protection
of employees as members of labor unions, and five as members of the
national guard or militia, similar to the New York statute just
mentioned. Nearly all the States have laws for the protection of
employees as voters, as by requiring half holidays or reasonable time
to vote, or that their pay should not be given them in envelopes upon
which is printed any request to vote or other political material.

Nearly all the States require seats for female employees, and New
Jersey requires seats for horse-car drivers. Five States have general
provisions regulating the employment of women; ten forbid their
employment in bar-rooms (see page 226 above); three regulate their
hours of labor to an inequality with men; and most of the States
forbid females to be employed in mines or underground generally, or,
as we have noted above, in night labor. California, Illinois,
and Washington provide that sex shall be no disqualification for
employment. Four States, among them Illinois, require employers
seeking labor by advertisement to mention (if such be the case) that
there is a strike in their establishment; twelve States (see
above, page 231) have so far tackled the sweat-shop problem, while
practically every State in the Union makes wages a preferred claim in
cases of death or insolvency of the employer.

There is, however, one matter we have reserved for the last, because
it is one of the two or three points about which the immediate contest
before us is to rage. That is the case of individual discharge. It is
elementary that just as an employee may leave with cause or without
cause, so an employer may discharge without cause or with cause, nor
is he bound to state his reasons, and certain statutes requiring him
to do so with the object of avoiding a blacklist have been declared
unconstitutional in Southern States. But organized labor is naturally
very desirous of resenting the discharge of anybody for no other
reason than that of being a union man. In fact it is not too much to
say that this, with the legalization of the boycott, are the two great
demands the unions are now making upon society. Therefore, statutes
have been passed in many States making it unlawful for the employer to
make it a condition of employment that the employee should not be a
member of a union; or to discharge a person for the reason that he
is a member of a union. And closely connected with this is the
combination of union employees to force an