The Outlook is a Weekly Newspaper and an Illustrated Monthly Magazine in one. It is published every Saturday-fifty-two issues a year. The first issue in each month is an Illustrated Magazine Number, containing about twice as many pages as the regular weekly Price.-The subscription price is Three Dollars a year, payable in advance. Ten cents a copy. Postage is Prepaid by the publishers for all subscriptions in the United States, Hawaiian Islands, Philippine Islands, Guam, Porto Rico, Tutuila Samoa, Canada, and Mexico. For all other countries in the Postal Union add $1.56 for postage. Change of Address.—When a change of address is ordered, both the new and the old address must be given. The notice should be sent one week before the change is to take effect. Discontinuances.-If a subscriber wishes his copy of the paper discontinued at the expiration of his subscription, notice to that effect should be sent. Otherwise it is assumed that a continuance of the subscription is desired. How to Remit.-Remittances should be sent by Draft on New York, Express-Order, or Money-Order, payable to order of THE OUTLOOK COMPANY. Cash should be sent in Registered Trade Mark Towels and Towelings At The Linen Store" Every desirable kind of pure linen towel is included in our Fall assortment-hemmed, hemstitched, fringed, lace trimmed or embroidered, at $1.50 to $60 a dozen. Just now we call attention to the fifty cent line. The most popular and serviceable are made of fine absorbent Huckaback, with all-over damask figures or damask borders; others of light-weight Birdseye, hemstitched Damask, as well as a large variety of fancy weaves. Towelings of all kinds, for bedroom, bathroom, and pantry use, 10c. to $1.25 a yard. Orders by mail have our prompt attention. James McCutcheon & Co. 14 West 23d Street, New York Nos. 16, 18, 20, and 22 WILLIAM STREET NEW YORK CAPITAL AND UNDIVIDED PROFITS, $7,800,000 The Company is a legal depositary for moneys paid into Court, and is authorized to act as Executor, Administrator, Trustee, Guardian, Receiver, and in all other Fiduciary capacities. Acts as Trustee under Mortgages made by Railroad and other Corporations, and as Transfer Agent and Registrar of Stocks and Bonds. Receives deposits upon Certificates of Deposit, or subject to check and ALLOWS INTEREST ON DAILY BALANCES Manages Real Estate and lends money on bond and mortgage. Acts as Agent for the transaction of any approved financial business. EDWIN S. MARSTON, President. THOS. J. BARNETT, 2d Vice-President. AUGUSTUS V. HEELY, Ass't Sec'y. Vol. 72 Commissioner Wright on the Coal Strike Published Weekly September 13, 1902 made." President Baer's No. 2 The report which mation on which future contracts can be Labor Commissoner Wright made to President Roosevelt upon the anthracite coal strike was given to the public last week, and constitutes an admirable statement of conditions in the mining regions. Mr. Wright expresses the belief that while the first demand of the miners for an eight-hour day (or, on contract work, a twenty per cent. increase in pay) was unreasonable, the later demand for a ninehour day or a proportionate increase in pay was entirely practicable and just, and the final offer to leave the whole matter to arbitration was eminently conciliatory. On the other hand, he expresses the belief that the operators have a right to object to dealing with a union a majority of whose members are engaged in mining soft coal-the competitor of their product -and he recommends the formation of a new union composed exclusively of hardcoal miners and only loosely affiliated with the United Mine Workers. With such an organization he thinks that the anthracite mine owners might be willing to deal, though he recognizes that the persistence of the conflict is due to the lack of confidence of either side in the fairness of the other. Commissioner Wright points out that the presence in the mines of many more men than can have steady work is unsatisfactory from every standpoint. "It is insisted by many," he says, "that eight hours a day for six days in the week at less wages than they are now receiving would make the miners as prosperous a class of workmen as can be found in the United States." Commissioner Wright in his conclusion suggests the formation of a board of conciliation, with power to investigate grievances, "the results of such investigation not to be considered in the nature of an award of a board of arbitration, but as verified infor The eighteenth week of the miners' strike opened with lines unbroken on both sides and positions avowedly unchanged. In truth, however, there has been a change in the operators' position, if President Baer's public statements may be taken as an index. Two months ago his formal statement was a declaration of uncompromising hostility to the whole principle of unionism. Last week, on the other hand, his statement of the operators' position, made in reply to Senators Quay and Penrose, explicitly declared that the operators were "not fighting labor organizations." "We fully recognize," he said, "the right of men to organize to protect themselves against oppression and to benefit themselves in any legitimate way, but . . . we will not permit them to select our employees." Upon this statement of the point at issue, so far as it concerns the union, there is no reason why peace should not be restored, for President Mitchell has asserted over and over again that his union does not even demand formal recognition, and much less does it demand the right to select employees. In his letter to the Pennsylvania Senators President Baer practically ignored the question of hours, upon which Commissioner Wright justly lays so much stress, and also the question of the weighing of coal at the pit's mouth, and made his refusal of arbitration hinge upon the impossibility of paying higher wages. "Wages," he said, "cannot be increased without increasing the price of coal, and to increase the price of coal will restrict the market and drive the public to use bituminous coal, a cheaper and more abundant fuel, and a restricted market will curtail production and result in depriving the miners of regular employment. . . . You cannot arbitrate a question of wages when an increase will destroy the business." In support of this statement, President Baer cited the fact that three of the coal-carrying roads had not paid dividends on their stock for years, and produced records of coal sales showing that forty per cent. of the anthracite coal was sold in the market below the cost of mining. This argument of President Baer is likely to turn public attention to the fundamental evil in the anthracite coal situation-the inflated capitalization of the anthracite coal roads and the excessive freights charged on anthracite coal in order to meet the interest on the bonds. As has been previously shown in these columns, the rate charged upon anthracite coal to the seaboard is nearly three times the rate charged for hauling bituminous coal by money-making roads. According to the statement of some independent operators, the net profit upon hauling a ton of hard coal from the mines to the seaboard exceeds one dollar a ton-the entire labor cost of mining coal-and it is the payment of this overcharge to the railroads which makes the subsidiary coal companies owned by them appear to run at a loss. Governor Stone for Compulsory Arbitration President Baer's statement has not in the least checked the public demand for arbitration. The very day that it was issued Governor Stone, of Pennsylvania, defined his position in a manner which indicates readiness for interested would agree with me is another thing. Consistently with this position, Governor Stone expresses himself as ready to call the Pennsylvania Legislature together whenever he is assured that a satisfactory compulsory arbitration law can be passed. Of course he has reason to doubt the possibility of this at the present, for public opinion upon it has not had time to crystallize, and labor organizations as well as corporations would generally oppose it. Upon this point President Mitchell's declarations before the beginning of the present strike were in harmony with those of most labor leaders. He believed in arbitration, he said, and believed in "public arbitration," but he thought that the award of the arbitrating board should not be enforced by legal processes, but depend upon the support it was certain to receive from public opinion. The labor organizations, he argued, would uniformly accept such awards, and employers would not often think themselves strong enough to ignore them. When this represents the position of the more advanced section of organized labor, it is not probable that the Pennsylvania Legislature could enact a law more advanced than the one suggested by Commissioner Wright-a law providing for investigation and judgment by an impartial tribunal, but containing no penalties. if either of the conflicting parties refused side of Pennsylvania, and particularly in to make peace in obedience to it. Outthe West, the amount of sympathy which the striking miners are receiving is altogether unusual. In Chicago, not only fairly radical action. Among other things, labor organizations, but Turner societies he said: A law that would settle labor disputes between employer and employee must of necessity be a compulsory arbitration law, and the award must be final and conclusive. This law must be drafted for the protection of society, and must not be drawn in the interest of employer or employee. Experience teaches that strikes endanger life and property. Whenever life and property are in jeopardy, society is menaced. The right of the public, the right of society, is greater than the right of the participants on both sides in any strike. We must recognize strikes as they have been, are, and will continue to be, and deal with them for the public good. I believe that a law should be drawn from this standpoint that would settle disputes between employer and employee speedily and effectively, without strikes; but whether legislators and parties and even churches are raising contributions for the relief of the miners' families. wing was still more marked; the Convention not only ignored the National platform, but adopted a platform on State issues much more acceptable to the corporations than was the platform adopted by the Republican Convention in July. Upon the question of the equal taxation of property, whether corporate or individual, the Democratic platform is vague, while the Republican platform is explicit; and on the question of the equal rights of all voters to a voice in the selection of party candidates the Democratic platform is openly hostile to the democratic reform which the Republican platform champions. In short, the Democratic Convention bent all its energies to win the support of the "Stalwart" Republicans who tried to prevent the renomination of Governor La Follette, and in the present campaign it is the Democratic candidate who will have the support of the "capitalistic" elements, and the Republican candidate who will have the support of the "Populistic." We hear from Wisconsin that the Republican defection from Governor La Follette is extremely marked among the well-to-do classes in all the cities, but it is doubtful whether it will exceed the Democratic defection occasioned by the ultra-conservative platform adopted last week. Inas much as Mr. Bryan has substantially indorsed Governor La Follette's position upon both of the State issues-equal taxation and direct primaries—and inasmuch as his leadership was directly rejected in the refusal to indorse the Kansas City platform, it is believed that his more aggressive supporters will either remain away from the polls or cast their votes for Governor La Follette. In the Ohio Convention the radical wing of the party was completely triumphant under the leadership of Mayor Johnson, of Cleveland. The Kansas City platform was reaffirmed, and a State platform adopted demanding the assessment of corporate property in the same manner as individual property, a municipal referendum on municipal franchises, and municipal home rule, including the right to establish the merit system in all branches of municipal administration. The Rev. Herbert S. Bigelow, the young pastor of the Vine Street Congregational Church in Cincinnati, who has won distinction as an antiimperialist and single-tax orator, was been less pronounced, but the existence of two antagonistic wings has been strikingly manifest, particularly in the West. In the Republican party the concrete issue upon which the conservative and radical wings divide is usually the tariff-particularly as it affects the trusts. Upon this point the recent Republican Convention in Idaho adopted a tariff revision plank as radical as the Democratic party has adopted in most of the Eastern States. It reads as follows: That many of the industries of this country have outgrown their infancy and the American manufacturer has entered the markets of the world and is successfully competing with the manufacturers of all other countries. We, therefore, favor a revision of the tariff, without unreasonable delay, which will place on the free list every article and product controlled by a monopoly. If this plank were carried into effect, not only would American consumers be able to purchase trust-made goods as cheaply as foreign consumers, since reimportation would not be prevented by a forty per cent. duty, but combinations. prevent competition at home would be robbed of most of their attractiveness, because their formation would open the way to free competition from abroad. Such a change would bring a nearer approximation to free trade than the "tariff for revenue only" which the Democratic platforms of a few years ago advocated, as a tariff for revenue might afford a vast amount of incidental protection to the trusts. It is not to be thought, however, that these tariff reform Republicans accept the economic principle that free commerce between nations, as between sections, is mutually advantageous. On the contrary, they find in the recently expanded exports of our manufactures new proof of the wisdom of a tariff protecting otherwise unprofitable industries against foreign competition. But, as Governor Cummins, of Iowa, has put it in his recent reply to Secretary |