or property without due process of law. That the privilege of contracting is both a liberty and a property right. That labor is property, and the laborer has a right to contract with reference thereto, as has any other property owner. That to deprive him of this right is to deprive him of his property. That the law can not prohibit the employment of women for more than eight hours, because such employment injures their health, any more than it can prohibit men from working in white lead industries, and in that way contracting lead poisoning."

This decision of the court is followed up by the attorney for the manufacturers' association, which association raised $25,000 to contest the constitutionality of the law, who says:

"The decision is gratifying. This legislative attempt to encroach on the constitution has been thwarted. The tendency of legislation (sic) has been altogether too strong in the direction of regulating and controlling economic conditions. Our lawmakers are too frequently influenced by public clamor (sic) and misdirected agitation for the cure of so-called social wrongs. The law in question, instead of being based on constitutional freedom and liberty, tends to destroy liberty. It sprang from the needs of paternalism and socialism, neither of which has any place in this country. The moment the liberty of labor is restricted, impaired or infringed upon by legislation, just at that moment is the whole structure of government undermined. The law in question was contrary in principle to American ideas of freedom and independence. I am, therefore, doubly glad that the supreme court has applied and enforced, in a way so rugged and decisive, the doctrine that woman is equal to man before the law, and that her right to her labor, which constitutes her property, is as sacred and impregnable as is the similar right of man.”

Great America! Is it not a pity that this lawyer was not in the A. F. of L. Denver convention?

"Pater

nalism and socialism have no place in this country.' That reads as if it would have smashed "plank 10" into kindling wood. "Woman is equal to man before the law; their right to labor constitutes their property-a sacred and impregnable right." Then the supreme court says: "Labor is property. Freedom of contract is liberty. The constitution provides that no one shall be deprived of life, liberty or property (labor) without due process of law." Look here, you sawers of wood, do you understand?' Your REPRESENTATIVES on the bench say that all eight-hour and other laws to control economic conditions are socialistic and un-American. That all our labor is property, to be sold in the market to the highest bidder. That the hungry laborer is not to be restricted in his American right to make a free contract with an employer. That it is his right to agree to work for eighteen hours a day if he wants to, and take fifty cents per day, or less, if he can get no

tract. That the manufacturers' associations, their attorneys and the courts, will protect you from all mistakes your representatives may make. That life, liberty and freedom of contract must and shall not perish, so long as the constitution is saved from the attacks of socialism.

Now, brother workinginen, do you know where you are at? To strike for less hours and higher pay is a crime, and all legal regulations are unconstitutional, because they are socialistic. Don't you see that the woodpile and the simple sawers are between the devil and the deep sea?

The Ruling Power.

BY SAM L. LEFFINGWell.

It does not have to be maintained by much of profound argument that no one is born into the world with power to control the opinions of others; nor that the power of all others combined must, of right, control the opinion of the individual. Opinion is regulated solely by impression, and to insist that one's opinion must regulate and establish the opinions of all others, would be to question the reason or sanity of

the mass.

A certain degree of friction is as necessary to a healthy development of the intellect as it is to that of the physical frame, in its natural evolutions, by successive changes, to a more perfect state. Hence, no danger can come of discussion by the many, though founded upon speculation or contemplation. Any theory, however philosophical in its flight, is not binding on the individual. It falls as an impression upon his mind, and affects it only in proportion to its force of logic upon the weakness or firmness of his intellectual caliber. At one moment he may be swayed in one direction, at the next in another, and the friction thus produced by the changing of thought, proves advantageous, not only as a development, but in an established enlightenment of his faculties; and, allowing even that his mind may settle upon mere hypothesis, his liberty of thought is still preserved, his opinion. is maintained beyond the direction or control of any power outside of his own will or determination.

It is in the exercise of this liberty of opinion that I offer, in my weak way, the thoughts which follow. I do not claim to be very learned, nor do I feel that I can clothe a thought with any degree of excellence in diction or phraseology. Neither do I offer it as established dictum, binding upon others. It is merely an opinion, founded upon observations which have impressed me, and may have no more weight for influence than the opinion-as mere opinion-of any other individual, however learned, would have upon me. If it will lead to further thought, and even bring out expressions widely different, my mission will have been filled and it will render me satisfaction in pleasurable recompense.

One of the more ancient philosophers and writers has said that the ideal state is not a mere community or place; nor is it established that men may be saved from injury and maintain an interchange of good

offices. All these things, indeed, must take place where there is a state, and yet they may all exist where there be no state. The proper definition of a state, then, is to be a society of people joining together, by their families and children, to live happily, enjoying a life of thorough independence.

And

The people of a state should be controlled by fixed laws. The only protection against the demagogue— the charlatan-is in the supremacy of the laws. in a purely republican form of government the formulation of law should be at the dictation of the many as against the few. Where the few dictate to the many disaster is likely to follow and conditions for the worse can only be expected.

Education and good morals go to make the good citizen; and it should follow that the same rule would apply to the good statesman or to the one delegated to make a good executive officer. Any good citizen should be a sharer in the judicial and executive functions of the government. But it would also be claimed that a peculiar quality of a good citizen is to know how to command as well as to obey.

Unity and community can not be brought to a healthful consummation except by education, which should be fashioned strictly by manners, philosophy and laws. The corruption of good government is the worst forin of government. There can be no freedom without supreme law, for law ought to be above all. The only stable condition in a state is that where every one possesses an equality before the law and enjoys his own unmolested.

There are always three kinds of people in any state. The very rich, the very poor, and those who are between them. It is an acknowledged fact that the intermediate class is always the best; even in respect to wealth and fortune, a middle state is to be preferred, for in that condition the class is most likely to submit to reason. Those who are very wealthy, very handsome, or very strong, or, on the other hand, those who are very poor, or very weak, or very much degraded, are with difficulty induced to obey reason. One class is supercillious, the other rascally and mean, and the crimes arise respectively from insolence and servility. It follows, then, that the most perfect political community is that which is administered by the middle class, that is, where the middle class is the majority or ruling power, or where it holds such balance of power as to prevent either of the extremes from predominating. A government is more secure where the members of the community are nearly on an equality with each other. It is questionable whether an extreme democracy is not equally dangerous with an extreme oligarchy, or whether the excess of both might not prove tyranny. Where the state is large, fewer seditions and insurrections disturb the peace, and this because they are more peaceful internally as the middle class is more numerous. In smaller states it is easier to pass to the two extremes, because all are very poor or very rich.

But, some will rise and say, what has all this to do with our condition? We live in a republic; we are free

born; we can come and go when and where we please; we have the privileges of education and enlightenment; we have a voice in the formulation of laws; we delegate our choice to administer the laws; we are the middle class you speak of, and we, as a majority, are already the ruling power, and can make and unmake statesmen and rulers at will.

How much of this is true? You live in a republic and are free born; can you always go and come when you please? You have all the advantages of education and enlightenment; but do you demonstrate its advantages in the formulation of laws and in your choice of those who administer them? You are the middle class, truly; are you of the bourgeois, or of the proletaire? You can make and unmake statesmen without doubt, but how do you discharge your functions as the "ruling power?"

As a "" ruling power" how do you explain your conditions to-day? If industry is throttled and thousands of honest hands are deprived of the privilege of earning sustenance for wives and little ones, does the responsibility rest with either of the extremes-the very rich or the very poor-or with the middle class, as the ruling power?

Who is it that influences the formulation of the laws and directs your representatives in the performance of duties delegated by you, as the " 'ruling power?" Which one of the extremes-the very rich or the very poor-do you recognize as the most powerful? Are you slaves to the insolence of the one, or the rascality of the other, or both combined?

You sum up in your complaints many of the ills which afflict you, but you must not shift the responsibility upon the shoulders of those who take advantage of your imbecility to oppress you. If you are the 'ruling power," whose fault is it that you suffer? If the man with a million dollars can influence such legislation as will rob you to double his million, who is to blame for the corruption? Is it the briber or bribe-taker? The latter is your own choice, and the former, from all past experiences, can depend upon the reappearance of the latter or one fashioned in the same mold, to do his bidding when occasion requires.

The alleged guilty parties in such disgraceful transaction as this are not so much to blame as is the system which enables them to perform the act; and neither one of these evils are more censurable than that which claims, and really is, the "ruling power," in suffering a continuance of such moral badness.

I do not propose to offer an essay on politics, even as applied to economy; if the politics displayed by the average working man is an illustration of the science of government, I am not prepared to say it is the kind of science best adapted to an⚫ amelioration of his condition.

Things are certainly in bad shape. But the case is not entirely hopeless. It is no difficult matter to see how it may be changed. If there ever was a chance for the "middle class" to assert itself as the "ruling power," it was never better than is now presented. If the majority will not right the wrongs which afflict it,