ments, on the highways, in their purchases, in their choice of work-fellows, and in their organization. The men of our Federation have each a duty to perform, according to his place. Within the organization, the membership decides who has or has not been derelict. Without, in matters of the law, the Government decides. On this score, a clamor-by the interested, chiefly-has been raised against the officers of the Federation. In reply, we say to the appropriate Government officials, proceed with your duty. We are ready. You shall have our aid. To the country we say, we have nothing to fear. To the men and women of labor we say, the wrongs which the workers have borne, the rights to which they are entitled, should and must achieve, can only be accomplished by thorough organization, unity, and federation promoted and permeated by the spirit of fraternity and solidarity. At no time in the history of labor has organization been so essential as now. If the wage-earners of our continent hope, not only to promote and advance their interests, but to protect even that which they now enjoy, organization, unity, and federation are an immediate and pressing necessity. The concentrated effort and bitter animosity of the enemies of organized labor to crush out the spirit of the toilers, and with it to enfeeble or destroy the organized labor movement, must be met by the men and women of labor with an intelligent, earnest, dignified, and insistent attitude; whose solemn and imperative duty it is to openly declare the high purposes for which our movement is instituted, to show its splendid achievements already accomplished for the workers and make clear its noblest aspirations, not only for the workers, but for all humanity. GRIT YOUR TEETH AND ORGANIZE! On December 14, 1911, the House of Representatives of the United States passed by unanimous vote the American Federation of Labor eighthour bill. The bill has gone to the Senate, where it is confidently expected it will soon pass and become law. PRESIDENT GOMPERS' REPORT. [Continued from last issue.] LABOR GROUP IN CONGRESS. The fifteen members of the House of Representatives holding trade union cards of membership frequently held conferences with the officers of the American Federation of Labor, counselling with us as to the best methods by which they could be of service to the cause of labor and to the people generally. At the meetings no resolution was either adopted or proposed. The measures before Congress or its committees were freely discussed. The general consensus of opinion expressed, impressed itself upon the minds of these Representatives. While no conclusion of a binding character was reached, yet the labor group in the House of Representatives, regardless of political party affiliation, acted in unison and with advantageous results. For convenience as well as the record I give the names of the labor group who are members of the House of Representatives in Congress, with the names of the organizations of which they are members and the parties to which they are attached: Wilson, W. B., Coal Miners, Democrat. Lee, Robert E., Blacksmiths, Democrat. Martin, John A., Locomotive Firemen, Democrat. Cary, Wm. J., Commercial Telegraphers, Republican. Berger, Victor L., Typographical, Socialist. Hughes, Wm., Textile Workers, Democrat. Buchanan, Frank, Str. Iron Workers, Democrat. McDermott, James T., Commercial Telegraphers, Democrat. Lewis, David J., Coal miners, Democrat. Smith, Chas. B., R. R. Telegraphers, Democrat. Anderson, Carl C., Musicians, Democrat. Sherwood, Isaac R., Typographical, Democrat. Maher, James P., Hatters, Democrat. The good this group of labor men has already accomplished, the good they can and no doubt will do in Congress, should imbue the men of labor and all liberty-loving citizens with the duty, the responsibility, and the advantage of not only securing the reelection of the members of this group, but also increasing the number and the possibilities of their influence and power for just and humane legislation. OCCUPATIONAL DISEASES. Resolution No. 114, adopted at St. Louis, recommended that the American Federation of Labor should urge the further enactment of legislation giving greater protection to the workers in factories, mines, etc., through the provision, in a scientific way, of safety measures for the preservation of the life, limb, and health of the workers, and especially through the adoption of comprehensive means that would eliminate the unnecessary suffering and economic loss occasioned by occupational poisons and by such diseases as are peculiar to certain occupations. Communications were addressed to all of our State Federations and city central bodies asking them to exert themselves in behalf of the enactment of legislation in their States in harmouy with the spirit of this resolution. The following is a brief summary of such safety and health-preserving legislation as was passed during the last legislative period of the States: Illinois: (1) Legislation establishing fire fighting and rescue stations at coal mines. (2) A State commission appointed to inquire into and render a report to the Legislature on occupational diseases. (3) A special investigation undertaken on mining accidents and casualties. Kentucky: (1) Adequate life-saving apparatus made obligatory in and around coal mines. (2) Mine foremen to be licensed and examined by State officials. Louisiana: (1) State bureau of mines established, with a State inspector in charge. Maryland: (1) Shirt-factory floors to be sprinkled with water every morning made mandatory. (2) Examination and licensing of plumbers made mandatory. (3) Better ventilation laws for coal mines. (4) Stationary engineers and those in charge of steam boilers to be licensed after examination. Massachusetts: (1) Medical inspectors for schools made mandatory. (2) State inspector of health authorized to prosecute manufacturers employing persons under eighteen years of age in unhealthy occupations. (3) State inspectors of health authorized to fix a standard as to permissible degrees of humidity in textile factories. (4) Plumbers to be examined, licensed, and registered. (5) A State commission of five appointed to investigate the general subject of factory inspection and report its findings to the Governor. New York: (1) Children under 16 prohibited from operating drill presses, paper-cutting machines, and other dangerous machinery. (2) Factory inspection law amended, strengthening the sanitary and ventilation requirements of factories and work-shops. Also providing for proper supply of pure drinking water, suitable and convenient washrooms, clean and sanitary separate toilet-rooms for the sexes. Created State Commission to investigate sanitary machine and fire dangers. (3) All accidents occurring to employes must be reported to the Commissioner of Labor within forty-eight hours after occurrence. (This requirement should be made mandatory in all States.) Ohio: (1) Mine laws practically rewritten, greatly improved and strengthened. (2) Safety appliance law extended, standardizing equipment, and also ordering proper protection of railway frogs and switches. (3) All persons operating steam boilers must be duly examined, licensed, and registered. (4) All accidents to factory operatives to be immediately reported to the State factory inspector. (5) Elevator and elevator shaft sections of factory inspection law strengthened. (6) Penalty for failure to guard dangerous machinery increased. (7) Penalties for failure to carry out orders of State factory inspector increased and State factory inspectors and State building inspectors granted co-equal powers in the protection of men engaged in the construction of buildings. Rhode Island: (1) Passenger elevator section of factory inspection law improved. (2) Bakery shop inspection law strengthened by increasing the number of inspectors and making more rigid the ventilation and sanitary regulation of bakeries. Virginia: (1) The factory inspection law improved and strengthened as to sanitary requirements, adding a penalty for violation. (2) Public wash houses and laundries placed under the authority of city inspectors of health. (3) Safety appliance law on railroads, standardizing equipment. California: (1) Full crew bill on railroads enacted. (2) Protecting electrical workers and other building mechanics. (3) Physicians treating patients suffering from lead, phosphorus, arsenic and mercury poisoning, also anthrax or compressed air illnesses are directed to report all particulars to the State Board of Health. (4) Appropriation of $5,000 for an investigation to reduce the prevalence of tuberculosis. (5) Tenement house law amended, improved, and strengthened regarding ventilation and sanitation. Kansas: (1) All coal mines to be provided with suitable washrooms for employes. (2) All coal mines to have a telephone system installed. Washington: (1) Legislation for full crews on all railroad trains enacted. During the Sixty-first Congress a determined effort was made to obtain adequate legislation to eradicate the dangers to the health of employes in match factories. Bills were introduced by Representative Esch of Wisconsin for this purpose, which were referred to the Committee on Ways and Means. Every one whose assistance it was possible to enlist was urged by us and other sympathetic organizations to bring pressure to bear on Congress to obtain this much needed legislation. I addressed the following appeal to each member of the House Ways and Means Committee: JANUARY 28, 1911. DEAR SIR: The Esch Phosphorus bill, H. R. No. 30,022, is freighted with the greatest potentiality for good. It will save the workers from endless suffering, expense, disfigurement and early death; it will contribute to the well-being, the safety, the comfort, and the economy of the general public. It is one of the real measures before the third session of the Sixty-first Congress that would earn well-merited public praise, and place our country along with others in the vanguard of civilization, from the standpoint of real, practical, serviceable and necessary conservation of human life. In behalf of the great rank and file of the American Federation of Labor, in the name of humanity, I respectfully ask you to exert your every talent and energy to see to it that this life-conserving measure is enacted before the close of the Sixty first Congress. May I have the pleasure of saying to our member. ship that you have pledged yourself in behalf of H. R. No. 30,022, and that you will do your utmost to see that it becomes a law during this Congress? Thanking you in advance and hoping to hear from you, I am, very truly SAMUEL GOMPERS, President, American Federation of Labor. yours, To this letter the following members of the committee replied, representing themselves in sympathy with the measure: Representatives Ellis, McCall, Randell, Payne, Needham, Harrison, Broussard, Pou, and Hill. On February 21 Representative Dalzell of Pennsylvania, member of the committee, reported, in lieu of the bills introduced by Mr. Esch, a joint resolution authorizing President Taft to appoint a committee to make a thorough examination of the match factories and the disease common in them known as "phossy" jaw. That resolution passed the House February 27. The Senate passed it on March 4, after making a few minor amendments. It was sent back to the House later the same day, when everything was in the utmost confusion during the closing moments of the session. While the turmoil was at its height, Mr. Dalzell called the resolution up and deliberately moved to disagree with the Senate amendments and asked for a conference, to which the House agreed. A few moments later Congress adjourned sine die. The conferees had no time to meet and, of course, will never report upon the match bill; consequently this measure died in conference. Who will pass judgment upon this inhuman act of Dalzell of Pittsburg? MINERS' SAFETY-U. S. BUREAU OF MINES. The Bureau of Mines was created by Congress in the year 1910 as a result of a demand coming, not alone from the mining industry, but from the organized labor movement, backed by the general public sentiment. The chief purpose of the bureau is the development of greater safety and efficiency in the mining industry, or, expressed in another way, its duty is to develop means whereby health, life, and limb, as well as the mineral resources, may be best conserved. The bureau is making diligent investigations of mining, especially in relation to the safety of miners and the conservation of the mineral resources. Of the common causes of the mine accidents, such as falls of roof and coal, gas and dust explosions, mine fires and the misuse of explosives, all of which are often closely related, each must be studied and fought in a manner peculiar to itself. The misuse of black powder and other explosives is sometimes considered the least important of the causes of mine accidents; but its importance is much greater than statistics indicate, as it is the true cause of many of the fatal mine fires, gas and dust explosions, and falls of roof that are credited to other causes. Both the quantity of explosives and the number of purposes to which they are applied are increasing. They are now made at 150 plants, in different parts of the United States, and the product of a single year is estimated at nearly 500,000,000 pounds. Nothing in all this material is a safe, or safety, explosive when in the hands of careless or ignorant persons either in shipment or use. In addition to the large losses of life and property resulting from improper use of explosives in mining, the recent statistics of the Railway Bureau for Safe Transportation of Explosives have shown more than 400 persons killed or injured and over $3,000,000 worth of property destroyed by explosives in transit by rail. The fact that three years of co-operative effort under the supervision of the bureau has reduced these losses to almost nothing encourages the hope that similar co-operative effort may likewise greatly lessen losses of life and property from the use of explosives in mining. The additions to the large death roll of our mines make a recurring appeal to the public for fair treatment of the coal mining industry, and to the miners and to the managers that they join in every possible effort for greater safety. It may never be possible under conditions such as exist today to prevent mine accidents entirely. Little can be accomplished in that direction by either the operators or the miners working alone, but experience in all countries shows that through the hearty, determined co-operation of both, the accidents may be greatly reduced. This will require wise laws and regulations, based on fact and experience, and the strictest possible discipline. The accidents resulting from the improper use of explosives in mining can most certainly be prevented, (1) through the use of the best and safest explosives; (2) through the handling and firing of these explosives in the safest manner by carefully selected and trained men; and (3) through strict and competent supervision. Among the important problems before the Bureau of Mines is the reduction of the number of deaths in the mines, and it is gratifying to note that in the last three years, for which statistics are obtainable, there has been a decrease of 25 per cent. In the year 1907, 3,125 miners lost their lives, or 4.86 in every 1,000 employed; in 1909, the last year for which there are official statistics, 2,412, or 3.62 in every 1,000 employed. In 1907 Great Britain, in each 1,000 men employed, had 1.13 killed; France, 1.1; and Belgium, 0.194, or less than one man in every 1,000 employed, showing that three or four times as many men were killed in the United States in that year as in any of the European coal-producing countries. Since the bureau was organized, it has placed seven fully equipped rescue cars in the principal coal fields of the country-Wilkesbarre, Pa.; Trinidad, Colo.; Evansville, Ind.; Rock Springs, Wyo.; Billings, Mont.; Huntington, W. Va., and Pittsburgh, Pa. In addition, the bureau maintains rescue stations at Pittsburgh, Pa.; Knoxville, Tenn.; Birmingham, Ala.; Urbana, Ill.; McAlester, Okla., and Seattle, Wash. Each rescue car and station is in the immediate charge of a mining engineer and a practical miner who is trained in rescue work. The stations and cars have complete outfits of oxygen helmets, which permit breathing for two hours in a deadly atmosphere; oxygen reviving apparatus used in bringing asphyxiated miners back to consciousness; a collapsible steel cage, to take the place of one shattered by an explosion; a portable telephone for use in the mine; safety lamps, etc. Within the last twelve months 5,000 miners throughout the country have been thoroughly trained in rescue work. It is hoped that these men will volunteer their services whenever there is a disaster. Each Bureau of Mines rescue car has a specified territory over which it travels, visiting the mining camps. At each stopping place, demonstrations in the use of the oxygen helmet are given, also lessons in first aid to the injured. In the evening, the mining engineer gives an illustrated lecture to the miners on greater safety in mining. Thousands of miners have attended these lectures in the last few months and have gone back to their hazardous work with a keener sense of its dangers, a desire to be more careful and to live up to the precepts of safe mining. All of this must necessarily have a salutary effect. More than 5,000 men are injured in the coal mines of the United States every twelve months. Some recover sufficiently to return to work, but several thousands of men are so maimed and crippled each year as to be useless to themselves and burdens to their families. Many of the injured men who are taken from the mine die later, perhaps within a few months. In instances, the death of these men or their crippling for life is due to the fact that they did not receive intelligent emergency treatment at the time of the accident. It is to better this condition of affairs that the Bureau of Mines carries on each car a practical miner trained in first-aid-to-the-injured work. This employe, while not engaged in actual rescue work, teaches the miners how to care for an injured comrade. Simple lessons in bandaging wounds and providing splints for broken legs are given at every mining camp visited. The miners are taking special interest in this feature of the work, and it promises to have an important bearing on the reduction of the death rate. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR. Mr. Sulzer of New York has reintroduced his bill for the establishment of a Department of Labor. It is known as H. R. No. 13. It has been referred to the House Committee on Labor, and the prospect for a favorable report upon it from that committee during the next session of Congress is encouraging. In spite of the fact that the House Committee on Labor in the Sixty-first Congress decided to report this bill favorably, and so instructed its chairman, Mr. Gardner, of New Jersey, he failed to report it before that Congress adjourned. No organized opposition has made itself apparent on this measure. Congressmen generally seem to favor the establishment of a Department of Labor, and it is confidently expected, if continued pressure is brought to bear from the members of organized labor and other broad-visioned citizens on the members of Congress in behalf of the creation of such a department, that such requests will meet with an early and favorable response. CIVIL SERVICE EMPLOYES' RIGHTS. During the Sixty-first Congress, at the request of the American Federation of Labor, Representative Poindexter and Senator Jones of Washington, introduced in Congress bills for the purpose of restoring to Civil Service employes of the United States Government the rights of free speech and of mutual voluntary association. No material progress was made with these measures other than what could be done in the direction of crystallizing sentiment in behalf of these principles. At the St. Louis Convention resolution No. 52 was adopted, "protesting against executive orders that deprived Federal Civil Service employes of their constitutional rights as citizens to petition Congress for redress of grievances and the right of free speech," etc. In response to this resolution, the American Federation of Labor drafted a new bill, which was introduced in the Senate by Senator La Follette of Wisconsin, and is known as S. 1162; and in the House by Representative Lloyd of Missouri, as H. R. 5970. They were referred to the committees on reform in the Civil Service. Prompt action was the House committee. The bill, introduced on April 18, 1911, had its ng on April 20, with all of the members of the committee present. SecreMorrison, Oscar F. Nelson, President of the National Federation of Postand myself, with other labor representatives, made arguments before the |