cedents which would become more and more valuable to members having cases to submit to arbitration.

From time to time, according to the news value of the information thus pouring in from all sections of the country, a labor bulletin would be sent to our members, (provided for by the Board of Trustees during the current year, and of which you have been duly notified), thus keeping them informed of all important labor events occurring throughout the industry.

We seek here merely to sketch the numerous and helpful activities of which a labor bureau is capable. The several labor organizations with which our employees are identified have even more elaborate mechanical equipment at their command; and this fact in itself should be sufficient warrant for your committee's asserting its right to have at all times and in every manner required, your prompt and cordial co-operation.

Immediately after the adjournment of this convention our labor adjuster will forward to members who have not yet sent in copies of current contracts, a circular letter setting forth in detail just what is wanted; we bespeak for this a prompt response and careful compliance with all its particulars.

It has long been the idea of your committee that in at least one other respect the employing brewers could with much benefit follow the example of the Unions referred to. That is, that no member should undertake either to submit a contract or formally to consider one submitted him, until such proposed contract had been referred to our labor bureau for official approval and for suggestion. A similar procedure is followed by the local unions of the principal national unions. We withhold making any such recommendation at this time, principally for the reason that our present equipment is not equal to so large a task. But this fact should not deter any member from seeking our assistance, which shall always be at your command; in the measure, at least, that we may have the consistent co-operation of the membership as a whole.

NATIONAL AGREEMENT.

Your committee has tried repeatedly, as you know, to further, in respect of each of those Unions with which the employers in the industry have contractual relations, the idea of a National Agreement. Some few years ago our efforts seemed to be on the point of bringing results, but there they ended.

But we are still hopeful, and stand ready to render the utmost of our assistance in bringing forward its realization. We have before us the successful operation of such agreements in a number of important industries-that of Printing, for example and while they have not wholly eliminated friction, they have been the means nevertheless of saving millions of dollars to wage-earners and employers. A corollary to the National Agreement is a national board of arbitration, the same to be a final court of appeal in cases not disposable by the parties immediately concerned, or which appear to threaten injury to the industry in a wide area or as involving some principle of ethics vital to its welfare.

With a National Agreement, one with the Brewery Workmen, at least, a reality, a national court of final resort must come as a matter of necessary sequence. The adoption in St. Louis of so comprehensive a plan of conciliation and arbitration is of particular interest from this angle. With this plan firmly established, its utility amply demonstrated to the satisfaction of its sponsors, the idea of a national agreement, or, at least, a national board of arbitration, must receive considerable impetus.

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

Looking at the general labor problem, there may be seen two distinct and encouraging signs. Not that either or both of them indicate that its final solution is but a little distance off, but each must have its part in making it less difficult to deal with this question of the ages. We refer to the diminished importance of the Industrial Workers of the World, and the creation by the Federal government of a commission to study and report upon industrial relations. The Industrial Workers, as they call themselves, have now to deal not only with the combined opposition of the straightout trade unions but also with the more or less open antagonism of the political party which had been their main source of inspiration and support. The strike in the silk mills of Paterson, with its inglorious ending, seems to have been the means of exposing to the last shred the parasitic character of this so-called labor union, and its wrong-headed policies. Wherever its leaders have gone, revolt, sabotage and other forms of destruction of property have openly been preached to working men and women, and in some instances, to children. Their deluded followers realize now what dupes they have been. It was a hard lesson, but one, we believe, that will

not be lost upon those wage-earners who have in the past displayed a not always justifiable impatience with the progress made by them, and who were always willing to give ear to such blatant dealers in social nostrums as came their way.

The decline of the Industrial Workers of the World, and the gradual regaining of their senses by so large a number of workingmen and women, must be a source of real satisfaction alike to all employers and wage-earners who recognize in the preacher of revolution the worst enemy of both.

There appears to be sound reason for believing that much good will come from the work of the Industrial Relations Commission. The idealists may not be satisfied, but citizens of the practicalminded sort will doubtless find much that promises to be helpful in inspiring both Capital and Labor with a large confidence in their respective aims and motives. In so far as the commission will steer clear of doctrinaires of all kinds, its work must be good, and in considerable part form the basis of a more equitable adjustment of industrial relations. The powers of the commission are great, its personnel inspires confidence and its opportunities for doing real service are so numerous as to command the confidence of all classes. The reputation enjoyed by brewers as employers who treat their employees liberally, warrants us in hailing with unfeigned pleasure this latest development of governmental activity.

LOUIS B. SCHRAM, Chairman C. W. FEIGENSPAN
GEORGE F. GUND

CHARLES PFAFF

C. NORMAN JONES
HUGH F. Fox, Secretary

THE PRESIDENT:-The next report is that of the Publication Committee, Mr. Adolph G. Hupfel, Chairman.

MR. HUPFEL: Mr. President, the printed report of the Publication Committee is in the hands of the members, and I move that the reading be dispensed with. I want, however, to call the members' attention to the matter of the literature which has been published by the committee, and which is costing a great deal of money. Unless you gentlemen use the literature we are getting out, send for it and see that it is distributed, it is money being wasted. We have had a very lean year, the past twelve months, in the way of distributing literature. You cannot expect the public to write to our office, to want to educate themselves. If you do not

take an interest, sufficient interest to send it to them, we can not expect them to take the initiative. We are gathering literature bearing on this subject from all over the world. We are making investigation as to the effects of prohibition in various States, and under various laws in various countries. This is costing us a great deal of money, and it should be sent for by our members and distributed freely. It is almost shameful, the absolute neglect of members to send for this literature. I hope the Publication Committee during the coming year will find that the members of the Association will take this seriously to heart and will go home to their local associations and State associations and make up mailing lists of men who form public opinion, educators, etc., so that every month some portion of our literature may be mailed to them. (Applause).

THE PRESIDENT:-Did I understand you to say that you wanted to dispense with the reading of the report of your Committee, or is that your report?

MR. ADOLPH G. HUPFEL:-I moved that, Sir.

The motion was duly seconded and unanimously carried.

REPORT OF THE PUBLICATION COMMITTEE.

Gentlemen:—Viewing at large the literature which has gathered about the liquor question in the past year, it is evident that there has been a marked falling off in quantity. The cause of this undoubtedly is that the popular magazines which only a short time ago vied with one another in "featuring" various phases of the discussion and especially the prohibition experiment in States newly dried up, have been generally, though gradually, dropping the subject. This does not mean that the periodical press have not given a large share of attention to the liquor question, but only that the flood tide has gone by.

As much cannot be said with regard to the newspapers of the country, both the daily and weekly press, which continue to open their columns to all phases of the liquor agitation. It must be said that the weight of such publicity is directed against our industry by editors who permit themselves to be influenced by prejudice founded upon false views of the liquor question in general and of the brewers' responsibility for certain abuses of the traffic. This

is an old condition which we have learned to bear with patience and which we cannot hope to change or modify in brief time.

On the other hand, we are glad to note in the press generally a definite and increasing tendency toward candor and fairness in discussing the many vexed phases of the liquor question. Evidence abundant and gratifying of the growing liberality of the press will be found below, in a report for which we bespeak the close study and earnest attention of our members.

ETHICS OF ADVERTISING.

In a thoughtful editorial on the "Ethics of Advertising," the New York Commercial, noted for its sound and conservative views, takes a strong position as contrasted with the weakness shown by many of its contemporaries. The Commercial begins by noting that some religious papers are finding fault with certain of their daily contemporaries for printing liquor advertisements and advocating anti-saloon laws in their editorial columns at the same time. It declares that if a daily newspaper is to be a purveyor of general news it must necessarily print the utterances of public men with whom it disagrees at times. If it opens its columns to all legitimate advertisers it must also give publicity to statements alien to its own views.

Ad

Also it points out this safe and sane line of demarcation. vertisements of obscene character, or which lead the way to vicious practices or which are fraudulent in character should be excluded; but advertisers should be allowed to say what they please about honestly debatable subjects, whether those subjects are political issues or the merits of brands of liquors or cigars. A newspaper should not sell its views, which are its conscience, but selling advertising space is part of its legitimate business.

Under certain conditions refusal to sell advertising space is gross injustice. Many of the smaller cities have only a single daily paper or a single paper of any kind of general circulation in the comunity. In fairness to its readers such a paper should give a hearing to both sides and should allow its political opponents to state their case in its advertising columns on fair terms. This adds to its interest and usefulness as a newspaper, and it is good business, for it not only brings in revenue but it keeps a limited field clear of cut-throat competition.

Prohibition of the liquor traffic, in the Commercial's view, is