RECOMMENDATIONS.

PLAN FOR DEPARTMENTAL ORGANIZATION.

No specific authority was conferred upon the Department of Labor by its organic act other than its authority with reference to mediation in labor disputes and to the functions of the four prior existing bureaus that have been placed under its jurisdiction. But in addition to the general declaration which formulates the purpose of the Department, namely, to "foster, promote, and develop the welfare of the wage earners of the United States, to improve their working conditions, and to advance their opportunities for profitable employment," the organic act did provide for the development of a specific plan for realizing that broad purpose. By section 10 the Secretary of Labor is required to "investigate and report to Congress a plan for coordination of the activities, duties, and powers of the present bureaus, commissions, and departments so far as they relate to labor and its conditions, in order to harmonize and unify such activities, duties and powers, with a view to further legislation to further define the duties and powers of such Department of Labor.' As that report is required by a different section of the organic act and for a different purpose from the section and the purpose for which the annual report is required, it is understood in reference to plans of departmental organization that Congress contemplated a special report. Such a report will in due time be presented.

LABOR LEGISLATION.

The use of firearms, in a species of private warfare in connection with labor strikes, calls for serious consideration. Groups of men on both sides, without military or police authority for it, have used firearms with fatal effect in the coal strike in southern Colorado. These arms and the ammunition have doubtless been procured through interstate commerce; and many of the armed men are said to have been imported into Colorado from other States through a business concern engaged commercially across State lines in supplying corporations with an armed and trained private soldiery or police in numbers running into hundreds and even thousands. In connection with the Pere Marquette strike in Michigan, armed guards, furnished by agencies in other States supplying men to take the place of local strikers, accompanied those men to Grand Rapids. They were there turned back by the United States marshal under instructions from the district judge. In the Calumet copper-mining region, armed

guards under contract with the employers were forwarded to the locality by agencies in other States. In view of the facts in these three cases, and of the well-known fact that detective agencies are to a greater or less extent engaged commercially in supplying groups of armed men across State lines, the Department recommends that Congress take action within its constitutional limitations to regulate this business in the interest of public peace and order.

That Congress take such action is not a new suggestion. It was made in connection with the labor troubles at Homestead, Pa., 21 years ago, and reported upon in the House of Representatives by the Judiciary Committee of the House at that time. The report (including the minority report) which was submitted to the House of Representatives February 7, 1893, is Report No. 2477 of the Fifty-second Congress, second session. A summary of the circumstances described in the majority report at pages xiv and xv makes it appear that the conditions now prevalent in this particular are much the same as those of that time. The summary is as follows:

The committee has elicited the fact from various sources that there is among the people of the country, especially with labor organizations, very great complaint against the use of Pinkerton guards or watchmen, and hence an appeal is made to Congress to pass a law regulating or prohibiting the same. They are professional detectives and guards or watchmen, and in the latter capacity may properly be characterized as a sort of private military or police force. They have been employed frequently by corporations in the case of strikes and other labor troubles until there exists an irreconcilable hostility between them and labor organizations. Nothing is better calculated to incite the latter to deeds of violence than for Pinkerton men to be brought in contact with them.

Your committee believes that the practice of employing Pinkerton watchmen or guards by corporations in case of strikes and labor troubles has grown very largely out of the sloth and dilatoriness of the civil authorities to render efficient and prompt protection to persons and property in such cases; but to allow, without the consent of the State, and in the first instance, corporations to employ such agencies as the Pinkerton watchmen in large numbers drawn from other States, is well calculated to produce irritation among the strikers, frequently resulting in hostile demonstrations and bloodshed. Such action upon the part of a corporation or association should never be allowed without the consent first obtained of the State in which the trouble occurs. A contrary course tends to bring the local civil authority into contempt, whereas its employment, its officers appreciating their duty, is the surest guaranty for the protection of life and property and the maintenance of the public peace. Exasperated strikers will not molest or resist the officers of the State, when, under exactly similar circumstances, they will assault the watchmen or guards hired by the corporation. By the minority report, the same circumstances are thus summarized at pages xvii and xviii:

To the detective business was first added that of supplying private watchmen, and, latterly, armed men as guards in case of strikes and lockouts. The business is well organized and has facilities for employing, or rather enlisting, all the force it may be called upon to supply. With its officers, corps of drilled men, and supply of arms it is in the nature of a militia force under the control of private individuals to be hired out to whomsoever may be able and willing to engage it. A number 35862°-14

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of corporations engaged in the transportation of interstate commerce and the carrying of United States mails have, on several occasions, employed Pinkerton guards. The Union Pacific, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Lake Shore, and the New York Central Railroad companies are among the number that have employed and used such guards while so engaged. At the times of such employment said corporations were encountering serious opposition in the operation of their roads and in the running of trains, from their striking employees. The guards were armed, and, in most if not in all cases, were sworn in as deputy sheriffs and clothed with police powers. In a few instances serious collisions took place between them and the striking employees or their friends.

Whether the employment of these guards provoked breaches of the peace or caused the destruction of property is a question upon which no definite opinion can be expressed. Wherever they were employed there were excitement and danger to both life and property, and whether their presence checked or increased the hazards is a matter more of speculation than of judgment.

The frequent conflicts that have taken place within the last few years between the employees of corporations and their managers and the use of Pinkerton guards by the latter, are matters of serious concern; and the minority, while unable to answer the inquiries of the House specifically, are of the firm conviction that such a policy is likely, at any moment, to result in the loss of both life and property.

The existence of such an organization as the Pinkerton agency, composed of men of superior courage but doubtful discretion, to be transported from State to State in time of bitterness and excitement, to be employed either as peace officers or as guards to private property, may well excite feelings of apprehension and danger. The importation of a foreign force into any community, except in the manner prescribed by law, is dangerous to the peace and good order of society. No principle in our form of government is more firmly embedded in the hearts of our people than that of domestic administration. The citizens of every community are imbued with the same spirit of local government and view with great jealousy the presence of any other than the force which they have provided for the protection and preservation of their rights and properties.

If from any cause the local authorities are unable to preserve the peace and enforce the laws, an appeal to the State should be made and if the State is too feeble then to the strong arm of the Federal Government, whose duty it is to guarantee to every State in the Union a republican form of government. The presence of a force not called into action in the regular way, even if clothed with the semblance of authority, is more likely to impress the peaceable citizen, much more the excited workman, with the conviction that his home, his rights, and his liberties are being invaded, than that the laws are being upheld for their preservation.

Neither the majority, however, nor the minority of the Judiciary Committee at that time saw their way clear to recommend congressional legislation against the evil they so clearly described and emphatically deplored. On this point the opinion of the majority, given at pages xv and xvi, was as follows:

Congress has the constitutional right to regulate interstate commerce, but has no right to say what citizens shall be employed by the carriers of interstate commerce nor the amount of wages which shall be paid by such carriers to any of their employees; nor what kind of a uniform, if any, they shall wear; nor whether they shall bear arms openly, which is not unlawful; or, in short, that while Congress may regulate, facilitate, and protect interstate commerce, it has no right to intermeddle with the private contracts and acts of the companies engaged in such transportation between them and their employees. To assume this extent of jurisdiction would necessarily imply the

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right to create, to prescribe, and to destroy the carrier companies engaged in interstate commerce. Congress may confer jurisdiction of a judicial character on the courts, but can not direct their judgments. * Your committee, finding Congress without constitutional authority to legislate as hereinabove set forth, respectfully suggest that it rests with the States to pass such laws as may be necessary to regulate or prohibit the employment of Pinkerton watchmen or guards within their respective jurisdictions.

To the same effect was the opinion of the minority at pages xviii and xxiv, although their comment is directed to the "practice of sheriffs and other peace officers in accepting as a posse" the armed men whom the Pinkerton agency supplied to corporations involved in strikes. Having this point directly in view, the minority said:

The evil, however, serious as it is, is one over which the Federal Government has no jurisdiction or control. It is a matter wholly within the reserved powers of the State; and if the people in the exercise of their local sovereignty fail to protect themselves, no duty or responsibility whatever can attach to the General Government. * The minority of the committee is of the opinion that the evils disclosed by the investigation are entirely beyond the reach of Federal power, and that remedies, if any can be devised, must originate with the State governments.

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It would not seem to be so clear at this day as it appeared to the members of the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives 21 years ago, that Congress has no constitutional authority over this subject in its interstate characteristics. The view appears no longer to prevail in congressional legislation that interstate commerce relates to traffic in commodities only. This is plainly true of the so-called "white slave" legislation of Congress. As its powers with reference to interstate commerce are thereby recognized by Congress, there would seem to be no reason now why the transportation of private troops, or private police, or armed guards, or armed mobs, whether by employers or strikers, from one State to another under commercial contracts, should not be regarded as coming fully within the scope of congressional authority over interstate commerce. Though Federal control of such interstate traffic was regarded as unconstitutional in 1893, it would appear by analogy to be regarded as within constitutional sanction now. The evil being still great enough to demand such congressional legislation as may be constitutional, I hereby commend the subject to Congress for consideration.

CONCLUSION.

The Department of Labor as an executive department devoted to the just interests of wage earners has been established as one of the results of general industrial progress. Owing to well-known developments in production, the relation of employer and wage earner is no longer personal or individual. Theirs is now usually a relationship between groups of employers on one side (such as corporation stockholders) and groups of their respective workmen on the other. Employers act collectively through their own chosen agents-corporation managers, factory or mine superintendents or foremen, labor brokers, or the like-who, in hiring laborers, represent collective financial interests. It is obvious that this method of employment, generally necessary for success in modern industry, may give to employers great contractual advantages over wage earners. Unless wage earners also act collectively through their own agents, they are often at a practical disadvantage.

Employers who act collectively through their agents in hiring wage earners are often averse to dealing with the agents of wage earners who collectively offer their services. They desire to contract with wage earners individually. It is upon this point that labor disputes frequently spring up and become acute.

In most instances in which employers accord to workmen practical recognition of the right of collective bargaining which they themselves exercise, fair relations are maintained. Even under such conditions, it is true, unhappy disputes arise. Whether the bargaining be collective or individual, a conflict of interests may tempt either party to make exactions which the other can not concede. If employers yielded to every demand of wage earners, their business would be wrecked; if wage earners always accepted the terms that employers offer, they would suffer great injustice.

In any circumstances, differences must be expected to arise. In such cases the Department of Labor, through public agents experienced in controversies of like character, might possibly find a common ground for agreement which the disputants, in their eagerness for advantage or in the heat of their controversy, had overlooked. Difficulties of· adjustment would, of course, be greatly increased if either party refused to deal or bargain with the other. But the Department of Labor, from growing experience and accumulated knowledge and skill, might learn how, even in these more difficult cases, to appeal with pacifying and prosperity-promoting effect, to the good citizen