BRINGING UP LABOR

Slightly over half a century ago Labor in England held a precarious seat in the Commons; today Labor members are dined by Lady Astor and the royal family, and the party, acting upon a definite program, wields the balance of power in English politics. This development in England has been paralleled elsewhere, but as yet there has been no real solution of labor problems.

In the United States, labor and freedom of contract have in general been allowed to develop under few restrictions. The Supreme Court has just ruled against the state law of Kansas which prescribed compulsory settlement of wage disputes. This law had imposed the greatest measure of state interferenced in Labour Problems yet attended in the United States, and even this much has been discouraged by the Supreme Court.

In contrast to the Kansas method of settling labor problems, Labor has established an educational institution by which it hopes to work out its own salvation. Brookwood College at Katonah, N. Y., the first labor college in this country, held its first Commencement two weeks ago and in spite of the modest size of its graduating class, it has received unusual notice from the country at large. Its curriculum is reduced to the bare bones of utility. In a two year course sociology, psychology, labor statistics, and labor problems are taught, and two hours of manual labor daily are required. The graduating class was made up of members of seven different unions and it is expected that these and the graduates in years to come will rise to leadership in their unions. Thus will the college furnish forth the ranks of labor with leaders who know the history of the movement and who understand its problems.

If such education can be spread widely through the rank and file, industry may at last proceed by the rule of economic reason. Arbitration boards, wage-fixing commissions, cooperative movements will always be temporary expedients, and are now too often mere sops to stop the growls of the workingman. Reforms which are to be lasting must come from within, and the unions should, for their own self-respect, be allowed to act as their own doctors. If their college lives up to expectations, their best prescription would be the establishment of Brookwood scholarships.