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LABOR AND INDUSTRY
SOME ITEMS OF INTEREST TO
UNION WORKMEN.
Superiority of AmerlruH Worker* —Home
CoaimcniUlilo Thing* Bono at the < <*'"
volition of JVfachinUt* Ite Sure Kiglit
Before You (Jo to Cuba.
(lurlo Iku cm Forolgji MlMlAn.
So you're wantin’ my subscription for the
missionary cause.
And you say that Uncle lice la one o
them that never jaws
When he’s asked to do his duty, sendln
out the gospel light
To the far-off, savage heathen gropin' in
tile gloom o’ night.
yos, I've done my duly, I’arson, payln all
that I could stand,
For “from Greenland's icy mountains
and "from Infly’s coral strand.
I could hear them heathen callin for the
gospel's savin’ power.
And the missionary service Beemed a
blessed, holy hour.
But this year It seems so dlff'rent and
things seems all turned around,^
And old "Greenland's icy mountains has
a queer and funny sound;
For them heathen don't seem willin' to
be gospelized by us.
And we've got to change our methods
and we’re in an awful muss.
And It seems we'vo been ml (taken and
have lost a lot o’ time.
And our sentimental foolin' might In fact
be called a crime;
For a hundred years’ of preachln pears
has done but llttlo good
And our missionary teachers might as
well been sawin’ wood.
While our pious Yankee preachers with
their blbles and their schools
Count a hundred Christian converts made
by simple gospel tools,
England with her shells and cannon on
rich "Indy's coral strand"
Counts her millions and repeats It down
In "Afrlc's golden sand.”
This T've gethered from your sermons
and from ones T seen in print,
And I guess our "scribes and elders
have at last took up the hint
Ttiat the big commercial bosses that are
usin' English means
Have been givin' them Jtst lately over in
the Philippines.
Bo no missionary money comes tills year
from Uncle Ike,
Only what he pays as war tax. No, I’ve
not "gone on a strike,’’
But if Gatlin guns is better than the
story of the cross,
Then your missionary preachln's nothin’
but a wicked loss.
No, I*>n not n giftin' stingy on the mis
sionary line,
Nor I'm payin' more'n I used to, but thl3
queer old heart o' mine
Goes out more to them "home missions”
that are doin’ all they can
To convert our ttghtln' Christians to the
brotherhood o’ man.
—George McA. Miller.
I ~
American Superiority.
The recent orders for American iron
bridges for the Soudan, and American
locomotives for railways in England,
given against British competition,
have caused the Englishman to stop
and take his bearings—find out where
he is at. Mr. Barnes, secretary of the
Amalgamated Society of Engineers,
has been issuing to the press state
ments showing that English output
rannot be increased at present, and
•that all the orders given to American
arms are simply surplus. But what
Mr. Barnes does not take into consid
eration in his statement is the fact
that English mechanics working the
tame number of hours per day and
the same number of Says per month,
don’t accomplish much more than half
the work done by American mechanics
in the same time, not to mention the
loss of time by numerous holidays.
Marshal Halsted, American consul at
Birmingham, England, in a report to
the State department, points out that
the American workman should uot fall
into the error of the foreign workman,
hut should hang on to what he has
gained abroad, for England is on the
fair road to taking all that America
can deliver to her. Mr. Halsted says:
“Some time ago, when reading in
American papers the accounts of the
annual meeting of one of our national
labor organizations, and noticing the
friendly way in which British labor
leaders were received, I hoped, yet did
not at the time feel that 1 dared ex
press the hope—lt is so easy to be
misunderstood —that all the views of
these British labor leaders would not
be accepted by the American workmen,
and that their influence would not have
a pernicious effect upon our industries
as my observation here leads me to
believe they tfave had on their own
British industries. Now that our ex
port trade has become so important a
factor in our prosperity American
labor unions will find it, I believe, to
their own advantage to consider care
fully the effect any union act may have
on that trade. It is a tribute to the
faithfulness and energy of American
workmen that American manufactur
ers can compete in the world’s market
while paying for the highest priced
labor in the world, but this is at the
same time the cheapest, for American
workmen work and give good value
for the money they receive, taking few
holidays, and do not shirk duri .g
working hours.”
Murh ItiUt'N Convention.*
A few days ago the eighth biennial
session of the International Associa
tion of Machinists was held at Buffalo,
N. Y. The order is flourishing, and the
reports show the advantages of organ
ization in a strong "light. Sixty-nine
lodges were organized in the last two
years, and 8,629 names \yere added to
the roll; 125 lodges gained an increase
m wages of 10 per cent; 35 prevented a
reduction averaging 10 per cent; 42 pre
vented the introduction of the running
of two or more machines; 32 prevented
introduction of piece work; 39 secured
time and a half for overtime, and
double time for Sundays and holidays;
22 prevented a reduction of overtime
from time-and-a-half to time-and-a
quarter and’single time. Nearly an
lodges secured benefits to machinists
in unionizing shops, regulation of ap
prenticeship questions, recognition of
shop committees, etc. There was paid
in sick benefits, $11,053; loaned to
members, $3,806; personal loans to
members, $2,838; paid in local benefits,
contributed to local lodges, to organ
ization other than machinists, $12,-
981.62; hall rents, salaries, supplies,
per capita taxes, etc., $108,761.56; funds
In local treasuries, $47,793.70. This is
a good showing, and of itself proves
that the machinists is a business or
ganization. It took action at the meet
ing that even more strongly proves
that it is In the field for business pur
poses only. The old-time secret work
—ritual, manual, etc.—was almost all
abolished, and, as one delegate ex
pressed it, "the usual socialistic reso
lution for the ownership and control
of the universe was sand-bagged.” I
have repeatedly argued that the “se
cret work” of most trades unions is
one of the things that keeps men from
joining them, and I am glad to find
my opinions on this subject shared by
at least one of the great unions. And
when the machinists “sandbagged” the
socialistic resolution they simply but
decisively announced that their organ
ization is in existence for certain pur
poses, and that support of or hostility
to economic or political theories is not
one of them.
Be Sure You're ltight Before Yon Go.
Many mechanics are considering the
advisability of seeking employment in
Cuba and Porto Rico. Those islands
hold out great possibilities, that will
be realized. But just now they are no
place for a man who does not exactly
know what he must meet, one who Is
not sure that his Income will .enable
him to pay his bills and lay up some
thing. Here is a case in point. Eight
Chicago plumbers are hammering away
at pipe and dabbling in solder down in
Havana, and spending their leisure
tinle in writing letters to their friends
at home, bemoaning their luck. The
eight went to the Cuban metropolis
about April 1, under contract with one
Connolly, a Chicago man. Connolly
agreed to pay their transportation
there and back and to pay them the
union scale of wages—at that time
$3.75 a day. With visions of a haDpy
life in the tropics, where no one nad
to work hard to save oceans of money,
they departed. The state of their feel
ings at this time may be explained by
the following abstract from'a letter re
ceived from one of them the other day
by Secretary Ben Abbott of their
union in Chicago:
“I guess we are up against it, good
and plenty. We didn’t do so well as we
thought when we signed that contract
with Connolly. Board is $lO a week,
and pretty bad at that, and we find that
a bunch of plumbers from Denver and
New York are getting $6 a day and
board and lodging. We have asked
Connolly for our return fare, but he
won’t give it to us, and I don’t see how
we are going to get It until he gets
good and ready. We are working in
a building erected in the year 1500,
which Is In a fine state of repair to
this day. It is very close to where the
Maine was blown up. Connolly prom
ised us work for a month, but, as it is
a $35,000 job, I think we will be here
for some time —getting $3.75 a day and
paying $lO a week for bad grub. Is
so homesick that we expect him to
jump off the dock any day and try to
swim to Tampa.”
r
Healing by Color.
This novel system is a mode of heal
ing which is much vaunted in certain
quarters of India., This may be Called
“color healing.” It consists in admin
istering water in glasses of different
colors, from which color the draught
obtains its properties which are mag
ical in their effect —provided the pa
tient Is endowed with sufficient faith.
Water in a red glass will cure epilepsy,
insomnia, nervoqs diseases, the plague,
fevers and agues, and half a score of
the other diseases which mortal flesh
is heir to. In a blue glass it is a sov
ereign remedy for the palsy, for falling
sickness, for typhoid and for numerous
other allied and nonrelated complaints,
while in a green glass it is a specific
for other complaints, and in yellow for
yet another batch.
An Awful Fling.
Mrs. Styles—l’d have you understand
that I know a good many worse men
than my husband. Mrs. Myles—My
dear, you must be more particular
about picking your acquaintances.
An Unpleasant Thought.
Fred's Father (sternly)—My boy, you
don’t know the vaNkk *)f money. Fred
—Yes, I do, father; only I don’t like
to hlnk about it.
IS NOTHING WRONG?
REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE ON
MONOPOLY.
A Kermon Killed with Hot Shot for the
IMutocrwtH Monopoly the Rrlbe-
Oiver, the Thief, the Wholesale Op
pressor. ,
The Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage weekly
preaches to a larger congregation than
any clergyman on earth, owing to the
fact that his sermons are published in
full by thousands of American newspa
pers. One of the great dailies that has
not failed for years to print Talmage's
weekly sermon is that bulwark of plu
tocracy, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat,
and the following extract from one of
Rev. Talmage’s recent sermons was
clipped from that paper. Never before
did the Globe-Democrat admit to its
columns such a scathing denunciation
of monopolies and the monopoly rule
which it is that paper’s chosen policy to
uphold.
Rev. Mr. Talmage s^d:
“In the first place, I remark: There is
a greedy, all-grasping monster who
comes in as suitor seeking the hand of
this republic, and that monster is
known by the name of Monopoly. His
scepter is made out of the iron of the
rail track and the wire of telegraphy.
He does everything for his own advan
tage and for the robbery of the people.
Things went on from bad to worse, un
til in the three legislatures of New
York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania
for a long time Monopoly decided ev
erything. If Monopoly favor a law, it
passes; if Monopoly opposes a law, it Is
rejected. Monopoly stands in the rail
road depot putting into his pockets in
one year $200,000,000 in excess of all
reasonable charges for services. Mon
opoly holds in his one hand the steam
pow*er of locomotion, and in the other
the electricity of swift communication.
Monopoly has the Republican party in
one pocket and the Democratic party
in the other pocket. Monopoly decides
nominations and elections —city elec
tions, state elections,national elections.
With bribes he secures the votes of leg
islators, giving them free passes, giv
ing appointments' to needy relatives to
lucrative positions, employing them
as attorneys if they are lawyers, carry
ing their goods 15 per cent less if they
are merchants, and If he find a case
very stubborn as well as very import
ant, puts down before him the hard
cash of bribery.
“But monopoly Is not so easily caught
now as when during the term of Mr.
Buchanan the legislative committee in
one of our states explored and exposed
the manner in which a certain railway
company had obtained a donation of
public land. It was found out that 13
of the senators of that state received
$175,000 among them, sixty members of
the lower house of .hat state received
between $5,000 and $lO,OOO each, the
governor of that state received $50,000,
hl3 clerk received $5,000, the lieutenant
governor received $lO,OOO, all the clerks
of the legislature received $5,000 each,
while $50,000 were divided among the
lobby agents. That thing on a larger,
or smaller scale is all the time going
on in some of the states of the union,
but it is not so blundering as it used to
be, and therefore not so easily exposed
or arrested. I tell you that the over
shadowing curse of the United States
today is Monopoly. He puts his hand
upon every bushel of wheat, upon every
sack of salt, upon every ton of coal, and
every man, woman and child in he
United States feels the touch of that
moneyed despotism. I rejoice that in
twenty-four states of the union already
anti-monopoly leagues have been es
tablished. God speed them in the work
of liberation.
“I have nothing to say against capi
talists; a man has a right to all the
money he can make honestly—l have
nothing to say against corporations as
such; without them no great enterprise
would be possible, but what I do say is
that the same principles are to be ap
plied to capitalists and to corporations
that are applied to the poorest man
and the plainest laborer. What is wrong
for me is wrong for great corporations.
If I take from you your property with
out any adequate compensation. I am a
thief, and if a railway damages the
property of the people without making
any adequate compensation, that is a
gigantic theft. What is wrong on a
small scale is wrong on a large scale.
Monopoly in England has ground hun
dreds of thousands of her best people
into semi-starvation, and in Ireland has
driven multitudinous tenants almost to
madness, and in the United States pro
poses to take the wealth of 60,000,000 or
70.000,000 of people and put it in a few
silken wallets.
“Monopoly, brazen-faced, iron-finger
ed,vulture-hearted Monopoly, offers his
hand to this republic. He stretches it
out over the- lakes and up the great
railroads and over the telegraph poles
of the continent, and says: “Here is
my heart and hand; be mine forever.
Let the millions of the people north,
south, east and west forbid the banns
of that marriage, forbid them at the
ballot box. forbid them on the plat
form, forbid them by great organiza
tions, forbid them by the overwhelm
ing sentiment of an -outraged nation,
forbid them by the protest of the
church of God, forbid them by prayer to
high heaven. That Herod shall not
have this Abigail. It shall not be to
all-devouring Monopoly that this land
is to be married."
The editorial columns of the Globe-
Democrat and every other plutocratic
newspaper in America habitually de
nies that there is any foundation for
such Populistic talk as the above by
the great preacher. Yet a large major
ity of the voters, and thousands of Re
publicans, will affirm that all of Tal
nuage’s charges against monopolism are
true, and that the situation is fully aa
serious as he represents. The asser
tion of the monopoly-owned daily
newspapers that ‘nothing is wrong” is
not accepted by the masses of the peo
ple.
But what is to be done? Can Dr,
Talmage and the rest of the Americar
citizens reasonably expect a political
party controlled by such bosses as
Hanna. Platt and Quay, and which In
cludes- in its membership every largt
monopolfst, to destroy monopoly? Cat
we expect any help from the pot-housi
and gambling house politicians of New
York and Chicago, by whatever polit
ical name they may call themselves:
Shall we allow Wall street to draft tht
plans for our campaign agaiust mon
opoly ?
Such men as Dr. Talmage, Gov. Pin
gree and Mayor Jones of Toledo- all
vote the Republican ticket —as yet. II
they are honest and intelligent men
they can never vote it again, as the
monopoly control of that party i be
coming too apparent.
Next year is destined to be a Popuiisi
year. The anti-monopoly forces will
not everywhere carry' the Populist flag,
but the battle all along the line will bo
for Populist as against plutocratic prin
ciples, with Bryan as the popular lead
er. And it will be a winning fight.
The tactics during the coming year ol
the combined usurers and trusts will
make a political ground swell inevi
table.
Civilization's Weak Spots.
A Polish laborer in Honolulu writes
to a socialist paper in Austrian Poland
describing hoW he and forty others fell
into the legal slavery—sanctioned by
the U. S. senate —of the Sandwich Is
land labor laws. The German agents
at Bremen, he said, sold them to the
Austrian consul at Honolulu. When
they proved unable to do the work they
were imprisoned. On the plantations
they were starved, housed with the
horses, beaten and driven back to work
by dogs. The men beg to be rescued.—
London Clarion.
Lawrence, Kan., has just been touch
ed lightly on the fifth rib again by the
trust. They had a horse collar factory
there. The trust offered to buy the
owner out, but being an enterprising
gentleman who still believed in com
petition he refused to sell. He pro
posed to do business in spite of the
trust. He would show them a few
tricks with holes in them, so he would.
And in the midst of his defiance the
trust gently but firmly laid him down
upon his back. In other words, after
the gent refused to sell to the trust,
he could buy no more material to make
horse collars. So he had to close up,
and didn’t get a cent.
The National Harness Review of Chi
cago, May 13, says that a large traffic
has grown up in England in tanning
human skins for belts, card cases, etc.,
and is obtained from the unclaimed
bodies of the poor. Here is an open
ing for the American capitalists. Many
people suffering from an abundance of
prosperity produced by competition
might get a few pennies by selling their
hides. And we live in the most civil
ized epoch of the world’s history 1
Perhaps the reason why Aguinaldo
and his Filipino brethren kick so hard
against the march of civilization is be
cause they see poverty, starvation,
drudgery, the vagrant’s cell,, drunken
ness, crime and prostitution coming
hand in hand with it.—Pueblo Courier.
The YVroug Pig by the Ear.
The statesman was in an agitated
frame of mind. ■
So was the exploiter.
Both paced uneasily up and down the
corridors of time.
“What’s troubling you?” asked tho
statesman.
The exploiter leaned against the wall.
“The unemployed!” he gasped.
The statesman turned pale.
“What of them?” he cried.
The exploiter recovered the use of
his limbs with a mighty effort.
He said: * ' *
“What will we do with the unem
ployed?”
The statesman laughed bitterly.
“You’ve got the wrong pig by the
ear,” he replied. “What will the un
employed do with us?”
The New English Policy.
The British government has given
an firm the contract for a
large bridge to be erected in the Sou
dan. All the locomotives for that coun
try will be built in American shops.
The process of making America the
“workshop of the world” and England
the paradise of the rich i3 setting in.—
Appeal to Reason.
A DESPERATE BATTLI
Heaviest Fight of the w j
Occurs Near Manila. I
SIXTY AMERICANS KILL J
insurgents and Lawtons M en
Heavy Artillery Duel-Americans I
Were Almost Surrounded. 1
Advices- from Manila state that Ge n .l
eral Lawton unexpectedly stirred 5 I
one of the liveliest engagements of
war south: of Las Pinas Tuesday
morning, upon which occasion Ameri
can field guns were engaged in
first artillery duel agaiust a Filipp
battery concealed in the jungle.
Companies F and I, of the Twenti.
first infantry, were nearly surroundei
by a large body of insurgents, but the
Americans cut their way out with
heavy loss..
The United States turret ship Monad,
nock and the gunboats Helena and
Zatiro trained their batteries on Ea
koor and the rebel trenches- near Ln
Pinas all morning. Bakoor was once
on fire and the natives stopped the
spread of the flames.
The fighting at Las Pinas-oontinued
hot all day long. General Lawton
called out the whole force of 3,000
men and at 5 o’clock he was only able
to push the insurgents back 500 yards
to the Zapote river, where they are in
trenched. The insurgents resisted des
perately and aggressively. They at
tempted to turn the left flank of the
American troops. The American loss
is conservatively estimated at sixty.
At daylight Tuesday the rebels at
Cavite dropped two shells from a big,
smooth-bore gun mounted in front of
the church into the navy yard. The
only damage done was splintering the
top of the huge shears on the mole.
The gunboats Callao, Mila and Mos
quito then proceeded to dismount the
gun.
After breakfast the rebels opened fire
along the beach to Bakoor. After
silencing the big gun at Cavite the
gunboats ran close along the shore,
bombarding the rebel position. The
rebels replied with rifle fire and with
the fire of some small pieces of artil
lery. So vigorous was the enemy's
fire that at 9:20 a.m. the gunboat Hel
ena joined the small gunboats already
named and the Princeton,. Monterey
and Monadnoek from their anchoragee
dropped occasional big shells among
the rebels.
This apparently only served to in
cite the rebels, as they kept up an in
cessant fire of musketry and artillery
near the mouth of the Zapote river two
miles north of Bakoor.
The fire of all seven warships wis
concentrated on this point shortly af
ter noon, when the upper bay pre*
seuted the appearance of being the
scene of a great naval battle. The
rebels were eventually forced to aban
don their guns after holding out about
four hours,, only to be confronted by
General Lawton’s force on land and in
the rear, where there was heavy fig^’
ing ’ , T
During the morning General Law
ton took a battalion of the Fourteenth
regiment and two companies of the
Twenty-first regiment to locate the
rebel battery, and then two guns of
the Sixth artillery and four mountain
guns were planted agaiust itattkD
yards distant.
The rebels had a large gun fro o
which they were firing home-mad*
canister loaded with nails, and two
smaller guns. Their shooting
most accurate.
EXONERATES PICQUART.
Charge of Forgery Against French
Official Falls Through.
AUaris dispatch says: The chamber
of indictments Tuesday decided that
there is no case against Colon*
Picquart, charged with forgery in j’ e
Dreyfus case, or against Maitre be
blois, his counsel, against wh - a
charges were also made in connection
with Ihe ease.
The judgment of the court
finally exonerates Picquart-
TO DISTRIBUTE FRANCHISES.
War Department Will Arrange Uon
cessions In Porto Rico.
The war department is considering
the advisability of judiciously
uting some municipal franchises
Porto liico for the construction
suburban trolley roads, electric
gas lighting systems and other P u|l ‘“
works.
The broader franchises for
railroads and telegraphs will not
al}otte(i yet. # -
Contrary to general belief, the •
aker resolution passed in cougre-' * }
bidding the allottmeut of f rftU ‘ ” rtJ
applies only to Cuba, and not to 1 -
liico.