may be found in the words of Hutchison, a writer upon our colonial history, who tells us that in "this year [1619] a House of Burgesses broke out in Virginia." It is evident that the point has been reached when a representative national assembly, a real parliament on the modern plan, is about to break out in Russia; the travail of war is forcing the parturition. An eminent American publicist, in writing upon "Law: Its Nature and Development," said, not long ago:

"There can be no reasonable doubt that the power of Russia's Czar, vast and arbitrary as it seems, derives its strength from the Rus sian people. It is not the Czar's personal power; it is his power as head of the national church, as semi- sacred representative of the race and its historical development and organization. Its roots run deep into the tenacious, nourishing soil of immemorial habit. The Czar represents a history, not a caprice. . . . Again, it is said, apparently with a quite close regard for the facts, that in Russia sovereignty is lodged with the Czar, the supreme master 'of all the Russias.' That his will is law, Siberia attests and Nihilism recognizes. But is there no de facto limitation to his supremacy? How far could he go in the direction of institutional construction? How far could he succeed in giving Russia at once and out of hand the institutions, and Russians the liberties, of the United States and its people? How far would such a gift be law? Only so far as life answered to its word of command."

In that last sentence is embodied the essence of the problem. As the writer just quoted has well said in the same connection: "Temporary, fleeting despots, like the first Napoleon, lead nations with them by the ears, playing to their love of glory, to their sense of dignity and honor, to their ardor for achievement and their desire for order." To that he might well have added that fleeting despots cannot create, out of hand, enduring institutions. And yet, while it is true that "constitutions are not made, they grow," there can be no doubt that, at certain stages of the growth, it may be greatly accelerated by external influences. While it would be impossible for the Czar to create by edict an artificial scheme of liberty for Russia, it may be quite possible for him, in that way, to quicken into a new and larger life, and to lift into a higher sphere, the representative system whose "roots run deep into the tenacious, nourishing soil of immemorial habit." A great beginning could be made, if the Imperial hand

* Woodrow Wilson, "The State," pp. 620, 624.

would only cut away the vines with which the bureaucracy has for so long a time been strangling the rich undergrowth of representation embedded in local institutions. Statesmen, like Prince Mestchersky, who are saying that "constitutional government is impossible in Russia for the simple reason that the vast majority of the people have not the slightest conception of its meaning," seem to be strangely ignorant of the fact that, for centuries, the Russian people have been having the best of all constitutional training in their village parliaments, the identical training out of which has grown the representative assemblies of England and the United States. There is no reason why a parliamentary system should not be rapidly developed in Russia, because the entire substructure of the state is composed of nurseries in which the principle of election and representation by small democracies is in full bloom. Russia cannot afford to wait. Since the fall of the Roman Empire, no vast political aggregate ever suffered so much from the lack of the helping hand of a representative national assembly, capable of insuring the equal and concerted action of widely diffused populations. If to-day Russia had such a parliament, whose elongated fingers could reach down into the pockets of consenting millions, the brilliant adversary now defying her would be as helpless as a cripple in the grasp of a Titan. HANNIS TAYLOR.

THE ISSUE OF THE OPEN AND CLOSED

SHOP.

BY HENRY WHITE.

THE working class is rapidly raising itself out of its servile state through concerted action, and for the first time in history it is becoming a leading social factor. In consequence, the quiescent mass which gave society a firm base is growing restless, and the onerous task now faces mankind of readjusting the economic relations in conformity with democratic ideals.

The disappearing of the individual personal element in industry and the coming together of workmen in large groups, has developed among them a consciousness of their common interest, thereby promoting unity of purpose. This tendency is culminating in a definite working-class movement, which is widening the breach between employer and employed.

So far has the organization of the wage-workers proceeded, and likewise the counter combination of the employers, that the gravest of social problems has been narrowed down to the rights of the contending parties, as chiefly embodied in the problem of the "open" and "closed" shop. By the "open" shop is commonly meant the policy of employing workmen without regard to their affiliation with unions; and the "closed" shop is the antithesis of this, or the union shop. The term "union shop" is also made to apply to places where only union members are employed without the employer's agreeing to follow this course, but in the closed shop the employer expressly agrees to exclude nonunionists. The open-shop question is by no means new, as the unionizing of the shops has been naturally resisted by the employer wherever possible, but the term has taken on a new significance since it has been adopted as a slogan, as an emancipation declaration against union rule. The open-shop advocates dis

claim any intention of fighting unions as such. They even claim to favor unions "rightly conducted "; but, whether sincere or not, their recognition of the right and necessity of workmen to organize marks an important step in the progress of unionism. Until quite recently, employers openly refused to have any dealings with organized workmen. Accustomed as they were to treating with the single employee, a collective demand was to them an insurrection. It was a radical, if not a revolutionary, departure for workingmen to demand as a wage all that could be exacted from industry, instead of being content with a wage limited by unrestricted competition-hence the union could not be recognized or temporized with. But when the employers found that the union continued to grow despite their efforts, and that public opinion began to favor the organization of the laborers as a means of equalizing advantages, their hostility gave way to tolerance, and the union was in time accepted as a factor in industry.

Having fought its way to recognition, the union demanded the exclusion of non-union men from the shops. This meant a long step toward union regulation of industry, and, as was anticipated, it soon brought the movement into conflict with practically the whole employing class. A more general observance of the closed shop followed the expansion of the labor movement. Charges of union abuses, due to the alleged labor monopoly fostered by the closed shop, became rife; the sentiment toward the union changed noticeably, and the employers were aroused into active hostility. The "open shop" thus became the rallying cry of the employer.

Beginning about five years ago, strikes on a scale never before known occurred, notably in the building and mining trades. The employers, emulating the example of their workmen, formed associations in the different trades and industrial centres to fight the closed shop, and recently these associations united into a vast federation known as the Citizens' Industrial Association of America. These bodies, although lacking the definite policies of the unions, are, nevertheless, sufficiently in accord to present a united front to the unions. In the construction trades, the employers' association recognizes the closed shop, but only as a matter of necessity. On account of the numerous branches of labor employed at a time on one job, work would be interrupted incessantly, unless the builder took the precaution to hire only union help; but there is no doubt as to what the employers' attitude in that

industry would be if the cost of enforcing the open shop were not too great. In the building-trades war, in progress in New York since last spring, the unions charge the employers with seeking to bring about the open shop by repressing the sympathetic strike and establishing an arbitration plan to which the builders insist that the unions shall adhere.

The largest of the employers' bodies is the National Association of Manufacturers, of which David M. Parry, whose name typifies the anti-union movement, is president. Mr. Parry is also the president of the Citizens' Industrial Association of America. It was at the New Orleans convention of the former body in 1903 that the open-shop movement was crystallized.

In the addition to the preamble, adopted at the Pittsburg convention, held last May, its attitude is thus stated:

"The employees have the right to contract for their services in a collective capacity, but any contract that contains a stipulation that employment shall be denied to men not parties to the contract is an invasion of the constitutional rights of the American workman, is against public policy, and is in violation of the conspiracy laws. This Association declares its unalterable antagonism to the closed shop, and insists that the doors of no industry shall be closed against American workmen because of their membership or non-membership in any labor organization."

The notable decision of the Anthracite-Coal Commission appointed by President Roosevelt in which the open-shop principle was upheld, and likewise the decision of the President reinstating foreman Miller in the Government Printing-office, from which he had been discharged upon complaint of the Bookbinders' Union, have given a strong impetus to the open-shop movement. So vigorous and widespread has it become that many employers who previously, without much urging, recognized the closed shop, have been carried along with it, and now avow their determination to resist the closed shop at whatever cost. The Citizens' Industrial Association at its annual convention held in New York in November asserted its uncompromising hostility to the closed shop, and the American Federation of Labor in session at San Francisco a week earlier reaffirmed its opposition to the open shop.

The stress thus put on the open shop by the employers has also aroused the unionists, in the belief that its object is to crush unionism. Many serious strikes have been precipitated on that