mills and those non-union mills which had voluntarily joined the strike. The corporation's final proposition was far less favorable to the men than its original terms.

one.

THE LATE

PROF. JOSEPH LE CONTE,

Scientist.

troversy and animadversion. For the first time in the history of American jurisprudence blacklisting has been declared legal. In several states laws have been passed prohibiting and severely punishing this practise, and the courts have not heretofore questioned the validity of such legislation or its congruity with the common law. Judge Baker, however, has disregarded all precedents and has applied a radical principle which only thoroughgoing individualists have advocated.

There were no questions of fact in the case. For the sake of the legal issue involved the defendants admitted the allegations of fact and demurred to the declaration-in other words, they disputed the conclusion that what they were charged with was wrongful and criminal. The plaintiff was a girl whose trade was that of can labeling, and at this occupation she formerly earned fifteen dollars a week. In consequence of a strike in one of the canning establishments all the canners in Chicago agreed not to employ any one who had struck or who should quit work thereafter without the consent of the employer. Owing to this agreement the plaintiff, who was one of a number of strikers, had been denied employment in her trade, and had been forced to work for five dollars a week at an inferior occupation.

At this writing the outlook is a gloomy President Shaffer has ordered out all the union employees of the corporation. This order, if carried out, will extend the strike to the four great companies whose mills have remained in operation and whose workmen have no personal grievances. A strike on their part would be purely sympathetic, but it is not seriously doubted that they will obey the order to quit that has come. The number of men Distinguished Educator and now on strike is placed at fifty thousand, but the extension demanded will raise it to one hundred and fifty thousand. One considerable difficulty is that the Amalgamated Association has made contracts for a year with some of the companies in the trust, and a strike in their mills will be regarded as a breach of faith. The enormous cost of supporting so great an army of strikers is another formidable obstacle in the way of the leaders. The trust is said to be determined on "a fight to a finish" or wiping the association out of all its mills and destroying the union in the steel industry. Its attitude hitherto has not warranted the imputation of resolute hostility to unionism as such, although President Schwab has declared that he regards membership in a union detrimental to a workman. J. P. Morgan, there is reason to believe, is willing to accord full recognition to labor organizations directed by conservative and responsible men. Ultimately, perhaps, the combinations of capital will withdraw all objection to the fullest organization of labor and to collective bargaining, but the present contest shows that this stage of development has not yet been reached.

The case was one of systematic blacklisting, deliberate and actuated by malicious intent to injure the ex-strikers. Were the conspiring defendants guilty of a criminal action? Judge Baker answered the question

.S.

CLA

-Minneapolis Tribune.

in the negative. His argument, being brief and clear, may be quoted in full:

"When damage is sustained by one person from the wrongful act of another, an action for compensation is given to the injured party against the wrongdoer." By wrongful act is to be understood not an act wrongful in morals only, but an act wrongful in law. An act is wrongful in law if it infringes upon the right of another, and not otherwise. An act which does not infringe upon any right of a person is not, as to such person, wrongful. One has a right to decline to enter the service of another, and several persons, acting jointly in pursuance of an agreement to that effect, have the right to so decline. So, one has the right to decline to employ another, and several persons, acting jointly in pursuance of an agreement to that effect, have the right to so decline.

The existence of malice, of a malicious intent to injure a person, will not convert an act which does not infringe any right of such person into a wrongful act or a civil wrong. It follows that, in my opinion, the facts and agreements of the defendants set forth in the declaration cannot be held to infringe upon any right of the plaintiff, and therefore are not as to her, in law, wrongful.

Stated still more concisely, the principle of this decision is that what men may lawfully do individually they may do in concert. Each of the firms in the blacklist combination unquestionably had the right to decline to employ the plaintiff, and Judge Baker draws the conclusion that these firms had the right to act jointly and to agree to refuse work to the plaintiff and her associates. Into their intent or motive the law could not inquire, for they were not bound to have any reason for their behavior, much less to give one to anybody.

As said above, all agreements and conspiracies to injure some one and deprive him of the means of earning a livelihood have almost invariably been held to be contrary to law and public policy. Blacklisting effectually deprives the victims of work and wages, and in many cases involves absolute ruin. Can Judge Baker's view be good law? If it is though nearly all the precedents are at war with it- then it indisputably follows that boycotting is also legal and innocent practise. Boycotting is simply the blacklisting of employers, or of merchants and others friendly to such employers, by strikers or dissatisfied work- Who will succeed Charles men. What the

WILLIAM H. HUNT,

H. Allen as Governor of Porto Rico.

employer tries to do by blacklisting, the organized workmen try to do by means of the boycott. There is not a case on record in which the right to boycott has been upheld by the courts. courts. Judge Baker's reasoning clearly legalizes boycotting along with blacklisting. One man has a right to withdraw his patronage or trade or good-will from a merchant or employer, and a thousand men have, in their individual capacities, the same right. It follows, if Judge Baker's doctrine be sound, that these thousand men have the right to agree together and conspire to boycott any one offensive to them, and malicious intent to injure cannot make such conspiracy wrongful. Are the courts prepared to abide by this logic? It must be admitted that employers, while claiming the right to blacklist, have denounced boycotting in unmeasured terms, and that unionists, while assisting and practising boycotting, have bitterly complained of the blacklist. Neither side has been consistent. But the courts certainly ought to apply the same principle to both practises. It should be added that Judge Waterman, also of the Chicago bench, has, in a similar case, followed Judge Baker's ruling, and, in a more elaborate opinion, argued the propriety of boycotting as a corollary to the legality of blacklisting.

In several states the question of fair tax

ation is a "burning" one at this juncture. No additional evidence is needed to prove that personal property, in the hands of rich and moderately well-to-do alike, escapes proper assessment and taxation. Every student, every official body which has inquired into the subject, has become satisfied that personal property cannot be reached, and that all attempts at doing so merely encourage perjury, evasion, and dishonesty. Real property, especially in rural districts, is unduly burdened in consequence.

THE LATE

PRINCE VON HOHENLOHE, Former Imperial Chancellor

of Germany.

But this is not the aspect of the tax problem which is just now engaging the attention of officials and taxpayers in Ohio, Illinois, New Jersey, Texas, and other commonwealths. It is not to the failure to reach personalty that men like President Ingalls of the Big Four and Mr. Henry Holt, the writer and publisher, refer when they denounce our tax system as the worst in the civilized world. They have in mind the discrimination in favor of corporate property, especially of such property as is represented by valuable public franchises. In Ohio a vigorous attempt is being made to assess railroads and other corporations at the same rate as individual property owners. Mayor Johnson of Cleveland is the leader in this movement, and it is in consequence of his strenuous efforts that the Democratic state convention (which, by the way, repudiated free silver and completely ignored the party's national platforms of 1896 and 1900) adopted an unequivocal declaration urging that "steam and electric railroads and other corporations possessing public franchises shall be assessed in the same proportion to their salable value as are farms and city real estate." The latter kinds of property, under the Ohio tax law, are assessed on sixty per cent of their true money value, while, according to Mr. Johnson and his followers, the quasi-public corporations have been assessed on from ten to fifteen per cent (if not less) of the real value of their property.

Mayor Johnson has not been successful in inducing the tax boards to accept his prin

ciples or methods, but the Cleveland board of equalization (whose authority is under dispute) has been reorganized with the view of carrying out, if possible, or, at least, of taking into the state courts, the "radical" proposals of the Johnson element of the Democratic party. As a matter of fact, an injunction has already been secured from a Cleveland judge restraining the board of equalization from raising the valuation of certain corporate property in an "unfair and unusual manner."

The chief question which the courts will have to decide in the Cleveland tax suits is as to legality and propriety of arriving at the "true money value" of a corporation's property by multiplying the number of shares of its capital stock by the market value of the same at stated times, adding to the sum the bonded indebtedness of the corporation, and treating the total as the "value" of the property within the meaning of the tax law. On behalf of the corporation this method is assailed as arbitrary, unjust, and confiscatory. The value of stocks, it is asserted, is no index to market value, as the former depends on managerial skill, goodwill, the general financial situation, franchises, etc. Net earnings are urged as the safer and fairer measure of property for taxation purposes.

Chicago is likewise in the throes of a tax struggle. The city is in a semi-bankrupt condition, and its income from taxation is utterly inadequate, failing to cover even ordinary expenditures. The law limits the tax rate to five per cent of the "assessed valuation," or one per cent of the "full" valuation of the real and personal property of the state. Evasion is so general that, probably, half of the taxable property escapes the assessor. There is a state board of equalization, whose duty it is, among other things, to assess franchises of quasi-public corporations. This duty has never been performed, and the board has been scathingly denounced by one of the courts of the state for dereliction and neglect, if not worse. Permanent improvements are impossible, owing to a constitutional limit upon the borrowing power of municipalities, Chicago having exceeded that limit. Salaries of public officials have had to be reduced, street cleaning abandoned, and the police force weakened. Yet the public is quite apathetic, and while all recognize the need of reform, progress is scarcely perceptible.

In connection with this question of taxa