MERIWETHER, Lee, American law per, social reformer and author; b. Columbus, Miss., 25 Dec. 1862. Having obtained a second ary education at Memphis, Tenn., he there pub lished the Free Trader with a brother, Avery, in 1881-83, and in 1885-86 toured Europe afoot from Gibraltar to the Bosporus for study of the condition of Continental workingmen and of the protective tariff. In 1910, on the 25th anniversary of this trip through Europe, he covered the same route in an auto mobile; the contrast between walking and motoring abroad, and the changes that had taken place in the manners and customs of the peoples of Europe between 1885 and 1910 were interestingly set forth in a book entitled 'See ing Europe By Automobile' (New York 1911). He was appointed by the Secretary of the In terior to write for the United States Labor Bureau a report on the 'Condition of European Labor,'published in the annual report of the bureau for 1886. In 1886-89 he was employed as a special agent of the Department of the Interior for which he made investigations of labor in the United States and the Hawaiian Islands, and in 1891 visited the island prisons of the Mediterranean. He was admitted to the
bar in 1892, and in 1893 entered practice at Saint Louis. In 1889-90 and 1895-96 he was labor commissioner of Missouri. His reports on municipal government and street-railway franchises led to his nomination in 1897 for the mayoralty of Saint Louis on the Democratic ticket. He was defeated at that time and also in 1901, when he was candidate of the Public Ownership party. Besides his various reports, he has published 'A Tramp Trip: How to See Europe on Fifty Cents a Day' (1887); 'The Tramp at Home' (1890) ; 'Afloat and Ashore on the Mediterranean' (1892) ; 'Miss Chunk' (1899) ; 'A Lord's Courtship) (1900) ; 'Seeing Europe by Automobile' (1911) ; and other works.