Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

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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and closed by round arches with shallow voussoirs in the upper story, while the lower is marked by corbelled lintels withdrawn from the plane of the wall and inserted in the openings transomwise.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.