within which struggle ceases is doomed. With all its ills strife is better than stagnation.

Hence the present conflict between the so-called higher critics and the traditionalists is to be welcomed as a sign of vitality and growth. Theological disputes are notoriously bitter and lamentable, but they are a necessity. The combatants use, for the most part, terms which are incapable of precise definition, and hence productive of endless mutual misunderstanding. The radicals are often contemptuous and irritating in their manner, while the conservatives are only too likely to be exasperatingly irrational and abusive. To him who tries to be calm and philo'sophical, and, above all, to maintain a Christian charity for all his fellows, strife of this kind is painful and repulsive. Yet if a study of the struggle theory yields any results it must lead one to see far behind persons to the social forces which find expression through them; to regard a man as largely, though not wholly, what his group in its struggle has made him, and to aid him or combat him not as an individual, but as a factor for or against the common welfare. A view of this kind appeals, of course, only to the reflective few. The many are marshaled for the fray, and throw themselves into the struggle on one side or the other as temperament, habit, loyalty, unconscious self-interest, and a narrow margin of rational volition may determine. That religious body is fortunate in which conservatives stand steadfastly for the social traditions and compel all who propose change to make good their claims to having discovered a larger truth, a better way. Happy the church which encourages the search for this new truth, however rigidly it may test it, and thrice blessed that communion which attempts to wage the inevitable conflict on the high plane of mutual respect and Christian courtesy.

Teorge & Vincent,

ART. VIII.-STRIKES

It is only in recent times that the strike has come to be a thing of great importance. Prior to 1800 there were but four strikes in the United States. From 1800 to 1821 there were only five, and between 1821 and 1834 there was a yearly average of between one and two; but in 1835 there was a large number of strikes, both of men and women. From that year onward to 1888 there was a steadily increasing number of strikes each year, and from 1888 to 1895 there was a slight decline, though after 1895 the number again rapidly rose (Wright). Some writers have grossly exaggerated in their statements as to the number of strikes, stating, for instance, that for the years 1877 to 1887 there was an average of 1,000 strikes each year. According to Carroll D. Wright there was an average of about 675 per year.

In order to better comprehend the nature of strikes and their serious relation to the economic life of the nation, let us briefly review a few of the more important. The railway strike of 1877 tied up the freight traffic on 12,000 miles of railroads. "Over 100,000 men were out in a score of states" (Swinton), and though the strike lasted only two weeks the number of those killed and wounded owing to mob violence ran up into the hundreds. At Martinsburg, Virginia, and at Pittsburg the state militia sympathized with the strikers and refused to fire upon them. Consequently the United States troops were ordered from the Eastern garrisons, and in Pittsburg alone 22 persons were killed, mostly by the soldiers. The damage in that city due to mob violence and loss of business was estimated at over $5,000,000, of which the railroads suffered a loss of $2,000,000. The Homestead strike of-1892 was a most serious affair. The immediate cause of violence was the attempt of the Carnegie Company to patrol the works with Pinkerton detectives. The workmen, or strikers, broke into the mill yards, intrenched themselves behind steel billets, brought brass cannon into action, and finally compelled the Pinkertons to surrender. Several days afterward the entire force of the state militia was ordered to Homestead, the town placed under martial

law, and order thereby restored. The great railway strike of 1894 involved railways capitalized at $2,000,000,000, and 100,000 trainmen. The loss, including damage to property, loss of wages to men, and of earnings to the companies, etc., is estimated at about $7,400,000. Besides, this, the loss to the country at large, as estimated by Bradstreet's, was in the vicinity of $80,000,000. A number of persons were killed during this strike, and it required the presence of 14,000 of the state and national troops to restore order (Wright). Speaking of this strike, Carroll D. Wright says: "The strike generated a vast deal of bitter feeling, so bitter that neither party was ready to consider the rights of the other. It was the most suggestive strike that has ever occurred in this country, and if it only proves sufficiently severe to teach the public its rights it will be worth all it has cost."

There are three general causes that in recent years have precipitated strikes, namely, reduction of wages, to secure an advance in wages, and to secure shorter hours of labor. But three fourths of the strikes have been against a reduction in wages. The origin of the modern industrial strike must be sought for in English history. When the industrial revolution in England took place thousands of hand operatives were thrown out of employment, and for a time the condition of the poor hand workers was simply awful. An historian (Mackenzie) describing that period says: "The hand loom had to be put away, and the poor workman had to endure a life of ever-deepening want till he died." But with the introduction of the factory system there came a change in the social condition of the people. Great masses of persons were congregated together in the factory districts, and lived there rearing their children amid squalor, ignorance, physical degeneracy, and moral corruption, "all of which had existed before, but which the factory system brought into strong light" (Wright). The result was that Parliament was compelled to interfere, and insisted upon the education of the factory children. Now, the intelligence of a people is the measure of their freedom. Hence, as education became diffused among the factory employees and other laborers, they grew restless beneath the onerous conditions under which they worked. They began to demand reforms. Failing to secure

these, they organized into unions. Then they struck. There had been, to be sure, organizations among the various trades in England for centuries, known as trade and craft guilds, but these were chiefly in the nature of employers' organizations. The modern trade union had its rise and development in the industrial revolution.

On the question of the right or the wrong of strikes opinions vary widely. The labor leader and the agitator vehemently insist that in the past the strike has been justifiable and necessary, and chiefly justifiable because it has to them been necessary. To be sure, the mob violence and lawlessness that generally follow in the trail of the strike are deplored. But they declaim loudly against the money kings, the coal barons, and the like, who, they say, grind the face of the poor and trample under foot the rights of the helpless, the fatherless, and the widows. And in this there is much truth. From the very beginning of our modern industrial development the employee has been the under dog in nearly all labor controversies. He has steadily had to fight his way over oppressive and unjust laws that discriminated against him, over onerous social conditions, and the like, until he has but recently come to his present position of political liberty and comparative independence. Until the early part of the eighteenth century strikes were regarded as conspiracies, and even to-day in some states at common law a strike is an indictable conspiracy. In 1803 there was a strike of sailors in New York; the leaders were arrested, indicted for conspiracy, convicted, and sent to jail. In 1805 the leaders of the shoemakers' strike were likewise arrested and tried for conspiracy. In 1815 there was another conviction for the same offense. Meanwhile, however, it is a well-known fact that there never was a case of employers who were indicted for conspiracy when they combined to keep down the price of labor. But, lo! the moment a few ignorant workingmen get together and strive to better their condition by seeking an increase of wages, immediately they are jailed for conspiracy. Adam Smith in 1776 called attention to this legal discrimination against the workingman. It would seem as though such glaring injustice must arouse the hostility of the laborer. And

in many other ways the social contrast between the laborer and the employer has been especially distasteful to the former. It would look like an early sowing to the winds. What wonder, then, if we have in recent years been reaping the whirlwind? Professor Wagner remarks: "The social question comes of a consciousness of contradiction between economic development and the social ideal of liberty and equality which is being realized in political life;" and Carroll D. Wright says: "The social condition of the workingman and his education, which we have insisted upon, have led him into the strike method as a means of asserting what he calls his rights. He has in this adopted the worst examples set him by his employers in the past." The sense of injustice under which the workingman has felt himself to be has seemed to him a sufficient and justifiable reason for having his rights at any cost. "The social battles which men have fought have been among the severest for human rights. They mark eras in social conditions as clearly as do field contests in which more human lives have been lost, but in which no greater human interests have been involved" (Huntington). The workman is no longer satisfied with charity; he wants and insists that he shall have a more reasonable remuneration for his toil. The time for the soup kitchen in periods of industrial depression has gone by; as Professor Peabody has said, "Instead of generosity men ask for justice, and instead of alms they demand work." In contrast to this position is that of the political economist. The writers on political economy, as far as I have observed, are almost unanimous in condemning strikes as a short-sighted policy and an evil. One writer, Nicholson, says that the strike is a business method, but he adds that it is a very bad business method. And from the viewpoint of the economist the strike must be condemned; not only because of the loss of wealth to the employer and employees, but also because of the loss of production to the whole people, and furthermore because of the loss of property due to mob violence that is usually consequent upon a strike. Again, the economist condemns the strike because it is such a disturbing factor in business. When a man seeks to engage in business he first considers the cost of production, so calculating the margin of profit