that which we believe to be a fair and just wage. What is it? In his decision, Judge Huggins said, "Such persons, in all fairness, are entitled to a wage which will enable them to procure for themselves and their families all the necessaries and a reasonable share of the comforts of life. They are entitled to a wage which will enable them by industry and economy not only to supply themselves with opportunities for intellectual advancement and reasonable recreation, but also to enable the parents working together to furnish to the children ample opportunities for intellectual and moral advancement, for education, and for an equal opportunity in the race of life. A fair wage will also allow the frugal man to provide reasonably for sickness and old age." We found a very harmful example of greed which had been going on in the mining district for years. By law, pay day was once every two weeks. When a man came in to collect his wages in advance of pay day—that is, wages which he had already earned and which he needed to meet some emergency in his finances, the operators would pay him the wages' due him, but would take a discount of ten per cent because it was paid in advance of pay day. This greedy practice had been going on for years. The district president had not protested against it. When it was brought to the attention of the court it was promptly wiped out. We are carrying on there now to-day a welfare canvass of the district for the purpose of improving housing conditions, labor conditions, working conditions. Kansas is one of the three states which maintains mining rescue stations at the expense of the state. [Applause.] When you tell me that the principle of this law has not the support of the labor leaders, let me read you some of the witnesses, who have declared for orderly adjudication under law of their grievances. Here is Mr. Fear, editor of the Missouri Trades Unionist, who has already been quoted, "We know that workingmen with whom we have discussed the question declare that the law is a move in the right direction for peace in the labor world. Why not give the law a trial and have it amended if amendment is needed?" Why not? Why is it that union labor officials began to fight this law before they had read it? If it is a bad law, it will go the way of the laws of the thirteenth century to which Mr. Gompers referred. Has any man yet offered a constructive remedy, except this one? Here is a great witness, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States. [Cheers.] You all remember the hour when members of the Four American Brotherhoods sat in the gallery of Congress and held their stop watches while Congress under coercion passed the Adamson law. Here is what the President said, referring to that incident: "Matters have come to a sudden crisis in this particular dispute and the country has been caught unprovided with any practical means of enforcing the principle of arbitration, by whose fault we will not stop to inquire. A situation had to be met whose elements and fixed conditions were indisputable. The practical and patriotic course to pursue, it seems to me, was to secure immediate peace by conceding the one thing in the demands of the men which would bring peace. "At the present moment, circumstances render this duty particularly obvious. Almost the entire military force of the nation is stationed upon the Mexican border to guard our territory against hostile raids. It must be supplied and steadily supplied with whatever it needs for its maintenance and efficiency that should be necessary for the purpose of national defense to transfer any portion of it upon short notice to some other parts of the country for reasons now unforeseen. Ample means of transportation must be available, and without delay." After discussing this emergency and the unprotected position of the general public, the President then said: "There is one thing we should do if we are true champions of arbitration. We should make all awards and judgments by record of a court of law in order that their interpretation and enforcement might lie not with one of the parties in arbitration, but with an impartial and authoritative tribunal. These things I urge upon you, not in haste or merely as a means of meeting a present emergency, but as permanent and necessary additions to the laws of the land suggested indeed by circumstances we hoped never to see, but imperative as well as just, if such emergencies are to be met in the future. I feel that no extended argument is needed to commit them to your favorable judgment." The President was appealing for the passage of a law exactly in compliance with the principles upon which we have written the Kansas law of industrial relations. [Applause.] Mr. Gompers in a speech delivered not long ago paid great tribute to the success of the anthracite coal strike. I call your attention to the historical fact that what happened in the anthracite matter was not attendant upon the success of the strike, but upon the success of an impartial judicial tribunal appointed by President Roosevelt of the United States. [Applause.] In the minute that remains I should like most respectfully to ask President Gompers if he will answer this question: When a dispute between capital and labor brings on a strike affecting the production or distribution of the necessaries of life, thus threatening the public peace and impairing the public health, has the public any rights in such a controversy, or is it a private war between capital and labor? If you answer this question in the affirmative, Mr. Gompers, how would you protect the rights of the public? And in addition, I wish him to define for us, if he will, who had the divine right to forbid the switchmen to strike in their outlaw strike? Who controls this divine right to quit work? MATTHEW ARNOLD NUMBERS; OR, THE MAJORITY AND THE Address by Matthew Arnold, poet and critic (born in Laleham, England, December 24, 1822; died in Liverpool, April 15, 1888), delivered first in New York, Chickering Hall, October 30, 1883, opening his series of "Discourses in America" (the others being "Literature and Science" and "Emerson") given during his visit to the United States in the autumn and winter of 1883-84. When Mr. Arnold made his first appearance in Boston, with this lecture, in Horticultural Hall, November 7th, he was introduced by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, as follows: "Ladies and Gentlemen: The position in which I find myself this evening reminds me of a story told me by a schoolmate, a nephew of the late Washington Allston, in reference to Mr. Edmund Dana. He was of short stature, and was walking the streets of London with a gentleman much taller than himself, when the latter was run against by one of those persons styled roughs, but more fittingly ruffians. The gentleman who experienced the collision promptly handed his coat to the little man, and struck an attitude of resistance. The conference was not a long one, and the tall man having got the better of it, one of the English crowd, who always like fair play, shouted, 'Hurrah for the gentleman!' Another voice supplemented the cry with, 'And hurrah for the little man that held his coat.' [Laughter.] The friend who was to have played the part of the 'little man' of my story was Rev. Phillips Brooks, who is unfortunately prevented from coming this evening by indisposition. I have been asked to fill his place, which, in my point of view, is beyond my capacity. [Laughter.] Happily, little is required of one who is to introduce the distinguished speaker of this evening. Were it only that he is the son of Thomas Arnold his welcome would be as wide as the realm over which the English language is spoken. Were he of unknown parentage he would be welcomed as a poet, the writer of noble verse, lofty and inspiring; as a critic, incisive, plain-spoken, honest, going to the heart of his subjects, the terror of Dagon and the Philistines; as a man, worthy of the grand name he bears. I have the pleasure of introducing Mr. Matthew Arnold." The term "the remnant," as Mr. Arnold subsequently wrote home to one of his friends, went the rounds of the United States, and, he added, "I now understand what 'Dizzy'1 meant when he said that I performed a 'great achievement' by 'launching phrases.'" LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:-There is a characteristic saying of Dr. Johnson: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." The saying is cynical, many will even call it brutal; yet it has in it something of plain, robust sense and truth. We do often see men passing themselves off as patriots, who are in truth scoundrels; we meet with talk and proceedings laying claim to patriotism, which are these gentlemen's last refuge. We may all of us agree in praying to be delivered from patriots and patriotism of this sort. Short of such, there is undoubtedly, sheltering itself under the fine name of patriotism, a good deal of self-flattery and self-delusion which is mischievous. "Things are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be; why, then, should we desire to be deceived?" In that uncompromising sentence of Bishop Butler's is surely the right and salutary maxim for both individuals and nations. Yet there is an honorable patriotism which we should satisfy if we can, and should seek to have on our side. At home I have said so much of the characters of our society and the prospects of our civilization, that I can hardly escape the like topic elsewhere. Speaking in America, I cannot well avoid saying something about the prospects of society in the United States. It is a topic where one is apt to touch people's patriotic feelings. No one will accuse me of having flattered the patriotism of that great country of English people on the other side of the Atlantic, amongst whom I was born. Here, so many miles from home, I begin to reflect with tender contrition, that perhaps have not-I will not say flattered the patriotism of my own countrymen enough, but regarded it enough. Perhaps that is one reason why I have produced so very little effect upon them. It was a fault of youth and inexperience. But it would be unpardonable to come in advanced life and repeat the same 1 |