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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.