plants in other countries into idleness, but may result in a higher cost of living, in suffering and even in starvation for many. The strike of coal miners in Great Britain is resulting in the enforced reduction of manufacturing activities in Italian factories which are dependent upon British coal for their power generation.

These widely differing examples may suffice to illustrate the far-spread international interrelation of economic movements.

Those of you who have studied economics in the classroom know, and those of you who will study economics in its practical workings will learn, that economic life is determined by certain laws. There is a law of supply and demand, a law of diminishing returns, and there are certain laws governing prices, wages and profits. Those laws are not man-made; they are the expression of the conclusions derived from the study of the operation of natural economic phenomena.

You will also find that in the economic sphere there is a continued assertion and demand for recognition, by law or otherwise, of certain rights. This battle for rights is nothing new in human development. Indeed, history is little more than a chronicle of the struggle for the recognition or abridgment of certain rights. The Magna Charta, which is a promise of King John of England to his people that their rights shall be the same as those that prevailed in the time of their fathers, is a case in point. So is the Bill of Rights promulgated in England in 1689. In the United States, the first ten Amendments to our own Federal Constitution are sometimes referred to as our Bill of Rights. They recognize such rights as those of freedom of worship, freedom of speech and of the press and assembly, the right to bear arms, the right to trial by jury, and the right to freedom from search and seizure. These rights are essentially political in character.

We are now confronted with demands for the recognition or limitation of what are loudly asserted to be "the right to strike," "the right to organize," "the right to bargain collectively," "the right to a living wage," "the right to a job," "the right to a voice in the management of industry," and "the right collectively to bestow or withhold patronage." These rights are essentially economic in character.

These economic rights differ from the political rights in one vital respect. Political rights refer to guarantees to the individual; so-called economic rights outlined herein refer largely to groups of individuals. The one is an individual right; the other a collective right. The former recognizes that what is the right of one individual is the right of every other individual; the other seeks to establish the rights of one group as against those of other groups.

The word "right" has always a certain appeal. It carries with it the idea of a square deal. The demand for recognition of a right suggests that the claimant's just dues had been denied. It must, however, be apparent that what may be right for an individual to do, may not always be right for a group to do in concert. An individual may quite properly quit his employment for such reasons as may appeal to him. A group of individuals acting collectively may not, however, have the same right or, if they have, it may be essential in the public interest that the right be abridged in some way. An employee of the Water Department of Hartford has a right to terminate his employment at any time if thereby contractual relationships are not violated. The sudden termination of their employment by all of the employees of the Hartford Water Department in combination may, however, give rise to a situation in which the life and comfort of the community is imperiled to such a degree that the abridgment of the collective right to strike may not only be justifiable but essential in the public interest.

The question of these "collective rights" has come to the forefront as a major problem in our economic relationships. In 1916, the Adamson Act was enacted as a direct consequence of the threat of railway workers collectively to strike unless their demand for the basic 8-hour day was recognized, and involved in this demand was an appeal not for shorter work hours but for a larger remuneration. In essence, the Adamson Act is legislation in the field of wage adjustment and not in that of regulating work time.

In England, we saw recently the threat of a strike by the combined miners, transport workers and railway men. Such a condition seriously threatened the welfare of the entire Eng

lish nation. David Lloyd George in the House of Commons frankly recognized the danger of this threat and even pointed to the possible need of an appeal to arms in orders to protect the community. The sober second thought of the other two trade unions involved, led them to draw apart from the miners' union and thus to avert a national calamity. By this result, however, the problem of "right to strike" and its necessary limitations has not been settled and is certain to come to the front again in England, as it will sooner or later in the United States and in all important industrial countries.

Nearly all of these "economic rights" give rise to serious problems and often involve conflicting interests. Thus the demand of the trade unions of the United States for the recognition of the alleged right collectively to bestow and withhold patronage, with its recognition of the right to the secondary boycott, strikes at the very fundamentals of industrial liberty. A single individual may properly withhold his patronage from a dealer with whose methods or goods he is dissatisfied; a group may properly withdraw its patronage, but when a group, because it is organized, seeks to use its collective power of organization to force parties not to trade with a person against whom the group may have a grievance, quite a different issue is involved.

These questions are but a few in the economic arena upon which a decision will have to be made. You as participants in our economic life and as citizens of our country will be called upon to help make a decision in some of these questions. In doing so it will be necessary for you to weigh matters impartially and carefully, for not only your own good but the good of the whole country may be affected by these decisions. You will, therefore, have to look at these matters from the broadest possible point of view, and you may even have to view them from an international angle because of the international character of most economic problems and situations.

Finally, it will be essential for you to consider carefully the consequences of any action that you may take in respect to important economic questions, in order that you may not travel a road or influence others to travel a road which, in spite of your good intentions, may lead you and others to grief and perhaps even to disaster.

In any period, but especially in one of such tremendous readjustment as the present period, there are those who are quite ready to criticize the existing order, who are eager to rush forward into the unknown without any care for the history of human effort or a sane evaluation of the consequences of their suggested actions. They seldom have anything at stake, and in their haste to usher in the millennium they call everybody, more cautious than themselves, a reactionary; and with their attack upon him they attack the whole economic system of the present time. Yet, if these critics knew history, they would realize that haste must be made slowly in order that it may bring enduring beneficial results. They think in terms of hours where they should think in terms of decades; they lack the proper perspective.

The critics of the conditions of to-day do not take all this into account. They attack our government, the schools, the economic system, our industry-in fact anything and everything that moves too slowly for them. They forget that we can build solidly only on a foundation of healthy evolution— not of rash revolution. They confound motion with progress.

Economics, as previously stated, is the study of the relations of man to society in his effort to earn a living. The economic relationship is a fundamental relationship. Decisions on economic problems must, therefore, be approached with sanity and clarity of thought, with full understanding of underlying principles and of the consequences that may flow from any action, and essentially with a clear recognition that the activities of the human race of to-day are the results of the experiences of untold centuries of civilization. Human activities cannot, therefore, be ruthlessly torn out of their historic and evolutionary setting and transplanted into an entirely new and as yet untried sphere with any justified hope that thereby wholesome and enduring progress may be made.

Progress is the natural law of human life. We move forward, sometimes slowly to be sure, but we move forward nevertheless. Nature's law is evolution and evolution is a slow process. There is too much at stake in civilization for it to be wrecked by hasty and unwise judgments and actions.

HENRY JUSTIN ALLEN

THE KANSAS INDUSTRIAL COURT1

Henry J. Allen, journalist and publisher, was born in Warren County, Pennsylvania, 1868, and was governor of Kansas 19191921. Nation-wide interest was aroused during his term of office by the passage of an industrial law establishing a court for the determination of industrial disputes. This law was the subject of a debate between Governor Allen and Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, held in Carnegie Hall, New York, May 28, 1920. The speech which follows is Governor Allen's first presentation of his case in the debate.

The Hon. Alton B. Parker presided, and made the following introductory remarks:

Ladies and Gentlemen:-Two great leaders of men are to speak through you to-night to more than one hundred millions of people. What they have to say will command at the outset wider consideration by both the press and the people than the famous LincolnDouglas debate. This is so first, because all of the people of the United States are interested at this moment in the questions which they are to discuss, and, second, for the reason that in addition to the great skill of the debators, they have had for a long time since a record of work that demonstrates their faith in the positions which they are to take to-night. Each of these men is a man of high character, of demonstrated patriotism, of great ability, and endowed with moral courage which enables them to confront all comers in a struggle for that which they believe to be right and just. These qualities have given to each of these men a large and independent following. This following is well and equally represented here to-night in this audience, each and every one of whom I am sure is imbued with the American spirit of fair play. Fair play demands that the partisans of each speaker on this occasion shall give courteous and respectful attention to the speakers who are making arguments in opposition to their views.

1

Reprinted with permission of author and publisher from "Debate between Samuel Gompers and Henry J. Allen." Copyright E. P. Dal

ton & Co.