lative appropriation act that the Bulletin of the Department of Labor is issued.

It will be noticed that the authorization under the legislative appropriation act is somewhat different from that contained in the bill as it passed the House. In that bill there were limitations as to issue and intervals of issue, but the law as it stands contains no limitations nor restrictions either as to the size of the bulletin or the intervals at which it shall be published, the only condition being that not more than 10,000 copies of each issue of the bulletin shall be printed. Notwithstanding this broad and unrestricted authorization, we feel it right and just to conform, in a general way, to the terms embodied in the House bill. We shall therefore undertake to limit the size of the bulletin to about 100 octavo pages and, at present, to issue it every other month. The principles which will guide us in the preparation of the bulletin are fully indicated in the letter to the chairman of the House Committee on Labor just quoted. We need not, therefore, make any restatement on that point.

Our plan now is to have at least five regular departments of information in each issue, as follows:

First. A liberal portion of each issue to be occupied with the results of original investigations conducted by the Department or its agents. Second. A digest of foreign labor reports.

Third. A digest of state labor reports.

Fourth. The reproduction, immediately after their passage, of new laws that affect the interests of the working people whenever such are enacted by state legislatures or Congress; also the reproduction of the decisions of courts interpreting labor laws or passing upon any subject which involves the relations of employer and employee; attention likewise will be called to any other matters pertaining to law which may be of concern and value to the industrial interests of the country and which might not be obtained without expense or trouble from other

sources.

Fifth. A miscellaneous department, in which brief statements of fact or paragraphs of interest may find a place.

In conducting special investigations, the results of which are to appear in the bulletin, it may be sometimes that such results will take up the whole of the bulletin. The endeavor, however, will be to preserve the regular departments, as a rule, as just stated, departing therefrom only when the importance of the facts to be published warrants such departure.

The bulletin will not be devoted in any way to controversial matters, the enunciation of theories, nor used in any sense for propagandism. We shall undertake to present all the matters in an attractive and straightforward way, and while statistical tables will have to be employed constantly, the aim will still be to give proper space to reading matter. There are very many questions constantly coming up on

which information can not be secured except by inquiry at original sources. Such questions we hope to be able to consider whenever they arise, and to give the results a place in the bulletin.

We shall not attempt in any way to compete with the press, but in general our aim will be to furnish to the public facts and information relating to industrial affairs which can not readily be secured in any other way. So, merely ephemeral matters will not be given a place in the pages of the bulletin, but those matters which have a more or less permanent value and which will take their place in the industrial history of the country will be treated. Readers of the bulletin, therefore, will not look for accounts of passing events, unless such accounts are necessary for future use. In other words, all those matters which are dealt with fully and comprehensively by the press of the country as the days go by ought not to be and will not be used to fill up the pages of the bulletin. The field for the bulletin is wide enough without making it in any sense a newspaper.

The Department now has three channels of communication with the public. By its organic law it is authorized to make an annual report, and special reports when called upon by Congress or by the President or when considered expedient by the head of the Department, and now this more popular way of disseminating information by means of a regularly published bulletin. The annual reports will, as heretofore, consist of the results of investigations which require a large force and considerable time. They are in a sense scientific productions, and can not legitimately be brought to a popular basis in any broad sense. The special reports authorized by the organic law of the Department are those resulting from more thoroughly individual investigations, those where but one or two persons can economically work upon one subject. The annual reports are the results of inquiries made by the schedule system and where any number of people can be employed. The special reports are studies of conditions where the schedule system can not be so generally applied. The bulletin, as against the annual or the special reports, will contain such matters as can not in the nature of things find a place in the annual or special reports; but it is confidently expected that through the bulletin the Department will be able to bring much of its work closer home to the people.

The editors will take personal supervision of the preparation of the bulletin, and it will be their aim to constantly elevate its standard.

STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS IN THE UNITED STATES FROM

JANUARY 1, 1881, TO JUNE 30, 1894.

The Third Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, entitled Strikes and Lockouts, furnished tables covering the details of all strikes and lockouts occurring in the United States for the six years. beginning with January 1, 1881, and ending with December 31, 1886, together with summaries recapitulating the facts shown therein. The Tenth Annual Report (soon to be printed) is a volume of about 1,200 pages consisting of similar tables and summaries for the strikes and lockouts which occurred during the seven and one-half years beginning with January 1, 1887, and ending with June 30, 1894, being modeled on the lines laid down in the former report.

The two general tables relating to strikes and lockouts in the Tenth Annual Report furnish the facts in detail for each strike and lockout of one or more days' duration which occurred in the United States from January 1, 1887, to June 30, 1894. In addition to the strikes and lockouts occurring within the above period the report shows the facts for certain strikes and lockouts which occurred in the latter part of 1886, and which were omitted from the Third Annual Report because of the incompleteness at that time of the data relating to them. A comparatively small number of disturbances of less than one day's duration, 1,582 in all, have been excluded from consideration in these tables. They consist mainly of cases of misunderstanding, in which there was but a few hours' cessation of work and no financial loss or assistance involved. For this reason full information concerning them could rarely be secured, and they have not been considered sufficiently important to be classed as strikes.

In the Third Annual Report it was found necessary to make the establishment the unit in the tabular presentation, and not the strike or lockout. Generally each line there represented either a strike or a lockout in a single establishment, or a general strike or lockout in two or more establishments; but there were some instances where the facts were not so treated. In the Tenth Annual Report experience and a great amount of care have made it possible to make the strike or lockout the unit in all cases.

In order that the increase or diminution of strikes during the years embraced in the Third and Tenth Annual Reports on this subject may

be determined, the following table, showing the number of strikes in each year from January 1, 1881, to June 30, 1894, is presented:

STRIKES BY YEARS, JANUARY 1, 1881, TO JUNE 30, 1894.

The figures for the years from 1881 to 1886, inclusive, have been taken from the Third Annual Report. As stated in that report, the figures showing the number of strikes in each of these years are estimates, although they are believed to be approximately correct. For the period covered by the Tenth Annual Report, namely, January 1, 1887, to June 30, 1894, inclusive, the figures showing the number of strikes may be accepted as absolute. The figures showing the number of establishments and the number of employees thrown out of employment by strikes may be accepted as correct for the whole period from 1881 to 1894, inclusive. In using this table it should be borne in mind that the figures for 1894 are for the first six months of that year only, the investigation having been closed June 30, 1894.

By this table it is shown that the average number of establishments to each strike for the thirteen and one-half years was 4.8, the highest average being 7 establishments to each strike in 1886, the lowest average being 3.5 establishments to each strike in 1885, 1889, and 1893. As stated in the Third Annual Report, the strikes for 1880 were reported by Mr. Joseph D. Weeks, special agent of the Tenth Census, according to whose report the number was 610. The number of estab lishments involved was not reported. Commencing with 1881 the number of establishments involved was 2,928. In 1882 the number dropped to 2,105, while in 1883 it rose to 2,759, or nearly that of 1881. In 1884 and 1885 the number fell rapidly, there being 2,367 in 1884, while in 1885 the number of establishments involved in strikes was smaller than in any previous or succeeding year of the period, namely, 2,284. In 1886 the number rose to 10,053, the greatest number in any of the years considered. In 1887 it dropped to 6,589; in 1888 it dropped still further, to 3,506, and remained nearly stationary in 1889 at 3,786, while in 1890 the number again rapidly rose to 9,424, a number almost as great as that for 1886. In the next year, 1891, the number dropped to 8,117, dropping still further in 1892 and 1893, to 5,540 and 4,555,

respectively. For the first six months of 1894 the number was 5,154, indicating that if there was a proportionately large number in the last six months of that year it would reach in round numbers 10,300, a number slightly greater than that for 1886, in which the largest number of establishments were involved in strikes.

The total number of establishments involved in strikes during the whole period of thirteen and one-half years was 69,167. Of this number 4.23 per cent had strikes in 1881, 3.04 per cent had strikes in 1882, 3.99 per cent had strikes in 1883, 3.42 per cent had strikes in 1884, 3.30 per cent had strikes in 1885, 14.53 per cent had strikes in 1886, 9.53 per cent had strikes in 1887, 5.07 per cent had strikes in 1888, 5.47 per cent had strikes in 1889, 13.63 per cent had strikes in 1890, 11.74 per cent had strikes in 1891, 8.01 per cent had strikes in 1892, 6.59 per cent had strikes in 1893, and 7.45 per cent had strikes in the first half of 1894.

Of the 6,067 establishments having lockouts during the period of thirteen and one-half years 0.15 per cent were in 1881, 0.69 per cent were in 1882, 1.93 per cent were in 1883, 5.83 per cent were in 1884, 3.02 per cent were in 1885, 24.87 per cent were in 1886, 21.11 per cent were in 1887, 2.97 per cent were in 1888, 2.18 per cent were in 1889, 5.34 per cent were in 1890, 9 per cent were in 1891, 11.80 per cent were in 1892, 5.03 per cent were in 1893, and 6.08 per cent were in the first half of 1894. The percentage is highest for both strikes and lockouts in 1886. The next highest percentages occur in 1890 and 1891 for strikes, and in 1887 and 1892 for lockouts.

During the seven and one-half years included in the Tenth Annual Report Illinois shows the largest number of establishments affected, both by strikes and lockouts, there being 10,060 of the former and 1,193 of the latter. Next come New York, with 9,540 establishments involved in strikes and 723 in lockouts, and Pennsylvania with 8,219 involved in strikes and 490 in lockouts. During the six years immediately preceding those included in this report, the facts for which appeared in the Third Annual Report, the state in which the greatest number of establishments were affected by strikes was New York, with 9,247, followed by Illinois, with 2,768, and Pennsylvania, with 2,442. The greatest number affected by lockouts was 1,528, found in New York, followed by 147 in Massachusetts and 130 in Pennsylvania, the number in Illinois being 127. Combining the facts for both these periods, in order to secure a statement for the thirteen and one-half years included in both of the reports of the Department on strikes and lockouts, we find the greatest number of establishments affected by strikes to have been in New York, 18,787, followed by Illinois, with 12,828, and Pennsylvania, with 10,661. The states appear in the same order in lockouts, the number of establishments affected being 2,251 in New York, 1,320 in Illinois, and 620 in Pennsylvania.

The industries most affected by strikes during the seven and onehalf years included in the Tenth Annual Report were the building