other experts in Industrial Commissions and Factory Inspection Departments.

The number of factory inspectors in each Factory Inspection Department or Industrial Commission depends on the state and the liberality with which the state treats such departments. No figures are available for the number of inspectors in the various states within the last year or two. In a bulletin on the Administration of Labor Laws, issued by the American Association for Labor Legislation in 1913, a list of the states has been given with the number of inspectors in each Factory Inspection Department. The number ranges from 1 in Florida, to 343 in New York; with 44 in Illinois, 53 in Massachusetts. 35 in Michigan and Minnesota, 38 in New Jersey, 76 in Pennsylvania and 53 in Wisconsin.

The method of selection and appointment of the higher officers in the Factory Inspection Departments is still political and mostly without regard to the specific qualifications necessary for the positions. Commissioners. Chief Inspectors and other higher grade inspectors in the departments are still appointed for political reasons, with no secure tenure of office and with a probable change with every incoming and outgoing administration. For the lower grades of inspectors and employees. Civil Service has already been introduced in the larger states, although the methods of examination and appointment are still not the best even in the most important states.

The salaries of the inspectors range from $900.00 to $3.500.00 per annum and there is no state which as yet gives a pension for length of service, old age, etc.

Bibliography.

Kingsbury: Labor Laws and Their Enforcement with Specific Reference to Massachusetts.-Longman, Green & Company.

Administration of Labor Laws. Bulletin No. 4, Vol. III.American Association for Labor Legislation.

Price: Administration of Labor Laws in Certain European Countries.-U. S. Department of Labor, Bulletin No. 142. Article on Administration of Labor Laws, in Commons' and Andrews' "Principles of Labor Legislation."-Harper & Brothers.

Chapter on Factory Inspection in Price's "Modern Factory." -John Wiley & Sons.

COURT DECISIONS IN 1915.

COMPILED BY HARRY W. LAIDLER.

Among the most noteworthy cases of the year were the Danbury Hatters' and the Coppage v. Kansas case, and the decisions of the U. S. Supreme Court affirming the constitutionality of various State laws for shortening the hours of labor for women and providing for compensation for work

men.

The decisions have been divided, following the lead of the U. S. Labor Bureau, into such divisions as "Labor Organizations," "Hours of Labor," "Wages," "Factory Regulations," "Contract of Employment," "Employment Offices," "Restriction of Employment," "Mines," "Railroads," "Workmen's Compensation," "Relief Associations" and "Liability of the Employer for Injuries to Employees.” The last named division has been but slightly touched upon in this survey.

I. Labor Organizations.

The most important decisions handed down by the U. S. Supreme Court under this heading during the year 1915 are undoubtedly the Danbury Hatters and the Coppage v. Kansas cases, in the latter of which the court declared unconstitutional a State statute aimed to prevent an employer from forcing his employee to agree not to join a trade union during his term of service. These two decisions are discussed elsewhere.

The courts of last resort of Ohio and Oklahoma followed the lead of the Supreme Court in declaring unconstitutional the laws of their respective states which forbade the discharge of employees because they were, or intended to become, members of labor unions.

A particularly reactionary decision, but one which might reasonably be expected to follow the passage of the reactionary State statute, was handed down by an Alabama court, declaring peaceful picketing illegal! The Supreme Court of the D. of C., on the other hand, refused to grant an injunction against such picketing.

The questionable procedure of declaring a labor leader in contempt of court for failing to obey an injunction which the higher court admitted was violative of fundamental constitutional rights, was indulged in by a Federal Court in a West Virginia case.

Injunctions were issued by a New Jersey court to prevent the fruition of a boycott planned against a firm which had obtained new workers, following a strike, and had continued business as formerly. The cessation of objectionable acts by strikers was declared by another court to be suffi

cient to warrant the court in refusing to grant an injunction. There was one kidnapping case of importance during the year in which the Minnesota court decided against the thugs who had kidnapped a labor leader.

A closed shop agreement was held legal by the Supreme Court of New York (which is not, however, the court of last resort in this state), and a blacklist, illegal by the U. S. District Court. Another case under the general heading was that in which the court compelled the union to reinstate a member, although the union was incorporated outside of the state.

(a) STRIKES, PICKETING AND KIDNAPPING-A judgment of conviction against those engaged in kidnapping and deporting a miner from another State without legal authority was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Minnesota in the case of State v. Payne (149 N. W., 945). The miner in question, Sjogren, a resident of Michigan, had gone to Crosby, Minnesota, to work in the mines, and during a strike had been selected a member of the strike committee to wait on the superintendent. One night he was forced at the point of the revolver to go into an automobile, was driven to another town and told that unless he got out of the State he "would be shot full of holes." He was then forced to purchase a ticket to Duluth, Minn. The court held that the lower court was justified in declaring the guilt of two of the men involved.

In Stoner v. Robert (43 Wash. Law Rep., 437), the Supreme Court of the D. of C. refused to grant an injunction against peaceful picketing of saloons, which continued to sell beer manufactured by breweries against which a strike and boycott had been declared.

That "peaceful interference" with the business of a firm by means of picketing is illegal, and that there can be, perhaps, in the eyes of the legislature no such thing as peaceful picketing or peaceful persuasion was the opinion of the Supreme Court of Alabama, called on to construe a state law in Hardie-Tynes Manufacturing Co. v. Cruse (66 So. 657). The decision is utterly unrepresentative of those handed down in previous years by the courts of the vast majority of states, which hold that picketing, when accompanied by mere peaceful persuasion, is legal, and that only when intimidation, coercion or violence appears is it deemed illegal.

(b) INJUNCTIONS, BOYCOTTS-The cessation of objectionable acts was held by the Washington Supreme Court to be sufficient reason for declining to issue an injunction against strikers who had previously been declared guilty of threats and assaults, in the case of the Commercial Bind

ing and Printing Co. v. Tacoma Typographical Union, (147 Pac. 1143).

In the case of A. Fink & Son v. Butchers' Union (95 Atl. 182), the Court of Chancery of New Jersey issued an injunction to prevent the consummation of a boycott planned against a firm whose workers had struck, but which was now continuing business, having filled the places of the workmen. · The boycott was held to be a malicious conspiracy to do injury, not to benefit the union.

(c) CONTEMPT-Mr. Schwartz, a store keeper in the vicinity of a mine in West Virginia where a strike was going on, had allowed the striking miners to hold meetings in his store, though he had been forbidden by a sweeping injunction to aid or abet the striking employees in any way. The court held (Schwartz v. U. S., 217 Fed. 866) that, although the injunction order was too broad, and constituted an invasion of the rights of a citizen to promote a labor union by persuasion and other peaceful means, and although the order would have been modified by the higher courts had an action been brought, the defendant must be held guilty of contempt in disobeying the order, since he had previously waived all objections thereto.

(d) COLLECTIVE AND CLOSED-SHOP AGREEMENTS, BLACKLISTS-That a closed shop agreement leading to the discharge of a workman not a member of the union did not make the union liable in damages to the discharged workman, was the opinion of the Supreme Court of New York in Cusumano v. Schlessinger (152 N. Y., Supp. 1081).

In Underwood v. Texas and Pacific Ry. Co. (178 S.W. 38), the Court of Civil Appeals of Texas held that an agreement between a company and a union, whereby the company was to give preference to union men did not constitute a monopoly and was not otherwise against public policy. The case was brought to court by a rival union.

The U. S. District Court, Southern District, N. Y., held in Marinelli v. United Booking Offices of America (227 Fed., 165) that a black-list of theatrical performers conducted by two booking companies, which required the theatres with which they entered into contract not to employ performers, who were not booked by defendants, and which refused to deal with other theatres who used such performers, was in contravention of the Sherman Anti-Trust law as in restraint of trade.

(e) MEMBERSHIP, DISCRIMINATION AGAINST UNION MEN-In People ex. rel. Solomon v. Brotherhood of Painters (155 N. Y. Supp. 438), the Supreme Court of

New York granted restitution of membership to a workman who had been expelled from an association incorporated outside of the state, the Court holding that its extra territorial incorporation did not place it outside the powers of the State courts. Damages were also granted.

The decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Coppage v. Kansas case was accepted as controlling in the cases of Jackson v. Berger (110 N. E. 732), decided by the Supreme Court of Ohio, and in Bemis v. State (152 Pac. 456), decided by the Court of Appeals of Oklahoma. The judges declared unconstitutional the efforts of the legislatures to secure to employees their right to membership in labor organizations by forbidding their discharge for being or becoming members of such unions.

II. Hours of Labor.

The year 1915 in the decisions under this head was chiefly noteworthy for the numerous decisions of the Supreme Court of the U. S., the Federal and State courts reaffirming the constitutionality of legislation for shortening the hours of labor for women. Sunday laws restricting labor were also upheld. Less encouraging were the decisions regarding hours for men, but they were of rather restricted application.

(a) GENERAL LAWS-A novel statute in Utah fixing six o'clock as the closing hour for mercantile establishments in cities of over 10,000 with certain exceptions was declared unconstitutional in Saville v. Corless (151 Pac. 51) by the Supreme Court of that State on the ground that the statute was not a police measure and that it constituted special legislation. A similar fate befell a statute in Louisiana which fixed the hours of stationary firemen at eight per day in cities of over 50,000 inhabitants (State v. Legendre, 70 So. 70). In an Oregon decision on the 10 hour law (State v. Young, 145 Pac. 647), ordinary repair work was not considered by the court as included in the exceptions in the act classed under "necessary repairs."

(b) WOMEN-The constitutionality of laws regarding hours of work for women was many times reaffirmed. In Miller v. Wilson (35 Sup. Ct. 342), the Supreme Court of the U. S. sustained as unconstitutional the eight hour law of California for women, the case in hand being that of a chambermaid employed in a hotel. In Bosley v. McLaughlin (35 Sup. Ct. 345), a similar decision was reached by the same court in regard to employees in a hospital. Other decisions were as follows: