158





The   Record   and   Guide.





February 5, 1887





excellent result. The unity of the basement as an integral part of
the composition has been maintained by partly merging its two
stories, the openings running through both and closed by round
arches with shallow voussoirs in the upper story, while the lower
is marked by corbelled lintels withdrawn from the plane of the
wall and inserted in the openings transomwise. The device
is c^ver and effective, uniting the basement and marking
it off from the superstructure, as could not have been done if
it had consisted of two entirely separate stories. The outer and
intermediate piers are of stone, while the two central piers stand,
as has beeu said, upon dwarf columns of polished granite. This is
clearly a mistake. Rudely vigorous as the pillars designedly are
in form and treatment they do not serve the purpose of archi¬
tectural supports so well as do the piers, nor do they constitute a
porch, nor even save room.

The principal division of the front ig four stories in height and
five openings wide. The central three run through the four stories,
where they are closed by round arches in terra cotta. The lower
three stories are occupied by three-sided oriels in metal, slightly
projected, w^hile the fourth story, the sixth of the building, is lighted
from the culminating arches. On each sid« in each story is a
square-headed opening with lintels and quoins in terra cotta, not
large enough to interfere with a sufficient and grateful flank of
plain wall.

The seventh story has one plain rectangular window over each
below. It is slightly recessed at the sides, and the curtain wall is
decorated, not very appropriately, with the similitudes of bolt heads
iu baked clay. Above this is the main cornice, and above this the
steep Mansard with a dormer over each wing, while the centre is
crowned with a gable of moderate pitch, having its whole face
covered with a bold diaper in terra cotta. At its base is a square
opening in the centre with a highly ornate bull's eye on each side,
and in the gable head is a long and low cottage window.

The rich red monochrome of the chief part of the building is very
taking, and so is the broad and comfortable aspect the architect has
contrived to give his front. This might have been enhanced by a
more vigorous treatment of the main cornice and of the string
above the basement. Considering that these ace the only horizon¬
tal lines that traverse the building they might properly have been
emphasized. The carving of the basement is feeble and ineffec¬
tual, and the bead aud reel moulding at the intraios of the arches
in the second story is really childish. The decorative detail in
baked clay is very much bolder and better. The defects of the
design, such as they are, are very pardonable, for they are defects
in a generally successful and satisfactory piece of work.





The Recent Labor Troubles,

As the clientele of this publication is composed almost entirely of
employers, or those who sympathize with them, we have never con¬
sidered it necessary to take sides against the laborers.    We cannot
reach that class, and there is nothing we can say in behalf of the
employers of labor that they dou't realize themselves quite as well
as we do.   Wo have occasionally, as a matter of fairness, en¬
deavored to present an impartial view of the whole labor problem,
for it would be a national misfortune if the whole industrial forces
of the country slaould be divided into two hostile camps, each em¬
bittered against the other, because no attempt was made to present
all sides of the dispute   so that an impartial decision should be
arrived at.   In the pending controversy the periodical press is all
but unanimously on the side of capital.    The proprietors of daily
newspapers are large employers of labor.    Everything that enters
into the composition of a newspaper, in all its departments, repre¬
sents money paid out in very large sums to compositors, reporters,
editors, anJ agents; hence,  inscinciively, tha Tribune, Times, Sun
and other journals canuot discuss with  patience movements in¬
tended to shorten the hours or increase the coinpensation of the
working people.    The papers so far started to represent working-
men's iuterests are under every disadvantage.   Advertising is a
vital part of all publications; but the business public have no
interest in laborers, and a glance at Henry Georgw's or John Swin-
ton's papers, which are the best of their kind, show that advertisers
shun them, and that there is no class of business which gives ihem
support.    Then the circulation is small, for the ordinary working-
man, when he can get all the news for one or two cents, in what
he calls " a capitalistic organ," refuses to pay five cents for a rather
uninteresting labor paper which usually has no news.    Ic England
a somewhat different state of aifairs exists. Reynolds' Miscellany, the
L >ndon Dispatch and other workingmen's organs have large circu¬
lations, but they make a specialty of the kind of news published in
our Police Gazette; that is, criminal occurrences, prize Sjjhts, and
the kind of mental pabulum which is attractive to the coar.^e and
sensual appetites of very common men and women.    But no such
taste irf appealed to by our American labor journals.   They are at
least decent; but are without circulation or infiuence.

But, while the press is almost unanimously on the side of capital,
the politicians are wonderfully anxious to placate the laborers who





have votes. An evidence of this is to be found in the messages of
Governor Hill of New York, and Governor Green of New Jersey.
It is also shown in the swarm of bills introduced into Congress and
the State legislatures, intended to catch the labor vote. It is an
ominous fact that for the first time in the history of the country
we find all the newspapers on one side and nearly all the politicians
on the other. These two factors in the dispute must be kept in
mind in considering the final solution of the labor problem.

Now, as to the trouble itself. It may be as well confessed at
once that the quarrel on each side is a purely selfish one. The
laboring people want more pay for less work. The employers desire
to keep their present advantage and to get as much work for as
little as they can be forced to give. Usually, in good and improv¬
ing times, the working people have the advantage and force those
who want their work to advance their wages. In bad times, such
as prevailed from 1873 to 1877, the labor unions go to pieces.
The employer can make his own terms and the men have to submit.
It happens just now the countiy is doing fairly well. Trade, on
the whole, is prosperous, and hence there is a general demand on
the part of those who labor for higher compensation.

It will be noticed that in the recent disputes individual employers
have found but little difficulty in settling matters with their
employes. The strike in Higgins' carpet factory and Lorillard's
tobacco works are cases in point, for they lasted only a few days.
The really serious difficulties have occurred between the organized
unskilled laborers and the great corporations. The coal-handlers'
strike was at flrst only a very trifling affair, affecting, in all, only a
few hundred men. Had the latter been dealing with a single
capitalist or a flrm the trouble would have been over in a couple of
days, and there would have been no general disturbance affecting
other industries. But boards of directors are not usually fitted to
deal with matters of this kind. One or two angry or determined
men will coerce the quieter members into violent courses of action,
Mr, Austin Corbin stopped a threatened strike on the Reading road
in twenty-four hours; but then he was receiver of the company
and had supreme power. But the directors of the Delaware &
Hudson, Delaware & Lackawanna, and the Erie companies showed
fight at once. The demand for coal was so great they could have
easily advanced the price of anthracite five times over the increased
compensation demanded by the coal-shovellers, but they scouted
all propositions for arbitration or settlement. Undoubtedly they
thought they were fighting for a principle, and they were deter¬
mined that this strike should miscarry and thus give warning to
other railroad emi^loyes that they must be satisfied with the com¬
pensation they were getting.

As the struggle went on it developed the fact that the organiza¬
tion of the Knights of Labor was intended to meet just such
emergencies. The trades unionists were composed of skilled
artisans, such as masons, stonecutcers, painters, plasterers, com¬
positors and the like. With unanimity among the tradesmen
themselves they could meet the " bosses" on equal terms, and there
was no need of any outside help. But car-drivers, conductors,
coal-heavers, stevedores and similar occupations require no special
skill, and each single class is at the mercy of a poorer class who
are eager to work at any price. To help these unskilled laborers
along, therefore, the Knights are forced to make all allied interests
apprehensive of an interruption in their various occupations. This
last struggle shows that the unskilled laborers are now pretty well
organized and that they can create a vast disturbance by stopping
labor so extensively as to seriously embarrass the business of the
country. Certain of the acts of the strikers are clearly indefensi¬
ble—their boycott of the Old Dominion Company, for instance.
But the Knights of Labor made their power felt in such
a way as to effect even the stock market. This united
action in widely-diversified fields is a weapon they have
never been able to wield before, and in the future even
great corporations will hesitate to interfere with the commerce of
the port and vast material interests when the dispute involves
only a few hundred dollars per annum.

In these great conflicts between labor and capital, both in Eng¬
land and the United States, the employers generally win. But, if
business is good, labor eventually does not lose, for capitalists,
instructed by their experience, usually anticipate what would be
just demands and settle them before a renewed trial of strength
is threatened. The moral of the present struggle is that the
unskilled laborers are working together for a better rate of com¬
pensation. We very much fear that when mild weather approaches
there will be renewed disturbances all over the country which will
materially interfere with business prospects, unless there are con¬
cessions on both sides and a disposition to do what is right both
on the part of the employers and the working people.





The IlUnois Bar Association has taken up the question of how
best to get rid of large fortunes. A report to that body recom¬
mends that laws shall be passed forbidding any one heir from
receiving more than $500,000. They give an elaborate scheme for
making an equitable distribution of all real and personal property.