tery that had brought the Revenue Collector to San Diego.

"Where is Job Smeer, the boss?" countered Arnold Adair.

A tense moment followed. Adair prepared to snap on the self-starter, when he was suddenly relieved by the man's reply:

"Ain't back yet from San Diego," he growled with an oath. "And the Government patrol boat'll be nosing around here any minute. You get on your job. I'm going back to the ship."

Job Smeer, the owner of this nefarious little spot of ground and the suspected chief of the opium operations in this vicinity, had been quietly taken into custody the evening before, as he was preparing to return home from San Diego by his motor boat. In his most fortunate absence, Adair and Berryman were taken to be his agents by the employees on the island. Overjoyed by the unforeseen success of their adventure, Arnold Adair hastened the departure of the lifeboat by declaring that the dreaded patrol boat was already on her way out from San Diego. Then as he and his companion jumped out to seize several packages of the "freight," they received another surprise.

"No! no!" cried the workmen, pulling the bamboo-wrapped packages away from them. A rapid exchange of mongrel sentences passed between Berryman and the Mexicans. Finally, Berryman turned to Adair with a puzzled expression on his face, while the two coolies walked toward the beach, pointing, eagerly out at the fisherman's net which lay stretched across the harbor.

"They say this is rice and tea and clothing," explained Malcolm Berryman, pointing to the packages on the ground. "And they want us to get fish or something out of that net in the water. What do you make out of that?"

"We must get some of the opium, wherever it is," replied Adair. "Is that Chinese woman Smeer's wife? Mr. Maloney told me he was married to a Chinese woman."

The woman in question was leading the way to a small skiff drawn up and tied to a long, narrow wharf. She clapped her hands and motioned the two coolies into the boat, spluttering the while in her native language and pointing in rapid gestures to the fish-net beyond. The Chinamen rowed away in the direction indicated, reached the net and dropped their oars. Seizing the floats in their hands, they hoisted a portion of the net into their boat. Within the meshes of the net small bundles of tightly wrapped bamboo strips were fastened.

Without speaking, the aviators started for the Comet, climbed aboard, and prepared to taxi out to the net. Simultaneously they winked at each other as the whole clever plan of the opium smugglers lay revealed to them. The opium, sealed in water-tight one-pound tins, was hidden in the fish-net by the sailors from the vessel. A seaplane from San Diego, or from some locality farther up the coast, flew down and

landed in the harbor alongside the submerged net. If a patrol boat were sighted, the air smuggler might fly away and snap his fingers at pursuit, while the most careful search of the house and grounds of the island would disclose no trace of the hiding-place of the contraband drug.

The Comet trundled slowly down the hard sand to the edge of the water, waded out until she felt the buoyant lift under her prow, then taxied lightly over the surface toward the net. The two coolies were standing upright in their skiff, a score of the small bamboowrapped packages tumbling about their feet. But they were not looking at their work. Both faces were turned upward to the sky. The pilots of the Comet turned and gazed skyward. There, far above their heads a seaplane was descending in wide circles, its motor silent and its propeller lagging. In the excitement of the past few minutes neither Adair nor Berryman had noticed the sound of its approach. Without doubt, Chief Maloney had guessed the truth. The vessel he had suspected was indeed engaged in supplying this evil drug to the proprietor of the island; and the airman now overhead, as yet unconscious of the presence of the Comet, had taken the first hours of the morning to come to fetch away a load of the costly stuff before a prowling patrol boat of the United States Government should begin its day's work.

"Quick, Malcolm!" directed Adair; "get into that skiff and throw a few of those cans of opium aboard the Comet. I must keep an eye on this bird and head him off if he sees us and tries to get away."

Berryman slipped over the side of the Comet, and as she cautiously rubbed the side of the skiff he dropped into the boat, holding to her side with one hand while he picked up the wet and slippery packages with the other. The two coolies began to suspect that something was wrong. A shrill scream from the woman on the beach almost coincided with their quick headlong plunge into the water. Adair dropped his gaze from the circling seaplane overhead and looked beyond the corner of the promontery to the north, toward which Smeer's wife was pointing. There, with a bone of white in her teeth, came a patrol boat full speed toward them, with scant consideration of the existence of an imaginary three-mile limit inside of which she might not penetrate. Evidently, the Comet herself was to be the object of an investigation.

But a moment later Arnold Adair decided that an examination of the Comet must be postponed. A motor's roar over his head informed him that the pilot of the circling seaplane had discovered the patrol boat and that he had changed his mind about landing. Shouting to Berryman to push the skiff out of the way and to jump aboard, Adair opened his throttle, swerved adroitly away from the fish-net, and as the Comet began to skim swiftly over the surface he looked up to estimate the position of

his enemy. Like in the fighting days at the front, a hostile airplane was droning about overhead, and he must be brought down to earth. Berryman's duck gun lay in its leather case at their feet.

As the Comet left the water and began its climb Adair gave explicit instructions to his companion. Not since the day of the armistice in France had they felt this thrill of conflict, had they experienced this joy of cleaving the blue skies in the wake of a Hun bent upon mischief or escape. Both pilots knew the type of seaplane above them, and both knew the Comet could overtake her with ease.

"Give him one barrel over his head, Malcolm," directed Adair. "If that doesn't scare him down, threaten him with the other. We've got to capture that bird. He's mixed up in a bad business."

The unknown smuggler was climbing with his motor full out, but the Comet climbed two yards to his one. He steered inland, in the vain hope that the Comet would not dare to follow him over the rough hills and valleys. These very evident maneuvers to escape only served to confirm their impression that he had guilt to conceal. A few minutes' skillful flying brought the Comet close alongside its quarry. A mere threatening movement of the shotgun and a gesture downward ended the contest. Adair deftly shepherded the prize back to the harbor of the island, where both machines landed and where the Government patrol boat was now floating. The two machines taxied slowly up to the boat, on the forward deck of which the portly figure of Chief Matthew Maloney stood surrounded by officers in uniform.

A few minutes later three aviators joined the officers on the deck of the patrol boat while their planes lay rocking on the waves, one on either side. Malcolm Berryman advanced to the Chief and, pointing to their prisoner, said:

"This is Billy Mappen, Mr. Maloney. I know him. He tells us that the seaplane belongs to Job Smeer. He is willing to tell you the whole story, and I hope you will be easy with him if he does."

"We'll consider that after he signs a confession," growled the Chief. "He can go into the cabin and do it now," he added. "But in the meantime, what are we going to do with Smeer's airplane? It's Government property, under the Volstead Act, and I'd like to use it to run down more of these smugglers if they try this again. What would you say, Berryman, if I offered you full charge of this airplane patrol business, and promised you a machine like

Adair's as soon as it can be built?"

"I would say, sir," responded Malcolm Berryman, "that I'm just the man you're looking for. And, with your permission, I'll fly Smeer's machine back to San Diego by way of that Chinese vessel out there. I snapped a photograph of her handsome owner when he was ashore here, and we ought to have one of the ship from the air to identify her next time she visits this port."

S employee representation a success or a failure?" I asked an em

It

ployee of the Mergenthaler Linotype Company, of Brooklyn. The answer was short. "It is the greatest possible success; it is a success because it is an honest method applied to dealings between honest men." And then he added significantly: "It guarantees the same principles of industrial representation that the Australian ballot grants to individual political representation. gives each man an absolute choice of the man that he wishes to represent him. When these men go to the council, they have equal voice in all deliberations. All the cards are on the table where they can all see them. The workingmen's delegates are looking at exactly the same figures as the management's delegates are looking at. Agreements, therefore, are based on fact, instead of lung power. It has eliminated in our plant the 'caste' differences between the management and the workmen. We are no longer cogs in a wheel; we don't go by numbers any more, but are men with the full rights of men. We are met as men, we are treated as men. When the manager walks through the plant to-day, every man faces him with the feeling that he is a man facing a man, not a servant facing a master. It has eliminated all petty feelings between the brain worker and the manual worker. Whereas the management formerly registered suspicion, distrust, and in some cases even contempt, to-day they register respect. Employee representation has given each man in these works just as much right as any other. It has guaranteed his rights both individually and collectively. The smoke screen has been removed from our vision. In this plant we know just as much about the difficulties of the management and their successes as they do themselves. It is that knowledge that we base our working rules and conditions on. We went two years without a strike with the exception of a small local trouble indulged in by a dozen

men.

There has never been serious ill feeling, no trouble about getting a square deal on wages. We have no strikes, because both men and management are looking at the same set of figures. Each realizes what must be done to keep the accounts on the ledger out of the red-ink column. Every man in the works realizes that the prosperity of one means the prosperity of both, and due to the basic principle of employee representation system it would be impossible for either side to take undue ad

vantage of the other without incurring the quick disapproval of an aroused public opinion. If employee representation is a failure, then democracy as guaranteed under the Constitution of the

WHAT A UNIONIST AND A
PLANT SUPERINTENDENT
SAY OF

EMPLOYEE REPRESENTATION

It is the greatest possible success; it is a success because it is an honest method applied to dealings between honest men.

It has eliminated in our plant the "caste" differences between the management and the workmen. We are no longer cogs in a wheel; we don't go by numbers any more, but are men with the full rights of men. We are met as men, we are treated as men. When the manager walks through the plant to-day, every man faces him with the feeling that he is a man facing a man, not a servant facing a master.

THE UNIONIST.

I had grown to believe that most workers had become time thieves and shirkers. From the arbitrary influences that were circulated at times through our various shops, I had lost all confidence in a great many of our workers. Naturally suspecting them, I always gave them the worst of the deal unknowingly. However, I can truthfully say, after over a year of weekly meetings with the delegates elected by our workers, that I don't believe there is a dishonest man in the plant.

I believe employee representation is the greatest hope of recent years for amicable relations between management and men, and men have gained more at these meetings than they ever could through a thousand strikes.

THE SUPERINTENDENT.

ing as the one of the Mergenthaler workman. An employee of the Knox Hat Company wrote me a letter answering an inquiry. He had been for many years an ardent union man, and still was a union man. He said: "If I hadn't seen the results of the system employed by this company, I would not have believed it humanly possible for employer and employee to get along with such remarkable mutual respect predominating at all times. This respect has been caused by the man-toman meetings across the table, where the truth has been the umpire. By becoming acquainted with each other, distrust and class feelings have been totally eliminated. There has not been a strike or a threat of a strike since the system was inaugurated in this plant. Hundreds of contentions, quite true, have been taken to the committee room, but things have been settled before they left. The company has met us more than fair. I have been through scores of battles of strength between employer and employee under the old system, and can truthfully say that the most bitter battles that we ever won in the old days never achieved anything near the favorable results for the workmen that we have gained peacefully at the shop council meetings of this firm. We are getting a square deal certainly, because every single agreement and decision is based on all the facts where we can both see them. We naturally get all that is coming to us because we know all we are rightfully entitled to. We know why we cannot get more. Mere words of mine cannot begin to express my hearty approval of a system that does eliminate strikes, erases class distinction, and completely removes the one obstacle between the operative and operator, namely, suspicion.

"In this plant we are reaping the rewards of thorough understanding between all parties concerned. We realize that we are never going to have to pay the penalty that is so often paid where agreements are entered into by the rule of force. Here we have the rule of reason, and it gets the worker more in a week than force could get in a year, and it doesn't cost us months of enforced idleness to get it."

resentation, or direct contact by representatives between the office and the workshop has many enemies. Reactionary employers look on the new system in about the same manner and with about as much friendliness as a tramp manifests toward a bulldog. However, employee representation has nothing to fear from reactionary enemies, due to the fact that the foundationstone of the new industrial emancipator is truth, and the structure is composed of a marblelike structure called impersonal justice. The workers in industry have in the past been subjected to suspicion, distrust, hatred, and disastrous conflict chiefly through the lack of understanding. In thousands of cases the workers have got the worst of the argument, mainly due to the fact that the employer could play his cards from a stacked deck-namely, secret diplomacy. The new order emancipates the worker

knew when they adopted the system that it meant open diplomacy-that it means all cards on the table face up. They knew that once the system was installed, the workers would be placed in a position to obtain a thorough knowledge of all facts pertaining, not only to the company, but to the entire industry. They realized that if workingmen were dishonest the system would fail and they would fail with the system. But the pioneers in the great new plan had faith in the honesty of men, had faith in the reasonableness of the worker when he knew the truth, and their confidence was not misplaced. They have found that practically all men are both honest and reasonable when wild statements and abstract theories are shattered with broadsides of cold chilled facts. Not only has the system resulted in sound business methods, it has also served as a check

valve on profiteering and has enabled the worker without striking to get every cent that is honestly due him. The truth being available, if the employer tries to take advantage of the workman he immediately brings down the censure of the entire community on his head.

Ten years ago if a man had suggested that corporations and other employers should tell the worker about the profits and losses of the company he I would have been examined for lunacy. But times have changed. To-day hundreds of firms not only "allow" their workman access to their books, but gladly explain in minute detail the ups and downs of the business. As a result the worker and management are enabled to give the consumer honest value for his money-the worker without striking gets every cent he is entitled to, and the management gains by receiving something they have been vainly endeavoring to get for a century-cooperation-and wholehearted co-operation at that.

Employee representation has been a great success, because it is an "honest way to deal with honest men." The plan is not hog-tied with one hundred and one inflexible rules. It is simply a means whereby the management of a plant and the employees get together on an equal footing once or twice a month

and all difficulties are fully and openly discussed.

TH

MANY FIRMS: MANY FORMS

HERE are of course a great many forms of shop representation. Some of the rules adopted by a few of the original firms greatly resembled an incometax report. They didn't meet with success. However, when they were changed and the rules set by the men and management at the conference table, the trouble was eliminated and everything went along smoothly.

The record of achievement through peaceable means at these meetings will be one of the most interesting and illuminating pages written in the future records of present industrial history.

Out of the thousands of disputes that have been discussed at the council meetings, attended by equal representation of the management and workers, over ninety-four per cent of the cases have been settled to the entire satisfaction of both men and management at the conference table, six per cent have gone up to the final council, and five and threequarters per cent of those cases were settled without going to the president's table or the impartial arbitration board. The one-quarter of one per cent of the grievances that have gone to the president's desk or to the impartial board have practically all been settled to the satisfaction of the workers without any further trouble. I have only been able to find two cases on record where the management turned down any proposition that had gone through the original council meeting. In one instance one company had over twelve hundred minor cases that were settled in the joint council room over a period of three years, and only one case sent to the president, his decision being favorable to the men. Another important record is the great number of cases that are settled entirely in favor of the workers. One big company has found, after two years of work, that nearly seventy per cent of all disputes brought to the table were settled wholly as requested by the workmen delegates; twenty-eight per cent were settled by both sides taking an even compromise, satisfactory to both, and only two per cent where the contentions raised by the workmen's delegates were rejected, and the contentions that were rejected were called out after a full debate by both factions, and in the final vote the employees were satisfied with the decision.

One company that has tried out the system for nearly two years has never found a single recommendation of the workmen's council unworthy. They were all adopted with extremely favorable results.

in the world. It's as much a help to me as a new board of directors, and a whole lot more, because when these men come up to the table they know what they are talking about, they are on the ground floor, and everything they suggest has been of great benefit to the company as well as themselves. Of course without question the greatest result of the shop committee meetings has been the newborn confidence engendered both by men for the management and management for the men."

I talked to a superintendent of a large Ohio plant who had voiced many misgivings when he adopted the plan. Instead, he was highly delighted, and his remarks, the last time I saw him, are worth repeating: "I had grown to believe that most workers had become time thieves and shirkers. From the arbitrary influences that were circulated at times through our various shops, I had lost all confidence in a great many of our workers. Naturally suspecting them, I always gave them the worst of the deal unknowingly. However, I can truthfully say, after over a year of weekly meetings with the delegates elected by our workers, that I don't believe there is a dishonest man in the plant. My former suspicion is changed to unbounded confidence. At these council meetings I have found the men absolutely fair when they had the truth to base their fairness on, and for that reason alone I believe employee representation is the greatest hope of recent years for amicable relations between management and men, and," he added, "men have gained more at these meetings than they ever could through a thousand strikes. They have been so fair at these meetings that we have been only too glad to meet them more than half-way."

Another manager, who had adopted the new system nearly two years ago, made the following remarks: "The workingman has a right to know where he stands. He has a right to the truth; all of it. He should have it, and through direct representation he will get it. When he meets at the conference table, through semi-monthly or monthly meetings, he will be able to ascertain the facts regarding the conditions he is working under. He will know whether he is being paid sufficiently or not; that is, he will know whether he is receiving his just portion of moneys earned. He will not have to guess about it."

A NEW BOARD OF DIRECTORS

HE president of one of the large cor

Tporations significantly told

me:

results were very unfavorable, but I repeat that in these cases the managements did not believe in men in the first place, didn't believe in the system in the second place, and eliminated it | just as quickly as the War Labor Board ceased to have any power over them. It is quite natural that the system failed under those conditions. The enemies of direct contact hold up these few instances and say: "There you are; men are too filled with prejudice to play fair." But when critics make these statements they know that they are not telling the truth.

of

It has succeeded in hundreds plants. These organizations employ all the way from a hundred to forty-seven thousand men. Over six hundred firms throughout the country are working under this system to-day, strikes, suspicions, and hatred eliminated; and I don't mean that strikes were eliminated merely during the spring of 1921, when there were two men for every job, but there were practically no strikes, ill feeling, or trouble in these same plants during the peak periods of 1919 and 1920.

NO THREAT TO UNIONISM

T has been intimated in various quar

ters opposed to the direct representation idea that the managements adopting the new plan did so with the sole idea of breaking up labor organizations, or to get the employees entirely within their power. Such a charge is so childish that refutation is unnecessary. Any employer adopting direct representation with the intention of camouflaging any issue will pay dearly for the attempt.

The fundamental principle of employee representation is open diplomacy. Open diplomacy means all cards on the table. A company unwilling to submit all facts to their workmen will have very little success with the plan, because that action would abrogate the basic principle of the new system.

The cardinal object in adopting the plan was to give every workman an op- | portunity of fully understanding the problems of the employer, which would naturally compel both the employer and | employee to recognize the third element indispensable to the prosperity of both, namely, the consuming public.

THERE ARE PLANS-AND PLANS HAVE received several letters lately from companies stating they were not in position to say whether employee representation was a success or not. One of them added that in his particular case the men did not seem to take sufficient interest in the plan. I immediately requested an outline of the plan they had in force. They did not have; employee representation at all. The delegates elected by the workmen had no rights in the council room more than the merest "opportunity of suggestion."| There was no final arbitration board and. the workmen had no representation beyond the mere hollow printed name. I

bitterly condemn any organization that adopts the system as a "sop to the worker." In the first place, it will Surely fail and result in more suspicion and distrust than formerly. There have been companies who have adopted the system with the latter intention, and they should be roundly condemned by progressive employer and laborer alike. The machinery of shop representation means little if it lacks honest, sin. cere spirit. If adopted with that spirit it will succeed, but as a means of attempting to pacify the workers with nere promises it is, and always will be, a lamentable failure.

If there was ever a time in the history of the world that team-work was necesIsary, it is now. It is going to take the combined ingenuity of the very best brains of capital and labor to sail the ship of industry through the rapids of depression safely. The pilots of this ship will have to work in unison. They must understand the same set of signals or else they are going to land on the rocks. It doesn't take a college professor to figure that out. The employer and employee cannot bring about industrial normalcy pulling at cross-purposes. They cannot settle their differences with the executives in session behind roll-top mahogany desks and workingmen in the dingy recesses of local halls. They must meet, not as enemies, but as friends trying to reach the same goal. This cannot be done by both sides applying the principle of force aided and abetted by angry recrimination. It must be brought about by the rule of reason where the scales of justice are balanced by tolerance and fairness. This spirit does prevail in plants where employee representation has been honestly installed. In thousands of shop representation committee meetings throughout the country in 1920 there is not a case on record where the meeting broke up in a wrangle. In the scores of these meetings that I have personally attended I have never heard a bitter word spoken.

I have never heard of a single case in the six hundred odd concerns that have adopted the plan where a workingman was discharged or was discriminated against for vigorously voicing his disapproval of conditions he was working under or wages paid. The object of shop representation is to get right down to the heart of things; find out where the shoe pinches and why it pinches. That is what its main principle is based on-to give every workingman an opportunity not only of fully expressing himself to the management either favorably or unfavorably regarding his working conditions, but to command recognition and righting of wrongs that are brought to the light. Employee representation gives the management an opportunity of meeting all arguments with the facts at their disposal. If the worker is wrong.

he is set right by a convincing exposition of actual facts. If right, the management immediately rectifies the trouble. Shop representation is equal representation; the employer and employee are equally represented, the same number of men speaking for each side. If a question is too difficult for the main council to decide upon, or if after thorough discussion the representatives of the workmen and management are unable to agree, most factories have a joint council of owners or managers and a committee of workmen through the council to go fully over the matter. In the factories where the representation idea has been fully tried out and its weak spots eliminated a final decision is left to an equal number of representatives, the management and representatives of workers picking an impartial chairman, and the majority vote of that council is final. However, in the many hundreds of council meetings and thousands of disputes, small and large, that have been debated there are only a few cases on record where any dispute ever got that far.

TRIED AND NOT FOUND WANTING BY A GREAT

E

RAILROAD

MPLOYEE representation has been in stalled in practically every line of industry in America-lumber camps, sawmills, steamship lines, clothing trades, harvester works, packing plants, machine shops and foundries, steel works, electric plants, hat factories, shipyards, milling-machine concerns, automobile factories, and telephone and telegraph systems. Until recently railways had not adopted the plan. However, the Pennsylvania Railroad within the last few months has come into the fold. This company profited by the mistakes of other concerns that had adopted the system, and as a result the employee representation plan of the "Pennsy" is one of the broadest in real democratic principle in existence to-day. The officials of that company have gone all the way in eliminating restrictions that would give the road the dominating hand. They have agreed to a representation principle that will give every employee on the road untrammeled choice to name any man he chooses who is employed by the system. The company have specifically agreed to recognize and negotiate with every delegate chosen. These delegates will sit with the company officials and draft all rules and regulations pertaining to relations between the management and men. Under this system grievances will be brought up expeditiously, and will receive consideration in weeks, where under the old system it took months, and even years. Under the "Pennsy" employee representation plan the minority will be heard fully. In other words, as another writer has pointed out, rules will be

worked out by a majority and minority representation instead of majority dicta

tion.

Vice-President W. W. Atterbury has worked diligently for several years to bring about the consummation of a plan that would insure every worker on the road an equal voice in the construction of rules that both management and employees must abide by.

NO STRINGS ON THE "PENNSY" PLAN

HERE are no strings on the "Pennsy"

Trepresentation plan, and if the men

and management are unable to agree after talking the whole matter over with all of the cards on the table, the contention will go to the Railroad Labor Board or . any other impartial arbitration board for final decision, thereby preventing the company from having even the slightest advantage.

The public has shown tremendous interest in the Pennsylvania Railroad plan, and the general opinion seems to be extremely favorable to the newly established relationship between the office workers and the shop workers. Under the new system the management and the workers will be looking at the same set of figures when they make agreements. Walkouts like the outlaw strike of a year ago, that cost the roads and the public several hundred million dollars, would not, in my opinion, be possible under the new arrangement, for the simple reason that a minority body will have their grievances aired with the same consideration as the majority. The plan will automatically create the strongest unit of collective bargaining in America-over 160,000 men in one system organized solidly behind a body of delegates chosen by unrestricted secret ballot with full powers to formulate working agreements under a plan where neither side can be despotic. In other words, on the Pennsylvania Railroad the rule of reason has swept the rule of force into the discard. In future disputes, under a system where all the facts are at the disposal of both parties, public opinion would quickly defeat any attempt by either the railway company or the men to take arbitrary advantage. It marks a new era in railway management and will result in a great stimulus to the immediate return of confidence of the public in both railway management and the railway employee. It marks the passing of secret diplomacy-a diplomacy that has been one of the main causes of loss of public confidence, which has resulted so disastrously to both railway executive and railway worker.

Employee representation is not a feminine, utopian, or paternalistic idea. It is the opposite of paternalism. I believe it is the most realistic, four-square democratic institution in American industry.