The general public, and especially the unhoused public, has a right to complain bitterly of conditions which have made building in New York, and to a considerable extent in other cities, dependent almost wholly on the situation of a "fight to the finish" between union labor on one side and on the other an organization which is doing its best to get rid of an exclusively unionized labor. We have blamed, with reason, the Bethlehem Steel Company for seeking to restrict the sale of its steel to "open shop" builders, but it must be acknowledged that the offence of these manufacturers is mild compared with that of labor union officials who manage to unionize establishments merely in order that they may make great fortunes in bribes wrung from contractors and others interested, as a condition of being allowed to do business.

These union grafters, with their $10,000 salaries apparently added to by heavy bribes extorted from the contractors and corporations, have supplied the real sensation of the building trades investigation. Against such a system of blackmail as that which they put in force, the "hated capitalist" was bound to react. He reacted too far in seeking to prescribe union labor by the means of combination. But his error and offence in that respect should not throw the Lockwood investigation--or the Congressional--inquiry which is to follow--off the scent of the real and capital offence, which is the corruption and tyranny that have permeated every branch of the building business and wrought their perfect work in practically bringing to an end to house building.