The labor standard., 1910-01-01
What Trades Unions Have Done
 to Lessen Human Misery.
SOCIAL UPLIFT THEIR AIM.
pr. Warne Gives Credit to Organized Labor For Its Work In the Proven tion of Poverty by the Removal of Its Dominant Causes.

LIT. Frank Jullan Warne, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and long an earnest student of social and industrial questions, takes up in the current number of the Metropolitan Magazine in the course of his study of "The Conquest of Poverty" the par ticular part played in that warfare by the labor unions. He takes the gen. eral position that the primary and dom- inant causes of poverty are not indi- vidual or social defects of character, but those economic forces over which the individual victim usually has no control, and he makes the claim that it is chiefly to the labor unions that the credit is due for the prevention of poverty by the removal of its causes that is, the regulation of factory man. agement, the provision of safety appl:- ances and the general enforcement of better sanitary conditions. The record of death and casualty in the industries of the country is briefly reviewed, and authorities are quoted to show that were the same precautions taken and care exercised as in certain foreign countries a vast proportion of the ac- cidents would be avoided and thou sands of human lives saved.
 From this Dr. Warne is led to a con- sideration of the movement for change in the American law and prac- tice concerning the employers liability for accidents to workers, and he says that the brunt of the struggle for the prevention of industrial accidents is being borne by the labor unions. In this connection he gives the following table, not as complete showing of the relief work of labor organizations, but as a suggestion of what is being done:
 FEDERATION UNIONS.
 Death benefits .................... S, ,257, 24429 Sick benefits ,.....,,........ 593541.3 .34 Unemployed benefits ..... 25, 54.31 Travelling benefits ........... 51,093S6 Death benefits (nembers' wives) a,39OOO Tool insurance ............. 5,S1.63 Total $214, 39 43 Strike benefits .................. 2,550, % Total .............................. 46s4, ,ss5 4s Railway brotherhoods .......... 5,OOO, % Grand total l.....................S S9,694, 395. .43
 interesting feature of Dr. Warne's article is the statement which he pre- sents as showing the attitude of the unions on the subject. Thus he quotes John Mitchell, ex-president of the Unit ed Mine Workers, as saying:
 To understand what the trades unions are doing to combat poverty it is neces- sary to consider the causes of poverty. Poverty is the result of unemployment, low wages, disease, accident and misfor- tune. The trades unions have sought, with marked success, to remove poverty by se- curing for the wage earners rate Of wages sufficiently high to enable work men and their families to live in a man. ner conformable to American standards. They (the unions) have accumulated large funds which are used to relieve workmen and their families who may be in distress as a result of accident, death, sickness or unemployment. Last year there was paid for the relief of the unemployed members of trades unions out of the funds in the union treasuries not less than $5,OOO,OO0. This expenditure does not include several millions of dollars paid in strike and lock- out benefits.
 James Duncan, first vice president of the American Federation of Labor, in his statement of labor's campaign against poverty enumerates the reduc- ton of the working hours per day and the increase of wages as the most i'm portant contributions toward the cause, and he adds:
 l contend that. the .EecuE1eaaasQ Qf nan