STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS. A strike is a cessation of work on the part of working men to enforce their demands against the em ployer or to resist demands and rules made by the employer ; a lockout is a cessation of work on the employer's initiative to enforce demands against his employees. Strikes are essentially a feature of the modern industrial organization; they developed gradually with the progress of industry and organization by unions of working men, reaching their height in the 19th century; the largest and most important strikes having occurred since 1870. While it is true that strikes have increased as the modern labor union has grown, yet it is also true that many strikes oc cur in unorganized or poorly organized indus tries; and it has usually been true that a young organization is much more apt to enter upon strikes as a means of testing its strength and enforcing its demands than an old organization. The older and stronger a labor union grows, as a rule, the more conservative it is in regard to strikes, and the less likely to order a strike for petty and insufficient cause. Nevertheless strikes are a recognized and important part of trade union policy. They are defended by trade unions on the following grounds; they are absolutely the only means which labor has of enforcing its demands in case argument and arbitration fail and afford the most practical means of controlling the supply of labor for the benefit of labor; whether a strike succeeds or not it attracts public attention to the ques tion at issue and may lead to the satisfactory solution by the pressure of public opinion; they mark the line beyond which labor will not be forced in the reduction of wages or enforcement of unjust demands; the very pos sibility of a strike which inflicts an injury that the employer desires to avoid often prevents the attempt to enforce demands which employ ers know would be unwelcome to labor. The more radical view of a strike is based on the doctrine that the interests of labor and capital are necessarily antagonistic; that a strike, there fore, is an attempt to advance the interests of labor as against those of capital and is from labor's point of view entirely right and justi fiable; it is a sort of advance skirmish in the war of interests between labor and capital and useful as winning some definite advantage to labor or of proving the strength and vitality of the labor movement and inflicting a more or less serious injury on capital. Against the pol
icy of strikes it is urged that they cause heavy loss to both the labor and capital lying idle; that with their modern magnitude they seri ously affect the whole industrial life and inflict an injury upon the general public; and that the points gained by labor are not commensurate with the cost of the strike. It must be remem bered, however, that a strike is essentially a war and that many of the evils of war attend it; whereas if it be based upon a principle ot justice it can be defended upon the same grounds as a war.
Causes of The chief causes of strikes are centred about the wage question; the largest number of strikes in the decade of 1::1-1900 were for increase of wages; other important causes are for reduction of hours, against reduction of wages, for the recognition of the union and for the enforcement of union rules. The following statistics are taken from the report of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics: Of the above strikes, 15 in 1915, lasted over 200 days and 16 in 1916. In 1915 24 lasted 92 to 199 days and 79 in 1916. In 1915 48 lasted 50 to 91 days and 106 in 1916; while in 1915 74 lasted to 49 days and 182 in 1916. The lockouts in 1915 totaled 173 and in 1916, 108. The States most affected by the disturbances in these years were New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Ohio, New Jersey, Illinois and Connecticut in the order named. The trades most affected were metals, mining, building, textiles, transportation and clothing.