mass of
the people are all extended franchises, giving arbitrary control for long
periods of years over any industry; monopolies sustained by patent rights
or protective duties; trusts, so far as they imply a combination of men to
resist the law of supply and demand; and laws which in any way favor one
class of people engaged in one kind of industry as opposed to any or every
other.

Quite as prominent are those hindrances which come from every kind of
fraud, including adulteration and misrepresentation of products, deception
as to market conditions, false credit, and violence of every kind. The
more perfect the light thrown upon all the conditions of production, the
better the understanding which all men may have of a neighbor's welfare,
and the easier it is to put ourselves in our neighbor's place.

_Strikes._--The methods of warfare between wage-earners and profit-makers
are quite generally understood under the names of strikes, boycotts and
lockouts. The occasion for a strike, which means a sudden stopping of work
by the employes of an establishment, is usually some question of immediate
advantage to the workmen. A desire for increased wages, fewer or different
hours of labor, or the removal of some restriction upon habits or
associations, gradually becomes general, and through some permanent or
temporary organization united action is taken. Quite frequently a strike
is occasioned by a sudden and apparently arbitrary reduction of wages,
affecting a large body of men. Many strikes are inaugurated in the
interests of discharged workmen, when the organization to which they
belong is supposed to be interested.

Thus a strike is always a form of warfare, and should be entered upon only
after the same careful consideration that makes war sometimes a necessity.
Under ordinary circumstances and upon general principles, no body of
workmen has any more right to suddenly stop work without notice than
railway managers have to stop a daily milk train. The end to be secured
must be important enough to humanity to overbalance the injury of the
strike itself.

Since a strike is an effort to produce a corner in the labor market, it
will succeed in the end sought only when conditions for cornering the
market are favorable. Even then the loss to the entire community is
considerable. The injury to property, while directly borne by the
profit-makers, is widely distributed. First, all wages stop and
wage-earners suffer. Second, abil