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A Difference.

"Then," said the man who was preparing the sketch "I shall say that you first saw life in the little village of Backwoodsville-"

"No," said Mr. Selfmade; "I was born there, but I didn't see any life till I came to town."-Chicago Tribune.

Small Choice.

Pat: "Yis, sorr, wur-rk is scarce, but Oi got a job last Sunday that brought me foive dollars."

Mr. Goodman: "What! you broke, the Sabbath?"

Pat (apologetically): “Well, sorr, 'twas wan av us had t' be broke."-Boston Transcript.

He Was Quite Slow.

A shy young man had been calling on the sweetest girl in the world for many moons, but, being bashful, his suit progressed slowly. Finally she decided it was up to her to start something, so the next time he called she pointed to the rose in his buttonhole and said: "I'll give you a kiss for that rose."

A crimson flush overspread his countenance, but the exchange was made after some hesitation on his part. Then he grabbed his hat and started to leave the

room.

"Why, where are you going?" she asked, in surprise.

"To the -er-florist for more roses," he called from the front door.

Another Instance.

"I see," said the sad young man, "that Ermitrude has a new automobile." "Yes, her papa gave her a dandy," burbled the joyful youth.

"And how does she like it?"

"She says she is madly in love with it." "Another case where man is displaced by machinery!" exclaimed the sad young man, going out and applying for membership in the anarchists' club.-Cleveland Plain Dealer.

All He Knew.

"That waiter has the most wonderful memory of any man I know," said Jenkins. "In what way?" asked the friend who was lunching with him.

"You see that row of hats hanging up there? Well, I'll bet you anything you like that when we get up from the table he'll give you your hat, and not mine-although I'm wearing a new one today. I expect he noticed it as soon as I came into the restaurant!"

This prophecy was amply fulfilled. At any rate, the waiter fully apportioned the proper headgear to each of the two men, whereupon Jenkins inquired:

"I say, waiter, how on earth do you know that this is my hat?"

"I don't, sir," replied the waiter after he had pocketed his tip. "All I know is that it happens to be the hat you were wearing when you arrived!"-Answers.

The Poet's Plea.

It was all over. They were in the carriage at last, man and wife, driving back to the wedding breakfast. But suddenly, without warning, the youthful bride burst into heart-rending sobs.

"Oh-o!" she cried. "Oh-o! Oh-o!"

"My dearest dear!" breathed the newmade hubby. Why does my pet weep so on her wedding day? Tell her hubsie-wubsie all about it, then!"

And, with her head on his shoulder, the little wife faltered out at last: "Marmaduke, I've hidden something from I've not told you all. Alas! What shall I do?"

you.

Marmaduke's heart stood still for what seemed to him a century, but was, in reality, a second; then:

"Tell me"-and his voice was hoarse"tell me what you mean at once! I can not bear this suspense!"

"I c-can not c-ook!" sobbed the little wife. "Oh, lovey, is that all?" the young man cried, as his heart beats slowed to normal time. "You frightened me! But worry not. I am a poet, and there will be precious little to cook!"

OUR MODERN BRAIN CONGESTION.

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NE of our important men has recently said that the business troubles we have had for some time are a question of "Psychology." He must have meant some mental disturbance on the part of some of our important people. All human groans and tears proximately or remotely the result of a distorted mental attitude on some of the departments of our human development. That is what evolves all our blunders in our private or social life. Sometimes we think too much and sometimes too little before we act along any given line of effort. Up to about twenty-five years ago we were considered the best business nation, always able to rapidly make the best of our business blunders. For sometime we have been the most perplexing nation, the most entangled in the blunders we seem to invite, the most timid and unwilling to react in self confidence. We need to be reminded of our immense potentialities by the business men of the important nations. Our politicians seem to have lost their brains because possessed by the class spirit.

The class spirit is fatal. No sensible legislation is possible when we attempt or desire to increase our popularity by appealing to the people to hurt this or that class. Each nation has to stand or fall by fair play or its absence in the industrial activities best adapted to each historical period. If changes are needed they should rest on as much equity as possible, for the partial good of all classes. This is bound to be so as long as we presuppose the inevitableness of monopoly in our industrial life.

In the issue of June 5th, The Chicago Public says: "Prejudice against labor organizations is not confined to conservative

people.

Even many workers for social justice are blaming organized labor for processes which are about indispensable as long as we don't open the door of opportunity to all men and all classes. Industrial warfare is as incapable of refinement as military warfare." Oh, if our men of high degree could realize the truth of The Public's indication! And the plain working people should also realize the impossibility of any social peace under land monopoly rule.

The totality of our development, that is, its quality in all the departments of our life, generation after generation, is determined by the quality of the mental attitude possessed by the bulk of us, the superior people, controlling the destinies of each nation. And thus far that mental attitude has been intensely egotistic, always afraid of the natural freedom that alone can evolve manhood of the positive kind. In the absence of that natural freedom we all become cowards, in the spiritual and moral order, always afraid of the selfishness of the other fellows that may happen to be on top of ourselves. And we, on top, become afraid of those below. What kind of civilization can that bring to all of us? Laws of repression come then into play, and social chaos follows. It may not be the chaos of organized disorder. It may be that of organized despotism, that of class against class, of section against section, or nation against nation. No real spirit of brotherhood can then come under such abnormal social adjustments. And that is the history of humanity thus far.

Necessarily, inevitably then, humanity marches on, from one set of evils into another set, from one mixture of legalized good and evil to another, from one group of industrial barbarisms to another group,

always away from the eternal simplicity of divine law, forever trying to cheat each other out of the complete life we all could have. And how dreadfully we do succeed in the breeding of all possible calamities, misery and sin.

The natural and perpetual simplicity of the Father's laws give to each man or individual the power to complete one's life in such a way as to grant to all the same complete development. All that is prevented by our dreadfully mixed up and selfish legislation, placing bandages upon bandages around the bodies, minds and souls of each one of us. We are so accustomed to that legalized selfishness that we fail to notice how we thus perpetuate all the infernalisms of monopoly rule. It is thus that we give, to the gamblers of nations, what belong, by divine fiat, to the workers of nations. It is thus that we place, in the hands of the few, the control of all natural resources.

Our modern monopolization of natural resources is often hidden and intensified by the formidable masses of public and corporate debts under interest, dividends, large monopoly salaries and manipulations of all kinds-what we call "high finance." All that constitutes a perpetual mortgage on the scanty annual earnings of at least 95 per cent of the people. That helps to the high cost of all we need to consume. That increases all bottom and middle poverty. It even touches what we may call the pinched comfortable classes. Don't you see how dreadfully we cheat ourselves out of all sound common sense, we so-called intelligent people? We all know so much in the realm of surface knowledge! We all know so little in the essentials and fundamentals of life!

Today it looks as if we all were suffering from congested brains, when we happen to have any brains left. Our important dailies prove that with the perpetual disagreements among the wise and the prudent of all nations. Add to that all our daily deformities, the ones important enough to be heard. And what about those too hidden to be known?

Notice now that all over the earth we keep on increasing in numbers. That is fatal, as long as we fail to understand each other; that is, as long as we, teachers of nations, refuse to teach men how to behave rightly towards each other. We keep repudiating, in law, the supreme, natural, indispensable fatherhood of God. Thus we pervert our whole development on earth. Can that help us much in any life on the beyond? Do we gain anything on earth by making life as miserable as possible until death comes to deliver us from our collective inanity and selfishness?

And all our follies come from our love for the wealth that perishes. And centuries upon centuries fail to teach us how to suppress our crazy love for wealth, by simply giving to all a possible comfortable life. That would simplify all our terrestrial combinations. That would give sense and time to all, for us all to be happy. We all lack now both happiness and sense. Our brain congestion, from too much surface knowledge, plays hide and seek with all truth. Hence no comfort for anybody.

JOSE GROS.

TELEGRAPHERS' LEGISLATIVE
BOARD OF TEXAS.

After four years of working and planning the Telegraphers' Legislative Board of Texas is at last a reality with bright prospects.

The purpose of the board, as set forth in the preamble of its constitution, is to concentrate the efforts of the union telegraphers of Texas in carrying on an aggressive campaign for needed legislation for the protection and betterment of conditions of those employed in the telegraph service.

Some of our greatest needs can only be remedied by legislation. One thing needed, I believe above all others at this time, is relief on the bonding question. We should have a law compelling public service corporations doing business within the State of Texas to accept any good bond, whether made with a bonding company or individual citizens. The United States Government will accept an indemnity bond

why should not railroad, express and telegraph companies?

I have in mind a case which came to my notice recently where an overworked agent at a one-man station could not keep up all his work in the shape it should have been without assistance, which he could not persuade the company to allow him. An express route agent dropped in on him, and from the condition of his records there appeared to be a small shortage, which the agent made good. (I believe it was later found that no actual shortage existed.) The route agent made a report to the bonding company, which caused them to cancel his bond, amounting to $500. His bond protecting the railroad company, which was held in another company, remaining intact.

On the same day this agent received notice of the cancellation of his bond, he had an indemnity bond sufficient to protect $100,000, protected by some of the finest land in the State. Notwithstanding this he was checked out a few days later and lost over a month's time before the matter was finally adjusted through the bonding company's red tape methods, after which he was restored to his position.

Had there been a law, such as the one mentioned above, this agent would not have been checked out, and the express company would have been afforded ample protection by the indemnity bond which they finally accepted.

Other cases of a like nature could be cited, did space permit.

Our only hope of rectifying such wrongs is by legislation.

There are also other questions which need attention, such as hospitals, etc., but I believe the bonding matter is paramount. Divisions Nos. 22, 25, 53, 126, 141, 144 and 145 are represented on this board, which now consists of twenty members, and other divisions are expected to affiliate at an early date.

The board is also represented on the Joint Labor Legislative Board of Texas, which represents over 85 per cent of the organized wage workers of the State and

composed of representatives of the Texas State Federation of Labor, Brotherhood of Railway Carmen, Order of Railroad Telegraphers, State Council of Carpenters and State Conference of Bricklayers, Masons and Plasterers-the other four railroad transportation organizations having withdrawn from this board.

Nearly all the laws favoring the laborers, now on the statute books of this State, are due to the efforts of this Joint Labor Legislative Board, and I am sure we will derive great benefits from association with such men as it represents, if we will but stick together and back up the Telegraphers' Legislative Board and the Joint Labor Legislative Board with our moral and financial support.

It requires funds to support a board of this kind, as it will likely be necessary for the chairman of our board to be in Austin during the sessions of the legislature, and other incidental expenses will have to be met. Other organizations levy assessments for the support of their legislative boards, but we have attempted to finance ours by voluntary contributions from union telegraphers. These contributions will be collected by the board representatives of the different affiliated divisions, on their respective divisions, but if your division is not yet affiliated, remittances may be made direct to the secretary-treasurer of the board, A. E. Laisure, Ennis, Tex., who will issue receipt.

Printed copies of the constitution, showing the full working arrangement of the board, etc., are now ready for distribution, and if you are unable to secure a copy from your local chairman, same can be had by addressing A. E. Laisure, secretarytreasurer, Ennis, Tex.; E. . Hili, chairman, 2003 Leland Ave., Houston, Tex., or the undersigned.

If your division is not already identified with this board, take the matter up with the members of your committee and ascertain why. It is your duty to do so. We must stick together on the proposition, or go down to defeat. The telegraphers are the only craft of importance in this State

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