tatives to serve in the Works Council not to exceed the number elected by the employees, and is equally represented on Committees.

General Council.

This body is formed to consider matters which are referred to it by the President and which involve matters of interest to one or more Works of the Company. The President of the Company issues a notice designating the several works which are jointly inter1 in the matter to be considered, and the Emee Representatives at the works designated select of their number to serve on the General Council for every 500 employees or majority fraction thereof, but no Works has less than two Employee Representatives in the General Council. The Management appoints a number of Representatives not to exceed that of the employees, and the President of the Company, or someone designated by him, acts as Chairman, without vote.

Procedure for Adjustments.

Any employee who fails to adjust a grievance with his foreman may present the matter to the Secretary of the Works Council personally, or through his Representative. The Secretary sees that the complaint reaches the Superintendent through the proper channels, and if the matter is not disposed of by that official, a written statement of the case is given to each member of the Council at least three days before the next regular meeting. An employee making such complaint may appear before the Council. After full investigation a secret vote is taken and a majority vote of either side is taken as a unit vote of that side. Both the Employee Representatives and the Management Representatives have the right to withdraw temporarily for consultation. If the Council reaches an agreement its recommendation is referred to the Works Manager and Superintendent for execution, except that if these officials consider it important enough to require the attention of the General Officers, it is immediately referred to the President, who may either approve the recommendation of the Council or proceed with further consideration of the matter as hereinafter provided.

If a tie vote results in the Council, the matter may be referred to the President at the request of either the Employee or the Management Representatives, and within 10 days, he either proposes a settlement or refers the matter directly to a General Council. If If the President proposes a settlement which is unsatisfactory to a majority of the Employee Representa

tives, and if after five further days no agreement has been reached, the President may refer the matter to a General Council.

If the President decides not to refer the matter to a General Council, or if upon reference to a General Council the vote is a tie, the President and a majority of Employee Representatives may mutually agree to submit the matter to arbitration and proceed to select an arbitrator.

Arbitration

If they cannot agree upon an arbitrator the Employee Representatives choose one and the President chooses another, and if these two agree their decision is final. If they do not agree they select and call in a third arbitrator and the decision of the majority of these three is final.

Policies Governing Relations.

The right of employees to belong to labor or other organizations is not abridged in any way in this plan.

Guaranteeing Independence of Representatives

To insure to each Representative his right to independent action, he has the right to appeal directly to the President, the Works Council, or the General Council, for relief from any discrimination against him, for his official activities, and if the decision is not satisfactory he may have the matter settled by arbitration.

Amendments and Termination.

Amendments to the plan may be made by the Council of any Works by a majority vote of all the Employee and Management Representatives. The adoption or rejection of an amendment is not the subject of arbitration.

The plan may be discontinued at any Works by a majority vote of the employees or by the Board of Directors of the Company after six months' notice.

Comment.

The noteworthy features of this plan are:

1. The Management reserves the rights to execute all the decrees of the Works Council, but the Council may at any time consider the manner of execution.

2. The Chairman of the Works Council is appointed by the Management, and the Secretary, by the Superintendent of the Works, both of whom serve without vote. The President of the Company ap

points the Chairman of the General Council, who also also serves without vote.

3. Both sides may withdraw from meetings of the Council for deliberation. This arrangement seems undesirable. All proceedings should be joint and cooperative.

4. There is no provision for the settlement of disputes if the two arbitrators selected by the employees and the President cannot agree upon a third arbi

trator.

5. If the Joint Works Council agree on a matter, it

is turned over to the Works Manager and Superintendent for execution, but if those officials consider it important enough, they may refer it to the President, who may refuse to approve the decision and reopen the case. It is practically a veto power over the decisions reached by the employees and the Management equally represented, although the controversy may later be adjusted satisfactorily to the employees. in the General Council, or by arbitration.

6. The Company pays all employees for time lost in activities connected with the working of the plan.

With business crossing the threshold of a new era and the nation passing a danger zone with its institutions in a plastic state, there are greater responsibilities before employers.

Our Association sees its great task clearly and does not shrink from the contemplation. It sees, as it saw a decade and a half ago, that underneath the tug of economic forces the foundations of law must be sound and unbroken and it aspires more than ever before to play a leading part in preserving those foundations. More than ever before it must become a great national storehouse and clearing house on all that relates to the law of the Labor Problem. For sixteen years has it labored and the fruits are good. Of the record-untarnished by any spirit of bitterness-its members are justly proud.

The future holds the challenge for still greater service. The exigencies of employers present multiplied needs. Our Association is resolved to respond. We have doubled our staff; our doors

are open to association memberships; our assistance is sought in widely scattered quarters; we are making an intensive study of all kinds of contractual relations with employees; and this periodical-a new venture—is but one expression of our new aspirations.

All members of this organization, whether associations or individual concerns, should remember that the Counsel of this Association is their counsel, to whose advice they are entitled on all labor questions, whether it be for the conduct of law suits, problems of legislation, or the drafting of agreements with emplo; ees individually or collectively-on all these questions we are trying to garner, store, and distribute the accumulated wisdom and experience of the nation for the benefit of all.

Every reported case in every state and Federal court is in our office, carefully digested and indexed according to subject and locality, so that prompt answers can be given to all inquiries.

The American Federationist in its issue for August, describing the activities of the Federation's "Greatest Convention" makes the following comment.

"JUDICIAL CONSTRUCTION OF LAW "Few more sternly worded declarations have been adopted by Labor than that adopted at Atlantic Citythe protest against judicial construction of law by injunctive decree and by the practice of declaring laws unconstitutional.

"The power of our courts to declare legislation unconstitutional and void was considered a most flagrant usurpation of power and a repudiation and denial of the principle of self-government, recognized now as a world doctrine. Injunction decrees by our courts; the restriction placed upon normal and rightful activities of the people; punishing of free men for the exercise of constitutional rights without opportunity of trial by jury; the removal of safeguards thrown around individuals against extreme and excessive punishments; and the denial of an opportunity for executive clemency made possible through the equity proceedings of our courts by means of injunctions, were declared as vesting our courts with a power greater than any which has ever been heretofore possessed.

"The convention by unanimous vote urged that every possible effort be made for the early enactment of adequate laws which would deny further usurpation of these unwarranted powers by our courts. It directed that Congress be petitioned to impeach all judges from office when they exercise governmental functions and authority not expressly delegated to them, and that the widest possible publicity be sought in order that the public conscience might be aroused to the end that judicial autocracy and despotism which have been slowly developed in our midst shall come to an early and definite end."

It seems a pity that there should be an organization of American citizens for the declared purpose of benefiting only those citizens who make their living primarily as wage earners, which should seek to change the entire structure of our Government to achieve its own end. The American Federation of Labor was not founded for the purpose of reforming American constitutional law with a view to the advantage of all American citizens, but it was founded and it is engaged in molding the working man into a cast and then in procuring for him everything it can without

regard to the rights of other people or the welfare of the nation as a whole.

When the Court declares a law unconstitutional it says that it has no power to enforce it, and it gets its power to pass upon the question directly from the terms of the Constitution. If the Court is in doubt it gives the benefit of that doubt to the validiy of the legislation. It has repeatedly stated that all laws are assumed to be constitutional and it is a matter of affirmative showing that they are not. In the last two decades the Courts have, if anything, weakened the constitutional guarantee against impairment of contracts and freedom of speech in order to sustain acts of the legislatures; but if the Court had failed to exercise its right to declare laws unconstitutional it would have failed in its duty to maintain itself a co-equal part of the Government with the Legislative and Executive Departments, and that it could not have done without having modified-in fact without having substantially destroyed-the constitution.

When the question of the constitutionality of a legislative enactment first came before the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137 in 1803, the Court said:

"That the people have an original right to establish, for their future government, such principles as, in their opinion, shall most conduce to their own happiness, is

the basis on which the whole American fabric has been

erected. THE EXERCISE OF THIS ORIGINAL RIGHT IS A VERY GREAT EXERTION; NOR CAN IT NOR OUGHT IT TO BE FREQUENTLY REPEATED. The principles, therefore, so established, are deemed fundamental. And as the authority from which they proceed is supreme, and can seldom act, they are designed to be permanent.

"This original and supreme will organizes the government, and assigns to different departments their respective powers. It may either stop here, or ESTABLISH CERTAIN LIMITS NOT TO BE TRANSCENDED BY THOSE DEPARTMENTS.

"The government of the United States is of the latter description. The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction between a government

with limited and unlimited powers is abolished, if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts prohibited and acts allowed are of equal obligation. It is a proposition too plain to be contested, that the constitution controls any legislative act repugnant to it; or, that the legislature may alter the constitution by an ordinary act.

"Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The constitution is either a superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and, like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it.

"If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the constitution is not law; if the latter part be true, then written constitutions are absurd attempts, on the part of the people to limit a power in its own nature illimitable.

"Certainly all those who have framed written constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently, the theory of every such government must be, that an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void.

"This theory is essential attached to a written constitution, and consequently to be considered, by this court, as one of the fundamental principles of our society. It is not, therefore, to be lost sight of in the further consideration of this subject.

"If an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void, does it, notwithstanding its invalidity, bind the courts, and oblige them to give it effect? Or, in other words, though it be not law, does it constitute a rule as operative as if it was a law? This would be to overthrow in fact what was established

in theory; and would seem, at first view, an absurdity too gross to be insisted on. It shall, however, receive a more attentive consideration.

"It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the opera

tion of each.

"So if a law be in opposition to the constitution; if both the law and the constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the constitution, or conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law, the court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty.

"If, then, the courts are to regard the constitution, and the constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the legislature, the constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply.

"Those, then, who controvert the principle that the constitution is to be considered, in court, as a paramount law, are reduced to the necessity of maintaining that courts must close their eyes on the constitution, and see only the law.

"This doctrine would subvert the very foundation of all written constitutions. It would declare that an act which, according to the principles and theory of our government, is entirely void, is yet, in practice, completely obligatory. It would declare that if the legislature shall do what is expressly forbidden, such act, notwithstanding the express prohibition, is in reality effectual. It would be giving to the legislature a practical and real omnipotence, with the same breath which professes to restrict their powers within narrow limits. It is prescribing limits, and declaring that those limits may be passed at pleasure."

In discussing this question in a recent paper our counsel said:

"The Constitution of the United States expressly vests, "The judicial power of the United States,' in one supreme court and in such inferior courts as Congress may from time to time establish. The 'Judicial Power' thus vested in the courts is the power, in suits between litigants, to declare the law of the particular case and to apply and enforce it for the adjudication and protection of their rights. The Contitution further declares that the Judicial Power' thus vested in the courts, 'shall extend to all cases in law or equity arising under the Constitution and Laws of the United States,' and

that 'the Constitution and Laws passed in pursuance thereof shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or Laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.' It will be observed that the whole 'Judicial Power of the United States' is vested in the courts and nowhere else, by the express terms of the Constitution, and that they are expressly charged to follow, apply and enforce the Constitution and Laws passed in pursuance thereof, as the supreme law of the land. Thus by express terms and also by necessary implication every court of the United States and of the States is authorized and compelled by the fundamental law of its being, in cases pending before it to decide if necessary whether an act of Congress involved in the case is pursuant to the Constitution or in violation of it, and in case of conflict between the two to give effect to the Constitution.