distribution of labor, is one of the most potent influences in augmenting industrial unrest. Migratory workmen are a restless, dissatisfied group and the longer the period of migration the greater becomes their restlessness. In time these "caravan" workers become sowers of the seed of discontent and industrial conflict.

(5) Absentee Ownership and Control of Industry. The evils of absentee landlordism have their counterpart in distant or absentee ownership and control of industry. The fact that the mining, oil, and lumber industries of the West are owned and controlled by persons who reside in the East has a significant bearing upon the growth of industrial unrest. This is the conclusion not only of economists but also of broadminded capitalists and government investigators as well. Technical operation of industry tends to be left increasingly to resident managers who "fail to understand and reach the mind and heart of labor because they have not the aptitude or the training or the time for wise dealing with the problems of industrial relationship.*2 It is a familiar observation that the problem of industrial unrest has developed pari passu with the increase in size of modern industry. Wherever the intimate relationships and contact of employer and employee that characterize a small business establishment give way to the distant relationship that exists in gigantic modern industrial establishments, with their thousands of stockholders and absentee directors, there is lacking the surest basis of industrial peace, namely, frequent contact between employer and employed. "The result is that contact between owners and employees is practically impossible, and too frequently a chasm opens between them."' 43 The situation is the more unfortunate because of the indifference of owners, directors, and managers to the importance of the labor problem, or the human factor in industry. The primary concern of these administrators in industry is profits, and they have hardly learned yet the economic value of a scientific solution of the labor problem.

(6) Autocratic Government of Industry. It is not a new

41 See the Report of the President's Mediation Commission; also the interesting pamphlets: Brotherhood and Representation in Industry, by John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

42 Report of the President's Mediation Commission, Sixth Annual Report of the Secretary of Labor, 1918, pp. 12, 13.

43 John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Brotherhood of Men and Nations, p. 8.

thought that American industry lacks a healthy basis of relationship between management and men. In fact it has been recognized for some time that American industry is in a very unhealthy condition as regards the relationship of labor and capital. This is due in part to the situation mentioned abovedistant ownership and control - and in part to the insistence of employers upon traditional rights and their strong resistance to any efforts on the part of labor which might curtail these rights. Employers have insisted, and still insist, upon dealing with the individual employee and refuse to deal with the workmen through their union representatives. "Direct dealings with employees' associations are still the minority rule in the United States. In the majority of instances there is no joint dealing, and in too many instances employers are in active opposition to labor organizations. This failure to equalize the parties in adjustments of inevitable industrial conflicts is the central cause of our difficulties."' 44 In the light of the present world movement for political democracy autocratic government in industry assumes an extremely unbecoming aspect, and is no doubt one of the basic causes of industrial unrest.

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(7) Inadequate Machinery for the Adjustment of Labor Disputes. At the outbreak of the World War the United States had only one general federal agency for dealing with industrial disputes, namely, the Division of Conciliation of the Department of Labor, and few of our states had such machinery. There was little or no opportunity for a peaceful settlement of disputes, and industrial peace was left to passionate rivalry and antagonism of divergent and competitive interests. Law gave way to force, and order gave place to strikes, boycotts, blacklists, and lockouts. A coördinated, continuous, widely disseminated system of adjusting disputes would have done much to avert this disorder.

(8) The Prevalence of Profiteering. Reports of profiteering in foodstuffs, clothing, and rents are too familiar to warrant detailed treatment here. The fines and other penalties imposed by the United States Food Administration, and the evidence of the 44 See the Report of the President's Mediation Commission, Sixth Annual Report of the Secretary of Labor, 1918, p. 24.

45 The United States Board of Mediation and Conciliation was created in 1913 to deal exclusively with industrial disputes on railroads.

Division of Industrial Housing of the United States Department of Labor quoted elsewhere in this study are striking testimonials of the prevalence of profiteering during the period of the war.46 The findings of the Federal Trade Commission supported the conviction of labor relative to profiteering. Altho their findings have been the subject of much controversy and dispute and the validity of their statement not unqualifiedly accepted, nevertheless, they show the trend of business earnings and certainly support the claims of labor in regard to excess profits. The commission pointed out that the net income of the United States Steel Corporation for 1917 was $224,738,908, of which about one-tenth was applicable to interest on bonds of the corporation and the rest was available for dividends and surplus. Profits in the several mills ranged from 52.63 per cent to 109.05 per cent. In the copper industry profits for 1917 ranged from one per cent to 107 per cent on the investments; in the petroleum industry profits ranged from losses up to 122 per cent. The meat packing industry was an especial target for the commission's attack. Four of the big meat packers (Armour, Swift, Morris, and Cudahy) had an aggregate annual average pre-war profit (1912, 1913, and 1914) of $19,000,000; in 1915 they earned $17,000,000 excess profits over the annual average for the pre-war period; in 1916, $36,000,000 more profit than the annual average for the pre-war period; and in 1917, $68,000,000 more profit than the annual average for the pre-war period. During the three war years (1915-1917) their total profits reached the very large figure of $140,000,000, of which $121,000,000 represents excess over their aggregate annual average profits for the three pre-war years. Much of this increased profit was due to higher prices rather than to increased volume of business, the return of profit increasing 400 per cent, or two and one-half times as much as the sales. The commission gives statistics of profits for several other industries, such as leather and leather goods, salmon canning, canned milk, coal, zinc, sulphur, and nickel, aggregating 200 per cent in some cases.

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46 See p. 94.

47 Profiteering, Senate Document No. 248, 65th Congress, 2nd Session, pp. 9-13. The packers have disputed the conclusions of the Federal Trade Commission, and maintained that their profits have been only a small percentage on the aggregate business handled.

Workingmen soon awakened to the fact that whatever advances in wages they were able to secure were counteracted by similar if not greater advances in the prices of commodities and in rents. Labor generally demanded that profiteering cease, and the President's Mediation Commission concluded that until it did cease a sense of inequality and exploitation would cause labor to withhold its most productive effort.18

(9) The Spread of Internationalism. The last few years have witnessed a remarkable development of the spirit of universal brotherhood among workmen. International labor conferences and labor missions have been but the tangible evidence of this increasing consciousness of solidarity of interests among the men who toil in the world's industries. The growth of liberalism, and often of socialism and syndicalism, among American workmen in recent years a growth which cannot be measured in terms of recorded membership of these respective groupshas stimulated rigid insistence upon the demands for higher wages, shorter hours, better conditions of employment, recognition of the union, and so on. In other words, industrial unrest has gathered momentum in proportion to the spread of liberalism and radical ideas, for labor received therefrom fresh inspiration for more insistent demands for industrial justice.

SPECIFIC CAUSES OF INDUSTRIAL UNREST

The specific conditions to which the recent spread of industrial difficulties must be attributed are the same, greatly accentuated, as have always been responsible for maladjustment in industrial relations. Under the abnormal circumstances of the great war these specific causes assumed a much more serious and dynamic character. The necessity for maximum production of every kind of essential commodity and the resultant excessive demand for labor coupled with diminution of the supply, constituted an unusually opportune time for insistence upon labor's demands and the widening of the breach between labor and capital. The consequent urgent presentation of ultimata by the workers who suddenly became conscious of a new independence and a strategic position during the war, brought into a clearer light the specific basic industrial conditions that make up the ferment in the strained relations between employers and employees.

48 Sixth Annual Report of the Secretary of Labor, 1918, p. 25.

(1) Inadequate Housing and Transportation Facilities. Industrial expansion incident to the war was so great that in many manufacturing centers the number of workmen soon outran the housing and the transportation facilities for their accommodation. It was at once apparent that where such facilities were lacking labor unrest and labor turnover greatly increased.

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(2) The Lack of a Healthful, Desirable Social Environment in Industrial Neighborhoods. Isolated mining, lumber, and oil camps have too frequently been devoid of any healthful social and recreational facilities, and some entrepreneurs and capitalists have learned in recent years that there is a very definite relation between this condition and the growth of industrial problems pertaining to labor. The importance of fostering a community spirit through facilities for social, recreational, and intellectual development is receiving tardy attention as a means of allaying labor unrest. The period of the war has done much to emphasize this phase of the labor problem, and the period of reconstruction is revealing throughout the world a sincere and profound interest in socio-industrial conditions.

(3) Adjustment of Compensation for Overtime, Night-work, Holidays, and Sundays. The speeding up of production incident to the war necessitated an increase in overtime, holiday, Sunday, and night-work. This created among workmen a demand for readjustment of the basic standards of pay for extra work, and this demand constituted one of the several irritants in creating unrest. The awards made by the National War Labor Board and other agencies of mediation, conciliation, and arbitration generally contained the stipulation that workers should be paid one and one-half times the regular wages for all time in excess of eight hours, and double time for Sundays and holidays, except where they are shift workers. The holidays specified included New Year's, Washington's birthday, Lincoln's birthday, Decoration Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas.50

(4) Discrimination against Union Employees, and the Use of Intimidation and Coercion by both Employers and Employees. The prevalence of the complaint made by workers that employers

49 See the Seventh Annual Report of the Secretary of Labor, 1918, pp. 130-136.

50 See awards of the National War Labor Board.