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PAINTER'S BRAINS

Ought to be about as bright as other men's. There fore, we can't understand why brainy painters don't investigate and test FLEXOL. When you know youhave a piece of goods that NEVER FAILS, that can be absolutely depended on every time, that you can guarantee to the limit. you wonder why the bright men in the trade don't show more interest in it. FLEXOL is a money and trade maker for every man who uses it. Why don't you learn about it? Full information free. NOT A SUBSTITUTE. THE FLEXOL COMPANY,

The aggregate amount devoted to what might be called the constant and permanent requirements of workmen, namely, pecuniary assistance in cases of need, over which they have little or no control, reached the sum of 4.1 million dollars in 1909 and of 5 million dollars in 1910.

The preceding figures relate only to the unions affiliated to the General Federation (of which Mr. Carl Legien, Member of the "Reichstag," is president). In addition there exist in Germany sectionalist trade unions, holding aloof from the general labor moveI ent on account of religious and political reasons. The strongest of the sectionalist groups are the "Christian trade unions," conducted in close association with the Roman Catholic Church; their membership was 159,770 in 1900, 270,751 in 1909 and 295,129 in 1910. The total income of the Christian trade unions amounted in 1910, to 1,307,000 dollars, the total expenditures to 1,171,000 dollars, of which amount 295,000 dollars have been spent for strike, lock-out and victimization benefit, 151,000 dollars for sick benefit, 40,100 dollars for unemployed benefit, etc. On December 31, 1910, the 22 unions of this group had a total cash balance of 1,456,000 dollars.

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Another group of 23 small unions is called the "Hirsch-Duncker Gewerk-Vereine." Their membership remained almost stationary during the last 10 years; in 1900 they had 91,661 members, in 1905, 117,097, in 1909, 108,028, and in 1910, 122,571, the increase in 1910 being due chiefly to the affiliation of the Wurtemberg Railway Servants' Union. During the last year the income of the Hirsch-Duncker Unions was 683,000 dollars, their expenditure 603,000 dollars, and their funds amounted to 477,000 dollars (at the close of the year). A very small proportion of the total expenditure of these unions was spent on strike and lockout benefit, viz., 81,000 dollars; unemployed benefit was paid to the amount of 55,000 dollars, while sick benefit required 211,000 dollars.

Some trade unions still remain unaffiliated with any of the groups referred to above; in 1910 they numbered 253,146 members, compared with 236,092 in 1909.

27 E. 22ND ST..

NEW YORK, N. Y.

The total number of trade unionists in Germany increased from 2,447,538 in 1909 'to 2,688,144 in 1910; but properly the membership of the General Federation only can be regarded as a real fighting force.

EFFORT TO INCREASE RAILROAD
RATES.

In the tentative bill drafted by the United States Employers' Liability and Workmen's Compensation Commission, this peculiar and apparently innocent joker is incorporated:

"That in any proceeding before the Interstate Commerce Commission for rates, all amounts payable under this Act shall be considered as properly chargeable to the operating expenses of the carrier."

For hours and for days attorneys for the railroads argued, debated, pounded, harrangued and tried to browbeat the Federal Commission on Compensation to advocate legislation granting railroads higher transportation rates. The section quoted above was the most the Commission would concede. The attention of all U. S. Senators and Representatives should be called to it and they should be notified to oppose it.

A few days ago the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western R. R. Co. declared a dividend of 37 per cent., and then, for fear it would alarm the public, it immediately added 100 per cent. water to its common stock. The Lehigh Valley R. R., on December 22, declared a dividend of 22 per cent. and its earnings after the dividend was announced showed a surplus of $47,786,563 for the last fiscal year. It cost the Lehigh Valley 81 cents to make a dollar in the year 1902, and through a variety of economies, chief among which is low wages, it made a dollar in 1910 by expending less than 60 cents. And yet these cormorant corporations outrageously ask and flagrantly demand an over-burdened public to pay higher rates on transportation charges, as an excuse to be able to treat with ordinary decency, their injured employes whom, up to the present, they have neglected and abused.

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

RECENT Sunday editorial in the New York American voices a fallacy that is frequently used by upholders of existing conditions. lt quotes approvingly the words of a success. ful business man who attributed the failure of another man, equally able, to he fact that "he never had the nerve to take an invoice of himself." The moral which the editorial writer draws from this remark is that financial success, under existing conditions, is quite possible for any one tɔ attain who will take pains to learn what qualities he possesses and do the things he can best do.

Such advice may be good as long as only a few individuals follow it, but there is no rule of personal conduct which can bring financial success to all, or even to any large number, with economic conditions as they are.

The present system will not permit more than a comparatively small number to succeed, no matter how wise or how praiseworthy the personal conduct of a large number may be. Certain action may bring success to an individual who would otherwise have failed, but if it does it will either bring failure to some one else who would otherwise have succeeded, or will prevent him from being as successful as he otherwise might have been.

The fallacy of Mr. Brisbane's advice is the same as is involved in the frequent advice to employes not to "watch the clock," but to voluntarily go to work before the whistle blows, and to keep on after the usual quitting time. The trouble with this advice is that, at best, it can only benefit an exceptional individual. If all were to work that way no one individual would get any particular credit and the final result would be longer hours and harder work for all, with no increase in compensation.

There is the same fallacy in the latest "discovery" known as "scientific management," which aims to increase the productive power of laborers by making more perfect machines of them. The manufacturer who employs that system will have an advantage over competitors who do not, and laborers who follow its rules will have less trouble in getting and in keeping jobs than those who do not. But should all manufacturers adopt the system and all laborers

work in accordance with its rules, no employe would get any benefit out of it and neither would any employers except one who happened to have a monopoly. There would, to be sure, be a great increase in the total amount of wealth produced, but the lot of neither laborer nor capitalist would be improved thereby. The fact that a method had been generally applied to make labor more productive would cause a proportionate increase in the value of land which labor and capital must use, so that landlords would finally be the ones to get the lion's share of the benefits. This has been the result of every invention and of every other improvement designed to help men in producing wealth. This will con

tinue to be the case until the values of land shall be taken for public use.

Even in the case of so desirable a reform as temp rance or total abstinence, there is the same obstacle to its becoming a means of materially benefitting the great mass of laborers. Nothing can show the horrible injustice of existing conditions more plainly than the fact that as things are today, it is to the financial interest of every sober working man that other workingmen should be drunkards. The present system limits opportunities for employment to such an extent that some workingmen must at all times be unemployed. Of course the sober man has a better chance than the drunkard to get and hold a job, so that while drunkenness or a tendency toward drunkenness prevails, the existence of the evil proves to be an actual benefit to the man who is himself free from it. If all workingmen became total abstainers, the advantage which the non-drinker now has over the drunkard would be gone, and he would actually suffer financial loss unless the conditions which make jobs scarcer than men be changed for one that will leave opportunities for employment open to every man.

Individual reform, when widely applied, can result in no material benefit to those reformed unless economic wrongs be abolished.

There is no wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest numbers of noble and happy human beings."

AS WE PASS ALONG

By GERTRUDE MARYLAND MOORHOUSE

"Let us, then, be up and doing

With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.'

VER recall that the most interesting bedtime stories father or mother ever told you always had this preface, "When I was a little boy," or "Once, when I was a little girl?"

Don't you remember the thrill of pride which sent those delightful shivers up and down your back when father recounted how he "trounced" the boy who stole his lunches at school, and who took special delight in reaching over father's shoulder and "swabbing" a wet slate rag across his justcompleted sum in addition?

Of course you do.

Perhaps father was a soldier, ever and ever so long ago, and when you were big enough to understand, don't you remember how your eyes would stick out and your hair kind of prickle when he told you about the long, weary marches, the hunger and sickness he endured, and will you ever forget about the battles he was in and the time he was wounded?

And then mother's stories.

They were on less stirring subjects, perhaps, but don't they linger in your memory? And if your memory isn't of the collapsible variety, don't you retain a little lesson, a moral, in every one of mother's stories which has lasted all your life?

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Somehow, 'long about this time (as the old almanacs say) and this time being the first of a new year, those of us who have passed the meridian of youth find our thoughts turning backwards.

Just as "somehow" our mental apparatus sends a wireless into the future-or call it a search-light, if you will.

Perhaps the search-light will reveal no "rainbow hues of promise;" perhaps 'twill reveal only our illusions, our hopes, damaged and much the worse for wear.

If so, switch on an extra light, for just as sure as the sun sets in the West there's something ahead for all of us, something to strive for, something to gain.

This last read like a high forehead talking through his hat?

If so, accept writer's humblest. Far be it from this scribe to emulate the festive highbrow, and for one reason. She couldn't.

The meaning intended to be conveyed is this: cut out illusions, but have an ideal and live up to it just as hard as the law allows.

Get me? No? Well, for example. Haven't you met some man or woman who made you say to yourself, "Gee, I wish I could be like them!"

Perhaps the man could lay in a longer "stretch" than you in a given time. Perhaps (if you are of the gentler sex) the woman could make pie crust that put yours back with the also-rans. Perhaps, whichever gender, you have met those who gave you an uplifted feeling, those who had little to say but what they did say was worth listening to, and what's more to the point, remembering; those who's mode of living you knew was cleaner and better than your own; those who's standards, in whatever they undertook, be it kneading pie crust or chiselling a block of marble into an immortal statue, were higher than yours. We can't all be sculptors, neither can we all win blue ribbons for pie crust, but we can try, can't we?

What's worth accomplishing is worth going out after.

Get me now?

*

As we pass along, Memory should become a strong first aid when in doubt or perplexity, but a first-class forgettery runs a close second.

Never heard of a forgettery? Well, for goodness sake, where have you lived all these years?

A forgettery is one of the greatest inventions ever let loose upon suffering humanity.

A forgettery is a blessing in disguise, but like other blessings of the same class, some of us fail to recognize it because it isn't patented or to be found on bargain counters.

For example. Don't you remember the time you "went good" on Jones' note, and how he skipped out and left you to settle? Forget it.

Don't you remember how you handed Smith the last 2 bucks you had to your name that time his wife was sick and he was out of work? You have never seen Smith or the 2 bucks since.

Forget it.

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you.

Mighty tough proposition to forget, sez

Amen, sez yours truly, but listen.

Every one who has wronged, slighted or caused you unnecessary unhappiness will "get theirs," and 'twill be dealt out to them in just the ratio they have made you suffer, so don't lay awake nights planning to "get even." There's an unwritten law governing this vale of tears, which is as swift and strong, when it gets busy, as a natural or civic law.

If you place your hand on a hot stove you're going to be burned-that's the nat ural law.

If you steal a man's pocket book you're going to jail-that's the civic law.

If you do not do unto others as you would be done by, you'll get all that's coming to you-with a few extras thrown inand this law works both ways.

To most of us this is a moth-eaten platitude, we have proved its truth from A to Z, but for those who doubt, just try it on and find out for yourselves.

Cultivate forgetfulness of by-gone unpleasantness, but keep a good strong hold on the memories of past happiness, past favors received, of friends who have "stood by" when your own craft was floundering in deep waters.

Again, as we pass down the Western slope and pause to mark the new year's mile stone, isn't it well to take account of stock? Look over the books and find out just how you stand with your neighbor and yourself, and for once (if it be the first time) be honest with yourself. Are you profiting by your own mistakes and by the suffering the mistakes of others have caused you, or are you harboring resentment and hugging past grievances to your chest protector? Life is too short. Cut it out and start a new deal.

Are you living too much along the lines of your own comfort, giving little thought to your neighbor's welfare? Put that sentiment in cold storage and make a feeble attempt to show your neighbor that you recognize his right to live he may resent the familiarity at first, but he'll get used to it and so will you.

Are you giving too much of your val uable time to the "good fellows" who not only drain every "schooner" which crosses the "bar" but your pocket as well? Just talk this over quietly with yourself, and if you decide that good fellowship and schooners combine to cause the watch cry "breakers ahead!" reef your m' sail and steer for home. Schooners and good fellowship, if promiscuously handled, are mighty apt to land the ship, keel up, on the reefs.

And now as there is nothing more to say pertaining to the subject matter, this scribe will proceed to say it.

In looking over your last year's accounts, why not annex some of mother's stories-the ones which carried a little lesson and a big moral? Why not paste some of father's stories in your hat, the kind where he showed courage, fortitude and lots of other characteristics you don't possess? They might help you a whole heap when you frame up your resolutions for 1912.

But if you have forgotten those teachings, and if the voices which gave them to you are stilled forever, perhaps we can deduct something from them, something that may help to show the Right Way as we start on the Home Stretch.

Here are a few deductions which we will copy and place in a hat: ( "But once I shall pass through this world. Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."

"A duty performed leaves a rainbow in the heart."

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BROOKLYN

COMMENT ON CURRENT EVENTS

BY A TRADE UNIONIST

RDERS have evidently been issued to get the scalp of Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor. I am morally certain that the baiting he has been receiving in the press is not the direct result of opposition to Gompers in labor's ranks.

There are any number of unionists who are opposed to the Federation chief, but they are not as influential with the press as is the Gompers faction. This blatting of detectives, prosecuting attorneys and the ridiculous story about Gompers tramping on the flag, are not mere accidents or coincidencies. It appears to be a systematic attack.

If those behind it believe they are digging Gompers' official grave they are making a mistake in my opinion. The present attack smacks of the work of the crew of cheap patriots, who, professing hatred of Gompers, proceeded to unhorse him by haling him into court. The circumstances in which that was done, and following the exposure of Gompers' alleged rottenness by Brandenburg, made the support of Gompers a matter of principle, irrespective of what one might think of his policies. In attacking Gompers they made him the personification of the labor movement, and they apparently expected us to desert him because he was in trouble of their hatching and making.

If there is such a conspiracy to rout Gompers it must be promoted by members of the manufacturers' association who have baited him these many years. It has al

ways been inconceivable to me that supposedly smart men would be so shortsighted as to think unionists would turn on a man because he is down. "We are for the underdog!" might very well be adopted as the motto of unionism, as it exemplifies the greater part of union effort. In making appeals to the public organized labor unconsciously shows that it thinks the world at large likes to help the under dog.

And it does to some extent; also there are among unionists many who love to go with the crowd-be in the band wagonand who have little sympathy for a man when he is down.

But we don't parade any such brutal philosophy as that; its followers are in a minority and out of place. There are others who do, however, and it perhaps explains why some employers think that by badgering Gompers they will encompass his defeat.

In a daily paper on New Year's day I read the rules of success as laid down by a prominent banker. There was a lot about loyalty and faithful work, such as is usual when a "successful" man talks to the rest of us.

There were two slices of advice that stuck in my mind. One was "you should never hesitate to discharge a man-no matter how old and capable a servitor he has been-when you can employ a better one." The other was an admonition to retain as friends only those who can be of service to you. We see those rules of action enforced every day.

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