Mr. Brooks on Trades Unions.

Mr. J. G. Brooks, president of the Home Consumers' League, spoke last night on "The Reaction Against the Trades Unions; the Open and Closed Shop," in the Randolph Hall Breakfast Room.

Yearly, said Mr. Brooks, social questions are assuming a more prominent part in American politics, and foremost of these is the struggle between the various trades unions and employers' organizations or citizens' alliances. These employers' organizations have a two-fold object: the destruction of the trades unions and the establishment of the open shop which admits union and non-union men alike. It is questionable, however, whether the open shop is beneficial to the working classes. It results in the introduction of cheap foreign labor, and the lowering of wages. The closed shop, however, is distasteful to the public, Since it debars the free competition of high who are willing to work for low wages.