openly or secretly in every large city. In most states the possession of lottery tickets, policy slips, or gambling implements, or the being present at a gambling place, is a punishable offence.

Many states also regulate professions, as by prohibiting persons from the practice of medicine unless they have passed the examination of a state board, and lawyers from representing clients before a court unless they have been duly admitted to the bar. In some states, druggists and drug clerks have to be licensed; in others, plumbers and miners have to be examined and licensed. Exclusion of unqualified persons from such occupations is not considered a violation of the rights of the individual, but a protection of the rights of the community at large.

216. Regulation of Labor.

The relation between the employer and the employee is one of the most frequent objects of legislation; and laws, usually in behalf of the laborer, appear on the statute-books of all states. The most common statute is for the protection of the life and limb of the laborer, by requiring the employer to use safety appliances and fire-escapes. In many states, the employer is held liable for damage to life or limb caused by the neglect of such precautions; and this is the only effective means of securing obedience to the laws.

Another form of labor legislation is directed against the employment of women and children. In 1890, of the children from ten to fourteen years of age, 600,000, or about one twelfth, were at work. In the Southern states, particularly in Alabama, child labor of the most wearisome kind is legal, and children as young as six years old are sometimes sent into the cotton-mills. In most of the Northern states, no child can be sent to work at all unless he has had several years of schooling.

In

The hours of labor are the subject of many statutes. 1892 Congress enacted that eight hours should constitute a day's labor in the government service. In the states a tenhour law is not uncommon; in several of them eight hours constitute a day's labor unless otherwise agreed; in some there

is a ten-hour law for children. The labor unions have for years set themselves toward the goal of a universal compulsory eight-hour law; but such a requirement must necessarily except domestic servants and farm hands. Many of the states have established public holidays, on which factories and all places of business are closed.

Another regulation of labor is the very common prohibition of the sale, in open market, of goods produced by convicts. This legislation tends to condemn to complete or partial idleness prisoners who are able and anxious to work hard enough for their own maintenance. Other legislation has in several states established arbitration boards for the settlement of disputes between employers and employees; in a few cases such a board has a right to investigate and report without the consent of both parties.

By indirection the states have also taken ground on strikes. Under the English common law, a combination of laborers to raise wages was in itself unlawful; hence neither strikes nor trade unions could legally exist. Everywhere in the United States, laborers may associate peacefully for their common interests, and may cease work when they feel so disposed, either singly or in groups. Technically, a contract to work for a week or a month is as binding on the laborer as on the employer; but, in case of breach of contract, the remedy for either is to demand, not specific performance, but damages. Thus, if the mill shuts down in the middle of the week, the man who has a contract for a week's work may sue for the remaining wages; but the workman cannot compel the employer to start up his mill, nor can the employer compel the workman to do his work, for that would be practical slavery. Since the employer usually has something from which a judgment may be collected, and the laborer has little property, the likelihood of getting a collectible judgment is much greater for the workman than for the master.

The tendency of the American court is to tone down labor laws by holding the broader ones unconstitutional; and, upon

the whole, the machinery of government and the make-up of society are more favorable to employer than to employee. On the other hand, the tendency is very strong toward permanent acts restricting the hours of labor, protecting against accident, and relieving childhood from the terrible burden of stunting and stupefying labor. The doctrine that a man once employed has a property right in his place, such that, if he joins a strike and ceases work, he has the quasi-legal right to prevent another man from taking his place is not yet supported by any statute or official decision.

217. State and Municipal Industries.

The usual attitude of the government toward industries is to protect the individual in his chosen pursuit unless it is destructive of the morals of the community: government assures to the laborer that he shall not be molested in earning his wages; to the property owner that he shall have peaceable possession of his property; to the business man and the farmer that the sale and distribution of their products shall be undisturbed. The modern tendency is to go farther still: first and last, the national, state, and municipal governments exercise a considerable number of industries on public account.

The national government is the largest publisher in the world, expending every year over $4,000,000 for printing and issuing documents and books. It is a manufacturer, as in the government arsenals and navy-yards, where ships and materials of war are made. The post-office is so nearly self-supporting that it may fairly be considered a vast business for forwarding intelligence; and it is much better conducted than the private express companies. It is not impossible that the federal government will also become the proprietor of telegraphs and telephones, and even of the railroads of the country. The United States manufactures at its own expense bank bills for all the national banks. During the Spanish War it organized transport steamers, which were virtually a large freight and passenger line.

Some of the states are engaging in public forests as a state industry. Most of them keep up some kind of manufacturing in their prisons and workhouses; when prohibited by law from making standard goods, they often make furniture and other supplies for state institutions. The Southern states go into the business of leasing out convicts to private firms, to be used in railroad construction and like hard labor.

In the municipalities we find the greatest number of public industries. No American city goes to the extent of the French, with public pawnshops and public restaurants, or imitates the English system of public tenement-houses; but a large number of American cities engage in the business of supplying water and gas or electricity to private consumers, and there is now a manifest tendency toward the business of public street-cars. Wherever the town system prevails, there is a town hall, which is often let for private entertainments. The city of New York manages a large system of public docks for profit, and the city of Boston has a public printing establishment.

An interesting case of state industry is the public monopoly of the liquor business in South Carolina. A system of "dispensaries" or public salesrooms is provided in which pure liquor is sold only in certain quantities and not to be consumed on the premises, the profits to go into the state treasury. The stock is purchased on state account. A somewhat similar system is that of state agents in prohibition states, who are designated to sell liquor for medicinal purposes.

The

Most of the national, state, and municipal industries are extravagantly managed, perhaps because they aim, not to make money, but to furnish a convenience to the communities. right to expend public money somehow unbalances some honest men, and leads them to a reckless and imprudent course which they would not adopt in their private business. Nevertheless, some of the most important municipal works, notably the Boston subway and the New York tunnels, have been managed prudently and to the public advantage.

CHAPTER XXVII.

TRANSPORTATION.

218. References.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brookings and Ringwalt, Briefs for Debate (1896), Nos. xl, xli, xlvii-l, lii; A. B. Hart, Handbook (1901), p. 47 (Lect. 58), p. 103 (§ 217), pp. 105, 106 (Lects. 73-76), pp. 157, 160, 243 (§§ 44, 45, 118), Channing and Hart, Guide (1896), §§ 174, 179, 185.

INTERNAL TRANSPORTATION IN GENERAL: W. Z. Ripley, American Transportation Problems (American Citizen Series, in preparation); J. L. Ringwalt, Development of Transportation (1888); E. C. Mason, Veto Power (1890), §§ 83-92.

RAILROADS: Interstate Commerce Commission, Annual Report; E. R. A. Seligman, Railway Tariffs and the Interstate Commerce Law (Political Science Quarterly, II, 223-264, 369–413, 1887); J. Bryce, American Commonwealth (2 vols., rev. ed., 1895), II, ch. ciii; F. H. Dixon, State Railroad Control (1896); T. M. and C. H. Cooley, in N. S. Shaler, United States (2 vols., 1894), II, ch. ii; A. T. Hadley, Railroad Transportation (1888), chs. ii-vii; Industrial Commission, Reports (19 vols., 1900-1902), IV, 1-32 (transportation); J. P. Davis, Union Pacific Railway (Amer. Acad. Pol. Sci., Annals, VIII, 259-303, 1896); J. T. Hudson, Railways and the Republic (1886); C. F. Adams, Railroads (1878); E. J. James and others, Railway Question (Amer. Econ. Assoc., Publications, II, No. 3, 1887); H. V. Poor, Poor's Manual of the Railroads (annual volume, 1868-).

WATERWAYS: Chief of Engineers, Annual Report; C. N. Morris, Internal Improvements in Ohio (Amer. Hist. Assoc., Papers, III, 351380, 1889); J. D. J. Kelly, Question of Ships (1884); J. R. Soley, in N. S. Shaler, United States (2 vols., 1894), I, ch. x; E. R. Johnson, River and Harbor Bills, Inland Waterways (Amer. Acad. Pol. Sci., Annals, II, 782– 812, 1892, Supplement, Sept. 1893); H. S. Tanner, Memoir on Internal Improvement (2d ed., 1830); J. J. Lalor, Cyclopædia (1882-1884), article on Internal Improvements; A. B. Hart, Practical Essays (1893), No. ix; Commissioner of Navigation, Annual Report.

TRACTION SYSTEM: E. W. Bemis, Municipal Monopolies (1899), ch. vii; J. A. Fairlie, Municipal Administration (1901), ch. xii; A. H. Sinclair, Municipal Monopolies (1891); C. W. Baker, Monopolies and the People (3d ed., 1899), part i, ch. v, part ii, ch. iv, part iii, ch. ii; H. C. Adams