President judiciary offices in Montana. Mr. Lehmann as Photograph by Strauss HON. F. W. LEHMANN, OF ST. LOUIS Mr. Brandeis Not the least interesting of Mr. Lawyer for the Taft's appointments last month Government was that of the Hon. Frederick W. Lehmann, of St. Louis, as Solicitor-General of the United States. Mr. Lehmann is this year president of the American Bar Association, and his professional reputation is so high that if Mr. Taft had appointed him to the Supreme bench there would have been general approval from the lawyers of the country. Mr. Taft was once Solicitor-GenThe wide and active discussion eral himself, and he regards the office as of last month of the Interstate Comimmense importance, especially at this time merce Commission's hearings on when great cases are to be argued before the the question of increased freight rates cenSupreme Court. Mr. Bowers had brought a tered on the argument of Mr. Louis J. Brangreat reputation from Chicago, and it was deis, counsel for the shippers, that the railsupposed that Mr. Taft might sometime roads could get the additional income they elevate him to the Supreme bench. His death need by the simple method of introducing was a serious loss, and Mr. Taft fills the va- modern scientific methods of management. cancy by the appointment of another lawyer In the past decade a new profession has been of the Mississippi Valley of equally high created on this theory that scientific study of standing. Mr. Hoyt, who had been Solicitor- the smallest details and of the entire operaGeneral in the Roosevelt administration, was tions of a factory or other business concern chosen by Secretary Knox as the Counselor can show the way to great economies in cost, of the State Department, and his death a few prevent waste and increase output. There weeks ago marks another vacancy in the are now eminent consulting engineers who are group of talented lawyers who have been giv- engaged by industrial heads to study their ing the Government their devoted service. establishments from top to bottom with a It is the business of the Solicitor-General to view to finding by scientific study the methargue the Government's cases before the ods of working, accounting and handling Supreme Court, the Attorney-General sel- labor which will improve on the old tradidom having the time to appear in court in tional habits. Some extraordinary results view of his cabinet duties and varied responsi- have been attained. One frequently cited is bilities. President Taft, in securing Mr. in the trade of bricklaying, where it is said Lehmann, has brought to the Government's that by scientifically analyzing and simplifyaid, in the handling of the great cases about to ing the movements made by the bricklayer, be tried in the near future, as able a lawyer and efficiency, as measured by the output of a as brilliant an orator as his profession affords. man in a given time, was increased 200 per It means, in part, that the administration is cent. Mr. Brandeis, to support his widely quite in earnest about law-enforcement. quoted statement that the railroads could Photograph by Harris & Ewing MR. LOUIS BRANDEIS, REPRESENTATIVE OF THE SHIPPERS IN THE RATE HEARING save $1,000,000 a day through scientific improvements in industrial practice, put a number of the foremost of these professional "business economizers" on the witness stand. It was shown that certain railroads, for instance the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé, had already gone far into these modern methods of industrial economy with good results. Some of the points brought out by Mr. Brandeis in the testimony given before the Interstate Commerce Commission are clearly summarized in the article by Mr. Benjamin Baker which we publish on page 80 of this number. Our own understanding of the attitude of organized labor on the subject of the bonus system does not wholly coincide with Mr. Baker's, as will appear. is unusually large opportunity to prevent waste. But, in the first place, the adoption of the modern scientific methods of management is apt to amount, in the end, to a revolution in the details of organization, and such a revolution takes a long time to accomplish, if it is to have a helpful result. Some mistakes are always made at first, and it takes months, or, in such vast and complex organizations as a great railroad, it may take years, to get the thing done and in good running order. Now the problem before the railroads of showing such net income as will enable them to do their necessary financing is felt to be immediate. Labor Union Opposition A second difficulty in the way of using the so-called modern scientific methods of reorganizing railway operation lies in the attitude of organized labor. Two essential factors in the scientific reorganization of a shop or other industrial plant are standardization, involving high specializing of processes, and some sort of bonus system to stimulate workers to make the best use of the new method. Organized labor is flatly against specialization, and apparently not agreed on the bonus system. Mr. John Mitchell discussed the matter very frankly in relation to the arguments of Mr. Brandeis. Specialization, Mr. Mitchell claimed, tends to monotony in the worker's life and brain atrophy. It is not denied that costs can often be reduced and output increased by limiting a given worker's attention to a most restricted fraction of the Panama and World's Fair whole process of manufacture. But organ- trol of railroads and other great corporations ized labor says the price of such industrial doing an interstate business, and contended efficiency, paid for in the mental health of strongly that it is to the interest of Wall the worker, is too great. So, also the bonus Street as well as of the whole people" that the system is opposed, on the ground that, what- federal Government shall itself control the ever its immediate economic results, it instrumentalities of interstate commerce, "speeds up" the worker too fast. Mr. which can only be by it effectively regulated.' Mitchell contends that while, for a time, the worker may be stimulated to a greater outThe article on the Panama Canal put by the lure of greater rewards, there published in this number of the comes a time when the "speeding up" tells REVIEW OF REVIEWS shows conon him, and his efficiency may fall back to vincingly that the completion of that great the old level, or below it, so that, looking at waterway is now a matter of less than three his life work as a whole, he may be able to years' time. Beyond question, if an interaccomplish less in it and live less happily, national exposition is to be held to celebrate than by the older and slower methods. How- the opening of the canal, there is no time to ever doctrinaire these claims may seem to be lost in deciding on the site and beginning the average progressive American mind, the work on the buildings and other necessary fact that they are made by labor is an impor- accompaniments of a world's fair. San Frantant answer to Mr. Brandeis' contention that all the railroads need do to bolster up their endangered credit and income is to introduce modern methods. Mr. Kellogg on The cisco awaits only the action of Congress to begin this great undertaking. The money is already provided. In commenting, last month, on the voting of $10,000,000 in bonds by the people of California, a misprint made Would the owners of railroads us say that the citizens of San Francisco had Federal Control and the bankers who market their subscribed $750,000 for the project. of Railways securities prefer to go back to the sum actually subscribed was about $7,500,000 era of rebates and cut rates? Will the fed- of which $4,000,000 was raised at a masseral Government ever reduce rates as low as meeting last spring within two hours. The they were in the eras of cut rates and special total fund now available for a Pacific coast terms to large shippers before 1903? Such exposition amounts to $17,500,000 and the questions were vigorously put by Mr. Frank people of California do not ask the federal B. Kellogg to Wall Street in his recent address Government to contribute one cent to the before the Economic Club in New York City. enterprise. Quite apart from the distinctive The speaker traced the development of the advantages of San Francisco as an exposition nation's transportation systems from the site, the country has been most favorably immilitary highways on to the highly organized pressed by the spirit in which the promoters railroads, to show that from the beginning, of a Pacific coast exposition have gone about and at all times, federal control was necessary the work of convincing Congress and the for the life and health of the nation. To-day, Eastern States that a world's fair can and will railroad rates are a tax on all commerce, and be provided, by the people of "the Slope," equal opportunity for all citizens demands for the celebration of an event which means, that rates shall be uniform. Mr. Kellogg re- perhaps, more to the Pacific coast than to any minded his hearers that in 1872, when the other part of the Union. It has been shown States first began to exercise some control of repeatedly that in enterprises of this kind the railroad rates; in 1887, when Congress passed West is abundantly able to take care of itself; the Interstate Commerce Act; and in 1903, and the guarantees that are now offered for a when the Elkins' bill was made law, predic- successful Panama-Pacific Exposition at San tions of dire disaster were heard. "Yet in Francisco will go far to persuade the East spite of the progressive growth and develop- that the Pacific coast metropolis should be ment of this control, there has been the most selected as the site. wonderful increase in railway construction and enterprise, and in the development of our resources in all industries, ever known in history. Railway securities have become more generally an investment of the people, more stable and more profitable." Mr. Kellogg like the famous Oklahoma constitution in showed clearly the difficulty of obtaining uni- that they are much briefer, but it was not to form action from forty-six States in the con- be expected that two new States of the West, New Conventions in the new States of New Mexico and Arizona have framed constitutions for their respective States. Both documents are un THE PROSPECTIVE SPEAKER, AND HIS FRIEND WHO NOW WIELDS THE GAVEL Democrats formulating constitutions at the present time, When Congress assembled early should steer clear of what, in the conservative in December there seemed to be East, is denominated radicalism. In New more interest in the organization Mexico the initiative was rejected, but a ref- of the Democratic House that would meet a erendum clause was included which enables year later than in the business of the present 25 per cent. of the voters, on petition, to session. The Democrats were determined suspend a law within ninety days of a legisla- not to throw away the fruits of their victory tive session, and 10 per cent. of the voters, on through lack of harmony. They were quick petition, to submit a law passed by the last to agree that the Hon. Champ Clark, of legislature to the popular vote at the next Missouri, should be the next Speaker, and election. The Arizona constitution goes . much farther. It includes both the initiative and the referendum, and also a provision for the recall of all elective officers, including judges. This last is a distinct innovation, even in the radical West. In New Mexico no distinction is to be made in the franchise, in jury duty, or in qualifications for holding office, other than State and legislative offices, on account of inability to speak English. But in Arizona all voters are required to be able to read the constitution in English, a qualification which, it is said, will deprive a considerable percentage of the State's population of the franchise. Both constitutions will be submitted to the people for ratification. they were so forehanded as to plan for the selection of at least a considerable part of the Ways and Means Committee of the SixtySecond Congress, in order to begin work on a tariff bill. Mr. Champ Clark would naturally prefer to manage the House under the established rules-not through lust of personal power but because of the need of an efficient system. It seems now, however, that the Democrats will take the appointment of committees away from the Speaker and try the plan of a Committee on Committees. Mr. Clark has agreed not to oppose this change if his Democratic colleagues prefer it. The Republicans seem now quite generally committed to the plan of a gradual What the passed this year, and they require so much consideration that only a little time can be left for general legislation. President Taft's message, which was a document of unusual length, contained a great number of meritorious proposals; but it was not expected that many of them could be acted upon in the present session. The President's annual message has come to be a broad, comprehensive statement of the Government's activities and policies in all directions, and a disclosure of the varied aims and efforts of the administration. Only a very few newspapers now publish the message in full. This latest State paper of President Taft's is in fact a report to the country that ought to be widely circulated in convenient, permanent form. In clear, open print the document as prepared by the President would make a book of 150 pages. It deals with a great variety of affairs in the most useful and interesting way. The briefest allusion to its statements and suggestions would occupy a good deal of space. In his discussion of foreign affairs, the President presents a hopeful picture of progress in the paths of peace and of judicial settlement of disputes. His review of the activities of our State Department gives prominence to the fact that every country in tariff revision, one schedule at a time; and their acceptance of the idea of a tariff commission is also quite general, although they differ widely as to the details. Republicans wish is, to apply the slow processes of a scientific commission and a piecemeal revision to the present Republican highprotective tariff. What the Democrats seem to want is a general overhauling and reduction of the present tariff, to give it a Democratic character in the first instance, with the commission and gradual reduction methods to be applied from a reformed starting point. The trouble with the Democratic plan is that the Payne-Aldrich tariff was made by logrolling methods for the protection of communities and special interests; and that the numerous localities and enterprises thus benefited have no political complexion. They are just as much Democratic as they are Republican. In short, it is not going to be possible in the future to accomplish much with the tariff on the theory that it is to remain in future as in the past a distinct issue between the Republican and Democratic parties. the world has shown itself entitled to our cial tariff arrangements with Canada is minimum tariff rates. The prospect of special tariff arrangements with Canada is viewed in a hopeful light, and our new era of international commerce, to begin with the opening of the Panama Canal, seems to the President to require some form of Govern |