them all equally liable. Here is a statement of the principles of the case, in the court's own language;

Directors who organize a corporation of this character, knowing that attempts are being made to induce the public to subscribe to the corporation, or to purchase its securities, have imposed upon them a duty which is not discharged by wilfully shutting their eyes to the acts of other officers or agents of the company as to the methods used to procure money from the public.

They cannot authorize the issuance of circulars and other appeals to the public to secure the benefit of subscriptions to be made to the corporation and not be responsible for false and fraudulent statements, by which investments in its securities are obtained.

There is, of course, a very large class of promoters against whom investors would find cold comfort in obtaining judgment under such a rule of law. Fortunately, that class is finding it increasingly difficult, year after year, to ply its trade successfully under the watchful eyes of Post

Office inspectors, of state officials clothed with the authority of the rapidly spreading "blue sky" laws, and of efficiently organized investment bankers of good repute. There is, however, another class of what might be called passive promoters — men of affairs and of wide reputation who, without moral guilt have been responsible for the misfortunes of many an unsophisticated investor merely through their neglect to inform themselves adequately about the character of flimsy enterprises to which they are frequently tempted to lend their names. It is an encouraging sign that a strong precedent of law is being built up, by such decisions as the one which forms the sequel to the French architect's story, that will make these men more alive to their responsibilities.

But there will always be a need for the investor to be cautious about putting too much trust in names. There is no substitute for investigation and for the judgment of every investment proposition on its own peculiar merits.

I'

N THE recent Pujo investigation of the "money power" of New York, one phrase came to the front"the interlocking directorate." We should hold on to this phrase, before we let it slip back into the dark vaults of the bank, for it has a wealth of significance, and it will have much more.

In brief, "the interlocking directorate" is a device whereby one great financial institution keeps itself in touch with many others, ensuring unity of action and preventing cross-purposes in the industry of making money.

By placing an active member of a great banking house on the inside of every one of many large enterprises or exploiting corporations it is possible to exert an effective influence on all financial matters as well as on questions of peace and war, these resting fundamentally on finance

Whether this great force of unanimity in finance is used for good or evil in our country, I do not pretend to say. But it is not an answer to criticisms of American conditions to say that "the interlocking directorate to a successful method in Europe, that it, is the avowed policy of

all the other great nations of the world, that it is everywhere else "approved by governments and public sentiment as essential to the great enterprises of these days, whether governmental or corporate."

It is indeed the method of Europe. It is highly developed in Europe because it fits perfectly into schemes of imperialism. In Europe as in America, it promotes financial stability. It also provides for the steady movement of money from "the careless hands of the public" to the vaults of the rich. It is especially the agency by which the resources of weak or barbarous countries are drawn to swell the wealth of the great centres of exploiting Christendom. The degradation of "world politics" to the ape and tiger level is accomplished by such means. Through its agency war is no longer a matter of emotionalism or of patriotism. Where war is permitted it is strictly a matter of business. Where war would interfere with business, it cannot break out.

The French have a phrase when a crime is committed: "Cherchez la femme" find the woman. Now when war is threatened or a revolution breaks out: "Cherchez le banquier" seek the banker. Find out who makes money from the disturbance, and then trace the chain of interlocking directorates which lead to the centre.

The late Italian War had its motive, in a large part at least, in the speculations of the Bank of Rome. The seizure of Tripoli once decided upon, the unwilling King and the ever-ready populace were drawn into it. From Prof. R. G. Usher's studies it would appear that both British and German interests favored, or at least tolerated, this war, as both sides hoped to win Italy to its side in the greater contest which is always impending and which can never come. In the final outcome, Italy was left on the side of the Triple Alliance, apparently because Germany had the greater influence in abating the resistance of Turkey.

The Balkan War was started with a fine stage-play of patriotic and humanitarian feeling in the foreground, while behind it was a plebeian perversity and intensity on which the Powers had not counted.

But this war was certainly tolerated and encouraged by the masters of Europe. The initial suggestion came apparently from the Russian Minister (Hartwig) at Belgrade, but the plan of expelling the Turk by force found favor both in Paris and Berlin. The final victory rests with the French bankers. the French bankers. These were able to furnish war funds and war armament at a time when Germany and Austria were verging on financial distress. Thus Austria, at the end, through losing control of the Balkans, failed in the aim of more than half a century of intrigue.

"The Sick Man of Europe" has passed away at last, but the details of his demise are still conditioned on Servian and Bulgarian obstinacy, and on the necessity of safeguarding the many ventures and concessions that the Banque Ottomane and its French syndicates have in Macedonia and Thrace. And as French interests virtually control Turkey in Europe, so is Turkey in Asia dominated by the Deutsche Bank, that "nation within a nation" which replaces the Sultan as master of the rest of his domain. According to a Turkish writer, "Darius," "This bank drains for itself the riches of the land, exhausting not the working class alone, but a whole nation, which is dying from its operations."

A little war helps those who fish in troubled waters. A great war ruins credit, and may force rival interlocking directorates into unprofitable conflicts with each other. There is no gain in fighting lions against tigers or foxes against wolves. It is only in weak and succulent nations that a revolution may pay its way.

Of the hundreds of revolutions, big and little, in the smaller countries of America, probably nine out of every ten has had behind it the money of some syndicate. American, German, English, or French, with a concession of some sort at stake. Brigandage pure and simple is not profitable nor possible for long, unless maintained by some interest working toward definite results. Most of the petty revolts in tropical America would come to a speedy end if foreign adventurers and syndicates should all confine themselves to legitimate business, that is, to affain which will bear publicity.

I find in a table bearing date of 1904, that the Deutsche Bank of Berlin was represented by interlocking directorates in 240 different industrial, transportation, or exploiting companies. The Dresdener Bank was represented in 191, the Bank of Schaaffhäussenscher in 211, the Darmstädter Bank in 161, and the Disconto Gesellschaft in 110. These figures may be doubled by this time, and each of these banks has many branches or minor establishments over which it has entire control. Doubtless, too, these and other banks in Berlin, Paris, London, and Vienna interlock with one another. They certainly connect with the great armament syndicates, so powerful and so profitable, of Krupp, Schneider, Armstrong, VickersMaxim, and the rest. Still more important and more significant is the fact that these various establishments, by interlocking arrangements, stand very close to the ruling powers in their respective nations.

In Germany we may fairly regard the Emperor as the centre of a gigantic mutual investment organization, with its three branches of aristocracy, militarism, and finance, all the powers of the State, military as well as diplomatic, being placed at the service of the combined interests.

far as other nations are "Powers," the fact is due to the influence of similar inter

locking combinations. This is certainly true in England, France, and Russia; and "the Dollar Diplomacy" of the United States, now happily of the past, was based on the same fundamental principle.

By such means, the foreign policy of each of these "Great Powers" is directed to safeguard the ventures of those great banks which make a specialty of foreign risks. In Europe the governments everywhere frankly make open cause with the interests. The foreign offices are therefore for the most part little more than the firm names under which these interlocking syndicates transact their foreign business.

Whatever the virtues or the evils of the system of interlocking directorates, the evils at least are greatly accentuated when the Government becomes a part of the system, extending its operations in foreign lands by means of secret treaties, by official guarantees, by threats, and by force of arms. A large percentage of the international troubles of the world arise from this one source, the use of governmental authority to promote private schemes of spoliation.

Once rid of the "Sphere of Influence" and of the war machinery which upholds it, and once rid of the war-right of piracy at sea, we could look with confidence toward the dawn of international peace.

O

BY

NE day a molder in an anvil works in Trenton, N. J., displayed a crushed finger to a fellow-molder.

"Why don't you go home?" the other asked him. "You could get the day off."

The man wrapped a rag around the finger and took up his rammer once more.

"The boss smashed two of hers, and she stayed on the job," was his significant reply.

That's exactly what the "boss" does, and every man in the foundry knows it she stays on the job. Fair weather or foul, when extra heavy orders cause a panic of haste and overwork, when the plant runs shorthanded, when business

factory on any one of the six work-days and see for yourself. You will find it in the smutty section of the old capital, where the smoke and soot and dust of many herded factories hang heavy and the Delaware River lumbers along under their pall. If you are not there when the whistle blows, you will miss the beginning of her work-day.

crises occur, it is all the same the "boss" is there with the seven o'clock whistle. If there is no other way to get out the work, she is ready to seize ladle or moldingspoon, rammer or hammer, and a little thing like a smashed finger or so is not worth stopping for. It is rare, therefore, to find a workman who cares to mention a similar little inconvenience of his own, since the "boss" is a woman. In short, she is the Iron Woman in fact, not fiction.

Her name is Mrs. Harriet White Fisher Andrew, and from the plant which she owns and operates in Trenton go forth anvils and vises to every part of the globe. There is not a job in the works, from the primitive, muscular task of charging the cupola to the skilled nicety of running the pneumatic chipper, which she does not know as much about as any of the half a hundred men in her employ. She lives, she moves, she has her being always in the midst of iron creation; she knows iron, iron only, from whistle to whistle; inevitably, then, the name "Iron Woman" has fixed itself to her.

When the sternly masculine National Manufacturers' Association took her into its membership, it practically announced, "Here is a manufacturer of such achievement that we've got to forgive and forget her sex."

When the Efficiency Society held its convention in 1912, gathering employers and experts in the science of efficiency from every quarter, it sent for Mrs. Andrew to address these ranks of men, because here was a woman who had made such a success of a big work that it was worth while for even experts to hear what she had to say.

When the United States Government ordered her anvils, not only for many of its posts and shipyards all over the country, but above all for the great Panama work, it was because the Government knew her anvil, and respectfully acknowledged that she knew her business.

Her plant is not particularly large. It employs only about fifty men. But on this small scale, as modern industry goes, Mrs. Andrew has worked out certain methods that are worth observing by many larger employers. Drop in at the

She is awake and up at six o'clock on the farm where she lives, four miles away. She motors in to the plant, and now she is lining up with all the clean-limbed young machinists and the giant-shouldered old blacksmiths who form her corps. The whistle gives a final scream and is silent; from the molding room to the machine shop every man is in his place, and the Iron Woman is putting on her overall.

She wore a neat tailored suit over; now she is shrouding it in the closefitting garment of heavy blue stuff which reaches from neck to heels and affords no opportunity for fluttering skirts to make trouble in the midst of much machinery. "What brought me to this," she told me, briskly buttoning herself into the overall, "was a little accident that once happened in the engine room. I was standing with my back to the belt, and all of a sudden I felt my skirt going. The belt had grabbed it. So I just took hold of the door casing, like this, and let the skirt go instead of traveling with it."

She is ready now for the day's work In her build, in her every alert, definite movement, she suggests power. She is not a very large woman; but she will invite you to feel her biceps with the delight of a small boy, and you will snatch out your fingers gingerly before that arm snaps shut upon them. Every time she steps or moves a hand there is a quick spring in the movement. She is middleaged, gray, healthily ruddy, and steel-eyed.

But she radiates good cheer and humanness. Following her through the shop. I saw faces light up when she approached. There was an old blacksmith at the forge - with shoulders that were like those of a buffalo, but bent.

"Smith, how's your wife?" asked Mrs. Andrew.

Smith slowly raised his shoulders and faced her. "Aw, my vife, she very bad," he began, and there followed a consultation on Mrs. Smith's lameness which revealed that Mrs. Andrew had been to see her, would go again, and would see what could be done to get a change of air. When we left, old Smith's anvil was resounding to blows that had taken on new vigor. "I suppose you get acquainted with those who have worked for you a good while," I remarked, as we walked on.

"There isn't a man in my employ that

twenty-five years. And they weren't locked in, either."

If you visit that factory you will see for yourself that it is true. You can feel a spirit of friendliness hanging in the air everywhere like the fine dust of the foundry. "With foundry. "With a bigger corps you couldn't know every wife, child, and dog," I naturally argued. "At least I'd like to tackle the job," she replied.

Her secretary is all but stone deaf; that Mrs. Andrew rescued him from the ranks of the down-and-out when his

I don't know and whose family I don't know-wife, children, and dog," she said. "When employers get to the point where they realize that this means something vital, both to the employee and to their own interests, we'll see the personal relation developed as it ought to be. When men know that the boss is tickled over their good luck, and has a helping hand for the bad luck, you won't find so many discontented workers. Do you want to know how long old Smith has been here? Thirty-nine years. And a third of my men have been here more than

deafness had driven him there is an interesting sidelight upon the woman. While she dictated her morning's correspondence to him, I had time to observe all the certificates of award which this famous old anvil has won during the seventy years since Mark Fisher, her first husband's father, started the making of it. The old black walnut furniture is scarred, the walls are dingy, dust has gathered on the framed certificates. Over in one corner is a feeble little attempt at femininity, a small looking-glass. It strikes you a bit queer, somehow, when the Iron Woman