Harry D. Thomas Harry D. Thomas, Cleveland, O., secretary of the Ohio Federation of Labor and also of the Cleveland Federation of Labor, died March 5, at his home in Cleveland, at the age of 48 years, after an illness of some little time. Mr. Thomas was, as many of the Ohio labor leaders are, a Socialist, but he nevertheless stuck to the American Federation of Labor, although he had but little use for the tactics of those in control of that organization. Mr. Thomas' Socialism was not of the militant or unlawful kind. He hoped by the operation of the ballot to HARRY D. THOMAS. attain his political wishes. The deceased was quite a figure in the civic life of his city and state and served on a number of public boards and commissions appointed by the various mayors of Cleveland of late years. He was also a delegate to the recent Constitutional Convention in Ohio. Mr. Davis Resigns Harry F. Davis, of San Francisco, who for five years had been secretary of the California Metal Trades Association, has resigned Mr. Chas. A. Smith has been appointed secretary in his stead. Condemns Strikes Trade unions, according to Industrial Canada for March, 1913, scarcely realizes how strongly the public is beginning to condemn strikes. A few years ago, under the influence of hysterically democratic newspapers, the average citizen sympathized with strikers, on the theory that a strike was a necessary social process for taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor. But the average citizen has made the disquieting discovery that a strike is a process by which money is taken out of his own pocket. He hears of a strike in the woolen industry and says: "I'll have to pay more for my clothes." The news of a strike of shoemakers only produces the bitter soliloquy: "I'll have to pay more for my shoes." The average citizen applauded sympathetically when the strikers extracted money from the employer, but his sympathy evaporated when he saw his own money taking wings. Ettor Deported Acting under orders directly from the Canadian government, immigration inspectors at White Rock, B. C., early in March deported Joseph J. Ettor, I. W. W. organizer and agitator, from the Canadian border. reason for the action was given that Ettor, as a labor agitator, was not wanted. The Ettor, who had been in Seattle to organize the I. W. W., left for the north at 2 o'clock, Saturday afternoon, expecting to go to Victoria by way of Vancouver. He was scheduled to address two I. W. W. meetings in Victoria, one in Nanaimo and one in Vancouver. Reaching Blaine, Ettor was allowed to pass the Canadian boundary. When the train left for White Rock, however, immigration officers boarded it. At White Rock, B. C., Ettor was held in custody by W. P. Barge, in charge of the immigration station there, and was shown deportation orders from the chief of police at Vancouver and Canadian immigration headquarters at Ottawa. Taft Vetoes the Sundry Civil Act Because of "Vicious" Clause Exempting Labor Organiza- The Federal Congress is in some respects an unwieldy institutionand necessarily, since, although its membership numbers nearly 500, it is divided into only two bodies (the Senate, with 96 members, and the House of Representatives, with 392). Every Senator and Representative cannot personally investigate all the items contained in every one of the thousands of bills that are introduced during its sessions, or give more than casual consideration even to many that are really important, for that would be impracticable. It is not remarkable, therefore, that occasionally a measure should be approved and passed, the significance of which is not clear or the lack of wisdom, sometimes invalidity, of which become obvious when the proposed legislation is viewed in the light of its possible effect. Such was the clause that crept into the sundry civil appropriation bill as a proviso to an item appropriating $300,000 for the enforcement of the anti-trust law, and which reads: No part of this money shall be spent in the prosecution of any organization or individual for entering into any combination or agreement having in view the increasing of wages, shortening of hours, or bettering the condition of labor, or for any act done in furtherance thereof not in itself unlawful: Provided further, That no part of this appropriation shall be expended for the prosecution of producers of farm products and associations of farmers who co-operate and organize in an effort and for the purpose to obtain and maintain a fair and reasonable price for their products. The bill contained many other important items, including one making appropriation for the government buildings and display at the PanamaPacific exposition to be held in San Francisco only two years from next June, and was passed March 3, only a day before the session closed. Nevertheless, Mr. Taft promptly vetoed it because it contained the above quoted objectionable clause. In his message to Congress, returning the act without approval, the President said: This provision is class legislation of the most vicious sort. If it were enacted as substantive law and not merely as a qualification upon the use of moneys appropriated for the enforcement of the law, no one, I take it, would doubt its unconstitutionality. A similar provision in the laws of the state of Illinois was declared by the Supreme Court to be an invasion of the guaranty of the equal protection of the laws contained in the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States in the case of Connelly vs. Union Sewer Pipe Co. (184 U. S., 540), although the only exception in that instance from the illegality of organizations and combinations, etc., declared by the statute, was one which exempted agriculturists and livestock raisers in respect of their products or live stock in hand from the operation of the law, leaving them free to combine to do that which, if done by others, would be a crime against the state. The proviso is subtly worded, so as, in a measure, to conceal its full effect, by providing that no part of the money appropriated shall be spent in the prosecution of any organization or individual "for entering into any combination or agreement having in view the increasing of wages, shortening of hours, or bettering the condition of labor," and so forth. So that any organization formed with the beneficent purpose described in the proviso might later engage in a conspiracy to destroy by force, violence, or unfair means any employer or employe who failed to conform to its requirements; and yet, because of its originally avowed lawful purpose, it would be exempt from prosecution, so far as prosecution depended upon the moneys appropriated by this act, no matter how wicked, how cruel, how deliberate the acts of which it was guilty. So, too, by the following sentence in the act such an organization would be protected from prosecution "for any act done in furtherance" of "the increasing of wages, shortening of hours, or bettering the condition of labor" not in itself unlawful. But under the law of criminal conspiracy, acts lawful in themselves may become the weapons whereby an unlawful purpose is carried out and accomplished. (Shawnee Compressed Coal Co. vs. Anderson, 209 U. S., 423-434; Aikens vs. Wisconsin, 195 U. S., 194-206; Swift vs. United States, 196 U. S., 375-396; United States vs. Reading Co., Dec. 16, 1912.) The further proviso that the appropriation shall not be used in the prosecution of producers of farm products and associations of farmers who co-operate and organize in an effort to obtain and maintain a fair and reasonable price for their products, is apparently designed to discourage the prosecution of, organizations having for their purpose the artificial enhancement of the prices of food products, and thus to avoid the effect of the construction given to the anti-trust law in the case of United States against Patten, decided January 6, 1913. At a time when there is widespread complaint of the high cost of living it certainly would be anomalous to put on the statute books of the United States an act, in effect, preventing the prosecution of combinations of producers of farm products for the purpose of artificially controlling prices; and the evil is not removed, although it may be masked, by referring to the purpose of the organization as "to obtain and maintain a fair and reasonable price for their products." * An amendment almost in the language of this proviso, so far as it refers to organizations for the increasing of wages, etc., was introduced in the Sixty-first Congress, passed the House, was rejected in the Senate, and after a very full discussion in the House, failed of enactment. Representative Madison, speaking in favor of the amendment which struck out the proviso, characterized it as an attempt to "write into the law, so far as this particular measure is concerned, a legalization of the secondary boycott. * The laws of this country," he pointed out, "are liberal to the workingman. He can strike, he can agree to strike, he can act under a leader in a strike, and he can apply the direct boycott, but when it comes to going further and so acting as to impede and obstruct the natural and lawful course of trade in this country, then the law says he shall stop. And all in the world that this anti-trust act does is to apply to him that simple and proper rule, that he, too, as well as the creator of trusts and monopolies, shall not obstruct the natural and ordinary course of trade in the United States of America. "I believe," he added, "in the high aims, motives and patriotism of the American workingman, and do not believe that, rightly understanding this amendment, they would ask us to write it into the law of this Republic." (Cong. Record, p. 8850, 61st Con., 2nd sess.) "It is because I am unwilling to be a party to writing such a provision into the laws of this Republic that I am unable to give my assent to a bill which contains this provision." WILL RE-EMPLOY Coal Company Willing to Take Strikers Back In the legislative investigation of the coal conditions in the lignite district during the present week, according to a Denver dispatch to the American Coal Journal, Mr. E. E. Shumway, of the Rocky Mountain Fuel Co., created a sensation in making his announcement that his company was not averse to hiring back the men who have been on strike. It has been the evident intention of the union to create the impression that it is impossible. for a union miner to get employment at the Fuel company's mines, even though many of them are good citizens and own their own homes in the mining towns. Mr. Shumway, however, corrects this impression in stating that, while his company intends to exercise its right to employ such men as it sees fit, it is not averse to hiring union men as individuals, regardless of their affiliations. In oth RATHER WORK Children Prefer Labor to Learning, Writer Says Why do children work? Very often because they would rather work than go to school, says Helen M. Todd, for years a Chicago factory inspector, in an article in the current number of McClures, in which the writer urges humane and affectionate treatment of the children on the part of all school teachers to counteract this preference. She says: "I wrote down their reasons as they gave them to me: 'Because you get paid for what you do in a factory.' 'Because it's easier to work in a factory than 'tis to learn in school.' 'You never understands what they tells you in school, and you can learn right off to do things in a factory.' 'They ain't always pickin' on you because you don't know things in a factory.' 'You can't never do t'ings right in school.' 'The boss he never hits yer, er slaps yer face, er pulls yer ears, er makes yer stay in at recess.' 'It's so hard to learn.' 'I don't like to learn.' 'I couldn't learn.' 'The children don't holler at ye and call ye a Christ-killer in a factory.' 'They don't call ye a Dago.' 'They're good to you at home when you earn money.' 'Youse can eat sittin' down, when youse work.' 'You can go to the nickel show.' 'You don't have to work so hard at night when you get home.' 'Yer folks don't hit ye so much.' 'You can buy shoes for the baby.' 'You can give your mother your pay envelope.' 'What ye learn in school ain't no good. Ye git paid just as much in the factory if ye never was there. Our boss he never went to school.' 'That boy can't speak English, and he gets six dollars. I only get four dollars, and I've been through the sixth grade.' 'When my brother is fourteen, I'm going to get him a job here. Then, my mother says, we'll take the baby out of the 'Sylum for the Half Orphans.' 'School ain't no good. When you works a whole month at school, the teacher she gives you a card to take home, that says how you ain't any good. And yer folks hol 'lers at yer an' hits yer.' 'Oncet I worked in a night school in the Settlement, an' in the day school too. Gee. I humped myself. I got three cards with excellent' on 'em. An' they never did me no good. My mother she kept 'em in the Bible, an' they never did her no good, neither. They ain't like a pay envelope.' 'School ain't no good. The Holy Father he can send ye to hell, and the boss he can take away yer job er raise yer pay. The teacher she can't do nothing.' Here is another view of the situation as set forth by a child quoted by the writer in McClure's: "'Yees, ma'am-yees, ma'am,' reiterated Bessie Oxenhelder, who was prodding me softly with her varnish brush, in an agony of fear lest, even at my age, I might be decoyed into some school. 'Yees, ma'am. Hear to me. Me, I works two, three, four, nine mont's for de Washin'ton schools. I will not to mind my baby, I will not to scrub my floor, I will not to wash de dish. I will to learn. My teacher she hollers on me that my hair it shall be wash, that my ear it shall be wash, that my under skin under my clo's, it shall be wash; and I hollers on my mudder. I slap my baby that she spit on my book. I kick my brudders in my bed, that they shall to lay still in the night, for I will to sleep to learn. My fader he gets a mad by dat Washin'ton school, and take his pay envelope, and go to de saloon. For why? For that I must have a geogroffee; my teacher she hollers on me for those geogroffee, and I hollers on my mudder. I say I will kill myself in the lake if I become not a geogroffee book. My mudder she take the money off the pay envelope of de pants of my fader. He say, 'You want I shall work on my empty belly,' he say that youse kids shall loaf in a seat an' feed der head?' He break de dish, he hit my mudder, he go to the saloon. And what do I gets for all my works by dat Washin'ton man what bosses dose schools? Youse knows!' Her eyes blazed. 'I gets a bad name, dat I eats up de crackers of the lunch of de kindergarten children. It's a lie. My mudder she buy me the work certifi |