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ber drawing out-of-work benefits, however, should be allowed anything from the relief fund. When anyone draws such benefits and spends the money foolishly it is apt to rouse indignant feelings to see him try to get relief besides, even if it is only a meal ticket or a bed.

Chicago typographical union for several weeks has had a five dollar weekly out-of-work benefit, the dues being raised from seventy-five cents per month to one dollar. As the dues would need to be two dollars and twenty-five cents or more

T. F. Thomas,

The secretary-treasurer of St. Paul Typographical Union No. 30, was born in Wisconsin in 1862, and has been variously connected with the printing craft for over fourteen years. He seems to have gained experience in numerous branches, pressfeeder, pressman, typesetter, proofreader and even editor, and devoted his earlier years as an all-round country printer. Drifting into Minnesota, he located at St. Paul, where he soon allied himself with trades-union methods and

has since been active in that line to the approval and satisfaction of the craft, and to the fellowship of many warm friends, being frequently honored with office by the membership of St. Paul, and is now filling for the third time the office of secretary-treasurer of that union. He is among the advancing advocates of trades-unionism, and is destined to make his mark on the role of honorable fame.

Full Points.

BY SAM L. LEFFINGWELL.

It is the dangers that are absent we fear the most.

Even to think a falsehood is the crime of a coward.

It is always the fellow with the biggest club who declines to arbitrate.

Flattery is an art in knavery, and is mostly used as cajolery on fools.

A fall sometimes is the means of strength to rise to higher aspirations.

Some judges render verdicts as they feel the cause, not as they hear it.

There is no excise levied on brains, nor even tribute laid on castles in the air.

It isn't always safe to trust implicitly in a reconciled foe, he may find cause for new assault.

There is much fraud in courtesy. The kindness of a stranger often exceeds that of a professed friend.

Difficulties can never be overcome without daring to attempt them. He does greatly who greatly dares.

It is not possible to present a fact in such perfect light but there will be some who will find something wanting.

Your chronic versifier would better fit the straddle of a fence-rail than the fleet-footed "Pegasus he would seek to stride.

It would be a good move to apply a species of Monroe doctrine tactics to street car franchise encroachments in our various cities.

It is a bad case when a man imagines himself grown famous, whereas his only claim to prominence is that he has become notorious.

Our laws would be more wholesome and be a better preventive of freedom, if they would stint the liberty of corrupt courts and judges.

If the Venezuelan imbroglio should come to material "blows," there will probably be a boycott on English commerce-a practical lockout of English merchantmen.

It is thin diet to follow a coxcomb through a column of words and find that he has said nothing. Even a pair of bellows will fail you with too much using.

Fulsome praise is often as disgusting as it is obsequious. It is against the will of him who utters it, and is always characterized with more or less detraction.

IN JENSON TYPE.

In Jenson type my printer knows
The height of typographic pose;
The black-faced letters cross the page
Like murmurs of some by-gone age
In solemn, sad funereal rows.
No matter what is said, “it goes,”
Though doggerel verse or puerile prose,
If but its wretched rantings rage
In Jenson type.

Go, foolish rhyme, and dress your woes
In this prevailing garb of those
Who call all well that fits the gauge
Set by the mediaeval sage—
You, too, may conquer, I suppose,
In Jenson type.

-Gelett Burgess, in The Philistine. We Don't Patronize.

Union workingmen and workingwomen and sympathizers with labor have refused to purchase articles produced by the following firms:

Buxton & Skinner, Stationery Co., St. Louis and Kansas City, Mo.

The Los Angeles, Cal., Times.

Mekeel Printing Establishment, St. Louis, Mo.
New Jersey Gazette, Camden, N. J.
S. Ottenberg & Bros.' Cigars.

Studebaker Bros. Mnfg. Co.'s Carriages and
Wagons.

St. Louis Brewers' Association, Lager Beer.
Pray, Small & Co., Shoes.

American Biscuit Co.'s Biscuits.
School Seat Co., Furniture, Grand Rapids.
Pfaff Brewing Co., Boston.

Yocum Bros., Cigars, Reading, Pa.
Boston Pilot, Boston Republic.
Hopedale Mfg. Co., Hopedale, Mass.
A. F. Smith, Shoes, Lynn, Mass.
Hamilton-Brown Shoe Co., St. Louis.
Daube, Cohen & Co., Clothing, Chicago.
Mesker Bros., St. Louis.

Clement, Bane & Co., Clothiers, Chicago.
United States Baking Co.

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ORGANIZE YOUR COUNTRY COUSINS.

Pitiable Condition of the Wage-Worker in the Small Towns Throughout the

Country.

BY P. J. MAAS.

There is a great field for active work for the great national and international tradesunions in the small cities-cities of 5,000 to 20,000 inhabitants. During visits to cities of this size in the past few months, have witnessed conditions that are almost incredible of belief in this enlightened age. I found cities that depended wholly upon some large manufactory for its support and maintenance, and in every one of such cities did the factory not alone own and control the town and the plant, but the workmen themselves were practically owned body and soul by them. Not only the adults, but the children as well.

Take the city of Canton, Ill., as an example. Canton has a population of about 9,000 inhabitants, and in a plow factory and numerous cigar factories the motto seems to be "Hustle little children unto us and we will work the life out of you." And it is being done, too. Children by the hundred work in those factories for $1.50 to $2.50 a week of ten and twelve hours a day. If one wishes to see a sight that will make him feel that humanity, or at least a portion of it, is totally depraved, let him visit some city of the size mentioned when the whistle blows the quitting hour, and the inmates of the factory are allowed to go home for a few hours' rest, he will then witness what capital resorts to in order that its thirst for wealth might be satisfied. Here can be witnessed scenes that will make him shudder. Filing out of the doors and gates are a number of young boys that if they live are to take their places as voters of this country; little boys scarcely more than ten years of age, with faces drawn and pinched from over-work, whose bodies have become

prematurely old; little children, whose eyes should shine as the noonday sun, but the luster and cheer has gone out of them; children, whose step should be quick and elastic, are as dull as night-all for an avaricious employer's cursed greed. These children, from their earliest childhood, are taught that they must work or starve, and whether there is work for them or not, their desire for work becomes almost a madness.

Men in these cities will not join a labor organization for fear of their employers. This is a cowardly fear. They only keep their places by sinking their manhood and humiliating their self-respect. For any good they do in this world, except eking out an existence for their families and themselves, they might as well never

have been born. Men who are too afraid of their bosses (owners) to join a labor organization endanger public welfare. Self-preservation is the first law of nature and should compel workmen today to combine with their shopmates and colleagues for mutual benefit.

Below is a short table of rates of wages paid to skilled mechanics in Canton (unorganized) and Peoria, Ill. (organized). Both cities are far enough away from Chicago or St. Louis not to be affected by rates of wages in those cities:

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hundred cigarmakers here, practically all non-union men and women.

The woodworkers and molders are employed at Parlin & Orndorph's plow factory, where, when accepting employment, they must sign an agreement to work from eight to thirteen hours per day, as the firm may elect, not to join or belong to a labor union, and if any of the company's houses are empty, to live in them. As another "horrible example" I will quote * * Kankakee, which city is owned by the Illinois Central railroad. In that city of 20,000 inhabitants everything is closed, by a city ordinance, on Sundays. The railroad trains have pneumatic tires on the wheels Sundays, while the steam whistles are supplied with mutes—to deaden the sound. The church bells have rubber padding on the bell hammer, and the street-cars progress to the measure of the "dead march in Saul" until the contribution box has been passed, when they come to an abrupt standstill wherever the interesting event

occurs.

The most progressive organization in the town is the "Nay, Master, We Are Seven, Society," for the propagation of gossip, and is composed of elderly maiden ladies who have established themselves as "receivers in perpetuity" of the morals of all mankind, and womankind, too.

'Tis an interesting sight, and awe-inspiring, too, to see one of the denizens of this "dismal swamp" raise his eyes toward the asteroid or milky-way and silently commune, in a manner betokening the greatest intimacy with St. Peter and the militant guards of the golden gate. In fact, telephonic communication exists between this sacred city and the hereafter. Ask of any one of the motley crew who subsist by leaning against the sunny side of the "deepo" and consuming "tissue," ask him (or it), "Do you belong to a labor organization?" and his (or its) hands are immediately extended heavenward and telepathic communication established with his (or its) guardian angel.

There are no union men there, they are in the hereafter.

Arriving in town, I went to a barbershop. As usual, the barber broke off a chunk of silence by asking a questionasking what line of goods I carried. "Trades-unionism," was my prompt answer. While explaining to him the benefits to the barbers to be organized, the poor fellow got nervous and absentmindedly shaved me with his left hand.

Later in the day found three carpenters at work on a new building. Asking the most intelligent-appearing one what his wages were, he replied: "One dollar per day, sir; only ten hours--and get half of it in money."

Following are the rates of wages paid in this sacred city as compared with Chicago (I forgot to find out what they did with all their money):

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The cabalistic asterisks above describe in terse eloquence the "taown" of Kankakee. It is verily a "three star" town. I soon became recognized as a "comet" in these ethereal regions, and with the abruptness characteristic of the "man of the heavens," I departed for the realms of civilization and progress, viz., Chicago.

But Illinois is not the only state honeycombed with this variety of towns. Go the same distance east of Chicago as Kankakee is south, and you reach La Porte, Ind. In that city the wood and furniture-workers' are paid from 85 cents to $1 per day of ten hours, and in the great Studebaker wagon works at South Bend the wages to the same class of men are but $1 to $1.10 per day.

What a field for labor unions!
Chicago, Ill.

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