towns ever seen in Decatur. Labor bodies from Bloomington, Springfield, Peoria, Danville and Champaign will have a place in the line. The flight and the speaking will take place in Fairview Park. The speakers will be John R. Alpine, Seventh Vice-President of the A. F. of L., and International President of the Plumbers and Steamfitters Union and Jas. J. Farnan, Vice-President of the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks.

J. K. Mitchell, of Chicago Heights, Ill., has been elected General Chairman of the C. & E. I. System, Board of Adjustment, Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, in place of W. T. Christy, who was appointed editor of the Danville, Ill., Leader.

General Chairman Mansel, of the M. C. Board, recently has embarked upon the sea of matrimony. We extend to him our best wishes for a future of happiness and suc

cess.

Sunday, July 11, was Thurston Memorial Sunday, a day set apart by the members of the Order of Railroad Telegraphers, to pay tribute to the memory of the departed founder of that organization. In Chicago Heights the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks and the Order of Railroad Telegraphers cooperated. The principal speakers were First Vice-President Brown of the O. R. T., ExBoard Member Soyster and General Chairman Jones of the Chicago Division No. 1.

D. Douglass Wilson, the editor of the Machinist Journal, whose death occurred a short time ago, held his editorial post for twenty years and was a very remarkable

a session of the toilers' parliament. Come and look and learn, shake hands with the Puritan and Pilgrim from old New England, the boys from the haunts of old Jules Nicolett and from the falls of St. Anthony and Minnehaha in alluring Minnesota, with Cavalier and Creole, from Virginia and old New Orleans. Eat, drink and make merry with the sons of Knickerbocker and Schuyler, from the Banks of the Majestic Hudson and the valley of the kaleidoscopic entrancing and romantic Mohawk, grasp the friendly hand of the boys from the banks of the Muddy Maumee who roamed in the haunts of Wayne and the worthy brother from the shores of Lake Erie sit up late and converse with the sons of the Pioneers hailing from wide awake Wisconsin who ramble through the silent Fox River Valley where Old Chief Oshkosh smoked the pipe of peace and courted the fair maids of the Winnebago tribe. And surely you want to meet the congenial warm hearted men from the upper Mississippithose who gaze from the flats below on the great sugar loaf near Winona, and from the zinc mines in the stamping ground of Jean Dubuque and the hearts of oak from the plains of the Dakotas, from the little Big Horn and the Rosebud, from out where the sands their golden treasures hide. Meet the convention committee, who will greet you with a smile, attend the sessions and watch the work, make suggestions. Where could your holidays be put to better use; come everybody, come. Oratory, wit, humor and eloquence, every minute of it education, much of it live questions and classics the like of which will arrest your attention and amaze you.

A former State Labor Commissioner of the State of New Hampshire in an address before the Association of Government Labor Officials of the United States and Canada, took a little sunshine out of the good old days, when he read the following schedule of hours posted in a factory in 1851-From Nov. 1, to 20, first bell at 4.30 a. m. work to begin as soon as the hands can see to work, March to Nov., work before breakfast, Sept. 20 to March 20 work continued until 7:30 p. m., September 1 to 20, until dark. There were four holidays, fast day, Christmas, Thanksgiving Day and the fourth of July.

Co-operation means success. Can we count on you?

And if the great man took the great axe,

And cut down the great tree,

And let it fall into the great sea,
What a splish splash that would be!

TRY.

Once let every man say TRY,
Very few on straw would lie,
Fewer still of want would die!
Pans would all have fish to fry;
Pigs would fill the poor man's sty;
Want would cease and need would fly,
Wives and children cease to cry;
Poor rates would not swell so high;
Things wouldn't go so much awry--
You'd be glad, and so would I.
Fraternally yours,

No. 172, CARD 7.

THE FACTORY CHILD.
By J. J. Galvin.

"O Father in Heaven, be good to me;
Sweet Mother of God, I trust in thee."
Thus prayed the Child of the Factory Town,
A girl of ten, yet broken down

By toil and fear, and a life so sad
The Recording Angel, in pity, had
Written these words, with severest look,
In letters of flame, in the Lost Soul Book:
"The brute who tortures a child will be
Punished in hell through eternity."

"My father was good, and kind, and true,
And mother loved me, as mothers do;
They passed away in the factory's grind,
And left an orphaned girl behind.
I do no wrong, and I do not shirk
The hardest kind of factory work;
But they pile it on me, oh, so high,
That I sometimes wish I, too, could die.

"I hear them talk of the land of the free,
Where each child has the same opportunity;
Yet I never played, like the master's girls,
Or had a doll with clustering curls,
Or a piece of cake, or a candy bear-
But maybe some day, when people care,
They'll change the laws, so ones like me
Will have a chance, as it ought to be."

She lived awhile, in youthful hope-
Like the flower of devotion, the heliotrope.
With childish faith in the heart of man,
Believed, as only children can;

And died with the prayer her mother taught

When men forget, God must be sought:

"O Father in Heaven, be good to me; Sweet Mother of God, I trust in thee."

THINGS THAT NEVER DIE.
The pure, the bright, the beautiful
That stirred our hearts in youth,
The impulses to wordless prayer,
The streams of love and truth;
The longing after something lost,
The spirit's yearning cry,
The striving after better hopes-
These things can never die.

The timid hand stretched forth to aid
A brother in his need;

A kindly word in grief's dark hour
That proves a friend indeed;
The plea for mercy softly breathed,
When justice threatens high,
The sorrow of a contrite heart-
These things shall never die.

Let nothing pass, for every hand
Must find some work to do;
Lose not a chance to waken love-
Be firm and just and true;
So shall a light that cannot fade
Beam on thee from on high,

And Angel voices say to thee-
"These things shall never die."
-Charles Dickens.

"THE JUDAS."

By Reginald Wright Kaufman.

I claim the Right to Work

For whatever the Boss will pay; If the wage is low, why out you go

And in I come to stay!

I've not your skill,

But I've got the will

To do as my masters say.

I claim the Right to Work-
Till my very soul is raw;

I claim the right for day and night
So long as a cent I draw;
For when you quit

I earn my bit;

So I'm for a twelve-hour law.

I claim the Right to Work

In a shop where few may thrive;

In dust and smell, or fire trap's hell
From five o'clock till five;
Though every breath

Is sick with death,
What matter if I'm alive?

I force the wages down?

Or the many to slave and shirk? Although I quicken, the hundreds sicken Amid the muck and mirk? Well, what care I

If the workers die?

I claim the Right to Work!

THE SHOP GIRL.

I dread the light of tomorrow's dawn
And the weight of the future years.
My life is blurred by a hope deferred
And my heart is dumb with fears.
And my hands that rise to the sullen skies
Are wet with a woman's tears.

I never may know surcease from woe,
But I know of fortune's frown;

I am one of a score of thousands more
Who toil in the cruel town.
And the wolves of lust and poverty
Are waiting to drag us down.

(Author unknown.)

BE A MAN.

It takes a little courage,
And a little self-control,
And some grim determination,
If you want to reach a goal.
It takes a deal of striving,

And a firm and stern-set chin,
No matter what the battle,
If you're really out to win.

There's no Easy Path to Glory,
There's no Rosy Road to Fame.
Life, however we may view it,
Is no simple parlor game,
But its prizes call for fighting,
For endurance and for grit,
For rugged disposition,

And a "don't-know-when-to-quit."

You must take a blow or give one,

You must risk and you must lose, And expect that in the struggle You will suffer from a bruise. But you mustn't wince or falter, If a fight you once begin; Be a man and face the battleThat's the only way to win.

THE EVIL CONSEQUENCE OF

NEGLIGENCE.

Perhaps there has never been a more critical period through which organized labor has passed than the one through which it is now passing.

On every hand we witness unemployment, pauperism, starvation, crime, misery, "charity," injustice, cruelty and every other conceivable ill of society in vast and ever increasing abundance. All these ills are suffered not only by non-union workers, but by all workers, whether they are organized for their mutual welfare or not. But who is it that does not suffer these social tortures? It is the smug capitalist who lives by the sweat of other men's brows and abstains from that degrading occupation called work. He it is who "should worry" about present conditions, and he it is who is not the least bit anxious to better conditions. He it is, who, through the pressure of a false economic social structure which is crumbling at its very base and threatens to engulf us all in a hellish cataclysm, is seeking to stave off the inevitable consequences of capitalism just a little longer, so far as he is concerned, by plunging this nation into a sea of carnage by placing guns upon the shoulders of railway clerks, the trainmen, the firemen, the conductors, the telegraphers, the engineers and all other transportation workers, the farmers, the factory workers, the moulders, the machinists, the carpenters, the masons and all other workers of this country useful in the construction of civilization, for the purpose of shooting the railway clerks and the others named of Mexico, or Germany, or both in the name of patriotism, but for the real purpose of gaining a new market for the disposition of his surplus raw material which the workers of this country produced for him but cannot buy back for obvious reasons, and for the purpose of gaining a new field of exploitation through the system of wage slavery by pressing into his service the workers of Mexico. I repeat that there has never been a worse time for the working class than the present. Look around

you again. Labor leaders imprisoned everywhere for grave crimes of which they were convicted by false and perjured testimony and trumped up charges. Remember the affairs at Ludlow, Colo. (Oh, never forget that murderous and repulsive affair), Calumet, Mich., West Virginia and Patterson, N. J. Sum all these past and present conditions up in your mind and see if you do not arrive at the conclusion that labor had best look to its laurels before it is too late.

Not only is labor being persecuted on the industrial field, but just take a peep at some of the legislation passed on the political field within the past year with reference to labor. The State Constabulary in Pennsylvania and other states (legalized and organized strike breakers), repeal of labor laws fought for and won by labor after years of laborious effort in New York state and many others. Political reaction everywhere. And don't forget the courts. Injunctions against strikers, construction of legislation such as the Sherman Anti-Trust Act making it applicable to labor organizations when it was really aimed at and intended to apply only to combinations of capital. Do not forget the Danbury Hatter's case. No wonder labor in general is crushed, stunned and crestfallen. With conditions a thousand times worse than herein depicted, how can we expect it to be otherwise?

These conditions are but the effect of a cause, namely, private ownership of public utilities. This condition-private ownership of public utilities-is allowed to exist and continue because the workers are willing that it should. But do they realize that the condition mentioned exists only because they allow it to and do they realize the significance of the effects-the conditions above mentioned-and their power to abolish it all? Indeed they do not. They have the numbers, but they haven't the education with which to overthrow the system. They depend for their information and education upon the capitalist press, and the capitalist press will not tell them anything that will tend to educate the worker to a realization of their

power to abolish the profit system and thereby deprive the capitalists of their soft picking. A child can see that. And they do not stop at supporting the capitalist press in preference to the working class press and depending upon the former for their "news" and education, but they do not take advantage of what little means they have of protecting themselves, namely, the labor organization of which they happen to be a member, by supporting it in every way possible. If they performed this small portion of their duty to themselves and to their class they would soon learn that they must not depend upon the capitalist press for their news and education, but that they must depend upon their own means of disseminating information and education among the workers by means of the working class press. The working class press is now very weak as compared with the capitalist press, but by the support of all workers it could be made a mighty bulwark in labor's struggle for emancipation.

The primary reason then for the existence of the present social chaos and that which is to inevitably follow, is the fact that the workers do not support their labor organizations. And the members of the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks are no exception to the general rule. What do I mean by support? Do I mean by this that the members are discharging their duty by paying their dues promptly? This is one of the important essentials, but it is only one of them. Suppose by paying their dues promptly, all members considered their duty to their organization completely discharged, what could they accomplish? To illustrate, suppose a man desired to build a house and in order to do so, piled the money which it would cost to build the house on the lot where he wished to build it; how long would it take the money to do it? On the other hand, if he used his brain to plan the structure, the money to purchase the material and his two good arms to perform the necessary labor, how long would it take him to do it? The difference in the length of time it would take is the difference in the effectiveness and value to the labor movement of the member who pays his dues only and the member who pays his dues, plans the work and constitution of the organization and does the work. You see all three of these essentials were necessary in the construction of the house. Without all three,

the house could not be constructed. And without all three of these essentials the labor movement cannot be constructed. So any member who is not performing all three duties is not supporting his organization in the meaning of the use of the term in this article. A member who simply pays his dues is performing but one-third of his duty and if all members did the same there would be no organization; therefore, such a member or members is not supporting the organization.

It is true that labor is not organized in the economic or industrial field today as it should be. It is true that the workers in the transportation industry, like the workers in nearly all other industries, are divided into numerous separate organizations with which to face a united front of capitalists. And it is true that by being so organized they invariably scab on one another. This state of affairs is to be deeply regretted, but no one is to blame for it but the members of the existing organizations. It could all be changed by them, and only by them, if they so chose; but, as was stated in the preceding paragraph, they do not generally support even the organization which they now have.

We, as members of the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, must face this issue squarely and ascertain to what extent the existing conditions and immediate future prospects of labor are due to our negligence-our failure to support our particular organization. Since it is plainly evident that the economic interests of all workers are common, we should endeavor to learn to what extent we can better our own conditions by bettering the conditions of labor in general. And in order to accomplish this we must all co-operate in supporting our particular brotherhood, not to the detriment of our fellow organizations, but to the advantage and interests of labor in general. Let us get down to brass tacks, then, and after discovering our lameness, admit it, and set about to remedy the situation.

It is difficult to analyze the condition of the Brotherhood as a whole, but a typical lodge can be taken as a criterion of its condition. In my observations, I have found that the activity or inactivity of an individual lodge is a fairly good guide to the general condition of the organization as a whole. So I will ask you to consider for a moment how enthusiastic and cordial in their support of their organization are the mem