aristocracy, hereditary power, and the superior rights of transmitted property. Said one of America's greatest sociologists recently: "Notwithstanding all the injustice there is, we have arrived at the time when economic questions can no longer be settled without regard to the human element. Natural laws, however insistent, and however arrogant they have hitherto been in their claims to enforcement, can not henceforth be interpreted without reference to the inherent claims of flesh and blood, and we have already learned in part, and are going to learn still further, that it makes no difference whose flesh and blood it is. .. Men's externals are being treated with less and less delicacy. The idea is growing in the public mind that the fundamental value of a man lies in his humanness. We are becoming more and more tired of the custom which has prevailed of having educated people trade on the deficiencies of the illiterate, or of having employers capitalize themselves out of the poverty of the impecunious." It is true, we have unsettled questions-political, sociological, economic— in this part of the world. But we are bearing up under them. As a whole, our citizens are at least getting along as well as in other countries. America's workers do not emigrate to Hungary nor do they rush there for political freedom. That's the answer. BY DEED. The eloquent employing-class argument for law and order, as delivered by such impartial" periodicals as American Industries, is PROPAGANDA made up of words. This argument usually reads like a stereotyped advertisement or the classic rigmarole plea of a police court lawyer. It passes, in the arena of printed discussion, at its value in words, most of them questionable. But it is in the arena of action that the employers' bellicose managers in case of labor disputes produce their strongest arguments. Their hired writers' words there go for naught; their real fighters then carry on the argument through deeds. Here is a description of this form of argument, now so familiar to trade unionists throughout the country. It is given by a "gangster" in the World Magazine, May 21: "Gangs collect a lot of money, too, breaking strikes. There's a couple of days of hard work in that, and it's just about as easy money as you want. I've helped to break a whole lot of strikes in the past six years, and, take it from me, here's one straight tip for the union men. They can win every strike they go out on if they'll only sit tight at home and do nothing. Just let the gang strike-breakers alone and they'll make the bosses glad to get the old men back. "There was the finest bunch of crooks and grafters working as strike-breakers in those Adams Express Company strikes you would ever want to see. I was one of 'em, and know what I'm talking about. That gang of grafters cost the express company a pile of money. Why, they used to start trouble themselves just to keep their jobs a-going and to get a chance to swipe stuff off the wagons. "It was the same way down at Philadelphia on the street-car strike. Those strikebreakers used to get a car out somewhere in the suburbs and then get off and smash up the windows, tip the car over and put up an awful holler about being attacked by strikers, just so they'd have to be kept on the job." Probably not one of our readers has missed being sermonized at by an emotional law-and-order man, amazed, pained, horrified at the "deplorable disorder" characterizing the two strikes the "gangster" mentions. Awful, awful, that disorder! The strain of the good man's preaching ran: "Heretofore I have had much sympathy with the unions. Some form of labor organization has seemed to be necessary. But I can not conscientiously continue to give any recognition whatever to unions which on strike become no more than murderous mobs, led by bandits who ought to be in State's prison." And our ex sympathizer next sees to it that his pious sentiments obtain currency in his family, his club, his church, and, if possible, his daily newspaper. He's cute. He knows what war-for dividends-is. He has studied civil and military tactics. Hence, he's well qualified as hypocrite, falsifier, and subsidizer of "gangsters." He has likely been a lawviolating employer of child labor, a dodger of the factory health laws, a stubborn contestant of provisions for the legal protection of his workmen against death or injury by machinery. Why couldn't he consistently go a little further and form an alliance with "gangsters"-the bloody dregs of society for the purpose of intimidating trade unionists? A CRITICAL Admonishing words are these of George Judson King, in the Direct Legislation Record: "Set this down as a settled principle of action, that it is far better to wait two, four, or even ten years for a first class, workable provision (for the Initiative and Referendum), than by compromising to get an abortion similar to Montana or Oklahoma. . . . To correct the defects of the Initiative and Referendum you must change the constitution, which is a tedious and difficult task." In Oklahoma, Mr. King goes on to say, a measure proposed through the Initiative can become law only on receiving "a majority of all votes cast in the election." Five important propositions, voted on in 1908 and 1910, which received from 27,994 to 59,503 more "aye" votes than "nay" votes failed to become law because they did not receive a majority of all the votes cast. The careless, or ignorant voter, by not voting on the propositions at all, killed them. Mr. King writes that the requirement of a majority of all voting was slipped into the Oklahoma constitution by corporation lawyers, without meeting with effective objection from the progressives. Whether Mr. King is correct in his contention that it is better to wait long and get the best or make an effort to get an imperfect method may be subject to debate. There's a great satisfaction, even with an imperfect method, for men of independent judgment to record their wishes relative to important public questions. Occasionally, under even adverse circumstances, the desired full majority may be reached. Education in the shortcomings of a partial direct legislation system may proceed objectively, in its very disappointments. Encouragement to propagandists coming through acquaintanceship with one another gained in their common struggle for certain laws, they can the better fight for the complete system of voting on measures which they all equally desire. The poorest form of Initiative and Referendum, once adopted, at least recognizes the principle. It will be hard to abolish that. The fact that the friends of the movement in a State have not been able to push their principle to its last logical basis is an indication that the instruction of the masses of the voters in that State is on the question incomplete. When men are convinced a thing is good, they want it. Certainly, however, in so far as Mr. King's advice is meant to quicken into watchfulness the workers for the Initiative and Referendum, so that they may take all that they can get in introducing their principle in a State, his words ought to be heeded. Mr. King, who has been energetically advocating the Initiative and Referendum in the Western States, writes in his interesting report: "The American movement for direct legislation has now reached a very critical stage. The principle has won its case and politicians concede it will be eventually adopted in every State and city. From now on therefore, as fast as the demand for an Initiative and Referendum becomes an 'issue,' in one State after another, the enemies of the movement will concentrate their efforts on inserting provisions to hamper the pro posed amendments in such wise as to make them absolutely worthless when adopted. Men posing as friends of the movement will talk gravely about 'wise restrictions and safeguards' so plausibly as to deceive the elect.” This is true. We ask the men of labor and all our friends to be on guard against too much caution as to this cause and not to put too much faith in those followers of the movement who ought to have been its leaders, considering their political prominence. However, this is a people's movement, primarily and throughout, and not one to enlist the mere politicians. When a man standing high in a party comes out squarely for the Initiative and Referendum, on the full Oregon plan, he may be counted on as a genuine man of the people; one who has faith in them and who, realizing that ours is a government of, for and by the people, is desirous of having the rule of the people. EDITORIAL NOTES. Fellow-toilers, is it time now for you to run away from the fray to save your own puny self, or for you to come forward and join the other toilers in response to the call, "Get together!" What is to be the end of all this onslaught on trade unionism? Are you working, voting, speaking to bring about the right end? What labor paper do you take? If you take none, where do you get your labor news? "There's no union of my calling in this town." So? Well, do you not know that you can join a Federal Labor Union? W THE TRIANGLE TRADE UNION. RELIEF. By WILLIAM MAILLY. ITHIN a few hours of the Triangle Waist Company fire in New York on March 25 last while the searchers were still raking the ruins for the charred remains of the murdered victims, while the wails of the mourning relatives and friends were mingling with the cries of the newsboys calling "specials" throughout the shocked and distraught East Side, while the morgue was filled with grief-stricken people frantically, and in some cases vainly, seeking for lost ones amid an atmosphere surcharged with grief, horror and resentment-the Executive Board of Ladies' Waist and Dress Makers' Union, Local No. 25, met in special session to consider a situation such as no other union had had to face in the history of New York. It was known that although the disaster had occurred in a non-union shop-the most notorious in the trade and the starting point of the great strike of waistmakers in the winter of 1909-10, a number of union members had been employed there, just how many not being definitely known at that time, for only as a last resort would a union girl seek employment in the Triangle shop, and then she would frequently fail to report herself as a member-at-large (as the union members in non-union shops were designated) in the hope that she might not remain long there but succeed in getting work elsewhere. Later, record was obtained of forty union members having been employed in the ill-fated shop. But whether there had been any union members involved in the disaster or not, the union would have acted as the one organization representing the workers in the trade and the one with the sole right to represent them. It was a working-class calamity and as such it was the duty of a working-class organization which sought the advancement and improvement of all the waistmakers through the trade union movement to go to the aid of its brothers and sisters, regardless of what other people, however sincere and well intentioned, might seek to do. It was in that spirit and with that motive that the Executive Board of the union held its special session on that Sunday morning. At the meeting were present also as representatives of the Women's Trade Union League Mary Dreier, Rose Schneiderman and Helen Marot, the President, VicePresident and Secretary, respectively. The action of the meeting resolved itself into three distinct phases-relief, protest and prosecution. A relief committee was appointed and authorized to issue an appeal for funds and to organize a system of relief distribution; another was appointed to arrange a funeral protest demonstration, and finally, the union's attorney was instructed to take immediate steps looking toward the criminal prosecution of Harris and Blanck, the proprietors of the Triangle shop, who have since been indicted by the Grand Jury and declared culpable by the coroner's jury which investigated the disaster. The protest demonstration, held on Wednesday, April 5, was the most remarkable of its kind ever held by any body of workers in this country at any time. This article proposes to deal with the relief work done through the union, for, so far as I am aware, this was the first time that a trade union in the United States not only collected money for relief but also organized its own relief work and directly administered the funds collected. For this reason, the work accomplished has a special value, since it demonstrates what a union of workers can do along these lines when it approaches the task confidently and energetically. The union relief committee consisted of M. Winchevsky, Financial Secretary of the union, B. Zuckerman, Miss M. Weinstein, A. Silver and William Mailly. As will be related later, this committee was afterward merged into a larger and more comprehensive committee. But the appeal for funds was immediately drawn up and was in the offices of all the daily papers in New York before another day had begun. That this appeal did not receive prominence in all the papers, nor even publication in some, next morning was due to the fact that Mayor Gaynor had officially called for donations to the American Red Cross Fund and this was "featured" in the conservative press. Simultaneous with the issuance of the appeal for funds by the union, there went out from the Women's Trade Union League headquarters a corps of women commissioned to visit the homes of the victimsto investigate conditions and report to the Union Relief Committee. It was the diligent, efficient work of these volunteers that enabled the union on Monday to give temporary relief wherever this was reported to be necessary-and there were few cases where this necessity did not exist, for the wages of those affected had been seldom more than sufficient to sustain them from week to week, while the current week's wages had in many cases been consumed with the victims. Contributions to the fund began to arrive early on Monday morning. These were recorded as soon as received and a receipt for each amount handed either direct to the giver or mailed before the day was out. Daily acknowledgments were issued to the press. A complete itemized statement of all receipts and expenditures is to be made. On Monday, however, the Jewish daily Forward also opened a fund. In order to avoid possible conflict or waste in the administration of the two funds, a Joint Relief Committee was formed on March 29, and composed as follows: Ladies' Waist and Dress Makers' Union, M. Winchevsky and William Mailly; United Hebrew Trades, B. Weinstein and J. Goldstein; Workmen's Circle (Arbeiter Ring), B. Weintraub and J. Bernstein; Women's Trade Union League, Helen Marot and Elizabeth Dutcher; Jewish Daily Forward, Abraham Cahan, whose place was afterward taken by M. Gillis. Abe Baroff, general organizer of the waistmakers' union, acted with the committee throughout its entire activity. It may be noted that with the exception of the Women's Trade Union League all the organizations represented on the committee were Jewish and from the East Side. No attempt was made to enlist other unions in the relief work, since it was felt that the situation was one that peculiarly affected the East Side, which has its own particular environment and psychology. The Joint Relief Committee organized with the following officers: Chairman, B. Weinstein; Vice-Chairman, B. Weintraub; Secretary, William Mailly; Treasurer, Morris Hillquit. These served until the close. The work of investigation and of recording and distributing relief was under the immediate charge of Miss Elizabeth Dutcher. The committee began by defining its policy of action in the following mction: That the moneys collected by each of the bodies represented on the Joint Relief Committee be turned over to that committee and distributed through its Treasurer under its supervision in the name of the Ladies' Waist and Dress Makers' Union. At the very beginning it became apparent that some understanding must be arrived at with the Red Cross Emergency Fund if there was not to be waste and duplication in distributing funds. It was taken for granted that the Red Cross fund would be much the larger of the two, since the general public would respond more directly and readily to its appeal, and its operations would therefore be more extensive than those of the union committee could possibly be. A conference between representatives of the union committee and Dr. Edward T. Devine, director of the Red Cross, resulted quickly in an agreement being reached whereby lines of jurisdiction were definitely established. Under this arrangement all cases in which union members were directly involved or there were waistmakers surviving in any family affected by the disaster were first referred to the union committee, with the privilege of referring back to the Red Cross in the event that the union committee did not, for any reason, care to act upon the case. An interchange of reports upon cases and other details of co operation were also agreed upon. Throughout the entire work of the relief this agreement was adhered to strictly by each side. The offices of the two funds were in constant touch with each other and joint consultations were daily occurrences. In addition to this, representatives of the union committee were, upon invitation, present and active at all meetings of the conference, composed of officials of various settlement and charitable organizations, whose special duty it was to pass upon all cases coming before the Red Cross for relief. On the other hand, the meetings of the union committee were thrown open to representatives of the Red Cross fund. Through these means there was the fullest measure of co-operation without the slightest conflict, |