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of the House of Representatives, that the Bureau of Printing and Engraving was the worst sweat-shop existing in private or public employment in the country. The present Secretary of the Treasury, Hon. George B. Cortelyou, fully and officially repeated the indictment of this governmental sweat-shop.

It was the occasion of the plate printers' appeal for a place to work where they would be relieved from the present health and life destroying atmosphere, that Hon. Joseph G. Cannon must needs deliver a lecture to them not to be dictated to by "that man Gompers," etc., etc. Would it be interesting to Hon. Joseph G. Cannon to know that, recognizing the awful fetid atmosphere in which the men and women in the Bureau were working for the government, that "that man Gompers;" that "Dictator Gompers' advised the committee to call on him (Cannon) and try an appeal to his better nature, that perhaps he might be moved to take some action by which so large a number of hard working, deserving government employes might be saved from having their health impaired and their lives destroyed.

Taking advantage of the straits in which the plate printers' representatives found themselves in their mission of mercy, Hon. Joseph G. Cannon must needs attempt to overawe and humiliate them by attacking one in whom they have confidence and for whom they entertain the highest respect. He could not, however, stifle their protest and their declaration of loyalty to the great cause and movement of organized labor. It might be additionally interesting to Hon. Joseph G. Cannon to know to what a degree his fulmination has "endeared" him to all the men of labor throughout the country, aye, even to the committee of plate printers whom he so outrageously treated.

It is the policy of the trickster politician to pretend that the chosen spokesman of labor has his own personal interests to advance, his own views to exploit, his own power to extend or intrench. It is impossible for the politician of the Cannon stripe to conceive that there are some, yes, a large and constantly growing number of men who, true to a principle, true to a cause, true to their fellows, would scorn to stoop to a dishonest or dishonorable act, or any act but which would redound to the interest and progress of the workers. But how can one expect such a conception of a man's conduct from Hon. Joseph G. Cannon whose arrogance and whose antagonism to labor and the best interests of the people is universal knowledge?

These facts are recorded, "Uncle Joe," lest we forget.

When the most sordid and vicious in the capitalist class combine to crush the hopes and aspirations of the toiling, wealth-producing masses, it behooves all the workers to organize, unite, and federate for the common good.

It is not yet fully understood how much good the labor movement has already accomplished in the life of mankind, nor how much it is its mission to achieve.

FROM THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE.

REFERENCES TO LABOR AND INDUSTRY IN PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S MESSAGE TO THE SIXTIETH CONGRESS.

Injunctions.

Instances of abuse in the granting of injunctions in labor disputes continue to occur, and the resentment in the minds of those who feel that their rights are being invaded and their liberty of action and of speech unwarrantably restrained continues likewise to grow. Much of the attack on the use of the process of injunction is wholly without warrant; but I am constrained to express the belief that for some of it there is warrant. This question is becoming more and more one of prime importance, and unless the courts will themselves deal with it in effective manner, it is certain ultimately to demand some form of legislative action. It would be most unfortunate for our social welfare if we should permit many honest and law-abiding citizens to feel that they had just cause for regarding our courts with hostility. I earnestly commend to the attention of the Congress this matter, so that some way may be devised which will limit the abuse of injunctions and protect those rights which from time to time it unwarrantably invades. Moreover, discontent is often expressed with the use of the process of injunction by the courts, not only in labor disputes, but where state laws are concerned. I refrain from discussion of this question as I am informed that it will soon receive the consideration of the Supreme Court.

The federal courts must of course decide ultimately what are the respective spheres of state and nation in connection with any law, state or national, and they must decide definitely and finally in matters affecting individual citizens, not only as to the rights and wrongs of labor but as to the rights and wrongs of capital; and the national government must always see that the decision of the court is put into effect. The process of injunction is an essential adjunct of the court's doing its work well; and as preventive measures are always better than remedial, the wise use of this process is from every standpoint commendable. But where it is recklessly or unnecessarily used, the abuse should be censured, above all by the very men who are properly anxious to prevent any effort to shear the courts of this necessary power. The court's decision must be final; the protest is only against the conduct of individual judges in needlessly anticipating such final decision, or in the tyrannical use of what is nominally a temporary injunction to accomplish what is in fact a permanent decision.

Accidents.

The loss of life and limb from railroad accidents in this country has become appalling. It is a subject of which the national government should take supervision. It might be well to begin by providing for a federal inspection of interstate railroads

somewhat along the lines of federal inspection of steamboats, although not going so far; perhaps at first all that it would be necessary to have would be some officer whose duty would be to investigate all accidents on interstate railroads and report in detail the causes thereof. Such an officer should make it his business to get into close touch with railroad operating men so as to become thoroughly familiar with every side of the question, the idea being to work along the lines of the present steamboat inspection law.

Employers' Liability.

The national government should be a model employer. It should demand the highest quality of service from each of its employes and it should care for all of them properly in return. Congress should adopt legislation providing limited but definite compensation for accidents to all workmen within the scope of the federal power, including employes of navy yards and arsenals. In other words, a model employers' liability act, farreaching and thoroughgoing, should be enacted which should apply to all positions, public and private, over which the national government has jurisdiction. The number of accidents to wageworkers, including those that are preventable and those that are not, has become appalling in the mechanical, manufacturing, and transportation operations of the day. It works grim hardship to the ordinary wage-worker and his family to have the effect of such an accident fall solely upon him; and, on the other hand, there are whole classes of attorneys who exist only by inciting men who may or may not have been wronged to undertake suits for negligence. As a matter of fact a suit for negligence is generally an inadequate remedy for the person injured, while it often causes altogether disproportionate annoyance to the employer. The law should be made such that the payment for accidents by the employer would be automatic instead of being a matter for lawsuits. Workmen should receive certain and definite compensation for all accidents in industry irrespective of regligence. The employer is the agent of the public and on his own responsibility and for his own profit he serves the public. When he starts in motion agencies which create risks for others, he should take all the ordinary and extraordinary risks involved; and the risk he thus at the moment assumes will ultimately be assumed, as it ought to be, by the general public. Only in this way can the shock of the accident be diffused, instead of falling upon the man or woman least able to bear it, as is now the case. The community at large should share the burdens as well as the benefit of industry. By the proposed law, employers would gain a desirable certainty of obligation

and get rid of litigation to determine it, while the workman and his family would be relieved from a crushing load. With such a policy would come increased care, and accidents would be reduced in number. The national laws providing for employers' liability on railroads engaged in interstate commerce and for safety appliances as well as for diminishing the hours any employe of a railroad should be permitted to work, should all be - strengthened wherever in actual practice they have shown weakness; they should be kept on the statute books in thoroughgoing form.

The constitutionality of the employers' liability act passed by the preceding Congress has been carried before the courts. In two jurisdictions the law has been declared unconstitutional, and in three jurisdictions its constitutionality has been affirmed. The question has been carried to the Supreme Court, the case has been heard by that tribunal, and a decision is expected at an early date.

In the event that the court should affirm the constitutionality of the act, I urge further legis ation along the lines advocated in my message to the preceding Congress. The practice of putting the entire burden of loss to life or limb upon the victim or the victim's family is a form of social injustice in which the United States stands in unenviable prominence. In both our federal and our state legislation we have, with few exceptions, scarcely gone farther than the repeal of the fellowservant principle of the old law of liability, and in some of our states even this slight modification of a completely outgrown principle has not yet been secured. The legislation of the rest of the industrial world stands out in striking contrast to our backwardness in this respect. Since 1895 practically every country of Europe, together with Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, British Columbia, and the Cape of Good Hope has enacted legislation embodying in one form or another the complete recognition of the principle which places upon the employer the entire trade risk in the various lines of industry. I urge upon the Congress the enactment of a law which will at the same time bring federal legislation up to the standard already established by all the European countries, and which will serve as a stimulus to the various states to perfect their legislation in this regard.

Eight Hour Law.

The Congress should consider the extension of the eight hour law. The constitutionality of the present law has recently been called into question, and the Supreme Court has decided that the existing legislation is unquestionably within the powers of the Congress. The principle of the eight hour day should be rapidly and as far as practicable be extended to the entire work carried on by the government; and the present law should be amended to embrace contracts on those public works which the present wording of the act has been construed to exclude. The general introduction of the eight hour day should be the goal toward which we should steadily tend, and the government should set the example in this respect.

Capital and Labor.

It is certain that for some time to come there will be a constant increase absolutely, and perhaps relatively, of those among our citizens who dwell

in cities or towns of some size and who work for wages. This means that there will be an everincreasing need to consider the problems inseparable from a great industrial civilization. Where an immense and complex business, especially in those branches relating to manufacture and transportation, is transacted by a large number of capitalists who employ a very much larger number of wage-earners, the former tend more and more to combine into corporations and the latter into unions. The relations of the capitalist and wage-worker to one another, and of each to the general public, are not always easy to adjust; and to put them and keep them on a satis factory basis is one of the most important and one of the most delicate tasks before our whole civilization. Much of the work for the accomplishment of this end must be done by the individuals concerned themselves, whether singly or in combinations; and the one fundamental fact that must never be lost track of is that the character of the average man, whether he be a man of means or a man who works with his hands, is the most important factor in solving the problem aright. But it is almost equally important to remember that without good laws it is also impossible to reach the proper solution. It is idle to hold that without good laws evils such as child labor, as the overworking of women, as the failure to protect employes from loss of life or limb, can be effectively reached, any more than the evils of rebates and stock-watering can be reached without good laws. To fail to stop these practices by legislation means to force honest men into them, because otherwise the dishonest who surely will take advantage of them will have everything their own way. If the states will correct these evils, well and good; but the nation must stand ready to aid them.

No question growing out of our rapid and complex industrial development is more important than that of the employment of women and children. The presence of women in industry reacts with extreme directness upon the character of the home and upon family life, and the conditions surrounding the employment of children bear a vital relation to our future citizenship. Our legislation in those areas under the control of the Congress is very much behind the legislation of our more progressive states. A thorough and comprehensive measure should be adopted at this session of the Congress relating to the employment of women and children in the District of Columbia and the territories. The investigation into the condition of women and children wage earners recently authorized and directed by the Congress is now being carried on in the various states, and I recommend that the appropriation made last year for beginning this work be renewed, in order that we may have the thorough and comprehensive investigation which the subject demands. The National Government has as an ultimate resort for control of child labor the use of the interstate commerce clause to prevent the products of child labor from entering into interstate commerce. But before using this it ought certainly to enact model laws on the subject for the territories under its own immediate control.

There is one fundamental proposition which can be laid down as regards all these matters, namely: While honesty by itself will not solve the problem, yet the insistence upon honesty-not merely tech

nical honesty, but honesty in purpose and spirit— is an essential element in arriving at a right conclusion. Vice in its cruder and more archaic forms shocks everybody; but there is very urgent need that public opinion should be just as severe in condemnation of the vice which hides itself behind class or professional loyalty, or which denies that it is vice if it can escape conviction in the courts. The public and the representatives of the public, the high officials, whether on the bench or in executive or legislative positions, need to remember that often the most dangerous criminals, so far as the life of the nation is concerned, are not those who commit the crimes known to and condemned by the popular conscience for centuries, but those who commit crimes only ren lered possible by the complex conditions of our modern industrial life. It makes not a particle of difference whether these crimes are committed by a capitalist or by a laborer, by a leading banker or manufacturer or railroad man, or by a leading representative of a labor union. Swindling in stocks, corrupting legislatures, making fortunes by the inflation of securities, by wrecking railroads, by destroying competitors through rebates-these forms of wrongdoing in the capitalist, are far more infamous than any ordinary form of embezzlement or forgery; yet it is a matter of extreme difficulty to secure the punishment of the man most guilty of them, most responsible for them.

Mining.

A bureau of mines should be created under the control and direction of the Secretary of the. Interior; the bureau to have power to collect statistics and make investigations in all matters pertaining to mining and particularly to the accidents and dangers of the industry. If this can not now be done, at least additional appropriations should be given the Interior Department to be used for the study of mining conditions, for the prevention of fraudulent mining schemes, for carrying on the work of mapping the mining districts, for studying methods for minimizing the accidents and dangers in the industry; in short, to aid in all

proper ways the development of the mining industry. Industry is always necessary, just as war is sometimes necessary. Each has its price, and industry in the United States now exacts, and has always exacted, a far heavier toll of death than all our wars put together The statistics of the railroads of this country for the year ended June 30, 1906, the last contained in the annual statistical report of the Interstate Commerce Commission, show in that one year a total of 108,324 casualties to persons, of which 10,618 represent the number of persons killed. In that wonderful hive of human activity, Pittsburg, the deaths due to industrial accidents in 1906 were 919, all the result of accidents in mills, mines, or on railroads. For the entire country, therefore, it is safe to say that the deaths due to industrial accidents aggregate in the neighborhood of 20,000 a year. Such a record makes the death rate in all our foreign wars utterly trivial by comparison. The number of deaths in battle in all the foreign wars put together, for the last century and a quarter, aggregate considerably less than one year's death record for our industries. A mere glance at these figures is sufficient to show the absurdity of the outcry against militarism.

The printed index for the 1907 AMERICAN FEDERATIONIST may be had without charge on application to this office.

A limited number of the AMERICAN FEDERATIONIST for 1907, bound in two volumes, may be had on application to this office. The 1907 volumes are bound in the same style as the preceding years.

The official printed proceedings of the Norfolk convention of the A. F. of L are now ready and can be had upon application by mail, 25 cents per single copy, $20 per hundred. Postage prepaid by the A. F. of L.

DISTRICT AND GENERAL ORGANIZERS.

Number Commissioned Organizers, American Federation of Labor, 1,175.

District No. I.-Eastern.

Comprising the states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and the Province of New Brunswick, Canada. Organizers, Stuart Reid.

District No. II.-Middle.

Comprising the states of New York, New Jersey, Penusylvania, Delaware, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and the Province of Quebec, Canada.

Organizers, Herman Robinson. Hugh Frayne, Cal Wyatt, W. C. Hahn, John A. Flett, H. L. Eichelberger, . Jas. E. Roach, Herman Ross, Emmet Flood.

District No. III.-Southern.

Comprising the states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

Organizers, James Leonard, R. L. Harper.

District No. IV.-Central.

Comprising the states of West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Organizers, J. J. Fitzpatrick, J. D. Pierce, William E. Terry, Edwin R. Wright, Jacob Tazelaar, Thos. H. Flynn.

District No. V.-Northwestern.

Comprising the states of Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Manitoba. Organizers, Geo. B. Howley.

District No. VI.-Southwestern.

Comprising the states of Missouri, Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.

Organizers, Henry M. Walker, Sim A. Bramlette.
District No. VII.-Inter-Mountain.

Comprising the states of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Idaho. Organizer, M. Grant Hamilton.

District No. VIII-Pacific Coast. Comprising the states of Nevada, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, and the Province of British Columbia.

Organizers, C. O. Young, George Schneider, Arthur A. Hay, Sidney H. Gray.

Porto Rico.-Santiago Iglesias.

WHAT OUR ORGANIZERS ARE DOING.

FROM THE ATLANTIC TO THE PACIFIC

In this department is presented a comprehensive review of industrial conditions throughout the country. This includes:

A statement by American Federation of Labor general and local organizers of labor conditions in their vicinity.

Increases in wages, reduction of hours, or improved conditions gained without strikes.

Work done for union labels.

Unions organized during the last month.

City ordinances or state laws passed favorable to labor.

Strikes or lockouts; causes, results.

A report of this sort is rather a formidable task when it is remembered that nearly 1,000 of the organizers are volunteers, doing the organizing work and writing their reports after the day's toil is finished in factory, mill, or mine.

The matter herewith presented is valuable to all who take an intelligent interest in the industrial development of the country. It is accurate, varied, and comprehensive. The information comes from those familiar with the conditions of which they write.

These organizers are themselves wage-workers. They participate in the struggles of the people for better conditions, help to win the victories, aid in securing legislation-in short, do the thousand and one things that go to round out the practical labor movement.

Through an exchange of views in this department the wage-workers in various sections of the country and the manifold branches of trade are kept in close touch with each other.

Taken in connection with the reports from secretaries of international unions, this department gives a luminous vision of industrial advancement throughout the country.

FROM INTERNATIONAL OFFICERS.

Asbestos Workers.

P. G. Jessen.-We are trying to devise means whereby we may organize our trade more thoroughly during this year and prospects are bright for several new unions in the near future. We recently reinstated a union in New York City, and formed another in Detroit, Mich.

Blacksmiths.

Chas. N. Glover.-At this time of the year trade is slack. Fair results in the shape of increased wages and improved conditions have been secured during the past year. Nothing new to report at this time.¡

Chainmakers.

Curtin C. Miller.-Employment fairly good. Three factories are working four and five days a week. Other shops have all they can do, with good demand for more chainmakers. Our official trade journal has met with success and is gaining in popularity with the members.

Elevator Constructors.

Wm. Young.-Trade conditions good, and the indications are that there will be an increased activity in our trade.

Lathers, Wood, Wire, and Metal.

Ralph Brandt.-We have organized new unions in Kankakee, Ill.; New York, Montreal, Can.; Uniontown, Pa., and Kane, Pa. Employment is slack in our trade, as this is our dull season.

Machine Printers and Color Mixers.

Chas. McCrory.-Trade conditions excellent. There is not one man out of employment, if he desires to work. About 2 per cent of our trade are unemployed.

Paving Cutters.

John Sheret.--We are preparing for the establishment of the eight hour day, which, according to our constitution, will be in force 1909. Our trade is distinctly a season trade, owing to the fact that all our work is done out of doors. Our slack season is of course now on and will continue until spring. We recently won a strike in Jersey City against reduction in wages after being out eight days. We formed new unions during the month in Riverside, Cal., and Elk Park, Mont.

Post Office Clerks.

Geo. F. Pfeiffer.-We are working to increase our membership. During the month we formed a new union in Athens, Ga.

Slate Workers.

Thomas H. Palmer.-Trade normal, with prospects for improvement in the spring. We have had no recent changes in wages. A new union has been formed at Ore Bank, Va.

Table Knife Grinders.

John Gleason.-Our trade pretty well employed. Industrial conditions fair. We had two deaths recently and expended $100 in benefits. Our expenditure for unemployed members amounted to $576.

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