand by this acceptance. The one quotation in my review giving rise to his fresh assault on rne was sent to me as I was closing, and I inserted it subject to final correction in the proof, or pre- viously, by him or myself, in the light of further facts coming to either of us. My use of its statements was obviously only in -the measure of its accredited source. It made points that deserved to be brought out, as they were sure to be some time. Had a carbon copy of Professor Commons' comments on this quotation been sent me, in observance with the courtesies prevailing among all the other investigators, or if a proof of (hem had been forwarded to me from your office when they were recently added to his matter, I would of course have adopted the Glasgow managers' corrections. While they modify in a degree the Socialist's statements I quoted, they confirm the substantial truth of his complaint. A PROTEST. 31 The rest of Professor Commons' personalities I shall fully deal with to his satisfaction in a paper I have in preparation. If there is any part of the General Report yet imprinted I should like to have you insert this letter in it anywhere so it gets in. It is my right to have the public notified in the Report that I protested at the earliest possible moment against Professor Commons' first attack on me, and that I again protest against this further attack of which I have just learned. I intend, in good time, to present my side of a public personal controversy which up to the present has been wholly one-sided and which I would have endeavored to prevent by every hon- orable effort had a duplicate copy of Professor Commons' manuscript ever been sent me, or a proof of his review been seen by me before it went to the public. The failure to reach me of the proof you believe must have been mailed for me from your secretary's office when the proofs were sent to the Committee of Twenty-One cannot be positively attributed to mis- carriage in the mails. So far as I am aware not a single letter or newspaper properly addressed to me or my wife has missed either of us since we left Xew York, nearly eight months ago. I have one per- manent European address. Your secretary, or an assistant, may have mailed a proof to one of my former American addresses, of which I had three in New York. At two of these miscellaneous printed matter addressed to me takes its fate with literally heaps of newspapers and the like handed by the postman to office help every day. If you have retained my letters to you written last spring and sum- mer they will remind you what I wrote you then regretting that I had not yet received Professor Commons' review, of which I was in expec- tation every week, and saying, in effect, that he and I had been pre- viously enabled through discussion to reconcile seeming differences in statement or avoid offensiveness in expressions of opinion. My review was written in the expectation of a continuance of reasonable consul- tation between us. I looked for any criticism of it in Professor Com- mons' review to reach me before any one else, that I might have op- portunity of reconsidering my expressions, or even certain conclusions, if the ends of peace and reason could be reached while principle should be observed. Had the professor seen to it that my expectations in this regard were realized, instead of going into print in the newspapers in my absence, long before I knew what he was about, I might have ren- dered him a service in bringing his criticisms of me more nearly in line with accuracy and wisdom. This task is yet before me. I shall make clean work of it, I promise, as sure as I live. Yours truly, J. W. SULLIVAN. MANCEUVRING TO EVADE INSTRUCTIONS AND BRING IN UNVERIFIABLE ONE-SIDED TESTIMONY. One example of Investigator Commons 7 fine play in the Me- phistophelian art of manoeuvring deserves a chapter of itself. The entire plot, in its beautifully sinister unfolding, forms a model for Belasco. 'The weeks we were collating our notes in London before sepa- rating was a season of good will among experts and Commissioners alike. We were made to feel that all hands were working together in fine spirit, with truth the common aim, notwithstanding our theories. One day, profiting by this situation, Investigator Com- mons informed me that as it would be impossible for him that year to spare further time in traveling for the Commission, he had decided, after consulting with Professor Bemis and others among our municipalist members, to ask me to finish the labor investiga- tion in America alone. I strongly objected to the proposal. The instructions of the Five, issued after considering the rights of all parties, required the investigators to travel in balanced pairs. In going alone to the ten or twelve remaining undertakings in the 32 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. American cities on our list, I should run many risks, certainly of misunderstandings, if nothing more serious. The work ought not to be one-sided. Investigator Commons argued that he would trust me to do justice to both sides ; he would accept what I should re- port. I tried to avoid the prospect by proposing to quit the Com- mission and remain abroad. From this I was dissuaded througli the remonstrances of certain of the Commissioners. Some days after I had assented to the arrangement, and just before the party broke up, Investigator Commons casually remarked that, as he had a week or two yet before his vessel sailed, he would go to Leicester and Glasgow, and perhaps Sheffield, to "check up" certain unsettled points. As he had just manifested implicit confidence in me, I could hardly stand on my right to accompany him, as was in strictness my duty. He went. He never voluntarily told me just where. Questioning him in Madison in October, I brought him to admit that he had gone back to all our British cities, except Dublin and Norwich. And from the form he had meantime given our joint British report I saw that no small part of his efforts had tended to minimize points unfavorable to municipal ownership that I had brought to light. He had seen men, mostly pro-muni- cipalists, notes of whose expressions in speeches or interviews weighing against municipal ownership I had taken, and wrestled with them to find reasons for them to modify or recant. Among the men he had thus looked up were ex-Councillor Holmes of Leices- ter, Councillor Bailey of Sheffield, Labor Secretary Fox of Man- chester, Councillor Sexton of Liverpool, Organizer Da vies of th? Scottish Municipal Employees' Association, and the Glasgow Labor Councillors whose speeches denouncing influence in appointments I heard in Council, April 5. Where Investigator Commons failed to induce some of these men to change their statements he found something wrong with their character. In Madison, on gradually taking cognizance of this neat piece of Hummel work, I regarded it in silent contemplation. At a session of the Five, the week of my arrival in New York in August, Professor Bends, on hearing mention of my approach- ing journey to investigate the American undertakings alone, dis- played some anxiety. He could only consent to it, he presently announced, provided that Investigator Commons, after the conclu- sion of my work in any city, might be free to pay it a visit to verify or amplify my report in the interests of the pro-municipalist side. Had this plan been proposed in London I would not have con- sented to it ; had it been said that Investigator Commons could find time to follow me, I could have replied that I would await his con- venience to accompany me. But I was now on the eve of starting ; the meeting of the Twenty-One to receive the reports was appointed for November; the! labor investigation had to be hurried on if it was to be done at all. I could but say aye to Professor Bemis* proposal without bringing up any profitless question as to the truth of Investigator Commons' assurance to me in London that Pro- fessor Bemis was with him in suggesting to me the original plan. I finished my task of visiting the American cities alone in six weeks of continuous labor during a long heated term. My find- ings, especially those against the municipal undertakings, I made MANOEUVRING. 33 known by letter from place to place to Investigator Commons. Pushing on to Madison, my work of nearly four weeks there with my colleague brought the date of my departure for New York to the last week of October. Then, promptly on November 4, Inves- tigator Commons set out, with my full written report in his pos- session, and during the next six weeks went to all the cities of my route, except New Haven, "checking me up." He alleges he also got together on this trip his stories relating to political irregulari- ties in these cities involving companies not on our list for investi- gation. The facts I had unearthed regarding the political degradation of municipal ownership at the Syracuse water works, the Allegheny and Detroit electric lighting stations, and the Wheeling gas works Investigator Commons found no reason to contradict in any but small particulars. He naturally made in regard to these under- takings some additions easily possible even to a novice if provided with my report and unused notes and with ample time at his dis- posal. During the six weeks of this tour of Investigator Commons I was awaiting word from him in New York in the dark. I could not find out from any one where he was. I could have joined him in his sleuth work on the companies had he let me know what he was doing and had I judged his diversions legitimate. Or I could have asked the Committee of Five to pass upon the regularity of his proceedings. But his game was to lie low. We met at length' in Philadelphia, December 12, while revisiting with other Commis-^ si oners the United Gas Improvement Company's works. I next saw him in New York December 20- He had meantime worked over parts of my report, fitting into them his new matter. He gave me the manuscript in bulk. On reading it that night I gained my first knowledge of his extraordinary discoveries regarding com- panies not on our list for investigation that he had written up as a set-off to my disastrous report on municipal undertakings that were on our list. We had one brief interview on the subject before he took a train for his Christmas at Madison. I told him I could not accept off-hand what he had written about the companies. They were not on the list. I knew nothing whatever of my own knowledge about them. I had heard none of this talk about their campaign contri- butions and the like. He said he would confidentially give me, and if necessary the Chairman of the Five, the names of the authorities for his statements. I asked if his informants would tell me what they had told him. That, he said, could hardly be expected. I rep- resented to him that, besides relating to men and undertakings not on our list, and the statements coming only to him through secret channels, what he had written regarding one company, if not others, was in my judgment libelous. His whole proceeding had been unknown to me, unforeseen, surprising, and aside from out proper duties as therefore performed. But he was in a hurry to get ready for his journey, and our verbal consultations over the matter came to an inconclusive end. I have not seen him since. We had no clash. My demeanor with him on the occasion went further than reasonableness; in every earnest way I could command I rnani- 34 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. tested a desire not only to accord to him everything he could claim under his rights, but to keep in yiew our project of a joint report on the facts. My observations of Investigator Commons' demeanor at the de- nouement at this interview would tend to confirm a conception of the psychological dramatists of the current day. The old notion of the character in the cast who represents the spirit of disloyalty was that of a man of coolness and nerve, self-possessed, speaking his untruths unabashed and with measured fluency. Not so. The plotter against the truth in the presence of transparent and stoutly defended truth is by turns in speech reticent and abruptly dogmatic and incoherent, in manner nervously watchful and abstract and hangdog. His studied words are contradicted by the uncontrolla- ble working of the muscles about his eyes and mouth, and the fleet- ing ashiness and purple suffusion of his face. He wants to get away. The libelous matter was omitted after being given to the Five and referred to its Chairman ; I put a footnote to Investigator Com- mons' Wheeling matter regarding companies saying that statements as to the political situation in that city, aside from what related to the municipal gas undertaking, were his, and, still striving for a joint report as to facts, I stretched a point and let his gossip about the Syracuse and Allegheny companies pass. I see that (page 94) he has surreptitiously introduced in his review a passage directed against the New Haven company which was not in the proof slips submitted to the Twenty-One. His unauthenticated statements against the companies not on our list are quoted by other pro-mu- nicipal Commissioners in their summaries with the respect due to testimony and verdict from a university professor. Just at what point Investigator Commons might have seen his way thus to stack the cards only circumstantial evidence can show. Perhaps the germ of the trick found lodgment in his mind when I first showed myself disposed to confide in his honor. He early saw I Was not to be a stickler in a small way for the rights of the anti- municipal side. This I made clear to him toward the close of our first tour together as investigators, mention of which now finds place. Between January 16 and February 10, 1906, Investigator Com- mons and I visited the gas undertakings of Philadelphia, Eichmond, and Atlanta, and the electricity works of Allegheny. Our findings were continuously disheartening to Investigator Commons. The pay, hours, working conditions and welfare and beneficial provisions of the United Gas Improvement Company in Philadelphia were all above criticism. The score of trade union officials and others we interviewed in Philadelphia (whose names are in my note books) had nothing to say against the company except that by giving more to its employees than the unions demanded, and better conditions than the municipality, it had carried its force beyond possibly or- ganizable territory, especially in view of the poor development oi the unions in Philadelphia represented in the gas industry. At tlie Eichmond municipal gas works we found high wages for the white stokers and meter readers, and ordinary contractors' wages for the black ditch diggers in an undertaking that was a butt of ridicule among the gas engineers of the United States. Its bad service, for years growing worse, had moved the City Council to employ a New UNVERIFIED STORIES. 35 York gas expert to examine the plant, and he had just reported that to put the works, mains and accessories in good workable con- dition would cost more than half a million dollars. In Atlanta we found the gas company's wages and conditions for the black labor- ers better than those for the municipality's black employees, while wages for the white skilled men, all points considered, were about the same as at Eichmond (joint report, pages 496-99). The under- taking, a layman could see, after Eichmond, was in a state of the highest efficiency. At Allegheny we found the municipal lighting plant the plaything of politicians and a joke to the enemies of civic reform. Investigator Commons had a few years previously been inves- tigating for 'municipal ownership at Eichmond and Allegheny, and his fellow-municipalists were still writing favorably of these under- takings. He came to the investigation of the four cities now in question possessed of alleged data he had gathered as a writer sup- porting municipal ownership with a university library at his com- mand. But the obvious state of facts we fell upon converted the beauties of municipal ownership in each case into a mere caricature of the picture constantly painted for the public by its apostles. Investigator Commons was perplexed. He evidently foresaw defeat in our report. I sympathized with him. In his depression, at Atlanta he one day questioned me as to my remedy for the abuses of municipal monopoly. I outlined my ideas of a just, thorough, and efficient regulation. I went on, in effect: "While you and I may differ as to remedies, why in the name of truth should we dif- fer as to our observed facts? You hold that you are a social re- former, and I believe I am. You look to methods I regard as so- cialistic; I to methods that are American. I would simply aim to have legalized privilege everywhere abolished or brought to the possible minimum. This, as we have seen at Philadelphia, can be done in municipal affairs by means of fair contract in per- forming work that, involving an exclusive occupancy of the streets, is the community's concern. In the United States we have examples of every grade of work by capitalist corporations for mu- nicipalities, from barefaced robbery through corruptly obtained franchises right along upward to honest and satisfactory service un- der franchises that stipulate protection of public interests. If you and I find examples of the latter class it is our duty to point to them as models for imitation. Now, so far as our investigation has pro- ceeded you have but a sorry showing for municipal operation. The salient facts we have come upon are not the facts on which the followers >of your movement have been fed. Up to the present you and I have much the same notes and schedules and copies of reports and wage tables. It would honor the cause of unpartisan systematic investigation if we could agree on a report as to facts, even if we should differ in tracing out their significance. I pro- pose that we aim at an agreement on the facts, so far as possible, simply pointing out the exceptions where we cannot agree." The response was a monosyllabic assent, not over-enthusiastic. This proposal of mine thenceforth became an asset among the advantages Investigator Commons worked up for his side. When months later we discussed our selections for publication among the superabundant material we had collected, he set aside considerable 36 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. that it seemed 'to me might indicate a trend at home and abroad against municipal ownership. However, as he was obliged to make admissions enough to give ample room for the support of my views on principal points, I waived my preferences. Investigator Commons next had, at Madison, the three months from Feb. 10, 1906, when he parted with me in Pittsburg, until toward the end of May, when he started for Europe, to lay his plans for manoeuvring to counterbalance our sure discrediting of the American municipal undertakings we had seen and probably of those we were yet to see. The movement for municipal ownership meantime was active in many parts of the country. He may at this time have got hold of some of the talk about the companies that the next winter he embodied in his additions to our report as his own discoveries. Or, in the autumn, while during my own trip I kept sending him additional bad accounts regarding the American municipal undertakings, the resultant panic may have brought him to seek information from the powerful news bureaus in various cities of -the national leaders of municipalism. In any case, consid- ering Investigator Commons' grade of veracity to be what we now know it, evidence more convincing than his word is necessary to win belief that, by accident, he enjoyed, in just the cities concerned, an intimacy with the only men who could impart to him, confiden- tially, a series of remarkable stories of political bribery and other malfeasance in which they themselves were first among the guilty parties. That in large part he already had his cards up his sleeve when he proposed in London I should visit the American cities alone is highly probable. In preparing what I wrote of our American report in Madison I' cited by name my authorities on points that might be justly con- sidered beyond our certain knowledge. For example, I gave, witn their permission, the names of the responsible persons at the Syra- cuse, Wheeling and Allegheny works who described the political un- doing of those undertakings. To this candor Investigator Com- mons objected. His position was that the authors of the report should stand responsible for its contents. I brought to his atten- tion statements that might arouse the reader's doubts, or give rise to controversy, or be modified by us ourselves on familiar knowl- edge. Whatever was obvious and unquestionable should be ours; but on important debatable matters the reader was entitled to his own judgment on the authorities. We as investigators should halt at the borders of possible non-fact. Investigator Commons insisted that our writing should be ex cathedra. He had his own reasons. He was coining to a part of his work where he couldn't publish his authorities. It is clear at the present time that Investigator Commons' re- turns against undertakings not on our list, gathered from back- stairs sources, ought to have been rejected by the Committee of Five. This I ought to have insisted upon. The companies did not fall within our inquiry. The undertakings named by the Five were all that the experts or the labor investigators were to report upon. The chairman of the Five at its sessions time and again warmly advocated a restriction of 'the inquiry to the questions of the schedule and queries directly arising therefrom. "No hot air !" was his admonition. No wandering all over town and country to REJECTED TESTIMONY. 87 make points for or against. As I pushed along on my mission, without a single tip from any source as to what wrong was to be found at the municipal undertakings, advancing from the slight and perhaps inadvertent admissions of a subordinate to the full story of machine rule and exploitation of a city administrative bu- reau given me by perhaps the tenth official I interviewed, it never occurred to me that whispered storks of wholly different forms of public wrongdoing in the legislative departments of the same mu- nicipalities might serve to lessen the proof that municipal operation of productive enterprises had been found to be economically unsound and a permanent opportunity for public spoliation. The informa- tion I gathered, open for revision by my colleague and all the Com- missioners, stands in contrast with Investigator Commons' easily manufactured revelations, the sources of which are yet shrouded in mystery. In admitting any portion of his barroom lore and repro- ductions of newspaper political campaign froth to our joint report the Five erred. I myself should have cut away from every word of it and ended my cherished plan of a joint report. My experi- ence in this case has shown me that even the facts of the addition table may be distorted by an observer cranked with the mental twist of a fanatic. SOME REJECTED TESTIMONY UNITED STATES. Investigator Commons rejected from our joint report the fol- lowing interviews and other passages, which were in my typewritten manuscript just as here printed. He said some of them were not admissible as within the range of the facts we were seeking ; others he omitted in rewriting the parts of my manuscript he found neces- sary to reconstruct after his visits to the American undertakings following mine. I had regarded the points thus brought out by me worth printing if authorities were given: "Secretary Schenck [Wheeling municipal gas works] said to the investigator, who wrote down the statement in his presence : 'The municipal gas works in Wheeling are a dead failure. The works themselves are in a dilapidated condition, and the manage- ment is wholly political. I do not care to hold my place, as it is difficult to be honest in it. A man at the works if discharged for unfitness can be reinstated the same day if he has a pull. Wages have been run up by the politicians in consequence of the demands of the little crowds of the hands joining for political purposes. The works are in a poor state in every way. I'm so disgusted with the political side of my job that I'm ready to throw it up now, though I have fifteen months to serve out my term.' ' ; "In July, 1906, the [Wheeling] chargers were receiving $2 a day and the stokers $1.80. Both classes demanded an advance of 40 cents a day. The events that ensued were thus described by a colleague of Secretary Schenck, the works Superintendent : 'Those hottest for a strike were made committeemen. First they went to the Council, which referred them to the Gas Trustees, who asked advice of the City Solicitor, getting the reply that they .had no right to increase wages. The Council, both First and Second Branches, with the Gas Board, offered 20 cents as a compromise. Next day the men struck, but that night accepted 25 cents as the advance and went back to work.' 'Politics/ continued the Superintendent, 'has ^i?^. HE \ UNIVERSITY 1 or- i OF THE 38 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. a whole lot to do with the works. The men get out among Council- men who don't want their ill will and consequently agitate for them. Of course, a private concern could get the work done for much less/ '' "C. H. Watkins, ex-City Clerk, Wheeling (an aged veteran soldier, retired from public life, well spoken of by all who men- tioned him) : 'The gas works are steadily going down. Politics governs the water works, public works and gas works. When in office I paid $100 political assessment. All the officeholders pay it. I retired in disgust from politics. When I was at the court house the gas works were in the hands of politicians.' '' [In Syracuse.] "James Horton, secretary of the District Council, Brotherhood of Carpenters, made complaint that not one of the men in the water works bureau was a unionist, and that the only way for a wage worker to get a job was through political in- fluence. . . . Men in every city department at the present time have sinecures through political influence. The work con- tracted for is done under union conditions only when the union itself establishes them." "A union officer explained that he was not encouraged to help in a change in administration inasmuch as when J. B. Kline was elected Mayor he discharged sixty laborers for economy's sake, but raised salaries in the office by a considerable percentage." [In Chicago.] "An official of Union No. 134, Electrical Work- ers (interior wiremen), said he preferred to deal with companies rather than the city. His opinion, as expressed, was that 'in spite of civil service they'll get your scalp.' He regarded the City Hall regulations as to time-checking over-exacting, and thought the changing of Commissioners affected the positions of the rank and file, if not as to security of position, in permanency of location >while at work, or other lesser points. . . . The Financial Secretary of Steam Engineers, No. 3, when interviewed, spoke of abuses under former administrations which operated to the disadvantage of his union members, especially men in the lake cribs. While the water bureau paid more than the scale, the Fire Department paid less. His union was obliged to fight the city to obtain union observances. He concluded: 'We use more or less political influence.' The Sec- retary of the Stationary Firemen said: 'We go before the Finance Committee (which makes up the appropriations) and tell them: "These are our rates,"' and they are politicians and know what to do." [In Allegheny.] "Ex-Engineer Williams asked the investiga- tor to write this down: 'I am resolved never again to hold any position in a municipal plant.' ' ; "At the power station office an employee said to the investiga- tor: 'It would be the grandest thing in the world if politics could be kept out of municipal ownership.' Mr. Williams' comment on this was : 'He's, the man who when I was ousted by politics took my place through politics.' " : "Eobert Dilworth, City Clerk, while being asked for some data by the investigator, remarked on the subject: 'The city can do nothing as cheaply and well as private enterprise. Political bosses really run the bureaus of this city.' ' : '"The President of the Atlanta Gas Company, speaking of the REJECTED TESTIMONY. 39 conditions under which men might get places and keep them with his corporation, said: "The employees of the company are con- cerned only as to their merits in the eyes of their employers; they get their places without political influence and hold them regard- less of changes in administration. The interests of retailers or other business men do not curtail their work.' '' "The Atlanta gas-works officials, in all departments, said that in case of a vacancy to be filled by a white man or boy there arose with the company no other question than competency and character. The employees had no concern but to do their work well." "The Atlanta trade union leaders had no special criticism to make of the company. One union official thought that if it were to pay $2 a day it could get white men for retort house work/' "The South Norwalk works are of about the same type, with respect to labor employment, as ninety-three per cent of the 1,041 municipal electric plants in existence in the United States in March, 1906, O f this total 160 being in villages of less than 1,000 in popu- lation and 808 in towns of between 1,000 and 10,000. . . . The members of the local union, recognizing that these municipal em- ployees are not actively underbidding them in the labor market, permit the works to occupy unmolested the position of in the words of the superintendent an 'independent institution' a peace- ful haven lying out of the swift current in which the large modern companies move. . . . Illustration of the differences necessarily arising between labor conditions in the municipal plants of smalt places and those which are in the category of large industries may be found in some slight comparison between the South Norwalk and the Allegheny, Detroit, and Chicago public electric works. These three latter, which have been investigated by our Commission, are among the twelve municipal undertakings in cities of the United States having more than 40,000 inhabitants. In each of the three the trade union had asserted itself. In Allegheny, for instance, ac- cording to the testimony of the ex-Assistant Superintendent, the local electrical workers' union prevents political assessments on its members. In Detroit, years ago, the trimmers went on strike, were defeated, and now most of the force work as non-unionists. In Chicago, the union's representatives wait yearly on the City Elec- trician to have its scale signed. There is no union recognition of these as 'independent institutions.' ' ; From my notes I gave Investigator Commons the following brief quotations from interviews: J. H. Gilmour, of Hamilton, Scotland, Fraternal Delegate to the American Federation of Labor from the British trade unions, was with me when, by questioning, I obtained from E. H. Williams, civil engineer of the Allegheny municipal electric works, his first admissions as to the disgraceful political situation there. Investi- gator Commons, who was with us at the beginning of the conver- sation, soon walked away, to speak to the Superintendent about some statistical tables. When we left Mr. Williams, who had given the political aspect of municipal ownership anything but an attrac- tive appearance, Mr. Gilmour said: "I have learned more in the last hour about the deplorable possibilities of municipal ownership in America than I ever got from all other sources before. I am sure that the usual arguments for municipal ownership do not apply 40 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. where political conditions are such as described by this -official of the works. Your first municipal problem in America is evidently puri- fication. When you get that you may start on a new basis." An employee of the Eichmond municipal gas-works said : "Our business methods in the gas department are bad. The connection between the financial and works branches is unsettled. We simply move through a routine, and make no effort to build up a good business. The hardware merchants prevent us from selling gas stoves. We can't fix a rental, like the electric light company, on our own unused fixtures in a house. Any consumer can start a howl that will tell against us, and we have no protection. We have little encouragement to do good work. The public doesn't know any- thing about the gas department ; most people don't know where the works are. They have no interest in the employees; the gas com- mittee changes ; the City Councilmen don't generally know the char- ier provision governing the city gas undertaking." In every case these views or experiences, coming from men in daily touch with municipal ownership, embodied summaries of vital points, given with positive definiteness. But they were misfits for a report built --on the pedagogic plan. They told, 'however, just what the average inquirer is anxious to know, at the very outset of his looking into the subject. "What are the wise ones saying who have been through the mill ?" he asks. And then in approaching his own conclusions on what further data reach him he feels that he moves in a pathway well lighted. REJECTED TESTIMONY GREAT BRITAIN. From Great Britain of the same import as the previous chap- ter. Interviews I obtained indicating- the dangers of municipali- zation, especially to the integrity of unions and unionists : | Xotes from several interviews] : "James Dalrymple, General Manager, Glasgow Tramways: Favors disfranchising public servants; never votes himself; does not permit his employees to be active in politics (municipal) ; re- gards the Municipal Employees' Association as 'mischievous' ; be- lieves in and supports trade unions. The Glasgow tramway service is 'open shop.' The management follows the market rate of wages ; when a joiners' strike in Glasgow recently failed, the corporation service reduced the wages of its joiners %d. an hour, though its men had not taken part in the strike." " 'A shrewd Secretary of the M. E. A., a man big enough for the purpose, could do much toward making the Glasgow municipal employees a political force ; here is possibly a menace.' r ' " 'Councilmen constantly recommend men for work ; the man- ager exercises his own judgment; individual Councilmen will rec- ommend what collectively the Council reject; individual Council- men have voted contrary to their opinions to please their constitu- ents.' " 'The power of discharge and appointment rests only in the General Manager; dismissal follows one charge for drunkenness, when proven; a weak manager would soon bring the service to ruin.' '' " 'The public, especially the workingmen, exert a pressure for the reduction of fares ; a demand for it is made for political, effect.' " REMODELING TESTIMONY. 41 Investigator Commons gives it as a fact (page 104) that in all the British municipal undertakings, except in Liverpool, the atti- tude of the managers was favorable to union men. Yet he knew that Superintendent Alexander Wilson, gas, Glasgow, had said, in response to a question: "We do not recognize any union; a man is a man to us/' and that there had been a strike at the Glasgow gas-works causes sufficient for him to put the undertaking in the "hostile" class had it belonged to a company. Richard Davies, then the Scottish District Organizer, Muni- cipal Employees, told us : "The influence of Councilmen in getting jobs is a known fact." In a debate at the Glasgow Council meeting, Thursday, April 5, 1906, on a proposition to enact that all city employees be en- gaged through the Municipal Labor Bureau, the following were among the utterances of Labor Councilmen : "Councillor Battersby : 'It is the prevailing impression that in Glasgow there is no chance to get employment -without the recom- mendation of a town Councillor. This is the painful experience of a Councillor. The Labor Bureau was established for the express purpose of extending aid to those seeking employment, but not one in 100 are placed through the Bureau. This notorious fact of ig- noring the Labor Bureau offends the sense of justice in the out- side mind.' "Bailie Stewart : 'The idea prevails that a man cannot get a job without influence. We ought to know the number of men who are registered at the Labor Bureau who are not employed. We could have in a few months a record of the men registering.' "Bailie Stevenson : 'In the abstract the motion is good and right, but the employment of those registered should be preferen- tial and not compulsory/" "The ex-Treasurer: 'The friends of foremen and officials get a preference.' "Bailie Forsyth: 'This motion would cover the whole of the corporation employment. Promotion comes in cases from outside influence, while the lads in the offices are not promoted." [Em- ployment from a certain commercial school.] "[Glasgow Corporation has no civil service.]" In an interview at which Investigator Commons was present, R. Toller, 35 Ruskin Buildings, Corporation Street, Birmingham, Secretary Amalgamated Gas Workers, Brickmakers and General Laborers' Society, said: " 'If the men at the Corporation Gas Works in Birmingham did not organize the Corporation would not increase wages or give good hours. We deal with the Corporation as we would with a pri- vate employer. Some of the Councillors, who are business men, might pay the lowest wages if we did not organize and defend our- selves.' " 'There is difficulty in organizing men in fairly good positions and holding them. They will organize to get an increase, but the difficulty is after we get the increase to keep the men in the line.' '' "Editor Kirk, of 'Dart,' Birmingham : 'Speaking of Birming- ham, I say that members of the Council do not give the attention to the gas undertaking that would be given by the directors of a company. They trust to the officials. Municipal trading creates an immense army of officials. The gas employees here have more 42 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. than onee forced the Council to raise their pay. When municipali- zation of electricity was talked of here shrewd people started an elec- tric enterprise and sold high to the city/ '' "Pete Curran [now M. P., National Organizer] : 'The organi- zation is rather indifferent in Glasgow and Leicester [municipal gas workers]. The men after getting a remedy for their grievances clear out of the union/ " "James Holmes, Trustee, at the general offices of the Amalga- mated Hosiery Union, Leicester, said: 'As an ex-member of the Leicester town Council 1 know that workmen get work on the Cor- poration through the influence of labor and other Councillors. Ap- plicants must have the backing of Councillors and others. In fact, many workmen vote for labor men in hope of getting work, and the candidate has encouraged this hope of getting work when seek- ing the workman's vote. And if the hoped for work is not found, men have said, "When are you going to get us a job?" "What did we elect you for, if not to get work?" and, "If you do not get us jobs we shall not vote for you again/' This is the danger existent to-day, and is a serious portent of the future. Behind the scenes and under the surface a great deal of this goes on. Few are free to state these facts, for most are either seeking a place on Council or Parliament, and are dependent of the votes of workmen as they are the numbers, and if the facts were mentioned they would lose votes and place. The broad spirt of freedom no more exists among the masses than among the classes. I was a member of the Gas, High- way, Sanitary Watch, and Estate Committees, and had some experi- ence of these things. Workmen to-day could be employed at 20 per cent less than is now paid in the open market, but the restric- tive influence of the unions in a protective manner acting on the Council raise the wages at least this amount. " 'In Britain the unions have been legalized as trade unions, as voluntary associations in restraint of trade, and have discarded the voluntary principle, and have become political associations, and trading associations, with about 1,000,000 invested at profit and interest. The effect of the election is to check the organizing of members, as men are being taught to look to Parliament instead of unions as the unions have failed to gain the social efforts aimed at. Trade unions are declining as an economic force, and are emerging into a revolutionary political force, becoming separated from the scientific basis of truth, individual right and social justice/ '' "Councillor A. J. Bailey, 55 Burngreave Road, Sheffield, Secre- tary, National Amalgamated Union of Labor, interviewed Wednes- day, June 13, at his office in his residence: " 'I am bound to recognize the weaknesses of municipalizing. In some respects the consequences of political action are deplorable. You can only build up your union for the time that labor does not hold political sway. And when an undertaking is municipalized and the wages and conditions of labor improved by labor politicians, the employees tend uniformly to drop out of the union. That was the case in Leicester. Our members do the same with me. I got the corporation gas employees an advance of 3d. a day through arbi- tration at Rotherham (near Sheffield), and they immediately dropped out. They are not in a position to help themselves or any- one else at this moment. Had they worked by union methods they REMODELING TESTIMONY. 43 would be in the union to-day and enjoying further advantages. " 'Tramway men in Sheffield are wearing a union button, while at work, without asking permission, and threaten to strike for the right. The movement is due to Socialist agitation. It is a sub- version of discipline. A political organization and not a trade union is attempting to run the matter. Nothing is to be gained by it. Discipline must be maintained in the municipal under- taking as in the limited company. " Tor some years the cry has been "The ballot box," "Trade unionism is played out," "Eight hours a day by legal enactment," "Wages by law" ! " 'The Independent Labor Party has thirty men in the House of Commons. They make a great noise about doing something for labor by legal enactment, and this has a tendency to lead workmen to believe that trade union methods are antiquated. The unskilled are holding back from organizing except the union is run as a po- litical organization. Trade union organizing is not advancing at the rate it ought in England. " 'A corporation plays quite as prominent a part in keeping wages down as keeping wages up. A Councillor who has some supporters not up to the standard of average workmen gives them notes to managers of department. The Councillor who has recom- mended a supporter who as a business man he would not employ, will allow a rate of wages to be fixed for him at the value not of a good man, but of that of the inferior man recommended. " 'In a corporation [municipality] a certain percentage of po- litical hangers on must get jobs. In the Council I sometimes say, "If this were a limited company, this could not happen." It would be easier to pad payrolls in a municipality by inferior men than in a private company. " 'If in America you could limit monopolies as we have done the gas companies in this country you would do the work properly. Instance : the Sheffield Gas . Lr ght and Coke Company. " 'I have observed that under corporations the tendency is for salary pay to go up while wages pay goes down, except in cases where the workmen are thoroughly organized in a strong trade union. " 'But, notwithstanding fhese trivial drawbacks, I am a strong believer in municipalization and a supporter of municipal under- takings.' x The basis of the foregoing matter from Councillor Bailey was my notes, taken on the 3 pot, of certain statements he made in this interview with him at Sheffield. These I had typewritten in Lon- don more than a month afterward, and sent to him. He returned them, with corrections and additions; what is here printed, unal- tered, is from his corrected copy. The most notable addition was the last paragraph. Investigator Commons, to whom I had given a copy, hacf meantime drawn his attention to how he had "put his foot in it." He threw a somersault to get himself in the required attitude before the municipalization advocates. His long list of "deplorable consequences" had become "trivial drawbacks." A similar acrobatic feat was apparently performed by the Glas- gow Labor Councillors, whose words I quote above. This was done when Investigator Commons went back to Glasgow alone and man- 44 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. aged to get the explanations of their remarks he prints, Vol. II, Part II, page 21. But Trustee Holmes could not be shaken. He had said what he meant. Neither could Organizer Davies. In London I had many interviews with Labor County Council- lors and Members of Parliament, in which they dwelt upon the seamy side of municipalization and the possible injury to result from the British trade union trend at that time toward Socialism. I ceased to enter such matter in my notebooks ; it was common talk. Investigator Commons regarded any record of observers' views that foreshadowed consequences, or any assemblage of facts that pointed to a reversal of the political policies of British unions, as lying out- side our errand. Labor representatives themselves were cautious in talking of the pitfalls encountered in mingling unionism and poli- tics. They would at times ask not to be quoted. I had seen noth- ing of this circumspection when in Great Britain ten years before. Its trade union circles were then, as are America's now, charac- terized by a courageous frankness in the utterance of sentiments. "Hunting cover" was an uncultivated art. But here were members of the very same group of men, perplexed as political trade union- ist officeholders, "afraid of their horses." I quote a passage I wrote in Madison, October, 1906, on this situation for the joint report ; Investigator Commons, in declining to accept it, rather re- garded this record of a serio-comic state of facts as out of place in sober, heavy report carpentering : "Repeatedly in the course of this investigtion in Great Britain and the United States, the present writer (J. W. Sullivan) has listened to statements either by Councilmen or union officials re- garding which the makers afterward desired to hedge or even enter contradictions. If the investigator had made memoranda simply of the vital statements of the speaker's talk, his notes were later on criticised as 'scrappy' or not taking into account why the speaker was 'putting his case strongly/ [Glasgow.] If he set out to write the substance of an interview on the spot, the man interviewed would call his attention to the danger of giving offense to one or another officeholder, to the possible ultimate detriment of a union official. 'I don't want this to come back on me,' would be said. Desiring to get at facts irrespective of bias, the investigator would at times find that his informant was merely echoing the claims of a [political] party. Thereat would rise the query whether the labor representative was working politics for labor, or working labor for a party, or merely was looking out for the furtherance of his own fortunes." The pith and point of the matter in the last two chapters will doubtless affect the mind of the general reader, and especially of the trade unionist, as deeply as anything occupying similar space in our joint report. Quotations from participants in a movement em- bodying the gist of their experiences, and approved by them after reflection, as are the foregoing, strike home, as well directed shots reach the bull's eye of a target. COMPARATIVE CIVIC PURITY. No evidence whatever was produced by our Commission's pro- municipalist investigators that Councils in British anti-municipalist cities are of a lower grade than in cities much municipalized. And COMPARATIVE CIVIC PURITY. 45 as to the assumed surpassing purity and efficiency of British gov- ernment administration compared with the results of our democ- racy, some reflection is due. While Investigator Commons was finding the Sheffield and Newcastle-on-Tyne Town Councils guilty of inferiority to other Town Councils, without giving a single fact on which to base his judgment, he had had through me sufficient criticisms of the Coun- cil in Glasgow from its own citizens to raise a question as to the solid block of virtues with which it was accredited by certain mem- bers of our Commission. It was, in fact, instructive to me, on my pioneer visit alone to Glasgow, to see how little free from political bickerings that para- gon city of the municipalists is, as well as how often imputations of seeking selfish ends were cast upon many of the city fathers. I had before me, as in a set of moving pictures, the onslaughts and melees of the hotly contending municipal factions of a big American city. The combatants were calling one another the same names, accusing one another of the same human failings, as we are accustomed to hearing at home in cities not our best. The charges of favoritism in appointments made at the Council session I attended had the familiar sound of the same charge so often heard in American Council chambers. But I was hardly pre- pared for the positive denials made on other questions to direct as- sertions regarding what were ascertainable facts, one way or the other. The leader of the opposition declared that tramway street rectifications, naming one of the streets, had not been charged to the tramways department; the convenor (chairman) of the Tram- ways Committee flatly contradicted the statement. Lively inter- ruptions of a speaker continually imparted a hilariousness or a wave of indignation in the meeting- One Councillor, badgered by oppo- nents, refused to proceed in speaking, and took his seat. An opDO- nent taunted him with simulating martyrdom. From beginning to end the session was spicy. The city officials I met talked little before me about one an- other, but among other men I met then and since I observed a lib- erality in affirming shortcomings in public places satisfactory to any Englishman critical of the Scotch. There's ample work yet for the public purifier in Glasgow. That city is laughing yet at a Town Councillor who is a hatter who had to apologize in the press for putting the name and label of a high-class firm in a hat of his own inferior make. The commu- nity suffered a blow in its pride when, in recent years, its treasurer pleaded guilty to embezzlement and took five years' penalty without trial. To believe everyday street rumor and the published asser- tions of some of the reformers, the licensing of public houses by the Bailies (Aldermen) is attended by crude forms of bribery in ways great and small. A Bailie connected with a housepainting firm will get the job of painting the hotel from which his influence might take away the license type of a series of stories imaginable from the situation. And that something is fundamentally wrong in the municipality's management of the liquor traffic is scandalously evi- dent in the frightful horrors of Glasgow's streets after nightfall, unparalleled in their degradation in any other city I saw in Great 4G THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. Britain and undreamed of in the poorest sections of New York. The tricks commonly attributed to Tammany by our reform- ers, but which are known generally to municipal machines, are played in Glasgow. "Quite recently/' says a pamphlet arraigning the city government, "a corporation (municipal) advertisement was withheld from a local paper because the paper had ventured to criticise a certain department." Again: "Municipal employees, from the highest to the lowest, are consciously and unconsciously becoming a municipal caste." A business man, active in organiza- tions fighting municipalism, cannot obtain a city contract, if what I was more than once assured is correct. His name is struck off the contractors' list. In the Council's business, according to the Glasgow Xews, "a certain laxity of method has been prevalent which might very easily lead to serious abuses." This journal gives an example in which, after the Council had passed a bill, one of its clauses, relating to compensation, had been altered. In another case a committee added a new clause. It is not concealed in Glasgow that the elec- tricity department exists under the sufferance of the gas depart- ment, with the consequent withering of the local electrical industry. Factious organizations in the dominant element strive to in- fluence the local elections. There is an Irish Municipal Commit- tee, a Corporation Workers' Union, a Co-operative Municipal Elec- tion Committee, an Independent Labor Party Committee, and a Glasgow Central Liberal Association, "to secure the return of Lib- eral representatives to all local boards." Good game, hunters a- plenty. "Glasgow's municipal enterprises have nearly abolished taxa- tion," was a bit of news going the rounds of the municipal owner- ship press of America two years ago. By the official reports, the Glasgow municipal debt is now 14,986,400, against 9,049,065 in 1898; the total of rates and taxes, 8s. 3d. on the pound, against 4s. lid. in 1890; the total of assessments, for municipal purposes only, 911,484, against 628,789 in 1898. The problem of munic- ipal tenements is at present complicated, with 15,069 houses unoccu- pied, out of a total of 163,427. Five years ago the Katepa} r ers' Federation began exposing the unsatisfactory auditing of Glasgow's accounts. More recently it entered suit to prevent the city from expending money in the pro- motion of a land values taxation bill in Parliament. On both these issues the municipality has (June, 1908) surrendered, after a costly litigation. The auditing methods recommended by the Katepayer^' Association have been adopted; the inroads on the Common Good must be stopped; the expenditure in promoting the taxation of land values bill has ceased, as illegal. Of the 2,457 spent 1,685 was got back from other municipalities. As is generally the case in Great Britain, the bookkeeping of the general city accounts in connection with the municipal under- takings accounts have resulted in Glasgow in a wide disbelief in the soundness of the city's methods. While the current receipts and ex- penditures of an undertaking in any single year may be correctly set forth, questions of interest, renewals, depreciation, and sums properly chargeable to original cost, to street improvements, and to general municipal administration leave it undetermined as to what "J. J. GRIFFIN & SONS." 47 really is the financial condition of the undertaking. On July 10, 1908, for example, the leading editorial in the Glasgow "Herald" began: "Yesterday the corporation [Town Council] treated itself to what might be described as at least a half dress debate uDon the disposal of the tramway surplus a discussion which must provide considerable amusement for those critics of municipal accounting who hold, as we do, that there is not yet any palpable surplus to di- vide." The Citizens' Union deplores the lack of co-ordination of Glas- gow's municipal departments ; "Their heads are colonels, and there is no general." A leading lawyer states publicly that the local law is a labyrinth. The enormously increased duties of Councillors with the rapid municipalization of various enterprises serves to keep busy citizens out of the Council. The petty graft of Councillors of small calibre such as running up questionable hotel bills while travelling, going third class and charging up first class fares keeps gossip of possibly greater underhand graft alive. All is not smooth and "superior" in Glasgow's municipal af- fairs. A local scribe* noting its difficulties, speaks of the city's "litigation, annexation, confiscation, federation, consolidation, mu- nicipalization, street 'registration, land values taxation." Each of these polys}dlables designates a public bone of contention or a mu- nicipal disaster, such as the telephone fiasco. II. One of the men most prominently in view in London when our Commission was in that city was Mr. T. McKinnon Wood. When he appeared at one of our sessions he was introduced by Robert Don- ald, Editor of the Daily Chronicle, as the leader of the Progressives in the London County Council. There was no doubt that he occu- pied that position. He led the Progressive side in the debate in the Council ; he was at one time chairman of the body ; he appeared before committees of the House of Commons on behalf of the Coun- cil; his name as leader was in the newspapers every day. But something happened to him a year ago. It forms a story which in New York would be rehearsed by the newspapers endlessly to a public man's disadvantage. In England, however, matters af- fecting private character may be printed immediately in connec- tion with public proceedings, but are not to be dilated upon after- ward. So nothing comes out in the newspapers at the present time in relation to this episode in which Mr. Wood figured, though his friends and his opponents whisper of the damage his reputation has suffered through its developments. Some one, in February, 1907, called the attention of the West- minster City Council (London has two "cities" and twenty-eight boroughs, each with a Council), to the fact that a "cellar flap" (street cellar door) had been set in the public way in front of the premises of J. J. Griffin & Sons, scientific instrument makers, Kean street, Kingsway. As permission for this cellar-flap had been re- fused by the Council, it set up an inquiry. The London County Council replied, in response to a communication, that plans of pave- ment lights were approved by it in December, 190-4, and as the only departure from the plans in this case was that one of the lights had been hinged so as to act as a cellar-flap, the Council would take no 48 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. proceedings. The Westminster City Council thereupon protested against the exceptional treatment accorded to Messrs. J. J. Griffin & Sons. In printing a report of these proceedings the Daily Mail asked, "Who are Messrs. J. J. Griffin & Sons?" The Financial News, in reply, printed a three-column article which showed that J. J. Griffin & Sons, contractors for the London County Council, were, to the extent of nearly 50 per cent, Mr. T. McKinnon Wood. The leader of the Progressives had bought shares in the company in 1899, and became a director in 1900. In 1905 he was in all possessed of 4,247 shares out of 9,990 and the ten founders' shares. Some one with a memory now recalled that Messrs. J. J. Griffin had been formerly on premises which had been demolished in mak- ing the great Holborn-to-Strand improvement, the new broad, cen- tral street of which became Kingsway. The relevant documents looked up, it came out that Messrs. J. J. Griffin & Son, in lieu of their leasehold in the premises demolished, had been given by the London County Council a lease for fifty years of a site equal in area to that abandoned, at the same rental, together with 16,000 cash compensation! A sub-committee of the London County Council investigated the connection of Mr. Wood with the Griffin firm. It reported, Feb. 25, that from 1889 to 1897 various schemes before the Council for the Holborn-to-Strand improvement were rejected, and that the one proposed in 1896, by which the Griffin leasehold premises were to be taken, was abandoned, and that Mr. Wood voted against all these schemes. Further, in 1897 the Improvements Committee had devoted its attention to a scheme that would have avoided the street on which the Griffin premises were situated. To the point that had been raised that the Griffin firm had moved from a side street into the premises demolished when it was known they might be taken for the improvement, the sub-committee said there was nothing that would justify them in assuming that any other than business considerations actuated the firm to so remove. In 1897 its sales were four times as much as in 1890, and in 1907 three times those of 1897. The staff increased from 35 in 1897 to 138 in 1906. "There was no doubt," the committee said, "that in the year 1898 Mr. Wood (who was then chairman of the Council) was aware that the [Griffin] site would be taken." "The question for us is whether he took steps to inform the Council of his interest in the property," though at that time there was no legal obligation, as there now is, upon a member to disclose his interest in a question before the Council. The committee found three members to whom Mr. Wood had mentioned his interest in the firm, but the Clerk of the Council from 1896 to 1900 never had the matter brought to his knowledge. As to the Griffin Council contracts, the committee re- ported that in number they were considerably more than other firms obtained but as a rule they supplied the cheapest article and were in a better position to supply certain apparatus than some of their competitors. And thus the committee somewhat perfunctorily re- cited a set of facts that on their face lessened the showing against Mr. Wood, who had already made his explanations in the daily press. A correspondent of the Morning Advertiser, Feb. 12, had, how- ever, with particulars as to dates, quoted from the records to show that the Holborn-to-Strand scheme adopted in 1898 had differed THE POLITICIAN. 41> from that recommended in 1892, and again in 1895, in only one important point, a bifurcation at the southern end of the great new street, in no wise affecting the Griffin site. The disturbance of this site was contemplated by the Improvements Committee from year to year. Mr. T. McKinnon Wood, as chairman of the Council, at- tended as an ex-officio member 23 of the 36 sessions in 1898 of the Improvements Committee, which, on July 5, when Mr. Wood wa tarries awhile and takes note is awak- ened first to the fact that current political happenings at times tell a familiar tale, and secondly, to the truth that where we blab and re-thrash public scandals the British method prescribes a short story and a long silence. Occasionally some of the remarks of newspaper editors and correspondents go far to lift the curtain to the visiting American. A Yarmouth man writes to a London daily newspaper: "From knowledge gained from forty years' insight into the municipal and parliamentary life of this town, I unhesitatingly state that our local government is rotten to the core. Open bribery has been practiced on both sides, and open treating at municipal* and parochial con- tests. The landlord holds the whip over the tenant ; the employer 50 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. < coerces the employee; the customer boycotts the tradesman." After Kidderminster leturned to Parliament a Liberal, many of the wealthy men of the district, mostly manufacturers, refused to renew their subscriptions to the benevolent funds of the Carpet Weavers' Association, with its staunch Liberal vote. A candidate may subscribe to a local cricket club, local charities, or local amuse- ments, to gain popularity, or refuse to subscribe when not paid back in popularity on election day. Said a Member of Parliament to me who had lived in New York: "American politicians carry on their doings before the curtain; ours know what part of the play should go on when the curtain is down." The London borough scandals have had their airing in the American press: West Ham, with its workhouse bedroom suite that cost $250: Poplar, with its poor rate in 1907 just double that of 1891 ; others, with their unusual expense accounts for Mayor and Councillors, their petty grafts of handsome pocketbooks for Council members and friends. The small peculations in boroughs, how- ever, pale before their egregious business blunders. Marylebono decided to take in hand its own electric lighting; the law required that it must buy out the local company, which offered to sell for $4,500,000. The Council rejected the price, went to law over it, spent $300,000 on attorneys and costs, and in the end paid $6,000,000. The consequences of British governmental incapacity are de- scribed in the London press in the same headlines as we see used for the same chronic difficulties in America: "Discarded War Stores Eesold to the Army at Great Profit !" "Strong Condemna- tion of London Food Factories!" "Nation's Printing Bill; Great Waste on Useless Documents." "The Adulterations of Butter." The predatory political machine in Great Britain has been limited by opportunity. The hoodlum masses can't be bought cheap because as empty sacks they have no vote. The only elective officeholders are members of the Councils and of Parliament, un- paid. The octopus landlords forestall the municipal jobs set up in American suburban districts by shoals of little real estate sharks. The public waste incident to the colossal development of great cities in a rich and prodigal new world is absent. No increase of population of forty-five millions in forty years has scrambled multi- farious privileges through legislative bodies to the strong and un- scrupulous. The conditions for exposure and public scandal-mongery are also limited. The British sensational press is bridled by the law. The ten thousand busy and reckless partisan newspaper pens that dirty public reputations in America with impunity would rust in idleness in Great Britain, where with exemplary damages, "The greater the truth the greater is the libel." As temptation is restricted, purity may rise proportionately. Eeputation at times is a sequence of covering up. Seas exist be- neath the surface sea. THE PASSING OF THE MUNICIPAL OWNERSHIP FEVER. In two short years a change has come o'er the spirit of the dreams told by pro-municipal prophets. To look no further than the sphere of the Civic Federation's investigation and questions of close interest to its Commission's membership, we see a steady A PASSING MANIA. 51 movement away from municipal ownership and toward regulation. The first point to be noted is that in its report to the Commis- sion the Committee of Twenty-One took a position decidedly against the usual propositions for municipal ownership. Not one of the municipal undertakings investigated in the United States had ful- filled all the requirements laid down by the committee for proof of continuous highly successful municipal operation. On exam- ination of these undertakings, which were examples selected by the municipal ownership members of the committee, representative men of the movement found out that what they wanted was usually some other ideal of municipal ownership than that investigated. Of the two most highly creditable examples, one was of the exceptional class of water supply, which may be a failure in the next adminis- tration, and the other, fin electrical undertaking, of an order too small for a model of sure value to large cities. The minds of ob- servers who had carefully followed the investigation were undoubt- edly influenced by the report to pay heed in future to methods of control rather than of ownership. In Philadelphia, the campaign of the municipal ownership advocates against the renewal for twenty years of the lease of the United Gas Improvement Company failed by a vote of 54 to 22 in Council, which, the "Public Ledger" said, "very fairly represent- ed the preponderance of public opinion on the subject." Conse- quently until 1927 that city will have gas of the first quality and an admirable service, for which the company, by its figures, receives 73 cents per 1,000 cubic feet. The company pays into the city 10 cents out of the $1 per 1,000 paid by the consumer, serves the nearly 30,000 street lamps free, and at the end of the lease turns the entire plant back to the municipality. In Chicago, the "immediate" municipal ownership movement of the Dunne administration has, under the votings of the com- munity, come to nothing but a regulation that puts possible munic- ipal ownership off to a remote generation. In Cleveland, Prof. Bemis is figuring for the information of the country how many million dollars have been saved to the com- munity under a three-cent fare through a new private street-car company instead of through lines owned by the city. In New York, the present summer has witnessed the curtain fall on a sensational municipal campaign farce begun three years ago. In pleading guilty to accepting a bribe and being fined $1,000, one of the eleven Municipal Ownership Aldermen elected in that campaign has set an end to all doubts of the story that the leader of the group, caught in a trap made in a newspaper office, had bar- gained to sell the eleven votes on the occasion of an official act for $5,500. The shriek of this stamp of municipal reformer has been drowned in a guffaw from New York's amused criminals of all classes. But the serious work of regulation, led by the Governor of the State, bringing into existence the Public Service Commission, is actually fast converting <,o its support the mass of men who had spoken of themselves as nmnicipalization advocates. The first annual report of the Commission for Greater New York, just issued, showing its reforms of transportation abuses and service deficiencies, and its prevention of over-capitalization and cut-throat stock-job- 52 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. bing competition that would mean eventual combination, has gone far to satisfy the desires for reform of practical opponents of tho methods by which certain public utility agencies had plundered the community. In New York, also, the last municipal electricity plant has gone out of existence. There is not the slightest probability that any of the private American undertakings investigated by the Civic Federation Com- mission will be taken over by the municipality which it serves. But there is a probability th&t any one of the municipal undertak- ings, except water, may be sold to private agencies by the community by which it is now owned. The author of a work on the subject recently issued gives a list of thirty municipal electric undertakings sold to companies in the fourteen months ending February last, with no transfers conversely. The present sentiment in the trades union world as to public ownership in general may be indicated by the vote taken at Norfolk last November at the convention of the American Federation of Labor on government ownership of railroads : Delegates for, 50 ; against, 154. Two years ago, when the Civic Federation Commission was in Great Britain, a labor member an enthusiastic municipal owner- ship man on one occasion, in the presence of a circle of British unionist Socialists, said to me, not gently: "You can't stand up to-day in a union meeting in the United States and oppose munic- ipal ownership \" If so : Time works its changes. I can to-day. In Great Britain, during my visit in the spring of this year, the leader of the Municipal Employees' Association said to me : "There's a lull at present in the municipal ownership movement." The same week the Secretary of the London Municipal Reformers informed me : "The pro-municipalists could not to-day initiate any new municipal scheme whatever. That wave is all passed over. The County Council is now trying to find out where it has really left us financially." This "lull" is everywhere in Britain. The continually rising tide of local taxes, the characters taking a hand in the game of poli- tics, the exultations of the Socialists over municipalist victories, the disappointing outcome of the municipal ventures already made ex- cept in undertakings in a few large cities, the utter failures such as the Thames steamboats and municipal telephones, and the evi- dences of the growing political strength of public employees these points are more frequently the subjects of comment now than they could possibly have been five years ago at the stage at that time of public experience. Even in Glasgow, municipal ownership is on the defensive. Its telephone, its housing scheme, its liquor traffic, its increase in rates, its questionable methods of promoting partisan bills in Par- liament have brought their reaction. I found in April in England that prominent trade union men who had been elected to legislative office were by no means disap- pointed at the recent turn in municipal affairs. They were begin- ning to speak their mind. "Some partisans," said one of them, referring to the radicals who had been pushing municipalism in the unions, "would cut off free speech." I heard much talk about com- pelling the Socialists and semi-Socialists to retire to the background. THE CHANGE IN JOHN BURNS. 53 I asked the tailor ex-Mayor of Battersea who was to be the leader in this uprising in the unions against the extremists. He instantly replied : "John Burns." The change in twenty years in John Burns' views and activ- ities is parallel to that of many thousands of workingmen in Great Britain who have moved from crude radicalism to opportunism by the political route. Burns, who once waved the red flag and com- manded the plaudits of twenty thousand men in a single crowd while in his stentor's voice he proclaimed "the class struggle" and called on the British workers to "take into their own hands the land, machinery, capital, and all means of production," is now retaining the votes of the masses in a course in which he is gradually freeing himself from the network of Socialist and municipal devices that have in practice proved futile. His speeches in Parliament have indicated, as the thermometer does the weather, especially during the last two years, the modification in the tendencies of the British working class voters. His views on the causes of pauperism and the public methods of preventing poverty have undergone a radical change. On January 30 of the present year, in the House of Commons, the Socialist-Labor members Snowden, Macdonald, and Pete Cur- ran, during a debate on the unemployed problem, taunted Burns with abandoning his old principles. He had recently jeered at pro- posals "mads by doss-house economists and soup-kitchen reform- ers/' In his reply Burns said ("Daily Telegraph") : "Pauperism would continue to grow if the unemployed movement was exploited by the type of persons who came to London not to work but to live on public funds, private charity, and the eleemosynary aid which was intended for better people." "There had never been more non- sense talked about pauperism in Great Britain and Ireland than in the last few years." "The time had come when the provision of pauperizing relief in this country should be arrested, and they [the government] would concentrate themselves on bedrock causes and transient palliatives which would lead to permanent reform. He wanted no more state workshops or municipal expedients, which would accentuate the difficulty and make the remedy worse than the disease." Burns is up with the procession of English voters. Prepon- derant working class sentiment has shown at the polls that it will not soon again demand more municipal dwellings and workshops, river steamboats, tramway supply foundries, or any of the class of "municipal expedients" which have had their popularity in the prospect and their disappointment in the fact. London, which when our Commission visited it two years ago had officially municipal ownership in full swing, has undergone a popular revulsion against it. In the twenty-eight boroughs hardly enough municipal ownership Councillors remain to maintain a discussion. In the London County Council, also, the Socialist-Pro- gressive majority has disappeared, and the opposition is carefully looking into the true financial condition of the municipal ventures so hopefully launched in the heyday of optimistic municipalism. If there was any one scheme which seemed to its supporters certain of great profits it was that of the London County Council tram- ways. Its outcome to the present time may be taken as a criterion 54 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. of the very best that rampant municipalization in London has given to the world. And what actually is the result? At a meeting of our Committee of Twenty-One, at St. Ermin's Hotel, July 3, 1906, to hear leading representatives of the municipal ownership move- ment in Great Britain, Mr. T. McKinnon Wood said of the County Council's tramways: "The total capital is 4,818,000. This in- cludes the purchase money. The sinking fund is about 450,000. Of the 4,818,000 capital, we have paid off 607,000, and of that 607,000 about 450,000 is sinking fund. We have also put a sum of 290,000 to relief of rates." But, alas ! on March 28, 1908, a special report on the tramways, made by the President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and others, was laid before the County Council. In brief, it showed that the 293,592 that had been applied 1897-1904 in relief of rates ought to have been applied to making up a loss exceeding 1,000,000 overlooked in the Council's methods of bookkeeping on the displacement of the horse traction system. Besides, on "improvements undertaken or pro- posed in connection with tramway schemes," "a substantial, but as yet unascertained, proportion of 387,438," should have been charged to tramways capital account, whereas it was set down to the general improvement account, and on "improvements for the purpose of general traffic," "a considerable, but as yet unascer- tained, proportion of 864,121 should also have been charged to tramways capital account." That is, up to March 31, 1907, the London County Council tramways, instead of earning profits of $1,500,000, were anywhere fronr$4,000,000 to $6,000,000 behind hand on the accounts mentioned, with nearly another million dollars arrearages on renewals and central office charges. Here is one of the fatal flaws in municipal ownership: By an erroneous alloca- tion of costs the general municipal treasury may for a time carry the burden of low fares, blunders, and liberality in general to come to a disastrous end on a day of judgment literally as sure to arrive as taxation. The fatal flaw of municipalism is in the finances ; that is, deficits must be made up by taxes. A NECESSARY PERSONAL EXPLANATION. I may now have convinced the reader (1) that Investigator Commons defied the lightning of truth the day he sought to blast me in my absence; and (2) that in my review I helped to bring out the vices in municipal ownership and operation that on being seen carry public support instead to the principle of control. But this leaves many perhaps most of my readers who do not know me still not satisfied on a point regarding myself. However they may have veiled their allusions to the motives of personal interest affecting me, some men I have met have had in mind : "What were you in this investigation for?" "What did you get out of it?" When Investigator Commons told the Civic Federation membership of my acts as investigator and reviewer, which to him were "im- possible," he knew well the injury he could thus work me with many among those classed as "of the public" and "of the employers." Certain candid men, English or American, among the hun- dreds with whom this work has brought me in contact, have put to me queries indirectly, by comment : "You have a good thing on this Commission." "You'll come out well, with your economical habits." A NECESSARY PERSONAL EXPLANATION. 55 "In England we hear that American labor men on government or other commissions receive large salaries." "You are in company with big capitalists." "We Labor delegates in England can seldom afford to put up at first-class hotels." This from the labor column of a New York evening newspaper, after a line to the effect that the labor men of the Twenty-One all had good trade union records: "They should be favorable to public ownership ; but I happen to know that some of them are not why, I am at a loss to understand." And with it a sermon on the evil intent of the capitalists backing the inquiry. A book reviewer in an engineering weekly paper, quoting a part of Investigator Com- mons' double-edged reluctant personal explanation, admires his "ideals" as therein expressed and lauds his impartiality, but finds that my review, "valuable" from my "being a trade unionist," is only "an argument." When Investigator Commons and I traveled together in Great Britain I usually found that the second day we were in any city I was being classed by the political unionists as "with the capitalists." So, to satisfy the last possible query, and to make plain the principle on which I do what public work I can, I shall tell now what I made out of my work for this Commission, and, while on tho subject, out of various other tasks as labor representative that [ have undertaken. My time of service for labor warrants me in putting an end to my habit of reticence in the matter. The salaries of the Commission's American engineers and ac- countants, and of those Commissioners that gave up their regular positions for a time, and of the labor investigators, were placed about the point of their accustomed earnings or a small percentage higher. Mine was put at $200 a month, full time ; the United Gar- ment Workers of America paid me $30 a week for getting out their periodical, leaving me a day or two a week free for occasional other earnings. The allowance for hotel and transportation ex- penses for Commissioners and investigators was $10 a da} T , except during the ocean passages, which took a special sum apart. Toward the close of my engagement I drew up a memorandum, copies of which I gave separately to two members of the Civic Federation. As to salary, it showed that within the time of my connection with the Commission I had declined to draw anything for a week at one stage of the work and two months at another, the latter being time I spent in Xew York, without earnings, waiting for the meeting of the Twenty-One, before returning to Europe, April, 1907. As to expenses, the sums I drew were less than the amount I was entitled to draw by $1,575. These two items of un- paid time and undrawn expenses I had had it in my power to con- vert into more than $2,000 cash to my account, with no dispute about it. I also paid out of my salary, without rendering bills, my quota of certain extra traveling expenses incurred while with the Commissioners on tour in Great Britain, all my own entertainment bills for labor men and others while interviewing them, the outlay for several trips in America which some of the Commissioners might have deemed not necessary, the unitemizable expenditures for wear and tear and accident in travel, my recent trip to England to inter- view managers, and the petty expenses connected with the Com- mission since April 1, 1907. This defence against the attack of 56 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. Investigator Commons I print at my own cost, every copy being issued gratuitous^. The expense account I handed in, instead of being made up according to actual outlay or simply by drawing the maximum, as to which all sending in expense bills could exercise their option, was set down at railroad fare and the per diem allowed, not by my own richer typographical union, but by the garment workers. I de- clined my salary for the months in New York that it might be seen that I was waiting to perform my duty when the Twenty-One met and not to draw money. After thus waiting from December 1, 1906, until in Febru- ary, 1907, I was made Secretary of the Committee of Four, and I drew up suggestions for the first drafts of sections of its report. When, as the weeks dragged on, it became evident that months more must elapse before the expected meeting would take place, I re- signed this position and went my way. With other work open to me on the Commission, I could have been on salary with it at lea.?t six months longer. My "good thing" therefore has resulted in less by hundreds of dollars than I would have earned had I remained with the (rai- ment Workers during the time I was with the Commission. During the months I was waiting I did some work for the Civic Federation. I assisted in the details of getting up the annual meeting, collected facts of record and interviewed persons in con- nection with its child labor work, and wrote and delivered an ad- dress on its welfare department which was issued in pamphlet form. For these services I declined the pay repeatedly offered me by the Manager. Just before leaving New York I wrote Investigator Commons the foregoing points in outline. I have been doing this kind of work, to the extent that I have been able, for a quarter of a century. When, five years ago, anticipating its sale to a politician, I bought the New York "Unionist," then the semi-official publication of Typographical Union No. 6 (which has seven thousand dues- paying members, its scale being from $21 to $33 a week), every President, or every living representative of the presidency, for more than twenty years wrote that from his personal experience with me he had confidence in my intention to put high character into their little fortnightly craft paper which, unfortunately, on two occa- sions had been carried into practical politics. I issued it during a Mayoralty campaign one year and a Presidential campaign the following without mention of politics in either reading or advertis- ing columns. I sold the paper ten months before an election for the same price I had paid tor it. Its income I had put into its im- provement, its issuance an avocation unrequited by profits. My chief satisfaction was in contributing to the credit of my organiza- tion. I was two years and ten months Chairman-Treasurer (mana- ger) of the printers' farm. One year we had more than ninety members working on park land; the next year sixty-three persons on a farm of 166 acres. Writing afterward, the Secretary-Treas- urer of No. 6 said : "I can testify that in the years you were on the A NECESSARY PERSONAL EXPLANATION. 5T Farm Committee yon not only never drew a cent from the union for either salary or expenses, but as Chairman-Treasurer you handed to me, as contributions from outside parties, the sum of $1,500, which went to the support of the farm." For years I was on one committee or another in this great union on the out-of-work committee several times, aggregating a year and a half ; on special work for families of impoverished mem- bers; on investigating the accounts for two strike years, involving the auditing of thousands of receipts and expenditures amounting to more than $100,000, a piece of work taking sixteen weeks of the clearly opposed, both in sentiment and self-interest, to the creation of a privileged class of municipal employees. As far as the reg- ular trade unions are concerned the principle of trade-union wages, rising and falling in municipal employment the same as in private LABOR AND POLITICS. 99 employment, is accepted in its full significance. Without the sup- port of the regular unions the strength of the Municipal Employees' Association has disappeared. It was a temporary phase of the rapid increase of municipal ownership. 32 Our investigations have shown that the proper method of deal- ing with employees is the most difficult and critical problem of municipal ownership. The appointment, promotion and dismissal of employees and the wages to be paid offer peculiar opportunities for political and personal influence inconsistent with efficiency. Civil service reform, so-called, has been found in its highest per- fection in the city of Chicago, but it is evident by comparison with, a less perfect device ; n Syracuse that its integrity depends on the political influences thfi' 'ontrol the mayor and the heads of depart- ments. If the head o. he department is independent of politics, as shown in Cleveland, Detroit and South Norwalk, the civil ser- vice commission is not needed. 33 The Chicago system is a temporary bulwark built around the departments until such time as the chief officer himself can also be protected from political selection. This is the case in British cities where the idea of a civil service com- mission is unknown. 34 But even there, especially in the Sheffield tramways, appointments have been made on the recommendation of councillors. The experience of Glasgow is instructive. Fifteen } r ears ago the practice of hiring employees on the recommendation of councillors was universal in all departments. But with the growth of municipal ownership it has almost disappeared. 85 This is partly because several thorough investigations of alleged favor- itism have been made by the council ; partly because public spirited business men have exposed the evil, have made it clear to the voters #nd have been elected to the council on the issue of driving out favoritism; and partly because the adoption of the minimum wage policy of the labor members has stopped the practice of councillors' unloading and pensioning their old employees on the municipal pay-roll. 3 The only remnant of the practice discovered after a thorough investigation in Glasgow was in the unskilled work of the tramways, and this came about through the effort of that de- partment during the industrial depression of 1905-6 to aid the city government in finding work for the unemployed. The press- ure for employment during the depression was enormous and all managers were besieged by hundreds of applicants. A card of introduction from a councillor secures at least the privilege of filling out an application blank, and this amounts to a limited pref- erence over those who do not have such cards, but the managers fol- low up the application by a thorough examination before making appointments. In other places all charges of favoritism were care- fully investigated and they were found to be baseless, except in the case of motormen and conductors at Sheffield. These are selected on the recommendation of councillors. The Manchester Tramway Committee, at the beginning of its organization, recognizing the possible evil, adopted a rule instructing their manager not only not to pay attention to letters from councillors but to give prefer- ence to applicants who have no such recommendations. 100 NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION. Our investigations have shown that the strongest safeguard for a manager against the pressure of outside recommendations is the recognition of organized labor within his department." Wher- ever we have found a class of employees organized and dealt with as such through their representatives we have found those positions exempt from politics. This follows from the nature of labor or- ganization which cannot survive if individuals are given preference on political, religious, personal or any other grounds than the char- acter of the work they do. Even in the politically honeycombed municipal undertaking of Allegheny, the union of electrical work- ers stopped the practice of paying assessments by its members for political campaigns. The success of the civil service system of Chicago is owing more than anything else to the fact that organ- ized labor has one of the three members on each examining board. The manager of the Manchester Tramways ascribes his freedom from interference by individual councillors to his recognition of the union that holds 90 per cent, of his motormen and conductors. 38 PRIVATE COMPANIES AND MUNICIPAL COUNCILS. The foregoing is a review of several interests which have been discovered as tending to weaken the efficiency and integrity of municipalities in the operation or regulation of monopolies, to- gether with the factors that tend to correct these evil tendencies. In inquiring into the part played by all of them/ 9 including saloon- keepers, real estate speculators, party politicians, and municipal employees, the most impressive fact in Great Britain is the ab- sence of any political "machine" which could bring them together and line them up under a centralized control. Whatever corrupt- ing or incapacitating tendencies there may be in these several in-, terests that come into conflict with good administration, each worKs by itself and there is no permanent interest or class of manip- ulators which thrives by marshaling them together in a perpetual onslaught and undermining of the city government. Public spir- ited and independent citizens are not compelled to enter into bar- gains nor to make promises to a political organization, which would disgust them with a position on the Town Council. This absence of a powerful machine is mainly due to the fact that there are no great financial bargains at stake, such as municipal contracts or franchises, whose owners have a direct interest in breaking down city government. None of the menacing factors above mentioned is large enough, and all of them combined cannot gain enough, to warrant them in making large contributions to an expensive or- ganization for the control of elections and appointments. The brewery interest is practically the only interest of financial impor- tance whose profits can be menaced by acts of the Council, but the menace to it is based on moral and not financial grounds. In re- sisting this menace it does not directly attack the business integ- rity of the Council, but, more important, there is no opportunity for it to make an alliance with contractors and franchise specula- tors who could increase their profits and make sharper bargains LABOR AND POLITICS. 101 with the city if the councillors were weak or corrupt, or under the control of a machine which they must support. The absence of powerful financial opponents of good government leaves the way open for business men to enter the councils and to attack abuses or defend the interests of the city without risking their private business or antagonizing their social circle. The eminent bankers, financiers, and merchants who serve the cities as aldermen on the finance committees are free to do so because neither they nor their clients or business associates are interested in stocks which might be depreciated if they helped the city to drive a good bargain. These men are often the directors in large manufacturing, railway and other private companies. Councillors and aldermen on the gas, water, electricity and tramways committees are even stockholders and directors in private gas and water companies of other towns. It would be impossible for such men to act conscientiously on the great board of municipal directors, and to give the town the same kind of service as they give to their private companies, if they or their business associates were interested in companies which had business relations with the Council. Neither could the medium and smaller business men and employers afford to accept positions on the councils and take the independent stand they do, if the bankers and large business men on whom they depend for credits and sales were interested in the stocks of franchise companies. 40 With these great antagonistic interests out of the way, the business men of the town find, not only that their private business is not menaced, but that the conditions of all private business are greatly improved, if they lend their abilities to the improvement of municipal business. The time which they take from their private affairs is often not even a business sacrifice. The honor and distinction of public service on the council is really an advertising asset in their private business. It would be a liability if they were called upon to an- tagonize large financial interests. I do not hold that the contrast in American cities gives evi- dence that the private corporations which we have investigated have taken the initiative in corrupting and weakening the municipal councils. The initiative has just as often come from corrupt offi- cials who "hold up" the Corporations. The real question is not, Who is to blame ? or, Is it blackmail or is it bribery ? but the real ques- tion is, What is the situation that compels officials, campaign com- mittees and corporations to resort to blackmail -and bribery? Plainly by comparison of American and British cities the answer is found in the enormous profits at stake on municipal elections. 41 It is the absence of a political machine and its financial con- tributions that also makes possible the election in British cities of remarkable groups of Labor councillors. With but few exceptions the labor members are representative of the best elements of the trade unions. Although they lack the financial experience of busi- ness men they contribute a valuable knowledge of labor conditions on which successful management of municipal undertakings de- pends. Men of their integrity and earnestness have the opportunity 102 NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION. to come forward because the trade unions are not undermined nor their leaders bribed by the paid agents of a political machine. 42 And the financial interests that would profit by the election of weak or dishonest labor candidates are not powerful enough to subsidize the astute agents needed by the machine for the purpose. A contrast with this situation appears in two of the places visited where private companies operate public utilities. The municipal council of Newcastle-on-Tyne is decidedly inferior in quality and ability to others, 43 and two of the leading financiers on the council declared that their only reason for remaining in the position is the election which the council gives them as corporation representatives on the Tyne Improvement Commission. The pres- ence of private gas, electricity and water companies, with their rep- resentatives in the council, prevents the leading business men from interesting themselves in the success of the municipal government, while an equivocal class of labor agitators takes advantage of the situation to get elected to the council. Sheffield, also, with its influ- ential gas company, is the only town visited where the employees in the tramway and street departments are appointed through the influence of councillors. In that town there is a peculiar induce- ment for the eminent business men in charge of the gas company to look with approval on the election of inferior councillors, because the council elects three of its members as directors of the company. The strength of the company is seen in the incompetency of these municipal directors, who are kept in ignorance of essential details in its affairs. With councillors of this inferior type and with the indifference of business men to the management of municipal af- fairs, the result is seen in the absence of any protest against prac- tices which are undermining the municipal undertakings. Certain effects of the municipal ownership movement in Great Britain on the private companies are evident. The Sheffield Com- pany, under the far-seeing management of Sir Frederick Mappin, has directed its policy for many years with the distinct purpose of meeting the arguments for municipal ownership. To avoid agita- tion it has refrained from going to Parliament for permission to increase its capital stock. Consequently it has distributed its large surplus profit in the form of reduced prices for gas and betterments to its plant. Most instructive of all is the attitude of the companies toward their employees. With the sentiment of municipal owner- ship ready to. explode, 44 the companies cannot afford to risk a strike. The Newcastle gas company has met this situation by a willing recognition of the gas workers' union and by a resort to arbitration through which wages have been materially raised. The South Metropolitan Company has developed its copartnership scheme with astonishing shrewdness and careful attention to details, so that every disaffected workman is silent or dismissed. The Sheffield Company, although its president had openly attacked and wrecked trade unions in his private business, contented itself with graduall}* undermining the gas workers' union, through the payment of wages and bonuses superior to those paid by other private employers of the LABOR AND. POLITICS. 103 district, and even in the case of unskilled labor, superior to those paid by the corporation of Sheffield. TRADE UNIONS AND WAGES. The influence of wage- earners through their unions upon the conditions of municipal employment in the United States has been complicated through the presence and activity of practical politi- cians. In the municipal enterprises investigated, except South Nor- walk and Eichmond, the eight-hour day has been established for the past ten or fifteen years for all employees, whereas in the private companies the hours are longer or have more recently been reduced for a portion, but not all, of their employees in the more skilled branches of work. This advantage in municipal undertakings has been brought about, not by a definite labor party, but by the influ- ence of wage-earners as voters upon the municipal officials. 45 A curious contrast, however, presents itself in the wages paid by contractors on municipal work. While the larger cities in their own employment reduced the hours several years before similar reductions were made by British municipalities, yet, unlike the Brit- ish municipalities, provision was not made requiring contractors on municipal works to observe the hours and wages paid by the munici- palities themselves. It has only been within the past five or six years that a definite movement was undertaken by the wage-earning element to extend these provisions to contractors, and this, on ac- count of adverse decisions of the courts, led to the adoption in New York of a constitutional amendment in 1905 stipulating that the prevailing rate of wages should be paid by contractors on the work of the State or its sub-divisions. This clause has recently been adopted by the city of Chicago. The hand of the politician is seen in the omission of the contractors from the requirement respecting wages and hours, since by this device he was able to win both the wage-earners and the contractors to his support. But with the more extensive organization of wage-earners and their independence of the politicians, the contractors are placed on the same basis as the municipality. In only one case investigated in the United States is there a formal trade agreement between the union and a municipal depart- ment,* 8 namely, that of the electricity department of Chicago, but since permanent appointments in that and other departments of Chicago are controlled by the Civil Service Commission, the effect of this agreement is to control only the temporary or sixty-day appointments. The unions, however, are recognized by the Civil Service Commission to the extent that an officer of the union con- cerned is appointed as one of the three members of the examining board which passes upon applicants for municipal positions. The other two members are employers or technical experts selected by the commission outside th3 municipal service. The consequence of this arrangement is that the unions are satisfied that the Civil Service law is honestly administered, and at the same time the non- union workmen are protected against discrimination. In Great 104 NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION. Britain there are two undertakings, Birmingham gas and Man- chester tramways, which have trade agreements with the unions, and in all other places the same result is reached by the provision requiring the payment of trade-union rates of wages. 47 The municipal undertakings in both countries are necessarily "open shop," in the sense that employment is open both to union and non-union men. In the case of the more skilled trades this usually results in the employment of union men, depending partly on the attitude of the manager.* 8 This attitude is favorable to the unions in all of the British municipalities except Liverpool and is favorable in the American cities of Cleveland, Detroit and Chi- cago. In these places the managers consult the union officers in arranging wages, hours, and conditions of work. The three Amer- ican places mentioned are those where the political machine, sup- ported by the contractors and franchise corporations, has been elim- inated from the control of the city government by a popular revolt against the corporations. But in Allegheny, Syracuse, Wheeling and Indianapolis, 49 where a combination of politicians and franchise corporations is in control of the municipal government, the attitude is distinctly hostile to the unions, and appointments and promotions are made with reference to the political adherence of the employees. The exception to this statement is found in the Allegheny electric undertaking to the extent that the Electrical Workers' Union has organized the linemen. In this case appointments are not made on political grounds and the linemen do not pay the assessments re- quired of other employees. Of the private companies investigated in Great Britain, all of them except one were hostile to union labor. The exception is the Newcastle gas, which has had open-shop agree- ments with a gas workers 7 union during seventeen years. In the United States all of the private companies are hostile to union labor. 50 Most of the companies in both countries protested that they were not hostile, while only one asserted positively that it was, but the acts and policies of all, as shown by our investigations, demon- strate their hostility. The situation respecting each branch of or- ganized labor in both classes of undertakings is briefly as follows : The Electrical Workers' Union throughout the United States numbers about 21,000 members. Its principal strength is found among the wiremen, who are associated with other skilled trades in the construction of buildings, among shop men in manufacturing establishments, and among linemen employed by telephone com- panies. The organization has a much smaller proportion of the employees of electric light and street railway companies. It has no organization among private companies coming under our investiga- tion. It has an organization in the Detroit Electric Company, which we used for comparison with the Detroit municipal undertak- ing. The presence of the municipal enterprise, with its eight-hour day and its recognition of the Electrical Workers' Union during the past eight years, has served as a standard by which this private company has endeavored to guide itself and to put itself in as favor- able position before the public as the municipal undertaking. The LABOR AND POLITICS. 105 company indeed has created a semi-pension position for the presi- dent of^the Electrical Workers' local union, giving him leave of absence to use his influence among aldermen and the working people of the town at times when the council has before it an ordinance for the regulation or reduction of rates or services. The situation is different in Chicago, where a local union of the same organiza- tion has been defeated in strikes by the electricity companies and where the union is able to maintain its scale of wages and secure employment with those companies only in the branches of work connected with the building trades where it has the support of other trade unions in the town. Even in that exceptional circumstance, the union has been compelled to allow its men to work at 15 cents a day less than the scale paid by the municipality and by other fair employers. The organization is not represented in the municipal enterprise of South Norwalk, although the local union has officially declared that undertaking to be a "fair shop" and permits its mem- bers to work alongside municipal employees who are not members. The situation of the Electrical Workers' Union in Great Britain is somewhat similar to that of the corresponding organization in this country. It, however, has been handicapped by the fact that the powerful association of Amalgamated Engineers (machinists) has always claimed electrical workers as coming under its jurisdiction. Four other unions also claim jurisdiction over the electrical workers. The Amalgamated Engineers are interested more in the organiza- tion of fitters, turners and blacksmiths than in the organization of electrical workers, pattern makers and other smaller elements claimed by them. It has only been in the past year that the Amal- gamated Engineers recognized the Electrical Trade Union and con- sented to their admission on equal terms in the Engineering and Shipbuilding Federation. One consequence of the conflict with other unions is that the Electrical Workers' Union 51 in that country has not been aggressive ind has limited itself practically to munici- pal employees and the employees of contractors on municipal work. It has only recently begun organizing the shop men in manufactur- ing establishments, but has no men with any of the private com- panies investigated. The stationary firemen's organization includes about 13,000 members throughout the United States, 52 of whom 4,000 are in New York City. This organization is not strongly represented in any of the places investigated except Chicago and Cleveland, where it includes all of the firemen in the municipal electric and water works. The union was defeated in a strike by the Commonwealth and Edi- son companies of Chicago and has no representation now in their employment. It has members in the municipal undertaking of De- troit, but not in Syracuse, Eichmond or Wheeling, nor in any of the private undertakings. This union claims jurisdiction over stokers in gas works, but none of its members were found either in the municipal or the private gas undertakings. The national union of stationary engineers, 53 with its 17,500 members, has members in the municipal undertakings of Cleveland, 106 NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION. Detroit, Allegheny, Wheeling, and Chicago, but not in Richmond nor in any of the private undertakings. The firemen and engineers of Great Britain are claimed by a half dozen organizations, all of them weak and conflicting and none of them represented in any of the establishments visited. Where the gas workers' union is recognized it includes the firemen. There is one organization, that of street railway employees,, for which comparisons between private and public employment can- not be made in the United States, since there are no municipal undertakings of that character. The British organization, which nominally includes teamsters and drivers as well as motormen and conductors, is practically confined to the latter, and for the last six years has increased its membership solely among motormen and conductors. Its membership consists of 9,500 in municipal em- ployment and 1,500 in private employment, 54 a ratio of one-half of the motormen and conductors employed by all municipalities and one-third of those employed by all companies. The three private companies investigated, namely London, Norwich and Dublin, have taken a decided stand against the organization, have discharged those of its employees who became members and have required bond& or deposits which are forfeited if the men quit without giving one or two weeks' notice. Two of the municipalities, London and Man- chester, are organized in this association to the extent of nine- tenths of their employees, while in two other establishments investi- gated, Liverpool and Glasgow, the municipalities have established benefit associations, and in Liverpool the union was disrupted by embezzlement on the part of its officers. The wages are so much in advance of what these employees received from the former pri- vate companies that the union does not appear to offer them any particular advantages if they should join it. In the United States,, where the street railway employees are all in the service of private companies, the membership of the union paying dues throughout the country was 36,000 in 1902 out of a total number of employees- eligible to membership in that year of 134,000. 55 This was 2? per cent, of the employees of those companies, or something less than the proportion organized in the private companies of Great Britain, and about half of the proportion which the British union has of the municipal employees. In none of the American enterprises investigated were the com- mon laborers organized. In the municipal undertakings they are paid higher wages and given shorter hours than in the case of private employees of the same locality. They are also in all cases citizens of the United States, and residents of the locality. The common labor of the private companies, except in Indianapolis and the Southern cities, where they are colored, is composed largely of immigrants and no attention is paid as to whether they have secured citizenship papers or not. MINIMUM WAGES. In the matter of wages and hours the principal effect of munici- pal ownership is seen in J he unskilled and unorganized labor in both LABOR AND POLITICS. 107 countries, in that of street railway employees in Great Britain and in that of gas workers and electric workers in the United States. The policy of all of the British municipalities is to place the minimum wages of common labor at the level paid by the best private employers for similar work. 66 This is about 15 per cent, to 40 per cent, higher than other private wages for the same class of labor in the same locality. The greatest difference, that of Leicester, was the result of arbitration, brought about through the organiza- tion of common labor in that town. In this case those private em- ployers who recognized the union paid the same wages as the munici- pality. In one locality, Sheffield, the minimum wage paid by the gas company is higher than the minimum paid by the municipality and other private employers, and the gas company at Newcastle pays its organized common labor the same minimum as the municipality, but all of the electric and tramway companies pay less for common labor doing the same kind of work than the municipalities in which they are located. 57 In the United States the minimum paid for common labor by the private companies is, in all cases, except Atlanta, lower than that of the municipality, and the minimum paid for common labor by municipal undertakings is higher than that of private companies of the same locality. 58 The correspondence runs as follows : Syracuse, municipal $1.50 for eight hours, private $1.50 for ten hours; De- troit, municipal $1.75 for eight hours, private $1.80 for nine hours; Allegheny, municipal $2.75 for eight hours, private $1.75 for ten hours; Wheeling, municipal $1.85 for eight and nine hours, private $1.85 for ten hours; Cleveland, municipal $1.76 for eight hours, private $1.75 for ten hours; Indianapolis, municipal $1.60 for eight hours, private $1.50 for ten hours; Chicago, municipal $2.00 for eight hours, private $1.75 for ten hours; New Haven, municipal $1.50 for eight hours, private $1.50 for nine hours; Richmond, municipal $2.00 for nine hours, private $1.20 for nine hours; At- lanta, municipal and private $1.00 for ten hours. These are the minimum rates and not the average rates nor the highest rates paid for unskilled and usually unorganized labor. 89 In this respect the municipalities, both in Great Britain and the United States, have adopted the trade-union principle of the mini- mum wage for that class of labor which ordinarily has no union, and all of the familiar arguments for and against the theory of the minimum wage as applied to trade unions can be brought forward as applied to the municipalities. Against the minimum wage theory is the criticism that it shuts out from employment the old men who are not worth the minimum wage, and my colleague, though speak- ing ostensibly for the trade unions, nevertheless by condemning this result in municipal employment, condemns the fundamental princi- ple of trade-unionism. The private companies investigated, which pay less than the minimum, of course, justify it on the ground that the Italians, negroes, and others employed are not worth the mini- mum, but the trade unionist usually tells them that by paying the minimum they would attract better workmen. So far as our in- 108 NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION. veetigations have gone, they show that in municipal employment this has been the case. Since the adoption of the minimum wage policy, 60 enforced sometimes by civil service rules, the quality, char- acter, physique, and efficiency of the common labor employed by municipalities has been greatly improved, and municipal employ- ment has ceased to be looked upon as an old-age pension for laborers worn out in private employment. This is a hardship to individuals to the same extent that trade-unionism is a hardship to individuals. But from the standpoint of the municipality it is a gain, because more competent laborers are employed, and municipal employment is clearly distinguished from municipal charity. The aged and inefficient laborers, discharged from private employment, and un- able to secure municipal employment, must, of course, be supported from the public treasury, and it is a significant fact that the move- ment for old-age pensions as a substitute for the poorhouse in Great Britain has been strengthened by the minimum wage policy of the past ten years which has relieved municipal employment of its poor- house features. In all of the occupations where organized labor was found, the policy of all of the municipalities investigated, except South Nor- walk, is that of paying the trade-union rate. This is also, of course, a minimum rate and the conditions are the same as those governing private employers of the locality who recognize the union. A few cases of individuals were found where the city was paying indi- viduals less than the unions, but these were cases in which the union had granted a permit to work below the scale on account of old age, or were cases over which a dispute as to the character of the work was in process of adjustment, or where, as in Chicago, wages in pri- vate employment had been advanced after the municipal budget had been voted and the latter could not under the law be changed until the next fiscal year. We have not found any instance, except that of the Municipal Employees' Association in Great Britain, above men- tioned, where the unions have demanded higher minimum wages of the municipality than those paid by union employers. Individuals, both in municipal and private undertakings, get higher wages than the union minimum. Outside the ranks of unskilled labor in Great Britain the prin- cipal difference between wages in municipal and private undertak- ings is found in the case of the motormen and conductors on tram- ways. This has been brought about by a reduction in the hours of labor in. municipal employment, so that in two municipal under- takings, Glasgow and Manchester, the hours have been reduced to 54 per week, and in two others, the Liverpool and London County Council, to 60 per week, while in the three private undertakings the hours are 70 per week. 81 Since the wages have not been decreased the result is seen in the rate of pay per hour. Taking the London County Council Tramways and the London United Tramways, where comparisons can fairly be made, since both are in the same town, the wages for motormen are 4.2 per cent, and for conductors 30 per cent, higher on the municipal than on the private system. LABOR AND POLITICS. 100 Outside London, considering the local levels of wages, the municipal undertakings pay higher wages than the private undertakings. This difference is not owing to the change from horse to electrical trac- tion, since the wages on the municipal undertakings were advanced when the municipality secured possession, which in the case of Glas- gow was six years before electrical traction was adopted. The pri- vate companies, although paying less than the municipalities, have also advanced their rates of pay with the introduction of electrical traction. The same is true of the traction companies in the United States, although our investigations have not included a survey of these companies, and we are unable to make 62 a statistical com- parison.* In the case of gas workers employed by the municipalities and private companies in Great Britain it has been found that, with the exception of the South Metropolitan Company, there is not much difference between the wages paid in the two classes of undertakings. The differences observed in this occupation grow out of the amount of work required of the stokers. On account of the severity of the work it is the' practice both of the private companies and the munici- *The practice of my colleague in going outside the matters actually investigated by us and introducing criticisms that we have not in- vestigated may be judged by his quotation from a socialist critic of the Glasgow tramways a class of critics whom in general he loses no opportunity to discredit. Since these criticisms have been introduced after our report was handed in, I have had no opportunity of "running them down," as was thoroughly done in other cases, and can only quote from a reply to my inquiries received from the General Manager under date of May 20, 1907. He says: "In regard to the first point, we never ask an applicant for a situation for a written 'character'; we simply wish to know from him what situations he has been in during the past five years, and the names of his employers during that period. On leaving the service he is informed that any communications regarding him will be promptly attended to." "The question of conductors paying the full value for lost tickets is fully dealt with in the report sent you." The report referred to is one made under date of February 20, 1907, by the General Manager to the Tramways Committee, in answering a petition of the Municipal Employees' Association, and includes the following paragraph: "The conductors desire that when any of the tickets entrusted to them go astray, they should only be held responsible for the cost of printing the lost tickets and not for their face value. I cannot find that any conductor during the past year has been charged the face value of lost tickets who has come forward with an explanation. We must, however be very strict in the matter of lost tickets because these tickets are worth their face value both to the department and to the conductors They must therefore be regarded practically as cash. Each case is considered on its merits, and I am perfectly satisfied that the conductors have nothing to complain of in the way they are treated in regard to lost tickets." The General Manager continues: "I never heard it suggested that mour service men are supposed to report each other for neglect of g^_to_the_ wearing of uniform, we would not allow a man ^ " to take up duty unless he were properly dressed" offence PUnching f a ticket in the wron S Place is a very serious 110 NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION. pal undertakings in the. United States to require the stokers to work actually only one-half of the number of hours for which they are paid, the other half being available for recreation. This is true also in three of the municipal undertakings in Great Britain, while in the fourth, Glasgow, the stokers work five hours out of the eight instead of four. In this respect Glasgow is on the same basis with the most favorable of the private companies, Newcastle, where on account of the presence of a strong labor organization, the stokers also are on the basis of five hours' work for eight hours 7 pay. In the other two private companies, which have succeeded in destroy- ing the labor organizations 63 that formerly existed, the amount of work required of the men has been increased to a greater degree than the increase of wages. So severe was this hardship on the employees of the South Metropolitan Company that in two of the stations they voted to accept the proposition of the company to return to the twelve-hour day and to forego the advantages of the eight-hour day, which they had secured through their union in 1889. By increasing slightly the total amount of work in the twelve-hour shift they in- creased their total daily wages, but the cost of labor to the company is the same on the twelve-hour basis as it is in the other stations on the eight-hour basis. Measuring their wages, however, by the hour, the men on the twelve-hour basis receive the lowest rates of pay of all the private and municipal undertakings. This twelve-hour sys- tem, resulting from the smashing of the union and the overwork of the employees, is approved in some quarters as a "genuine example of co-operation." At the other extreme the least amount of work required of stokers is in the municipal undertaking at Manchester, and there the reduction in the amount of work has been criticised as indi- cating a detrimental influence of trade unions upon the municipal undertaking. A question of this kind must be decided according to the opinions of the investigators. Looking at the severity of the work it would be unwarranted to say that the stokers in the Man- chester municipal undertaking are doing a smaller amount of work than should be fairly required of them. An important consequence of the policy of the Manchester municipality in its effort to avoid overworking the stokers is seen in its effort to greatly improve the equipment of the plant in order to reduce the amount of labor re- quired, the net result being that the labor cost in Manchester is not greater than in other places. In the United States the gas workers are on the twelve-hour day at Eichmond and Atlanta, but in the municipal plant at Wheel- ing all employees have the eight-hour day, while with the private company at Philadelphia the shift men in the retort house were placed on the eight-hour day when the company took possession. They had worked twelve hours under municipal ownership. The wages paid by the Richmond municipal plant, all of whose em- ployees are whites, are 90 per cent, to 100 per cent, higher than the wages paid to negroes wao do similar work in the Atlanta private undertaking, and the wages paid to white mechanics and appren- tices at Richmond are 30 per cent, to 120 per cent, higher than those paid to the corresponding white employees by the Atlanta LABOR AND POLITICS. Ill company. 64 In one occupation, that of the bricklayer, the wages in the two places are the same. In the electric industries in Great Britain, outside of employ- ment of unskilled labor, there does not appear to be any material difference in the rates paid by the municipalities and the private companies taken as a whole. It was not possible to make an exact comparison on account of the differences in classification and the wide range of wages, depending partly upon the size of the undertaking. 65 Such differences as were found to exist between municipal and private undertakings might be explained upon the basis of the differences in the level of wages in the several localities. In the United States in all cases, except South Norwalk and Detroit, the wages paid by the municipal electric undertakings are materially higher than these paid by the private undertakings of the same localities. The widest difference is found in Allegheny and in Chicago. The only positions in which the private electrical companies of Chicago pay as high wages for similar work as the municipal undertaking is that of a small number of their wiremen, who work alongside the other organized building trades of the city." 3 Their other wiremen doing the same work get less pay. In the matter of "welfare work/' or provision for the comfort, cleanliness and recreation of employees, the best conditions were found in the works of the Commonwealth Electric Company at Chicago, 67 the municipal water works at Cleveland, the Philadelphia gas works, the municipal gas at Leicester, municipal trams at Glas- gow and Liverpool and South Metropolitan gas at London. The worst conditions were at Wheeling and Richmond municipal gas and Sheffield private gas. In general, the buildings and works con- structed during the past four or five years, both in private and mu- nicipal undertakings, show a great improvement over the older build- ings and works, in the provision for baths, lavatories, lunch and cooking rooms, recreation rooms and grounds- Taking the entire list of properties visited, the best under one form of ownership i 15 equalled by the best under the other form, and so on down to the worst. The superior character of the municipal undertakings over private undertakings in Great Britain is partly owing to their more recent construction, and the converse is true in the United States. In Great Britain, 68 but not in the United States, were found systems of insurance, thrift funds, sick, death and accident benefits, both in municipal and private undertakings. The most extensi/e and elaborate of these is that of the South Metropolitan Company, connected with its system of profit sharing and compulsory invest- ment of profits in the company's stocks. This system is ingeniously contrived to destroy the gas workers' union by subjecting its em- ployees to the conspiracy l?ws, 69 and to enable the company to "con- tract out" from the Workmen's Compensation laws. The munici- pal gas works of Glasgow has copied the system so far as it relates to profit sharing and conspiracy, but not to workmen's compensa- tion. All other municipal and private establishments pay accident benefits as required by this national legislation. ANALYSIS OF INVESTIGATOR COMMONS' "LABOR AND POLITICS." By J. W. SULLIVAN. See reference numbers in the review referred to, page 88. 1. The "sentences" "picked out" here referred to (quoted in the begining of my review, page 60), are paragraphs indited by Investigator Commons, after I had demonstrated to him their truth. Summaries of a series of inquiries, they conceded that in Great Britain municipalization had not improved wages and conditions in general for employees in the skilled occupations organized as trade unions, but had slightly done so for the unskilled workers of a grade higher than the average in the labor market, aided by the political pressure coming from the Municipal Employees' Associa- tion and kindred political organizations and the social bodies de- manding the "living wage." By this "picking out" of passages I gave a satisfactory reply to one of the first questions repeatedly asked me in America among workingmen: "Have municipalized gas works, street railways, etc., really done so much in England for the hands as is talked about in America by municipal ownership advocates?" If my colleague, in the comprehensive statements of these paragraphs, gave away a large part of his case, diminishing thenceforth the interest of American wage-earners in his municipal cornucopia, he should have foreseen the result. And if he himself proceeded to show that "municipal employees sooner or later cast their votes for candidates who promise or who have secured a better- ment of their conditions" (page 97), he merely fortified my argu- ment that so-called trade unions of municipal employees are mainly political, and hence repugnant to the established economic and non- political principles of unionism. These sweeping admissions by Investigator Commons given at the outset, I disposed of what to many inquirers is a good part of the municipal ownership question. It was indeed impossible for him to pick out from our joint report any passages equally damaging to private operation. Municipal ownership, after fair trial, had, as its most striking outcome in re- gard to labor, substituted a narrow field of employment in a bu- reaucracy where changes in conditions were mostly subject to politi- cal methods, for the broad field in free industry open to all grades of labor, where conditions might be improved for all alike through the collective self-help of trade unionism and the individual self- help of personal efficiency. 2. A claim that withers under examination. To write that sentence while totally ignoring the lessons he learned at the Phila- delphia gas works, to cite but one example, required effrontery. 3. The principle prevalent in the wonderful development of the United States has been that it is essential to the rate of prog- ress to have work done even with waste. The ruling idea in Great Britain has been official supervision to the point of suppression in order to protect vested rights or, in the case of cities, to hold back "public utility" developments for municipal operation. The com- bined results of municipal ownership and governmental interfer- ence in Great Britain with the tramway and electrical industries ANALYSIS OF INVESTIGATOR COMMONS' REVIEW. US have rendered the kingdom one of the most backward countries in those regards in the world. In both industries it is far behind Italy. If the ratio of the supply in the United Kingdom were equal to that in the United States, a competent observer made out two years ago that there would be 1,256 places supplied with electric lighting instead of its 457 ; 14,000 miles of electric railway instead of its 3,040, and 50,000 persons employed in the telephone industry instead of its 13,000. 4. Until within a few years American municipalities, unheed- ful of the exact cost, were inviting capital to come and take fran- chises and help develop. And before and since, the energies of the people, press, and prosecution have been expended in exposing the blunders of the inefficient, and the jobbery, sinecurisrn, and malad- ministration of the rascally, officeholders. 5. "The purest of indefinite nonsense," was the comment on this passage by a gas company President who last year travelled in Great Britain to observe for himself. 6. Not correct. The American companies were not asked for this permission. The only American management that refused access to our engineers and accountants was that of the Richmond municipal gas. Already, by the law, in Great Britain, public ser- vice companies furnish to the government Board of Trade sucli statistics. In the United States similar information given to pri- vate investigation might be used in the stock market. 7. A complicated question. Municipal ownership agitators and political "sandbaggers" have held this threat over the British companies. On the other hand, municipalities have had strikes. 8. None of the anti-municipal members of our Commission opposed a system of uniform public accounting. The British com- panies, like the municipalities, must make returns to the govern- ment. This has nothing to do in heading off strikes. 9. One set of vices may in cases have to an extent been avoid- ed. But such vices play no essential part in private operation, since in many other cases they have been eliminated, or had, because of just municipal control, never developed. But municipal ownership has invariably engendered its own peculiar and ineffaceable vices y dangerous to society in proportion to the number of employees. Investigator Commons' opening paragraph is a model of ran- dom inaccuracies and misty conclusions. 10. It would have been well for his cause had he been able to exalt municipal ownership as much after this investigaton as was his habit before I went with him to witness its marvels and we were shown its shams. 11. For each municipality to have "full power and home rule" to change from private to public ownership in gas, transit, water, and electricity would in many cases be but a violation of home rule. The water supply of a dozen municipalities in Union. Hudson and Essex Counties in New Jersey is in a single system. So to an extent are the gas, trolley, and electricity supplies in these and other counties. To permit a single municipality to secede at will from such a system once formed would be to set at naught a contract with the other municipalities and open the way for local political machines to blackmail the trunk undertakings already giving the supplies. Again, London's boroughs have learned a sad 114 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. lesson in so-called home rule in electricity. A single central elec- tric system for the Metropolitan district could cut the price by a good percentage, but what would then become of the borough s'ys- tems? By true home rule all the people directly concerned, and not a fraction of them, settle their common public questions under principles established by the State. The English Socialists have abandoned municipal home rule for tramways, water, and elec- tricity, and now call for "municipalization by provinces/"' 12. Aye ; government is simply a question of politics, whether in Russia or Switzerland. In this paragraph Investigator Com- mons confuses unlike ideas in one term, a mental defect of which he is often the victim. But in the last clause "we only get a different kind of politics" he nearly sees through his fog. Munic- ipal ownership gives us politics perpetual, in every aspect, at each step, from the initiation of a service to its separate extensions and down to the last point in the details of its administration a long chain of politics, no stronger than its weakest link. Through opera- tion by contract, a well governed municipality may have politics focnssed on one transaction and thenceforth attenuated to the van- ishing point. The communities so feeble in public virtue that they cannot protect themselves by stipulating a fair franchise and an honest supervision of service would under municipal operation stand little chance of "getting and keeping the right kind of men to man- age and operate the municipal undertakings." 13. Competition regulates all honestly awarded contract work for municipalities, even in the common so-called monopolistic sup- plies requiring forms of exclusive possession of the streets. 14. Not correct. This entire passage is disproven by the de- nial from these associations that any such "indorsement" was ever made. See page 9. 15. With my review in his hands ten weeks before the Twenty- One met, June 10, 1907, my colleague had had abundant time for conciliatory representations when he so reluctantly penned this painful explanation. Needless and untruthful, it betrays his judg- ment overcome by resentment at reading my digest of our evidence against municipal ownership. "When unable to answer, abuse your opponent !" 16. Not correct. This astonishing falsehood is fully exposed pages 3 to 8. 17. After he reads the numerous corrections in the essentials of his testimony I have put on record against him in these pages, and sees how many qualified men have come forward to disprove his assertions, he will have reason to see the futility of parading his positiveness and rectitude. 18. This paragraph takes a place in the same category as his description of the Sheffield and Newcastle Town Councils. In neither case did his allegations relate to a matter of prescribed in- vestigation by our Commission. He was careful to carry on this "thoroughness of investigation" without my knowledge and con- trary to instructions. 19. Then to persist in not seeing that the cleansing of our municipal politics first is indispensable to any success in municipal operation is wilful blindness. He was not commissioned to go forth seeking all the remote facts that in his judgment or at his needs ANALYSIS OF INVESTIGATOR COMMONS' REVIEW. 115 would help his argument, but he was working under instructions to investigate certain undertakings with me. 20. "It was found." By whom ? By himself, from unnamed sources at Syracuse and Allegheny. As to Chicago and Philadel- phia, see statements on the point, Part II, Vol. I, pages 142 and 520, and note the flimsy bases for these serious charges. 21. In this paragraph, whether right or not as to political ap- pointments in the two forms of undertakings, he admits the under- lying causes of dry rot in the trade unions composed whol!}*" or in part of municipal employees. It is a paragraph to be studied by trade unionists. 22. The civil service of Mayor Dunne's administration does not stand so high in public estimation in 1908 as it did in munic- ipal ownership circles in 1906. 23. "Are found." By whom? Where is the evidence? In this paragraph and the one ensuing he is sole witness and self-ap- pointed judge. Under the rules laid down by the Commission his proceeding was irregular. His assertion as to the "accident" of his personal acquaintance is a bit of playfulness, meant for the credu- lous. The last seven lines of the second paragraph were slipped in after his review had been sent to the Committee of Twenty-One. 24. "Definite information was obtained." By whom? From whom ? What can be done to hold a supposedly scientific observer down to well-authenticated fact when he indulges in a series of loose allegations such as these? 25. Not correct. I attended, while on my tours for this Com- mission, meetings of four Councils those of Eichmond, Chicago, Glasgow, and London and made on the spot inquiries as to the standing of the men who took the floor. I do not know that my colleague attended any such meetings. Surface indications did not rate the two American Councils low. The members of the Eichmond Council were in appearance of a fine type of Southern citizenship, orderly in debate and business-like in dispatching their work. There was no symptom of partisanship, buncombe, or "re- form" hoodwinking. The Chicago Council's striking features were democratic informality, directness and speediness, with a good-hu- mored snuffing out of political play. The Glasgow Council's session was enlivened, as I have said, by charges and counter-charges from heated partisans, talk for the galleries, and tit-for-tat taunts and gibes. Notable elements, as pointed out to me, were the known de- fenders of the liquor interests, one or two non-working Laborites, several red-flag Socialists, many sanguine municipalists, and not a few small politician dummies. The London County Council's several sessions I attended were largely occupied with disputed questions regarding the financial outcome of acquired or projected lodging houses, tramways, steamboats, etc. The Moderates foretold their day that was coming and in parliamentary language plainly doubted the accuracy of the Progressives' reports. In the many talks over the character of Councilmen which I heard in various cities, it seemed human nature to exhibit generosity in the judgment of fellow-partisans and hardness of heart toward opponents. Of course, the true character of a Councilman can only be revealed in a series of votes that tests his integrity, intelligence, consistency and devo- tion to the community above self or party. 116 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. 26. A statement little likely to promote immediate munici- palization in America. Have the municipal ownership leaders given this admission its just weight? 27. Not correct. In Scotland, by Councils; in England, by licensing magistrates, except for places of amusement. 28. Not correct. All the Labor Party men do not call them- selves Socialists. 29. Not correct. Fai from it. Mr. Dalrymple, tramway*. Glasgow, is the solitary well-known instance, according to the in- formation given me by Englishmen to whom I showed this state- ment in April, 1908. 30. Another admission fatal in the American mind to munic- ipalization. On considering it, workmen in private employment might consequently assume an attitude of opposition to municipal ownership. 31. The swinging from one party to another, or from one candidate to another, of one vote in twenty 50 in 1,000 would have affected the result in enough Presidential elections to com- pletely change the history of the United States; a transfer of one vote in fourteen would at some time have altered important local policies in every subdivision of every State. But municipal and government employees always vote ; they live in and on politics, and bring out their friends on election day. The twenty to forty per cent of registered voters not voting are mostly those having no per- sonal stake in the result. One-fourteenth of the registered voters may represent one-eighth of the actual voters, and with men they influence one-sixth. 32. Not correct. For the errors in this paragraph see page 11. Evidence is not wholly lacking in the United States that cer- tain local unions are run considerably for the benefit of their mem- bers in municipal or government employ. 33. No better arrangement precedent to any necessary form of municipal ownership, such as the water supply or markets, has come under the Commission's observation than having the head of a department wholly independent of politics, where possible ; but as to whether this system is firmly established in Cleveland one will be able to form a sound judgment only after several changes of ad- ministration ; in Detroit, the headship of the electricity depart- ment is difficult to locate in the Superintendent, Secretary or Commission. 34. Sheffield tramways were not investigated. Investigator Commons once gave me this information as coming from a street car conductor with whom he had a casual chat while on his car ! 35. Unsupported statements. Testimony from members of the Labor and Socialist parties, the Municipal Employees' Associa- tion, the Citizens' Union, and the heads of the municipalized de- partments themselves, some of which I have elsewhere given, is to the effect that Councillors continually "give lines" to workmen seek- ing employment. Will a municipal undertaking manager steadily ignore the recommendations given their henchmen by the Council- lors who hold his own situation in their hands? 36. "Thorough investigation" of a day or two. This oft-used phrase loses its force when the reader knows that we had not the time in our investigation to go exhaustively into such points, which might well take a special commission months. ANALYSIS OF INVESTIGATOR COMMONS' REVIEW. 117 37. This is not "organized labor" in the trade union sense, but organizations of municpal employees for mutual benefit and political ends. The Secretaries inevitably are tempted to become vote bargainers with Councillors and municipal managers. 38. "Influence" in these circumstances passes from the Coun- cillors to the organization, i. e., the Secretary, who, wielding the boycott vote club, gets work for its members, sees that they are not easity discharged, and with other secretaries advocates more munic- ipalization. 39. Some of these interests, in powerful form, are usually with the machine in America, ready to assist it in swallowing new municipal undertakings. In London, the Socialists have a model machine; and few seats in the County Council are held indepen- dently of a party organization. In the situation in London to-day big companies fighting for their existence a very large stake do what they can to prevent Socialist and Progressive majorities from holding power and virtually confiscating their property, either by compulsory sale or burdensome taxation. In boroughs in the East End of London, where local taxation has reached 8 and even 12 shillings (and the Socialist cry is "Rates, twenty shillings to the pound !") manufacturing is heavily handicapped in competition with enterprises in the provinces near London where rates are but 2 shillings. London capitalists have hence been forced into forming a political machine to protect their industries, and in the recent elections their workmen have stood by them. In his remarks on the brewery interest, Thorough Investigator Commons finds himself still floundering in his ridiculous blunder of making Councils in England (the London County Council, for example) license the sa- loons. They have nothing to do with licensing, except places of en-" i-ertainment, such as music halls, which have but an infinitesimal part of the retail beer business. It would be difficult to cram more errors of fact and comment into an equal number of lines than has Investigator Commons in this description of what Americans call "local politics" in Great Britain. He is seeing London through Milwaukee eyes. 40. How is it, then, that wageworkers are invariably found ready to become active in trade unions, thus risking their bread and butter? One good reason for the absence of large business men from British Town Councils is that they cannot spare two to four days a week following the details of municipalized undertakings. But the small business man, leaving his wife or a clerk in charge of the shop, has the amateur's liking for running gas works and street cars, with public funds, and acting prominent citizen at public dinners or on excursions to other towns, or even to the Con- tinent, expenses paid. 41. There are no "enormous profits" for either political party in Philadelphia in the gas works of that city to-day, nor can there be for twenty years. In the hands of an operating company, on terms satisfactory to the community, these works do not form one of the prizes in politics that they did when owned and operated by the city. Taking these works as an example, American municipal- ities could abolish the situation depicted by Investigator Commons, a fact he has been throughout careful to avoid recognizing. 42. Xot a few of the trade unions in Great Britain are to-day undermined by the extent to which political municipalism and par- 118 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. liamentarism has been substituted for trade unionism. As was the case in San Francisco, political unionists, elbowing aside trade- union unionists, are threatening the independence of the union man's vote if he talks about supporting what party he pleases; are trying to run the labor machines that return Councillors and Mem- bers of Parliament. 43- Not correct. See page 15. 44. Not correct. There have been strikes of the stokers at the three private works here alluded to. The Sheffield company makes no concealment of its preparedness for a strike, if incited from the outside, though one would be folly considering the good wages of the men. The Newcastle company's men are at present in a very poor state of organization. The incorrectness of Investi- gator Commons' reference to the South Metropolitan Company is fully exposed, page 21. Sir Frederick Mappin has certainly illus- trated to the world the superiority of the situation at the Sheffield gas works to any situation possible under municipal ownership. The wages rate has stood as a model in a dispute at a neighboring municipal undertaking, the price of gas is the lowest in the king- dom, and in all respects the terms with the customers and the mu- nicipality are exemplary. 45. "Keform" with "the knife." 46. Aside from the section in the building trades, where the factors of organization are special, and in the Department of Elec- tricity, the Chicago electric workers' union is weak. The interests of the men in that occupation in the city are not integral, as they must be in a union to be successful. They can only be so when the conditions of employment in the city department are the same as in private industry. 47. For "unions" lead "organizations of municipal em- ployees." The Manchester tramway men's organization is now in large part merged in the Municipal Employees' Association, accord- ing to the latter's General Secretary. 48. In Chicago, committees of various unions wait on the Council appropriations committees, not on the water department chiefs. In Cleveland, the Central Labor Union's committees, and not a laborers' union committee, consult with the water Superin- tendent. In both cases, the higgling of the labor market may be affected by the propinquity of the vote market. In Detroit, a" pe- tition of the Electricity Commission's hands for a raise in wages brought, not a committee consultation, but the issue of letters from the office to twenty cities to ascertain prevailing rates. 49. The joint report, page 156, says of Indianapolis just the contrary : "The question of a man's politics never counts in mak- ing appointments." In the three municipalized cities mentioned, the attitude of the managers investigated was indifference to all in- stitutions or individuals not backed by a pull. 50. Not correct. The private undertakings of Xew Haven, Indianapolis, and Atlanta had had no labor troubles. And not a single word of testimony was obtained to show that the Philadel- phia gas company ever had the least difficulty with any union ; its labor conditions were above the criticisms of union officials. In Chicago, the peculiar conditions of the union situation, just noted,, resulting in a lack of the necessary study by union officials of how ANALYSIS OF INVESTIGATOR COMMONS' REVIEW. 119 the companies' workmen might be organized, was most probably the obstacle. On the other hand, the Detroit municipal electric works had beaten the union in a strike and employed- non-unionists ; and little Norwalk's municipal works had been made like the Vatican "extra territorial" by the union, and not interfered with. In- vestigator Commons' use of the word "hostile" requires his own definition. His fabrications here plainly were written for quotation by his deluded supporters. 51. Xow defunct. The Municipal Employees' Association takes in the unskilled electric workers, but prefers that the skilled go into the engineers. 52. The President of the International Brotherhood of Sta- tionary Firemen says he finds less difficulty in organizing the em- ployees of municipal, state, and Federal buildings in New York, oE whom there are many hundreds, than the employees of private es- tablishments. Public officials are approachable in October. 53. The crookedness of this statement as made is apparent when the reader knows that there was no branch of this union found in New Haven, Atlanta, or Indianapolis; hence no members in the private undertakings in these places. In Philadelphia, the union's business agent said that the gas company's wages were above the union scale and more than at the city's water works. The presence of members of the stationary engineers' and fire- men's unions in the municipal works is a fact complimentary to the shrewdness of the union officials, whose business it is to see that city jobs go to their organizations. A matter of little account on a small scale, to be regarded by citizens with an indifferent benevo- lence, this might be the beginning of a municipal ownership canker, were there numerous employees of many trades in various municipal undertakings. 54. It is almost exclusively a form of municipal employees 7 association. 55. Until 1892 the American street railway men were unor- ganized or badly organized. The number of members, while fluctu- ating year by year, rises considerably by five-year stages. Why did Investigator Commons go so far back as 1902, with its 36,000 mem- bers (as he alleges) ? The President of the Amalgamated Associa- tion of Street Railway Employees writes me that in 1907 the or- ganization had 300 unions, with more than 70,000 members, and that this year it has 80,000. 56. I deal somewhat with this fallacious presentation of the "minimum wage" idea in my review, page 61. Observe the possi- ble deception in the percentage of differences if the reader overlooks exactly what Investigator Commons tries to compare. The "mini- mum" given for the municipality is the rate for a force of qualified men established through influences not operative in private employ the insistence of united municipal employees, the yielding nature of Councillors handling other men's money, the crusade for "a living wage." The minimum quoted here for private employ is the rate paid the poorest grade of labor by employers not particularized and not among those investigated by our Commission. Where the skilled union scale was recognized in private employ, the municipal rates were paid. "Minimum wage" here attempts in vain a mathematical comparison of ratios relating to different classifications of labor. 120 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. The phrase, an echo of learned nonsense, counts for nothing except in political campaign consumption. 57. Not correct. I have (page 15) given the testimony of the Newcastle Gas Company's chief engineer that it pays better wageo to common labor than 'the city. The big Newcastle electric com- pany pays within a shade the same as the gas company. The Dublin tramway company pays as high wages for engineers, firemen and laborers as any municipality in Ireland for similar grades of labor. The London United Tramways Company, which is a suburban line having only about three miles of track in London boroughs, pays an allowable deduction from the urban rates of the County Council, just as Brooklvn's union wages are lower than Manhattan's, even in skilled organized trades. An ex-employee of the United Tram- ways Company recently said to me that, considering the easy work on its lines and the constant worry and hardships on the crowded County Council lines, he would regard employment for the com- pany preferable at a decidedly lower percentage in wages. The Norwich tramway company pays its station men wages equal to the municipality's and better than is paid in several neighboring towns. These assertions of mine are based on the information given to the labor investigators by company officials, and on occasions by the workmen when interviewed or union officials or others. The in- vestigators had not the exact and exhaustive data for a study of the shadings in the elusive question of laborers' wages, varying, as they do, in private employ, with the factors of age, physical ability, handiness, term of service, steadiness, etc. On the other hand, it seemed to me that the key to the fact that in some cases municipal- ities pay lower rates than private employers of the same locality while in others they pay much higher is found in the explainable further fact that in one branch of a municipal undertaking there are low wages, while in another there are high, as with the poorly paid office force and liberally paid works force at the Wheeling gas undertaking. Under the changing administrations of municipal- ities there is, as to the compensation of employees, either only the old established rate, which continues low so long as the employees concerned have no effective pull, or a liberality resultant on the fears or hopes of the Councillors for the employees' influence at election times, once the men are aroused for united effort. The postmen in America and Great Britain have obtained amelioration of slavish conditions only by ceaseless agitation after being organ- ized. 58. Not correct. The general assertion with which he opens this paragraph could be made by Investigator Commons only by omitting from the list of quotations following it mention of the United Gas Improvement Company of Philadelphia, which, he well knew, pays better wages for a shorter day than the municipal fire and water departments. Other misstatements : Indianapolis On obtaining the figures in the text (page 157, joint report) from the company in writing, I directed Investigator Commons' atten- tion to the lower rate given in the table drawn up by him. Ho never corrected his table, but used its incorrect figures in computing his comparison in this paragraph. Allegheny Public "snap" ; not wages. Chicago The exact facts are stated in the two-line footnote I added to Investigator Commons' table (or that of his students), ANALYSIS OF INVESTIGATOR COMMONS' REVIEW. 121 page 146, joint report. The $1.75 is paid by the companies ^only to a limited class of its laborers coal shovelers from cars. The municipal lighting works have not this class, who are to it incapa- bles, in view of civil service qualifications. Richmond The mu- nicipal gas undertaking has its street mains work done by contract at the "private" employment rate mentioned (table, page 500, joint report ) . The philanthropist white man's municipality wears negro sweatshop clothing. Similarly, the London County Council has low workmen's tramway fares for the sections of its lines within London, where the Councillors' constituencies live, but has over- looked establishing them for their suburban sections, where the workmen are not among their constituents. 59. The statistics of his previous paragraph, worthless through their errors, become meaningless as a gauge of wage methods when now seen as "minimum rates and not the average rates nor the highest rates." The maximum rates, which run high in private em- ploy, he has not quoted; comparative average rates depend on a parity of classifications, here non-existent. While the mind of the honest lay inquirer is naturally upon a comparison in general be- tween the rates of pay by the municipalities and the companies in- vestigated, in reply the Investigator dwells at length on misleading ^'minimum rates" and mis-reports them. By the "fundamental principle of trade unionism" a union, representing workingmen, establishes a scale for its members, men of the same trade, below which all agree not to work. The un- qualified for the occupation do not become members. By its "mini- mum wage" for its high-grade laborers a municipality, as employer, establishes a blanket rate for various unskilled occupations only. Investigator Commons' confusion of ideas here arises from his habit of substituting indiscriminate general terms for several other terms applicable to distinguishable and even unlike facts. 60. Ample proof of the fallacy in minimum wage compari- sons. 61. The municipal tramway undertakings we investigated in Great Britain represented the cream of the industry for the king- dom the heart of the greatest cities, requiring in the motormen and conductors the highest development of physique and skill. The "fair" comparison instituted by Investigator Commons between the County Council tramways in London and the United Company's lines outside London, as we have seen, has its dark shades of unfair- ness. 62. Not correct. The table of scales in 1906, compared with the scales at the date of the organization of many of the unions fur- nished us by President Marion, of the International Union, from his office records, and in possession of Investigator Commons when he wrote this paragraph, was doubtless the latest and perhaps the most complete statement of the kind in existence. He had half a year after obtaining it to submit, through his force of students, a proofsheet copy by mail to the officers of the 148 companies referred to in the table for verification of its figures, if that was necessary. 63. Not correct. A direct contradiction of his own assertion of a fact, page 102, twelve lines from foot of page. The "companies which cannot afford to risk a strike" have risked strikes and "suc- ceeded in destroying the labor organizations" ! Besides, see chapter 122 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. on South Metropolitan Gas Company, pages 16 to 23, for correc- tions of errors in every sentence regarding it in this paragraph. 64. Not correct. A contradiction of the statement in our joint report (page 497) : "But high wages are no longer found on the payrolls [at Richmond] when one passes to the grades of the more skilled," and also of the statement of wage increases at At- lanta set out in the footnote to the table on page 500. The fact, as usual, is that the company pays a range of wages while the muni- cipality pays a flat rate. 65. The same as for tramway companies, as I have explained in references 57 and 61. 66. See reference 46. 67. To Professor Bemis, this classifying his undertaking after the Edison Company and before the Philadelphia Gas Company must have appeared as a dubious and indefensible compliment. His bureau does not put one dollar into this channel of compensation to labor where either of these companies puts hundreds. For a possible tabular statement in parallel columns see pages 147, 149, 510, 513, 514, 516, joint report. The Edison-Commonwealth. South Metropolitan, and United Gas Companies' systems of welfare work are among the best to be found in any country. All the municipali- ties mentioned by Investigator Commons are in this respect in a much poorer class than these three companies. Not recognizing: the methods of outright compensation beyond wages to all the workmen followed by the New Haven, Atlanta, and Indianapolis companies, while mentioning the cheap soup-house and slum reading room methods of the Glasgow and Leicester municipal undertakings, from which the workmen generally stand aloof, is a gross violation of any pretence at impartiality. 68. The obvious reason : British workingmen's benefit and in- surance is more frequently practised within occupational line? ; their trade unions in general, like the exceptional American rail- way brotherhoods, are in their foremost features benefit societies. American wage workers, with a higher level of pay and standard of living, take up with the whole body of citizens in insurance com- panies, as they do in building and loan associations. To find a. British workman insured for $3,000 is as rare as to find one owning a three-thousand-dollar house. 69. Not correct. A return to his series of misrepresentations regarding this company. This malicious misstatement is corrected, page 19. The footnote, page 109, is an interesting illustration of certain of my colleague's vicious habits as an investigator self-contradic- tion, unguarded assertion, indefiniteness in expression, baseless as- sumption of thoroughness. He brings here his only specification in his charge, that going outside the matters actually investigated by us is my "practice." Persistent plodder that he is, it may be depended upon that to find this one apparent example he went over my review as with a fine- tooth comb. And actually what is my statement? That the terms of service table for the Glasgow tramways "gave color" to this So- cialist's assertions (page 76). The "Clarion's" article reaching me as I was about closing my review, I inserted the gist of it, having in mind (1) that my manuscript was to go direct to Investigator ANALYSIS OF INVESTIGATOR COMMONS' REVIEW. 12& Commons for necessary rectification between ourselves, and (2) that he had already, in pages 28-30 of our joint report, written as to the references required : "The applicant fills the schedule in his own handwriting, stating his name, address, age, height, weight, and whether married or single. He gives his references to present and previous employers, stating the length of service, nature of em- ployment, reason for leaving, and wages, and whether willing to join the Department Friendly Society. These employers are then addressed with a 'private and confidential' blank schedule, which they are asked to fill in, by answering the following questions.'' Then follow questions intimately personal. "Other persons, not em- ployers, referred to by the applicant, are asked similar questions" (which are printed therewith). If the result of all this filling in by former employers, etc., of blanks containing numerous printed questions is not "a written character" it would be interesting to learn what might answer the description. As to the second point made by the Socialist, the manager's explanation that lost tickets "must be regarded practically as cash" is in different words pre- cisely the Socialist's statement. Third point: "I never heard it sug- gested that in our service men are supposed to report each other for neglect of duty." The Socialist failed here to give his evidence. Fourth point, as to uniforms the Socialist seems to be correct. Fifth, as to mispunching tickets the Socialist is right. Sixth and last In the three years referred to, ending May 31, 1906, the num- ber of traffic employees who left the Glasgow tramways was 1,439. Of these, 526 were dismissed and 913 resigned. In the seven elec- tricity years of the tramways, 1902-1908, the total number of men leaving the traffic service alone was 3,612. Of these, 1,226 were dismissed and 2,384 resigned. By years, the number leaving was : 653, 589, 555, 464, 420, 471, 460; the dismissals being 194, 220, 202, 187, 137, 127, 161; the resignations, 459, 369, 353, 277, 283, 344, 299. Average per year, dismissals and resignations, 516 in a traffic force averaging 2,300 men. In the other branches of the service the permanent way force and the car-works force the total that left through dismissal or resignation in the seven years was 5,834; the grand total of vacancies (including the 3,612 traffic force) is therefore 9,446. The total number of men employed in all the tramway branches, by years, for the seven years (ending May 31 each year), was: 1902, 3,224; 1903, 3,306; 1904, 3,751; 1905, 4,480; 1906, 5,100; 1907, 4,960; 1908, 4,580. The teaching of these various sets of amazing figures is that, in the land where fre- quently a job descends through generations the municipality of Glas- gow loses its tramway employees at c. rate equaling the entire force every four years. The motor men and conductors go at the rate of all hands in each four and a half years. These facts, and the fore- stalling of unionizing the force through the obligatory department benefit society, wipe out all possibility of the street-car men of America clamoring for model Glasgow's municipal ownership con- ditions for themselves. Observe Investigator Commons' devious moves on this point. 1. Instead of offering me privately the alleged corrections he ob- tained by writing to the Glasgow manager, he let my quotation in my review go in printed form to the public, that he might, a few pages further on, advertise that he had "run it down." 2. He 124 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. drew up his footnote in a form that suggested to the hasty reader that he was making serious corrections of the Socialist's statements, whereas he was actually on most counts stating confirmations. 3- Finally, he accounted for the apparent short terms among motor- men and conductors by referring to "extension of service," while the following circumstances indicate that he was fully cognizant of the true state of facts : He wrote me from Glasgow, Aug. ,2, 1906, while there on his second visit, to "check up" my notes, that he was "going thoroughly into the methods of appointment and promotion." He prints (page 25, Part II, Vol. II), a page of statistics relating to "appointments, promotions, and dismissals," but restricts his figures to officials having salaries of $1,000 and upward. He refers in the footnote we have just analyzed to the further information he had obtained by correspondence with the Glasgow tramways man- ager for the purpose of refuting my suggestion that the tramways men had found their hold on their places precarious. He prints (page 28, Part II, Vol. II), a table showing the length of service of the motormen and conductors in service Aug. 11, 1906. That is, it is clear he knew all about the almost incredible state of affairs in the quitting and discharging of men in the department, and he never gave the illuminating statistics as I give them now. They would have killed his whole deceitful argument. This is the work of the Thorough Investigator, to whom "selecting facts" that suited him would be "impossible." Note the question put to the applicant regarding his willingness to join the Departmental Friendly Society. Then read, page 51, our joint report (Part II, Vol. II) : "In both Glasgow and Liver- pool the corporation [municipality] soon after municipalization, established friendly societies, to which both employees and the cor- poration contributed. To the existence of these organizations, de- scribed below, the union officials attribute a large part of their difficulty in organizing the employees, and they hold that the friendly societies were designed to take the place of the union." That is, had we municipal ownership spreading in the United States, the Glasgow Tramways Friendly Society would stand as a model to forestall organization of municipal employees on the trade union principle, though it may be sure they would get together election day. Investigator Commons somehow has overlooked the opportunity in this instance to bring into play the phrases he used in denouncing the South Metropolitan Gas Company's benefit scheme "union wrecking," "smashing of the union," "destroying the labor organizations," "a system . . . ingeniously contrived to destroy the . . . union." And then there are these differ- ences: The South Metropolitan Company tells its employees they are free to-day to join any union whatsoever. Its employees do not leave at the rate of 25 per cent of the force every year nor do 10 per cent. They have a growing interest in the property. They x^an take an active part in politics whenever they are so inclined. It was an unkind cut at Professors Bemis and Parsons when Investigator Commons condemned the introduction in reviews of "criticisms not investigated." Newspaper quotation by these gentle- men in their summaries is voluminous. Investigator Commons' t)wn quotation from the Chicago "News-Eecord" against the Chi- cago Edison Company took on quite a harmless appearance when its statements were corrected by the company officials. CONCLUSION. BOTH SIDES NOW HEARD. Had I co-operated on this Commission with a man whose dis- criminating powers in investigation had been revealed as a veritable talent, whose accuracy and expository skill in report making had betokened an alert intellect and a disciplined desire for the truth > whose bearing had been transparently sincere and dealings uni- formly aboveboard, whose contact with company managers had brought him their respect, and whose attitude toward myself, pres- ent or absent, had been honorable, I would be distressed at my work as investigator being pronounced by him as unworthy my trust. But as our case now at length stands, with my side heard, the reader will know it is not for me to take to the penitential task of retrospection and introspection. Reviewing my entire course with Professor Commons I fail to see how any manly nature could have expected from me treatment more consistently in line with justice and even generosity, or looked for opportunity more free to make the best of his claims than T accorded to him. If I have been guilty of any one omission in th^j wearisome tediousness of this Commission's work it has been that, yielding to my earnest hope for an impossible agreement as to the facts to be reported, I did not with sufficient firmness and sagacity defend character where he assailed it, compel him to produce proofs positive where he had but his own affirmations, and cut him short where he penned the divagations into which he was led by his bias. My policy as committeeman, working intimately for months with the Five on Scope and Plan, and for half a year as one of the sub-committee of two conducting the British investigation, seems from the outcome to have been satisfactory to my other colleagues. Where among them there was superior special information [ acknowledged it; where there was no cause for interference I held off ; where there was good head-work or heart-work I believe it had promptly my recognition at every stage. From beginning to end I gave Investigator Commons the full play of his rights, the precedence expected by an investigator of his experience, and the unlimited trust due a man of honor. My habit was not to insist that my first impressions were indubitable facts but to review with him all matters he might question, not to hold to what I had written for our joint report until I had seen whether every sentence expressed the truth to his mind, not to show fight where time might work its changes my sole lapse in this last- named regard being on his abrupt and contemptuous maligning of a labor man, against whose character I had heard nothing pre- viously. If in his density he misinterpreted my deferential bearing, my "apologetic" attitude, as he once termed it, as the outcome of an excessive temperamental prudence or as an evidence of the tribute due him in his possible power to place me in a false position, to 126 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. him now the consequences. If he imagined that trying to reach concordance on facts in the report signified the suppression of facts in my review of high value to me or the narrowing of my views to his horizon, his was the stupidity. In giving him great lengths of rope I retained enough to hang him. I allowed him an almost un- limited field in which to follow his bent to build up his cause, he assumed every privilege within it, including that of making indis- criminate charges, until finally he arrived at slandering his team- mate, and I have penned him up for the rest of his days. I am now sure my theory for a report of the kind we were to issue was the true one. Proof sheets of our joint report should have been submitted in each case to the manager of the undertaking investigated, public or private, whether our findings were favorable or unfavorable. There is more truth for interested readers now in regard to the British private undertakings, since I have the mana- gers' corrections, than Investigator Commons, in his shortsighted- ness, gave in his ill-judged writings about them. From this method, as followed by myself (only) in America, came a considerable amount of alteration. Corrections by the Secretary of the Chicago Edison Company took the sting out of Investigator Commons' matter quoted from the "News-Record" (page 143) and threw much light on the company's wage statistics (page 146) ; accurate wage statements came from the Indianapolis Water Company (page 157) ; changes were made by the President of the Atlanta Gas Company. In none of these cases was any attempt made to alter anything but obvious errors. The managers of the Cleveland and South Norwalk municipal undertakings, whose letters on the mat- ter I have, had no suggestions for change in what I had written of them. Had Investigator Commons seen to it that I had a copy of his attack on me before it reached the public, I might not now be obliged to finish his career as a credible investigator, for our differ- ences could perhaps have been settled in private before the Com- mittee of Twenty-One. Years ago, as a writer on disputable ques- tions, I was well convinced of the merits of "Hear the other side." There are no managers to-day in either America or Great Britain, to say that I have permitted them to rest under misrepresentation, and there are no managers or experts to express astonishment at my making claims of writing "the entire report as it stands . . . on the basis of facts which I personally investigated" or at any other claims that they could call in question. I believe also the plan of my review restricting myself to salient and decisive considerations was correct. My most closely interested readers, the wageworkers, wanted from me in a nutshell the outcome of our labor investigation, not only as to broad facts bearing on employees' welfare and trade unionism, but also as to thj general influence of municipal ownership on character in citizen- ship and the well being of the masses. That is what I had space to give. There was not wanted grandmotherly taps of approbation alternated with thimble raps of disapproval on inconsequential points a report that looked east, west, and nowhere, and balanced everything but comprehensive truths. If there is any background of principle in the demand for a "judicial" report, it relates, not to a mousing over of endless minutiae of the evidence in a sophomoric essay, but to the clear-cut opinions of a judge on the bench, who, BOTH SIDES NOW HEARD. 127 disregarding irrelevant matter and the lesser issues involved in a case, brings out succinctly its deep-lying and far-reaching merits. If in my review I displayed a consistency with economic prin- ciples I have" held for twenty years, it cannot be said I twisted facts for our joint report to support those principles. Investigator Com- mons himself has fathered all the facts in that report for all the undertakings "except New Haven and Philadelphia." And if I allowed him a free rein in re-writing Socialist dia- tribes against the British companies, I had one motive among others for my indifference to their effect, if true, that I had from him in my pocket an agreement to help put before the public through the Committee of Twenty-One the substance, in fact most of the very items., of the essentially anti-municipal report which that Committee afterward agreed on. I was persistent while in Madison in getting that agreement drawn up on notes he took when he and I discussed the question of the Twenty-One's report; he told me later he was working over the matter with colleagues of his side, and I regarded the question settled against the pro-munici- pal ists once they could admit the recognitions of private owner- ship and detail the unattainable conditions for municipal owner- ship in America embodied in the paper. I assert that truth has been my constant aim in the joint re- port, in my review, and in this rejoinder'. I have played to no gal- lery, written no passage for garbled quotation, and I invite a fair review of all my work. I can meet every man I ever came in contact with in this inves- tigation and feel that I have done him no injustice. I treated Pro- fessor Commons to the last with all forbearance, to the limits of mercifulness. When a third party coming forward to us both with overtures for peace last year confidently set out to induce him to eliminate his attack on me from his review, even after it had ap- peared in the newspapers, I entertained the proposal. But to be stubbornly vengeful has been his choice, and continuing to show him a consideration persistently despised would be fatuous. I would have -welcomed a fine reply to my review by my oppo- nent. Lucid reasoning on a high plane, keen insight into principles I might have seen but dimly, the short cut to logical results I had overlooked, original views of social obligations, the gratifying sur- prise of a defeat at points where I had been too sure, a dexterous seizure of unconscious concessions had I made them, a literary dress above an almshouse inventory on such features I would have sent him my hearty congratulations. However much I was stung by his allusions to myself and as- tonished at his reckless statements as to "indorsement" of municipal ownership in Glasgow by its opponents, and the like falsifying pas- sages that stud his production, the lasting and deepest effects on me of reading his review were disappointment at the indignity he had committed on the Commission and regret at the retribution he had invited upon himself. The bewilderment he exhibited as to the fundamental lessons to be adduced from our extended observations, and his meanderings from incoherent imitations of the convention- alities of professorial writing to taxing me with the very sins against fairness that he himself was committing, with his display of 128 THE CIVIC FEDERATION LABOR REPORT. resentment at my presenting a course of reasoning he could not an- swer, evoked my profound sympathy for his pettiness in mind, heart and spirit. If as one of the coterie of college Socialists he is a member of the New York "X" Club, a panegyrist of the Fabians, an ac- cepted fellow of the semi-Socialist secretaries who insinuate them- selves into half -charity, half-radical societies he aimed to destroy another labor representative who refuses to de-Americanize himself by adopting their misplaced old-world communistic creed, he may now contemplate a ruin of closer personal interest to himself. In striking back at him I do duty, on behalf of all trade unionist lead- ers, against the gang who would "convert them or annihilate them/' In his attack on my integrity as an investigator, as also in his attacks on both the British and American companies as honorable business agencies, he produced not a written or printed line to sup- port his allegations. But for every charge of any kind I herein make against him I have the clinching documentary evidence. Before I was on hand to watch him, he was in the habit of is- suing without check the port of literature on which much municipal ownership propaganda depended. After he got away from my im- mediate supervision and investigated on his own hook and penned his review, he fell into his old inveterate habits of unreason and untruth. While he has for years allowed to be well advertised his side of his woes as a reformer in college life, in reviewing his course on this Commission in all charity, it cannot but recur to the reader that there may be other explanations than his own why he was dropped from college professorships twice. Let no one imagine that I write for reinstatement in any circle of men to gain any material thing within their gift to my personal advantage. With the "public" and "employers' " groups of the Civic Federation possessed of this reply to the overt assault on the good faith of one of the labor representatives under their eye in the municipal investigation, and a covert assault on his honor, I step back into the ranks of organized labor, my business w r ith the other groups done and my inclination to join in public service with them gone. UNIVERSIT UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. Fine schedule: 25 cents on first day overdue 50 cents on fourth day overdue One dollar on seventh day overdue. APR 22 1947 LD 21-100m-12,'46(A2012sl6)4120 jRARY