science. If the corporations and the unions wish to escape caustic interference of the public, they must find a way of acting together and adjusting their difficulties without injuring the public.

THE SOUTH appears to be very unfortunate in its representatives in congress. Only a few weeks ago the senate was disgraced by a brutal brawl, created by a fight between the two senators from South Carolina. Now comes Senator Bailey from Texas, who goes Senator Tillman one worse in disgraceful conduct. Tillman had some provocation, but Bailey had none. Simply because Senator Beveridge of Indiana said that Bailey had made an 66 unwarranted attack" on a public man, he waits until the senate adjourns and assaults him in his seat as Brooks did Charles Sumner. The Brookses, Tillmans and Baileys are not only a disgrace to the states which elect them and to the whole South, but they are a disgrace to the nation, and a scandal on the senate of the United States. If the people in their states insist upon electing such ruffians to the national senate, it is time that body took the matter in its own hands, and established a rule that any person who as saults a senator on the capitol grounds, for any cause whatever, shall never again have a seat in the senate. Bailey should be expelled at once, and if re-elected should not be permitted to take his seat. Texas should be minus a senator until it could elect a man fit to associate with gentlemen.

THE ACTION of the United States Steel Corporation. in securing permission from the New Jersey Legislature to issue $250,000,000 of 5 per cent. bonds with which to take up $200,000,000 of 7 per cent. preferred stock and raise $50,000,000 in cash, is creating unfavorable comment in the financial world abroad as well as at home.

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The London Economist thinks it a questionable move, but is typical of the constant reshuffling of company capital which is just now so much in vogue on the other side of the Atlantic," and points to it as "a useful object lesson of the danger which British investors run in embarking in enterprises formed under the very elastic laws of the state of New Jersey and some other portions of the union."

There are several features of this transaction which are well calculated to raise suspicion. One is the fact that a corporation which has a colossal surplus of $24,500,000 from one year's operation, besides allowing $15,400,000 for reserve, depreciation and improvement, and above payments of all interests on its bonded indebtedness, 7 per cent. on its preferred stock and 4 per cent. on its common stock, should be in such immediate necessity of borrowing $50,000,000 in cash as to pay the syndicate negotiating it $10,000,000 for its

service.

This corporation has undoubtedly rendered great service in steadying the iron and steel industry, and through it many tributary industries in this country. But if anything should be done to create the impression that a $1,404,000,000 corporation was organized for speculative rather than investment and productive purposes, it would have a disturbing effect on the whole field of large corporate enterprises, which would also tend to strengthen the superficial anti-trust sentiment of the country. This would be both an economic and political misfortune.

THE OPEN FORUM

ZINE.

This department belongs to our readers, and offers to them full opportunity to "talk back" to the editor, give information, discuss topics of ask questions on subjects within the field covered by GUNTON'S MAGAAll communications, whether letters for publication or inquiries for the "Question Box," must be accompanied by the full name and address of the writer. This is not required for publication, if the writer objects, but as evidence of good faith. Anonymous correspondents are ignored.

QUESTION BOX

A Mine Owner's View

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir:-I have to-day read in July number of the magazine your article on the anthracite coal strike. I did not see Mitchell's statement, but I have heard it criticised as a very one-sided statement. You say that Mr. Mitchell shows that miners never exceed 200 days. employment in the year, and that their average earnings are $1.42 a day. I am not familiar with the anthracite conditions, but I can say in regard to situation in the bituminous districts that it is true that the miner averages only two-thirds time, but he will not work any more than this. We have had orders so that we could have run our mines continuously at full capacity for the past three years, had the miners been will ing to work steadily, the same as men in other crafts. But even with steady work offered them, and the mine. in operation every day, our men average only 200 days a year. They are under contract to work 8 hours per day, six days a week, and yet they stay out of the mine on the average on full day a week, and leave the mine from one to two hours before quitting time on enough other days a week to make a total idleness of two days a week. They go to work at 7 a. m., are supposed to take a half hour for noon and quit at 3:30. They can be seen any day coming out of the mines anywhere from 1:30 to 3 o'clock. Very few of them work the full 8 hours. Mitchell knows this as well as I do. How can he or anyone else expect them to average the wages in other crafts, when they insist on loafing two-thirds

of their time?

There is a lot of maudlin sympathy wasted on the miners. For the work they do, they are well paid, and the conditions of work are not unpleas ant. If they do not rise in the social scale, it is because they do not make good use of their opportunities. They spend their wages foolishly, as a rule. Very few own their own homes or take a proper pride in rising, they being satisfied so long as they exist from day to day. I have never felt more like doubting the efficacy of shorter working hours than since I have been running a coal mine.

Pittsburg, Pa.

G. M.

Our correspondent is evidently in too close contact with the facts to be able to generalize philosophically. In order to give impartial consideration to any vexed question, one must be sufficiently removed from the thick of the conflict not to be immersed in a single interest. Of course Mr. Mitchell's statement was onesided; it was intended only to present the side of the miners. The corporations had presented theirs. But it is highly probable that even a one-sided statement may be correct in its facts. Of course our correspondent comes in contact with the situation from a directly opposite side, as he is a mine owner and employer. He admits that the men in the bituminous coal field do not average more than 200 days a year, but he adds that it is their own fault; they won't work any more; and he probably might have added that if one of them were discharged for not working the full eight hours that there would be a strike. He ends up by saying that they get as much as they are worth. Of course this could be said of any class of laborers in the world. It was probably never true that employers thought wage earners worth more than they received. The truth is that the standard of what any class of laborers are worth is determined by what they have habitually insisted upon having. Of course they spend their money fool

ishly. People of a low character, with a generally dull and uninspiring environment, always spend their money.foolishly. As a class, coal miners are a crude, rough, reckless lot, but the question is, Why are they so? Why are coal miners so much more reckless than mechanics in other callings? Like everybody else, they are largely the product of the conditions under which they work and live.

The bottom fact is they have been imported from the continent because they are cheap. The employers were not willing to pay American wages and thereby secure American workmen in the mines, but they wanted something as near the ground-hog as they could get, if he could only dig coal, and they have imported laborers from the lowest spots of Europe. Why should they expect intelligent, characterful citizens from such material, especially under the comparatively crude environment of a mining camp? So long as the mine owners of this country want that kind of cheap labor they must expect to have that kind of low character, and they must expect to have the unreasonable conduct and spasmodic violence that kind of character gives.

It is not surprising that our friend doubts the efficacy of short hours. He might well doubt the efficacy of high wages for the same reason, contending that if they had longer hours and lower pay they would have less time and money to waste in dissipation. He might go a step further and conclude that slavery, after all, may be the best plan for this kind of people; but there is another side to that: They are in the United States, and they are citizens, and they have votes. It is, therefore, a matter of important public concern either that they be given all the character creating conditions to make. good citizens, or that they be not permitted to come to the country at all. If the mine owners of this country expect as high a general standard of character among