were uniform and that the standard method of estimating and the agreed prices were used. When a price had been checked, it became a minimum which was protected from underbidding by any other member. On certain periodicals already under contract, which were listed with the secretary, members were protected from underbidding for at least a 5 per cent range in price. No penalties were provided, however. Violations occurred on occasion, but the plan had considerable influence toward stabilizing on a higher level the prices on large commercial work.

The Master Printers' Association later broadened its work to more general educational efforts. Bulletins sent to every book and job printer in the city discussed competitive conditions, reported on average hour costs, and urged the trade to adopt cost finding systems and to follow the prices agreed upon by the Association. As an organization for price maintenance, however, the Association could no longer be successful. By 1906 the number of big establishments which could offer serious competition had increased until it was impossible to exert the control over large contracts that had been feasible earlier. In addition, although there were no penalties for violations of the agreement, the legality of such arrangements began to be questioned. This small group of important competitors during a period of prosperity found considerable success in price maintenance efforts. But as conditions changed their movement was supplanted by a new movement that was to promote scientific methods of cost-finding and by its educational program lay a firmer foundation for general advance in the industry.15

Efforts of the employing printers during this period to stabilize the industry by price agreements had little success. A new element that developed during this time, however, the union wage contract, had considerable effect in this direction. Wage agreements by 1896 established a wage scale and the eight-hour day for all machine composition on the newspapers and in leading job houses in Chicago. In 1895 the edition bookbinders, at that time a group of highly skilled and well-organized hand-workers, American Printer, May, 1900, p. 148; Inland Printer, December, 1899, p. 401; March, 1900, p. 845; November, 1900, p. 324; January, 1904, p. 586; August, 1906, p. 662.

15

secured an agreement from the employing bookbinders, who welcomed a uniform wage scale in their efforts to reduce the pricecutting that was ravaging the industry. Whatever tended to make costs plain, they thought, would tend to reduce undercutting of prices.16 Until the coming in of machines in the edition shops weakened union control over the labor supply, this agreement and a similar one that followed it were helpful.

Another union controlled the supply of blankbook-binders with some effectiveness at this time, and was able to enforce a uniform wage scale. The Chicago Typothetae finally made a contract with this union, in 1903, and agreed to enforce the wage scale uniformly in the plants of all members. The immediate appointment of a committee to arrange a scale of prices for blankbooks indicates what was the chief interest of the employers in this agreement." From 1901 to 1904, in fact, the Chicago Typothetae made agreements with all the local printing trade unions. In this period of rising prices, wage increases were easily met, and uniform wage scales and arbitration agreements seemed advantageous to all as a stabilizing force. In the depression that followed, however, the system of agreements broke down under a series of labor difficulties, and the wage standards with their stabilizing influence were less generally upheld.

The early efforts to improve competitive conditions in the industry had been for the most part attempts to maintain prices by agreement. Such agreements had a limited success in the prosperous years after the Civil War, failed completely in the depression of the nineties when tried on a broad scale, and had some success again with a small group of competitors in 1899 and the favorable years that followed. But in an industry with so great a variety of unstandardized products and so many producers, price agreements proved of very limited utility. They could not withstand the strain of poor times when they were most needed, nor could they reach the mass of printers.

While experience was showing how narrow were the possibilities of price agreements, appreciation of the importance of

18 American Bookbinder, November, 1895, p. 101; January, 1896, p. 165.

17

Minutes, Chicago Typothetae, January 26, 1903; April 30, 1903.

1849, then rising in the fifties, but again falling to substantially the 1849 level in 1861. The third period (1860-1900) corresponds with the falling general price period extending from 1865 to 1897; and the fourth (1900-1920) corresponds with the upward trend of general wholesale prices from 1897 to 1920.

But there is no uniform correlation between the general price level and the purchasing power of farm products. In the first period, general prices rose, while the purchasing power of farm products showed no marked upward or downward trend. In the second period, the general price trend was downward, while the purchasing power trend of farm products was strongly upward. In the third period, the general-price trend was heavily downward, while the purchasing-power trend was slightly upward. In the last period, the trend in both series was markedly upward. Thus we have inverse correlation in the second and third periods and direct correlation in the last period.

The upward trend of the purchasing power of farm products for a hundred years is remarkable and indeed surprising. Without statistical evidence to the contrary, it would probably be assumed by most well-informed persons that the purchasing power of farm products declined from 1865 to 1890. This was the period in which the railroads were opening up enormous tracts of virgin land made free by the homestead law of 1862. But it was also the period which saw a development of the factory system on a stupendous scale. The flood of farm products was fully matched by an outpouring of manufactured goods. Had it not been for the expanding railroad net and the free land rapidly settled upon, this period would no doubt have witnessed an enormous increase in the purchasing power of farm products. Instead, the flood of free land counteracted the development of machine methods of manufacturing and kept the purchasing power of farm products nearly stationary. When the free land was gone, the continuous development of large-scale production and improved processes of manufacture brought about a rapid rise in the purchasing power of farm products.

During the first quarter of the nineteenth century, it is not surprising that the purchasing power of farm products was exceed

ingly low. Manufacturing was in its infancy. The young nation was for the most part agricultural and, though severed from the mother-country politically, was still economically dependent upon her for manufactured goods. Then came the protective tariff of 1816, and the "American system" of Henry Clay, aiming to turn a larger proportion of the population away from agriculture to manufacturing in an effort to bring about a more favorable balance between agriculture and industry. From 1820 to 1860 the factory system became firmly established in the textile industry and was gradually becoming intrenched in other fields. Moreover, domestic manufacture in the field of the hand trades was rapidly increasing. While manufacturing was growing apace, the settlement of the West was progressing slowly. The revolution in agriculture had not yet come, and the obstacles imposed on rapid settlement by transportation difficulties and the purchase of land were considerable. Such transportation improvements as the period witnessed, notably the Erie Canal, served to cheapen greatly the cost of transportation from land already settled, though to a considerable extent these developments served to hasten the tide of immigration to new lands.

Thus from 1820 to 1920 (excepting the sharp break in 1859– 62), the purchasing power of farm products climbed upward with greater or less rapidity, and this remarkable fact was witnessed in a century which saw a phenomenal development of agriculture both extensive and intensive. This rise in the purchasing power of farm products bears testimony to the still greater development of manufacturing in Europe and America. The agricultural development probably outran the industrial in the United States. But when we consider the world-market, it is clear that manufacturing outran agricultural production.

Table II shows the price movements of farm products, cloth and clothing, and all commodities by decades. It indicates that agriculture has run far behind manufacturing in the advance in the arts of economical production. Technical progress in the textile and clothing industry has been particularly marked.

Nor were the terrific price upheavals of the century able to modify materially this upward trend in the purchasing power

of

quarter of 1911. Notice of the action was sent to every printer in Chicago. The Club could not enforce the use of this rate upon its members or the industry in general, but as part of the process of education in proper pricing the action was useful.23

In addition to its work on costs, the Club attacked other problems, through committees on trade relations, insurance, legislation, estimating, and credits. Special groups with common interests organized separately under the auspices of the Club to study their cost problems, and in some cases adopted price lists and trade customs. In several outlying districts job printers organized groups to consider their local problems. The work of the Club was more far-reaching and effective than had been true of any of the earlier organizations.

Nevertheless, division of the industry prevented the most effective educational work. In addition to certain specialized trade groups, there were three main organizations of employers: the non-union Chicago Typothetae; a group of union plants organized in 1909 for collective bargaining; and the Ben Franklin Club with its large membership among small- and medium-sized plants. Discussion was under way for five years before it was possible to agree upon a basis of organization to protect the interests of each group and provide for co-operation in a single organization with a reasonable dues rate. In 1915, however, the organizations were replaced by the Franklin-Typothetae of

old

Chicago. The open shop and closed shop printers had separate

autonomous divisions for full control over their special problems. While controversial labor matters were thus relegated to the

groups

interested, to be kept out of the main organization, on matters of general interest all could co-operate.

In the prosperous years from 1916 to 1920 the hopes of those who established the Franklin-Typothetae were largely realized. While co-operation was promoted by increasing costs, prices, and profits, membership rose to 500 by 1920. A broad educational program was carried on. Costwork was the basis of activities, following the methods of the Ben Franklin Club. Cost systems were installed, composite statements of hour costs issued, and

"Inland Printer, May, 1911, p. 268; July, 1911, p. 594.