the bill, as they do all other bills. But, my Brothers, how can you expect a party of men, who never came in contact with men and methods, except those identical with their own, to make the most acceptable terms for us with the general manager, who is not only a member of an association of his peers, but a man surrounded by any and all information bearing on the question at hand? It is to be wondered at that our committees, handicapped as they are, do as well as they do. I hope I shall not be misinterpreted as proposing unduly aggressive or hostile measures with the railroad managers, generally, on the assumption so frequently adduced, that they are our common enemies. On the contrary, I regard the general managers as our best friends, but as I have said, they are there to produce dividends or to explain to their board of directors why they have failed. When we can convince them that our arguments and claims for increased rates are correct, there is but little doubt of their granting them, but the claim has to be made in a way that gives the manager a substantial reason for granting it. I should like to ask, with not the least idea of criticism, but prompted wholly by interest in our order, "Is our Brotherhood keeping up with the procession? Are we napping, in our snug self-satisfaction, while younger and less potent railroad organizations are passing us in the great race to better their conditions, by getting increased rates for increased responsibilities?" I most sincerely hope that every member of our noble order may read carefully what I have written and ponder over my suggestions, and further, that they may conclude that there is "more truth than poetry" in what he reads. Go to your Divisions, Brothers, and instruct your delegate to the Memphis convention, to vote for the reduction in size of the conventions-he will find plenty of resolutions there bearing on that question. Also instruct him to introduce or favor some means that will afford our general committee the necessary light in their business to serve us in the most acceptable and profitable way, and above all, my Brothers, do not raise unjust objections to paying a small assessment for committee work. Do not feel that you are doing your committee an invaluable favor by appointing them to such positions, and that it is a condescension on your part to pay such bills. The committeeman makes nothing more out of the deal than he has made for you. He is no more interested than you should be. He has nothing more than his own job to protect, but you have chosen him because of his peculiar fitness for committee work. I hope those who take issue with me will kindly refrain from personalities and set forth their views in arguments supported by solid facts. I am not making a "grand-stand" play, neither do I hope to feather my nest, for I have served my full quota of committee work, and am no longer in it, but I still feel a deep and abiding interest in the Brotherhood that has long been very dear to W. W. HALL, Div. 186. Drink and the Worker. MISSOURI VALLEY, Oct. 29, 1905. EDITOR JOURNAL: The most important question that confronts the working class at the present time is that of using intoxicating liquors. In relation to this question, Leslie's Monthly, in a recent issue, said: It is the patronage of the rum shop far more often than it is the low wage that spells squalor in homes, heartbreaks for wives, and every woe for the helpless and dependent. Hence come rags, hence comes desolation, hence comes every form of brutality, vice and crime that disgrace humanity. Few wives are beaten, few homes are turned into hells, because of hard work and low wages; it is the drink devil who wields the whip and brings in the hell. There is no taskmaster who drives so cruelly as he or lays on so heavy a lash. Much labor both in its character and in its rewards may be akin to slavery, but there is no bondage so galling, no servitude which exacts so much and gives so little, as the slavery of strong drink. Among all other good and true aims set before them, let the trade unions declare an unalterable and deadly enmity to the drink traffic, and they will achieve a larger good for workingmen than in all other efforts to which they can put their hearts and hands. Boycott the saloon, order a general strike along this line, and there will be a result in the homes and by the firesides of the world's toilers that will rejoice and bless humanity. All classes of people drink more or less, even some of the clergy like to take a little "schnapps," but the working class consume more liquors than any other class because they are vastly in the majority; consequently, there are to be found more drunkards among the workers. It would be a grand thing if organized labor should " boycott the saloon and organize a general strike along that line," but a strike of this kind would not have the sympathy or get the support from the people it should because the liquor interests control politics. The heavy tax imposed upon the manufacturer and sale of intoxicating liquors are for the purpose of raising revenues to pay the expenses of the government, and also to help maintain the public schools. This method of taxation has been adopted in order to have the consumer pay the tax, and as the working class are so much in the majority, they pay the larger portion of it. The large profits or revenues received by national, state and municipal governments is the cause of liquor interests controlling politics, because if there is no profit there are no politics. The wealthy distiller and brewer are in favor of a high license law because it gives them a better opportunity to monopolize the manufacture and sale of liquors. The rich man favors high license because he realizes that if revenue is not raised from this source the United States Supreme Court may reverse itself and decide an income tax constitutional. The members of the different churches also favor it, at least a majority of them do, the members who are prohibitionists favor high license if they cannot get prohibitory laws enacted. Other members favor it in order to escape a direct tax. They may not use intoxicating liquors, but at the same time vote for the taxation of it. The liquor dealers have an association and it has a great influence in politics, and when they use that influence they can elect any candidate for office that best suits their interests. Each liquor dealer in every precinct can control a certain number of votes, and they are mostly workingmen's votes because, as Bishop Potter says, "The saloon is the poor man's club room. In the year 1904 the people of the United States consumed spirits, malt liquors and wines to the amount of 1,605,851,455 gallons; this includes both domestic and imported. In the year 1904 the national government received in revenues from spirits and fermented liquors $184,893,474. Millions of dollars are collected annually through high license laws. Greater New York alone for the year ending April 30, 1904, issued 7,827 licenses to sell liquors; this includes hotels, saloons and club rooms, and for which the city received $11,516,896, and the working class paid the most of this great amount of money. And this is not all that is collected from the sale of drink, another tax is imposed on those who go out for a good time and next morning find themselves in the police court. If the working class can be educated to keep away from saloons and save their money, business would get dull in the criminal and police courts, but of course a large number of "Jim Crow " lawyers, political "grafters," and hangers-on would be out of a job. GEO. H. CONNER. A Vital Question. EAST ST. LOUIS, ILL., Nov. 7, 1905. EDITOR JOURNAL: Allow me a little space for the airing of a subject of vital importance to each and every member of the B. of L. E. Our present insurance laws leave much to be desired. A member losing a hand, a foot, one or both eyes, receives the amount of his policy; so far so good, but how about the hundred and one other causes of disability from which he is not immune? Paralysis, Bright's disease, ophthalmic troubles, or any of a long list of ills to which human flesh is heir may incapacitate us for the service-what then? We find ourselves adrift in the world almost as helpless as when we came into it, with a family to support, assessments to be paid and nine times out of ten not a dollar in the bank, all our earnings, over and above living expense, having gone into our insurance, and the best we can expect is that on proper proof of our inability to meet our assessments our Division carries us, money thus expended to be deducted from the amount of policy when payable, while the insured who, in some cases, has already paid in enough to start him in some little business venture that would mean a living for his family and the saving of his own self-respect, drifts around doing anything he is physically able to do at any price he can get for his work, in order to keep him out of the poorhouse. When a young man begins life as a railroad employee with a determination to succeed in his particular department of the service, he puts his whole energy into his work, and with long hours and arduous duties, has no time to fit himself for other than his chosen occupation; and, therefore, after ten, fifteen or twenty years spent in the service, he finds himself incapacitated for further duty along that line, there is no choice of professions open to him and often, after a life of hardearned independence, he finds himself, through no fault of his own, reduced to a life of penury, dependent on the charity of others, and in some cases even forced to live separate from his wife. This need not be if our insurance protected us as it should. What we need is an insurance that covers the whole ground -death, disability, accident and sickness, and if our present insurance laws cannot be amended, create a new department. Issue policies for not less than $1,000 and as high as wanted, paying weekly indemnity for sickness or accident, insured to receive a full amount of policy for total disability from any cause. Such insurance would greatly benefit all concerned and do away with much of the charity work now necessary, and with Brother Heriot I believe it would be a financial improvement both for the order and the members. Now, Brother "Eagle Eye," wake up, get out your" Constitution and Statutes,” and turn to page 85, Sec. 42, and read it carefully. If, after a careful perusal of Sec. 42, you consider yourself and family sufficiently protected, rest easy; but if, on the contrary, you desire a better protection, go to work for it. This movement means just as much to you as to me, so let us pull together and try to do something along this line at our next convention. Let us discuss this question pro and con and never give up unless it is clearly proven disadvantageous to the cause of the B. of L. E. Let us hear from everybody. Fraternally yours, GEO. HOLMES, Div. 512. Child Labor. COLUMBUS, GA., Sept. 5, 1905. EDITOR JOURNAL: When Jesus was on earth He said, "Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” The owners of the cotton factories say, "Little children, come into my poorly ventilated institution of Child Labor, and work for me from early morn until dewy eve for a bare pittance. For your daily and almost unremitting toil I will only pay you enough to buy you a few clothes to cover your little thin emaciated forms; I will pay you enough to buy a few morsels of bread. I will employ you while you are young. The work I give you to do will make you old while yet in your teens. Your faces will grow pallid from long confinement in a stifling atmosphere. You will grow up uneducated and illiterate, and you will perhaps help support your strong father who has virtually sold you into a condition that borders on to slavery. You may be herded together in factory boarding houses where disease and misery reign supreme. When you drink from a tin cup and very hurriedly eat your indigestible food from a tin plate, I will drink from a cut-glass goblet and eat my meals in leisure surrounded by every modern luxury. I pay for this with ill-gotten gains that I have wrung from little children who work for me for a paltry sum. "I have children myself, but they are not like you. They are too human and too well bred to be like you. My children are God's children. You are not. "On each beautiful Sabbath morning I will have my children dressed in robes of finery; on their fingers I will place sparkling jewels, all of which I have wrung from you in defiance of God's law, and I will send them to Sunday school-one that you cannot attend, because if you were welcome you haven't clothes suitable to wear on such an occasion. "I will each Sabbath attend services at a magnificent church which I helped to build with money made for me by your wee baby hands, and there I will listen to a golden sermon preached by a golden preacher who is afraid to mention your pitiful condition for fear he might hurt my feelings and he depends on me to contribute a liberal share toward his salary. "Some of the shekels I wring from you will go towards charity that will not reach you. To give a little helps my standing in the community in which I live. "I will exercise a form of tyranny over you, and the law, which my money and influence to some extent control, will protect me as an oppressor of children. I sell my stock to the most influential men in our land and this gives me power. You cannot hurt me at the polls because I have kept you too ignorant to vote for a man who would improve your condition. I am a member of a brilliant society, and am highly connected; you have no advantage of fortune or connection. You must wear the bitter yoke, while I lash and drive you." Brothers, is this condition right? You who love your little ones, shall not this great evil be put aside? Let us say to the men who own these factories, "You may grind the lives out of strong men, but in the name of God and humanity, you must keep your gluttonous hands off of the children." Let us strike the shackles from their little limbs. Let us educate them and give them a fair start in life, that they may be come useful and intelligent citizens of this great land of which we proudly boast and call free. Child labor as it exists in a great many localities is a menace to our future civilization, and we should assert the rights of these little children in such a manner as to terminate such disregard for human feeling. We must have laws that will permanently restrain the men who own these factories from veritably crushing the lives out of little children. There should not be the apathy of class towards class as does exist, but every American citizen should strive for the common good of all, and more particularly the education of children in preference to slavery in cotton factories. Men who work children or employ them in cotton factories lack moral sensibility, because they know the life in cotton factories does not tend to elevate the morals of those so employed. Let us emancipate the children, and tell these institutious of slavery that they may prosper, that in fact we want them to prosper, but that they must obey the dictates of humanity and free the children or refuse to employ them in their youth. The masters of these institutions believe the ruin of children a small matter compared with their love of gain and comfort. Let these men know that they must employ men at men's wages, and not destroy the health and happiness of children. To be a benefactor of these children is carrying out the wish of our Saviour; to persecute them is but carrying out the dictates of some one even worse than Satan. We should sympathize and tenderly care for the little ones, and shrink from doing them harm, and forever shield them from a condition that borders onto slavery. The voice of right is the voice of freedom, and it should reverberate from one end of this broad land of ours to the other, proclaiming freedom for children. The meaner a man is the more lasting is the bitter memory of him in the minds of those who knew him as an unjust and unrighteous man; and the man who is responsible for working children in factories, knowing the evil consequences, will live in the minds of men as one devoid of a drop of "the milk of human kindness." We want our coming generation to progress, and not deteriorate; and if we allow children to work ten or twelve hours a day in stifling factories, their forms will be stunted and their mental faculties impaired to such an extent that they will be useless except as human machines. Every good man should be a worker in the cause of humanity and should denounce in no uncertain terms child labor in cotton factories. To ruin and destroy a race of men is no small wrong, and the destroyer should be forced to leave off his accursed work. The only believers in child labor are those who have an interest involved, and that an utter selfish one. We want our nation to grow in truth and right, and not in sin and degradation. The privilege of education, of culture, and religion should be as free to the factory employee as it is the owner of the factory. Men often think they are doing right, from their point of view, when a close analysis of their actions would show their destructiveness. The owners of the cotton factories in working children attempt to condone a grievous wrong to suit their actions, from their view-point, when such actions are very destructive to a large per cent of humanity. W. A. KLINE, Div. 409. Railroad Employees' Home. HIGHLAND PARK, ILL.. Nov. 1, 1905. EDITOR JOURNAL: The following donations have been received at the Railroad Men's Home for the month of October, 1905; O. R. C. Divisions. L. of A. C. Divisions.. L. S. to B. of L. F. Lodges... J. O. Johnson, of Rolla, Mo., through W. K. J. R. Carr, of Div. 397, O. R. C.. MISCELLANEOUS. 5.00 5. 00 1 00 2.00 10 00 2.00 5.00 $158 25 $ 35 31 210 60 176.95 78 36 78 00 113 65 158 25 53 bo I 00 600 2.00 1 50 I 00 9 05 5.00 5 00 5.00 5 00 I 00 I 00 1 00 50 50 3 82 382 2. 00 3.00 I 00 962 31 One box of household supplies from Div. 328, L. of A. T. Two boxes of canned fruit from Div. 49, L. A. C. One box of supplies from Div. 223, L. A. T. Box of tobacco tags from Div. 81, O. R. C., Div. FOUNDER GI∙A. TO B. L. E Ladies' Department Communications for publication must be written on one side of the paper. Noms de plume are always permissible, but to receive consideration must be signed by the full name and address of the author, and addressed to the Editress, MRS. M. E. CASSELL, 922 Dennison Av., Columbus, Ohio, not later than the 8th of the month. The Editress reserves the right to revise, reject or use matter sent in, governed entirely on its merits. Christmas Carol. The bells are ringing, ringing loud and sweet; Oh, ring, glad bells, ring loud and sweet, Oh, story by the ages told- They knelt before Thee, offering Oh, ring, glad bells, ring loud and sweet The song that centuries shall repeat, Of peace on earth, to men good will. The Mistletoe. "Forth to the woods did merry men go, To gather in the mistletoe." In the far golden days, this beautiful parasite was regarded as a sacred plant. Whether because it was found oftenest upon the oak and the apple tree-trees which were regarded as sacred, particularly the oak-is not very clear, or perhaps because of its airy, mysterious origin. At all events, the gathering in of the mistletoe was hedged about with imposing form and ceremony. Among the ancient Druids it was called all-heal, and the branches were cut with golden sickles or upright hatchets of brass, and carefully preserved in a white cloth. We read that in later times numbers of these hatchets have been found all over the British Isles. The very name, mistletoe, suggests a world of enchantment in its lingering and musical syllables. What matter where it came from? The pictures and the memories that cluster about it are always the same, and ever new. Many a chapter of the "old, old story" is hung upon its graceful stems, and poetry and romance have long ago claimed it for their very own. What matters whether we get the charming word from Icelandic mistiltein, meaning a slender staff, or from the Celtic musoql, signifyiny moss? It is to us just the mistletoe, lovely and mysterious, with its tender, greenish blossoms and its white, waxy berries. As if to connect it with the more earthly plants, the berries contain seedone each. But, again, seeming to "scorn the sordid soil," the very birds are enticed into perpetuating its ethereal existence. They are said to be fond of the berries, which have a viscous quality that makes them adhere to the bills of the little creatures, until to be rid of the encumbrance they persistently strike them upon the barks of trees, and thereby plant the seed indefinitely. Naturally the mistletoe would be prominent in mythology. We read how Baldur, the northern god, was killed by an arrow made from this magic plant. The story runs that his devoted mother, Frigga, exacted an oath from everything except the mistletoe, that they would never harm her son. |