Interruption of the Class Struggle.

War has crippled both the economic and political action of the working class in its struggle against the employers. Freedom of press, freedom of assemblage, freedom of organization have been replaced by military dictatorship which is the dictatorship of the capitalist class over the working class. Every strike is declared a conspiracy, every act of protest against national exploiters is acclaimed high treason. Every step of the workers against their own oppressors at home is interpreted as the abetting of the enemy. And yet the working class of the enemy nation is in the same plight. In a word, the working class is forced by its rulers in every country to carry on self-extermination, while their oppressors are watching with delight the bleeding of their natural enemies-the workers.

War makes industrial life an endless chain of martyrdom and servitude. Compulsory military service is followed by compulsory industrial slavery. Military conscription by the government is aggravated by industrial conscription.

Bibliography.

Frederic C. Howe, "Why War?"; Louis B. Boudin, "Socialism and the War"; George R. Kirkpatrick, "War, What For?"; H. N. Brailsford, "The War of Steel and Gold"; W. E. Walling, "Socialists and the War"; J. A. Hobson, "Imperialism."

LABOR AND THE DEMOCRATS.

BY WM. LEAVITT STODDARD.

Probably the most favorable statement of the Democratic Party's record so far as labor is concerned is the platform adopted by the convention at St. Louis which re-nominated Woodrow Wilson. This platform has a good deal to say about labor, and I happen to know that the labor planks were written by a radical United States Senator who, I feel sure, believes that the Democratic Party has taken and will take important socialistic steps. The labor planks in the St. Louis platform were carefully calculated to attract Progressives and unattached revolutionaries to the support of the gentleman who now occupies the White House and who is, therefore, in an admirable position to advance the cause of the working people.

In the section of the platform entitled "Record of Achievement," the boast is made that the Democratic Party has "lifted human labor from the category of commodities,' that it has secured to the workingman "the right to voluntary association for his protection and welfare," that the rights of the laborer have been protected against the unwarranted

issuance of writs of injunction, and that the toiler has been guaranteed the right of trial by jury in cases of alleged contempt committed outside the court.

So much for performance. As to promise, the platform declares that the Federal Government should set the example to employers by providing a living wage, an eight-hour working day, with one day of rest in seven, safe and sanitary conditions of labor, compensation for accidents, retirement schemes, uniform standards wherever minors are employed, and provisions relative to the employment of women such "as should be accorded the mothers of the race." The platform declares faith in the Seamens' Act, commonly known as the La Follette Bill, and promises continuance of its enforcement. The platform favors the "speedy enactment" of an effective Federal child labor law, as well as the regulation of the shipment of convict-made goods. It recommends the creation of a Bureau of Labor Safety, as well as legislation "to prevent the maiming and killing of human beings." It favors the extension of the field of usefulness of the Bureau of Mines, endorses the system of employment exchanges inaugurated during the Administration, and commends the Department of Labor for its record in settling strikes by personal advice and conciliating agents. Under the head of Public Health the platform favors the establishment by the government of tuberculosis sanitariums for needy patients. Another paragraph proposes a scheme of prison reform for the Federal prisoners.

These promises and alleged performances are worth examining in the light of the facts of the attitude of the Democratic Party toward labor, judging that attitude by the history of the last three years of Democratic control of the Federal government.

A Self-Convicted Party.

There is no disputing the "Record of Achievement" as stated in the Democratic Platform. It is true that Congress passed and Wilson signed a law in which it was declared that labor was not a commodity, and it is also true that the same Congress, in a legislative provision still to be tested in the courts, allowed labor unions to exist. No one, furthermore, will dispute that other provisions enacted during the present Administration improved the situation with regard to injunctions and contempt of court. It is also true that labor, through the American Federation of Labor, had long demanded these reforms. But if this "Record of Achievement" which is set forth so painstakingly, is the best that can be said for the Democratic Party's friendship for labor, then that party stands self-convicted out of its own mouth.

The mere declaration by a law that labor is not a commodity has in no way made labor less of a commodity, nor made it easier for the toilers of this country to bargain better for the sale of their labor power with employers. At best this declaration is a sentimental victory for labor. It raises interesting questions which might furnish a subject for pleasant conversations in the library of the White House on cozy winter evenings, the warmth furnished by the White House furnaces which are stoked by a fireman receiving starvation wages, contrasting strikingly with the cold soup kitchens for the unemployed three or four blocks away on Pennsylvania Avenue. I seriously doubt if the average workingman would care to risk a vote on Wilson because of this achievement.

Concerning the success of the labor unions in having secured legislation from the Democrats which give them the right to live, much might be said. Without going into the details of the provision in question, it may be enough to say that the President himself has declared that the clause which on its face exempts labor from prosecution under the Sherman Anti-Trust Law, does not really exempt. I do not know if Mr. Wilson has stated this opinion publicly, but I heard him state it to a group of newspapermen, and I believe that there is a stenographic report of what was uttered on that occasion. It is my belief that the next time the Government desires to prosecute a labor union under the Sherman law it will do so and that it will have faith enough in the conservatism of the courts so that it will forget this proud achievement and brush it aside or leave it to be declared unconstitutional by some judge.

Nothing to Boast About.

As to the anti-injunction and contempt of court legislation, there is nothing here worth boasting about. For years and years labor has been endeavoring to secure a repeal by law of a set of judicial decisions which have grown up in absolute defiance of what were always understood to be common rights of free men guaranteed in Anglo-Saxon countries since Magna Charta.

A word or two about some of the other items of performance mentioned in the course of the platform. The La Follette law has been in many important respects nullified by the administration which it has received at the hands of Mr. Wilson's Secretary of Commerce, Mr. Redfield. In precisely what way, and to what extent this nullification has taken place, Mr. Andrew Furuseth has more than once in recent weeks explained. At any rate, it was poor tactics for the St. Louis convention to promise to continue to enforce

the La Follette law, for labor perfectly well knows that enforcement to date has been bad, and capital knows that thorough enforcement in the future would be dangerous to its interests.

The list of promises, including the child labor bill, workmens' compensation, health legislation, and legislation to make the Federal Government a model employer, contains some old familiar faces. Most of the specific measures thus enumerated by the enthusiastic politicians who want to lure Mr. Roosevelt's apostles of social and industrial justice into Mr. Wilson's range, were quite as ready to be enacted into law on March 5, 1913, when Mr. Wilson had his first whack at them, as they are today. It is true that in the course of the last three years some of these bills have been reported from one committee or another and voted on now in this house, now in that; but the bi-cameral system of government is ingeniously arranged so that it is easy for the party in power to escape responsibility for final failure of anything which it does not care very much about. I think we can dismiss the promises of the St. Louis platform without any further consideration, for as the President himself has said, a platform is not a program, and as someone else has said, with equal truth, it is like molasses, good to catch flies with.

As reading matter, the Democratic platform and any account, Democratic or Republican, of the Democratic labor record.is preferable to even a Bull Moose account of the labor record of Mr. Hughes. But viewed in any other light than as reading matter, I believe that the Democratic record so far as labor is concerned is fully as worthless and fully as treacherous as could be expected under the circumstances.

GRADUATED INCOME AND INHERITANCE

TAXATION.

BY WILLIAM ENGLISH Walling.

I. The Present Tax System of the United States. The total sum raised in the nation, states, cities and counties in 1913 was approximately $2,800,000,000—perhaps 8 per cent. of the nation's income in that year. Of this amount direct graduated taxes took less than one-fortieth, while land taxes at a liberal estimate took less than onefourth. Thus three-fourths of the taxes of the United States were either indirect or mixed in character, while nearly 30 per cent. are clearly indirect. That is, 30 per cent. of our taxes were paid chiefly by persons with small incomes, while another 45 per cent. were paid largely by the same class.

Our taxation system costs the average family a total of

$190.00, or nearly one-eighth of its income. But the burden falls so unequally that it may easily take twice that proportion of the smallest incomes; that is, one-fourth, and half that proportion of the largest incomes; that is, one-sixteenth.

no

The advantages of the graduated income tax are longer a matter of dispute. Nearly every one of the leading nations has been forced to adopt it. An income tax if not graduated produces comparatively little, for no country has been willing to levy a high tax against smaller incomes. Great Britain introduced a heavy graduation in 1910. Germany, which had long employed a steep graduation in her cities and states, introduced it in her national taxes of 1913. Even France, the country par excellence of small and large investors, was about to put the principle into effect before the war and, of course, has greatly increased the rate of graduation afterwards.

The actual American tax is far lower than were the actual taxes paid in Great Britain, Germany and other countries before the war. In Great Britain the actual rate in the budget of 1910 rose from five and one-half per cent. for an income of $20,000 to eight per cent. for an income of $500,000, and these rates were raised by the budget of May, 1914, to seven and thirteen per cent. respectively.

In the Revenue Bill reported to the House of Representatives July 1, 1916, the following Income Tax Rates are provided: the exemptions of the income tax law remain as at present-$3,000 for unmarried persons and $4,000 where the person taxed is the head of a family.