basis of virtue in the wage-receiving class upon which American society rests, necessarily regarded such phenomena from a purely speculative standpoint. Some of them apparently thought that the fundamental institutions upon which peaceful development depends had been, if not completely overthrown, at least gravely endangered, and that civilization itself had received a rude shock from the disturbance. More than one did not hesitate to intimate that the weakness of democratic institutions lay at the foundation of the revolt. Suggestions were made that the suffrage should be confined to the educated; that the masses might be held in stricter bonds. When we hear the cry of these alarmists we are tempted to reverse the rebuke of the sacred Teacher: they are always troubled more by the mote in their own country's eye than by the beam in the eye of other lands. They forget that not sixty days before, monarchical Belgium was convulsed with labor revolts, compared with which ours were insignificant and practically harmless. That country, with its five and a half millions of inhabitants, had more rioters than the United States, with its fifty-six millions; and instead of restoring peace, as this country did, by means of the established forms of order, the Belgian government had to abandon, for a time, all law, and publicly authorize every citizen to wage private war against the insurgents.

(2) In March 1886 there was a riot in Liege, followed by outbreaks in all the industrial districts. They were repressed with much bloodshed.

inadequate cause for the alarm created. The eruption was not, in itself, a very serious matter, either in its extent or in its consequences. Its lesson lay in the indications it gave of the forces underlying it. There are in the United States today a total of more than twenty millions of workers who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow; in trade and transportation alone there are more than seven millions. At the very height of the revolt, not more than 250,000 of these had temporarily ceased to labor. This was the estimate given by "Bradstreet's" on the 14th of May. Three days later it was 80,000, and four days after that only 47,000. The remaining millions continued to pursue their usual vocations in peace. It is fair to assume that the number reported on the 14th of May included all those who were dissatisfied and had requested advance of wages or redress of grievances, but were not really strikers at all. A demonstration that shrinks to one fourth its size from the 14th to the 17th of May, and then again to one half its remaining proportions in the next three days, can scarcely be called a contest. The number of those involved in a serious struggle with capital did not, therefore, at any one time exceed 50,000 - not one per cent of the total wage-receiving class, in the brandies where labor troubles occurred. How then, one is tempted to ask, did so small an interruption seem so great? Why was it taken for granted that a general revolt of labor had taken place, when not one worker in a hundred had really entered upon a contest? The reason for the delusion is obvious. The omnipresent press, with the electric telegraph at its command, spreads the report of a local disturbance in East St. Louis over the entire three million square miles of the land.

(3) The great railroad strike of 1886 was precipitated on the Gould southwest lines, Texas Pacific, Missouri Pacific, and others, by the Knights of Labor in order to raise the wages of unskilled workers, secure the recognition of the union, and punish Gould for the discharge of union workmen in spite of an understanding concluding a strike in 1885. The outbreak did not involve at first hand engineers, firemen, conductors, or brakemen, who were organized in brotherhoods or craft unions. Shopmen, trackmen, and yardmen contributed the strike's core; telegraphers were sympathetic. About 9,000 strikers were involved. The local leader was Martin Irons, a machinist who had emigrated from Scotland as a boy. A Congressional committee stigmatized him as "a dangerous if not pernicious man." In any case he did not act harmoniously with the centralized command of the Knights, notably Terence V. Powderly (1849-1924), Grand Master Workman. The strikers effectively interfered with freight traffic by "killing engines" and other devices, and the strike did great damage to the commerce and prosperity of St. Louis. The "chaos" which the Congressional committee found endemic in East St. Louis erupted in April into a day of violence with gunfire and incendiarism. Early in May the strike petered out; Gould was victorious.

distinctly in New Orleans, Boston, and San Francisco as in the city of St. Louis itself, upon the opposite side of the river. The thoughts of men throughout the country concentrate upon this one point of outbreak. Excitable natures fancy the trouble to be general, and even imagine that the very ground trembles under their own feet. In this way the petty, local difficulty upon the Wabash system of railways, which involved only 3700 Knights of Labor, and a strike of a few hundred men on the Third Avenue Railway, New York, together with a few trifling and temporary disputes at other points, were magnified into a general war-fare between capital and labor. There were but a few local skirmishes; peace already reigns; and our professors and political economists and the whole school of pessimists who tremble for the safety of human society in general, and of the Republic in particular, and the ministers that have bodily essayed to revolutionize existing conditions, are free to find another subject for their anxious fears and forebodings. The relations between capital and labor which have slowly evolved themselves in the gradual development of the race will not be readily changed. The solid walls with which humanity fortifies itself in each advanced position gained in its toilsome march forward will not fall to the ground at the blast of trumpets. Present conditions have grown up slowly, and can be changed for the better only slowly and by small, successive steps. A short history of the disturbances will, however, furnish many useful and needed lessons.

Whether the fact that he was a labor leader influenced his superior to dismiss him will probably never be known; but this much is to be said, that it was very likely to do so. Salaried officials in the service of large corporations are naturally disposed to keep under them only such men as give them no trouble.

causes of disaffection among their employees, and, where any exist, that they should meet the men more than half-way in the endeavor to allay them. There is nothing but good for both parties to be derived from labor teaching the representative of capital the dignity of man, as man. The workingman, becoming more and more intelligent, will hereafter demand the treatment due to an equal.

and New York to stop work until the striking employees of the Third Avenue line were reinstated. The edict was disregarded by the men themselves, who found that compliance would not be approved by the community, and that, therefore, the attempt would fail. It was an attempt that the worst foe of labor might have instigated.

"On the question of trade unions the Guardian's secretary made the following comment on his behalf in a letter dated 2 February 1951. 'Regarding your question about trade unions: The Guardian considers that this is a matter for each National Spiritual Assembly to advise the believers on. As long as the trade unions are not members of any particular political party, there does not seem to be any objection to the Baha'is belonging to them.'

"...the British National Spiritual Assembly wrote to the Guardian as follows: 'In this country the law recognises strikes as legal when called by properly constituted authorities such as a Trade Union, and our own understanding is that in such circumstances the Baha'i teaching, in spite of Abdu'l-Baha's express disapproval of strikes, neither requires nor forbids an individual to strike but leaves him free to decide for himself in the particular circumstances of his case what is the proper course of action.'

"The Guardian's secretary replied on his behalf in a letter dated July 11, 1956: 'As regard strikes, the Guardian feels that your own understanding of the matter as expressed in your letter is quite correct, and he does not see the necessity of adding anything to it. We should avoid becoming rigid and laying down any more rules and regulations of conduct.'

"Based on the above guidelines, we are to emphasize the following points. 1. A Baha'i can become a member of a trade union as long as he is not required to also join a political party. 2. Abdu'l-Baha in general disapproved of strikes. The Baha'i attitude is that when the law recognizes strikes as legal, as when called by a properly constituted authority such as a trade union, the Baha'i teaching neither requires nor forbids an individual to participate in the strike but leaves him free to decide for himself what is the proper course of action in the particular circumstances."

lishments, is made by men working in double shifts of twelve hours each, having neither Sunday nor holiday the year round. Every two weeks the day men change to the night shift by working twenty-four hours consecutively. Gas-works, paper-mills, flour-mills, and many other industries, are run by twelve-hour shifts, and breweries exact fifteen hours a day, on an average, from their men. I hold that it is not possible far men working ten hours a day to enlist public sentiment on their side in a demand for the shortening of their task, as long as many of their fellows are compelled to work twelve or more hems a day.

less monotonous and many hours for recreation and self-improvement are obtained.

shares of fifty or a hundred dollars each, which are bought and sold daily in the market. Not an employee of any of these but can buy any number of shares, and thus participate in the dividends and in the management. That capital is a unit is a popular error. On the contrary, it is made up of hundreds and thousands of small component parts, owned, for the most part, by people of limited means. The Pennsylvania Railway proper, for instance, which embraces only the 350 miles of line between Pittsburg and Philadelphia, is today owned by 19,340 shareholders, in lots of from one fifty-dollar share upward. The New York Central Railway, of 450 miles, between New York and Buffalo, belongs not to one, or two, or several capitalists, but to 10,418 shareholders, of whom about one third are women and executors of estates. The entire railway system of America will show a similar wide distribution of ownership among the People. There are but three railway corporations in which the great capitalists hold a considerable interest; and the interest in two of these is held by various members of a family, and in no case does it amount to the control of the whole. In one of these very cases, the New York Central, as we have seen, there are more than ten thousand owners.

of over three shares; and not less than thirty-eight per cent. of the whole stock is held by trustees, guardians, and executors of charitable, religious, educational, and financial institutions.

The "great capitalist" is almost a myth, and exists, in any considerable number or degree, only in the heated imagination of the uninformed. Aggregate capital in railway corporations consists of many more individuals than it employs.

(4) Though Carnegie may have been unruffled, he was not necessarily able to make fine distinctions. The eight-hour movement of May, 1886, aroused labor enthusiasm in Chicago and Milwaukee and became entangled with an existing labor dispute. In Milwaukee Paul Grottkau, who had once been in Chicago and associated with some of its apostles of violence, edited the Arbeiter Zeitung, played a role in the Central Labor Union, and had great influence with foreign-born workers, for he had once been expelled from Germany under its anti-socialist laws. But Grottkau now advocated conventional labor union tactics; he was more socialist than anarchist. The eight-hour drive in Milwaukee, involving "some lawlessness and riotous proceedings" and considerable excitement, had led to brushes with police and the militia. The latter on May 5th, breaking up an attack on the North Chicago Rolling Mills, fired on the crowd. Subsequently, Grottkau and thirty-six others were arrested. Many were convicted and punished with fines or short jail terms. Grottkau went free on a technicality.

the forces of disorder and anarchy and those of order. Bomb-throwing means swift death to the thrower. Rioters assembling in numbers and marching to pillage will be remorselessly shot down; not by the order of a government above the people, not by overwhelming standing armies, not by troops brought from a distance, but by the masses of peaceable and orderly citizens of all classes in their own community, from the capitalist down to and including the steady workingman, whose combined influence constitutes that irresistible force, under democratic institutions, known as public sentiment. That sentiment has not only supported the officials who shot down disturbers of the peace, but has extolled them in proportion to the promptitude of their action.

(5) Judge James A. Mallory of Milwaukee had been prominent during the eighties in a fusion movement or Citizens' ticket to unite Democrats and Republicans against a labor party, the program of which advocated enlarged municipal services. In 1888 fusion defeated the labor effort by a narrow majority. Mallory also presided over the grand jury hearing that handed up indictments for "inciting to riot" in the Milwaukee eight-hour day excitement. Carnegie quotes from his charge to the jury. Mallory did not preside over the trials because "affidavits of prejudice" were filed against him.

consideration of the working-man as a man and a brother. I trust the time has gone by when corporations can hope to work men fifteen or sixteen hours a day. and the time approaches, I hope, when it will be impossible, in this country, to work men twelve hours a day continuously.

instances in which threatened strikes were recently averted by the decision of the Master Workman of the Knights of Labor, supported by the best workmen, against the wishes of the less intelligent members of that organization. Representative institutions eventually bring to the front the ablest and most prudent men, and will be found as beneficial in the industrial as they have proved themselves to be in the political world. Leaders of the stamp of Mr. Powderly, Mr. Arthur, of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, and Messrs. Wihle and Martin, of the Amalgamated Iron and Steel Association, will gain and retain power; while such as the radical and impulsive Mr. Irons,

(6) Powderly became Grand Master Workman of the Knights of Labor in 1879 and served until 1893. Under his leadership the Knights grew to be the country's largest labor organization in 1886 and then declined into a local, agrarian organization. Powderly induced the Knights to discard their religious and secret features. Like most Knights, he was the foe of strikes. P. M. Arthur (1831-1903), originally an immigrant from Scotland and after 1874 Grand Chief of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, incurred a discharge of epithets and abuse from organized labor's opponents for his part in the railroad strikes of 1877; later employers and capitalists came to regard both the union and its leader as "conservative," an opinion concurred in by radicals in the labor movement. William Martin, during the eighties Secretary of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, had been born in Scotland. For Wihle (really Weihe) see Essay V, note 5; on Irons, note 3 above.

to better his condition; and upon this desire hang all hopes of advancement of the masses. It is the stagnant pool of Contentment, not the running stream of Ambition, that breeds disease in the body social and political. The workingmen of this country can no more be induced to sanction riot and disorder than can any other class of the community. Isolated cases of violence under strong provocation may break out upon the surface, but the body underneath is sound to the core, and resolute for the maintenance of order.

In the Book of Aqdas Baha'u'llah forbids slavery, and 'Abdu'l-Baha has explained that not only chattel slavery, but also industrial slavery, is contrary to the law of God. When in the United States in 1912, He said to the American people:-- Between 1860 and 1865 you did a wonderful thing; you abolished chattel slavery; but today you must do a much more wonderful thing: you must abolish industrial slavery....

The solution of economic questions will not be brought about by array of capital against labor, and labor against capital, in strife and conflict, but by the voluntary attitude of goodwill on both sides. Then a real and lasting justness of conditions will be secured....

Among the Baha'is there are no extortionate, mercenary and unjust practices, no rebellious demands, no revolutionary uprisings against existing governments....

It will not be possible in the future for men to amass great fortunes by the labors of others. The rich will willingly divide. They will come to this gradually, naturally, by their own volition. It will never be accomplished by war and bloodshed.

It is by friendly consultation and cooperation, by just copartnership and profit-sharing, that the interests of both capital and labor will be best served. The harsh weapons of the strike and lockout are injurious, not only to the trades immediately affected, but to the community as a whole. It is, therefore, the business of the governments to devise means for preventing recourse to such barbarous methods of settling disputes. 'Abdu'l-Baha said at Dublin, New Hampshire, in 1912:-- (Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era, pages 144-145)

There is no need for any fear to be entertained lest the lawbreakers of Chicago should get the better of the police, and, if it be necessary to invoke their aid, of the citizens of that astonishing young city. Frankly speaking, such rioters would have a better chance of intimidating Birmingham than of overawing Chicago, St. Louis, or New York. In dealing with the insurgents of this class the record of the great Republic is singularly clear.