The Painter and Decorator

Devoted to the Interests of

House, Sign, Pictorial, Coach, Car, Carriage, Machinery, Ship and Railroad Equipment Painters, Decorators, Paperhangers, Varnishers, Enamelers, Gilders, Glaziers, Art Glass Workers, Bevelers, Cutters and other workers in glass used for architectural and decorative purposes and the Trades Union Movement in General.

Statement of Ownership and Management (Required by the Act of August 24, 1912) The Painter and Decorator is published monthly at LaFayette, Ind., by the Brotherhood of Painters, Decorators and Paperhangers of America. Its editor, managing editor and business manager is J. C. Skemp. Its owners are the members of the Brotherhood of Painters, Decorators and Paperhangers of America, and no individual, firm or corporation owns 1 per cent or more of its stock; neither has it any bonded or other indebtedness. J. C. SKEMP, G. S.-T. Sworn to and subscribed before me, this 10th day of January, 1921. (Seal)

Sam S. Savage, Notary Public. (My commission expires January 9, 1922.)

or on

tionery.

Matter for publication in The Painter and Decorator must be in this office by the 14th of the month previous to the month of issue.

Correspondents will please write on one side of the paper only. We are not responsible for views Address all mail expressed by correspondents. matter to

J. C. SKEMP. Editor, Drawer 99, LaFayette, Ind. Entered as second-class matter July 14th, 1905, at the post office at LaFayette, Ind., under the act of Congress of March 3, 1879.

Accepted for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Section 1103, act of October 3, 1917, authorized August 2nd, 1918.

Labor and reform papers are respectfully requested to exchange with The Painter and Decorator.

GEO. F. HEDRICK, General President,

No. 1

Drawer 99, LaFayette, Ind. J. C. SKEMP, General Secretary-Treasurer, Drawer 99, LaFayette, Ind. JOHN M. FINAN, 1st Gen. Vice-President, 624 Belden Ave., Chicago, Ill. JOSEPH F. KELLEY, 2nd Gen. Vice-President, 437 South 55th St., Philadelphia, Pa. CHAS. A. CULLEN, 3rd Gen. Vice-President,

1 Fairmont Ave., Worcester, Mass. JOS. F. CLARKE, 4th Gen. Vice-President,

1804 S. 11th St., Tacoma, Wash. CLARENCE E. SWICK, 5th Gen. Vice-President, P. O. Box 304, Memphis, Tenn JOS. P. HUNTER, 6th Gen. Vice-President, 2 Wilson Place, Niagara Falls, Ont., Canada

A Happy New Year!

Four million American workers are unemployed; other millions have but partial employment; women and children suffer from cold and hunger. In Russia fifteen millions of people are starving; one-third of these must die for lack of adequate relief. In other countries of Europe the masses of the people are but half-fed and in rags. In the midst of universal want the American farmer is unable to find a market for his wheat and his corn.

Despite these tragic evidences of human folly, of the break-down of our industrial and economic system, we feel justified in greeting the New Year with hope and confidence. Never before was such attention given to the grave problem of unemployment, never before was social responsibility for its existence and removal so fully recognized. Relief, tardy but generous, is to be given to the suffering people of Russia. The governments of the Nations that won the war are beginning to realize and to admit their responsibility for the restoration of economic conditions not only in their own countries but also in those of their vanquished foes.

The organized workers of the world are more than holding their own. The attempts of conscienceless employers to force down wages below the living point have been repulsed. While buyer and seller continue to rob producer and consumer shamelessly, a day of reckoning is at hand. Out of the turmoil and strife, the injustice and exploitation of the present is evolving a saner and happier future.

White lead

While the United States-not being a member of the League of Nations-was not represented at Geneva, it will be morally bound by the action of the International Labor Conference should the Draft Convention prohibiting the use of white lead in the painting of the interior of buildings and restricting its use upon the exterior of buildings be ratified by the thirty-nine Governments whose representatives voted unanimously in favor of its adoption.

The Convention was a happy compromise; each side gained the things it considered essential. The representatives of the operative painters and of some of the Governments were determined upon total prohibition. The representatives of the employing painters, the lead producers and corroders and of other of the Governments were in

sistent upon confining action to a recommendation for regulation. The evidence submitted and the arguments advanced convinced both right and left that there was a middle ground upon which they could consistently stand. The workers realized that the chief danger from white lead arises from its use in interior work, that the danger on exterior work arising from the splashing of the paint and from its being conveyed to the mouth from soiled fingers can be minimized by regulation and cleanly habits. The employing painter is satisfied to use oxide of zinc on the inside but is reluctant to use it, or any other material than lead, for outside work. Producers of lead realize that the bulk of their product is used in exterior work.

As employers become more familiar with zinc white, lithopone, oxide of antimony and other non-poisonous materials, their use on exterior work will become more general. The inconvenience of using two different materials on the one job will tend to the elimination of the least desirable. The process will be gradual and cause no serious economic loss to those employed in the production of white lead.

The General Constitution of the Brotherhood as amended by the Twelfth (Dallas) General Assembly is now in print and ready

The revised constitution

for distribution. So many changes were made that it was necessary to renumber the majority of the sections. Advantage was taken of this opportunity to rearrange them so that they might be more convenient for reference. Attention is called to the following which are among the more important of the changes made:

(1) The minimum monthly dues to be collected by Local Unions has been increased from 75 cents to $1.00.

(2) The amounts of the benefits payable upon the death or total disability of members and upon the death of members' wives have been readjusted and new and larger benefits provided in the case of members who at the time of death or disability have been fifteen years or more or twenty years or more in continuous good standing.

(3) The amount that a Local Union may expend upon the funeral of a member in beneficial standing whose remains are not claimed by friends or relatives has been increased to $150.00-provided that amount or more is due.

(4) The General Executive Board is given greater discretionary power in cases where

there are several claimants for benefits or where the expenses in connection with the last illness or funeral of a deceased member are unpaid.

(5) Applicants sixty years of age or over when admitted to membership are now classified as "non-beneficial." "Honorary members" consist of those transferred under Section 104 (formerly Section 92) on account of partial physical disability and those transferred under Section 103 (formerly Section 38) who have reached the age of sixty years and have been twenty years in continuous good standing. Under the old law it was sufficient that the member should have been twenty years in continuous membership. Under the law as amended he must have been in continuous good standing for that period.

The proposed amendments adopted by the General Assembly and ordered submitted to a referendum vote of the membership (contained in Document 92) were all rejected. The defeated propositions proposed:

1. An increase in the monthly per capita tax paid to the General Office by the Local Unions.

2. The election of General Vice-Presidents by districts.

3. An increase in the saalries of the General President and General SecretaryTreasurer.

4. The establishment of a Strike and Lockout Defense Fund.

5. The establishment of an Old Age Pension.

6. Regulation of the use of the spray machine.

The returns of the votes of the local unions upon these rejected propositions appear on pages 35 to 42.

We must not be carried away by our gratification at the good work done by Secretary Hughes and the favorable reaction of the Conference to his first proposals. Ten years abandonment of capital warship construction will be a fine thing; it will discourage war-but it will not, of itself, prevent it. The building of warships and the training of vast bodies of men for war are a grave menace to peace but are not the cause of war. The lust of rulers for increased power and of the merchant and the manufacturer for new markets in which to dispose of surplus goods-for new peoples to exploitthese are the chief incentives to war and so long as they remain the menace of war will be ever present. And the Conference has shown no intention or disposition to consider these fundamental facts.

Those who are opposed to all war, who consider the limitation of armaments as only a temporary tactical compromise with evil, have been most generous in their expressions of approval of the proposition submitted by Secretary Hughes and of the manner of its submission. It is a long step in the right direction. But we have a long way to travel and feel constrained to urge the necessity for a broadening of the program so that it shall apply to all means and methods of warfare and include an invitation to all nations to be parties to the agreement reached. The world is sick in mind and sore at heart; now is the time to go to the root of things, to remove the causes for war, to end political and commercial imperialism, to check the lust for power, the desire for new worlds for soldiers to conquer and for money kings to exploit.

The disappointment of the Conference has been the attitude of France. Realizing all that she has suffered and lost, remembering her exposed position, having a clear and sympathetic understanding of her misgivings--making all allowances-her fears of aggression on the part of Germany seem to the disinterested onlooker a hysterical reaction from the tragedy of the recent war and the fifty years of dread expectancy that preceded it. But it was well that her fears should have been frankly stated; if there be cause for them it should be removed, if they be unfounded they should be dispelled. The governments of Germany and Russia should be invited to send representatives to a new Conference. They should be required to declare their intentions, be afforded an opportunity to give assurances of their willingness to live in peace with their neighbors and the world. There should be no standing on ceremony, no evasion of the issues. Any understanding reached to which these nations do not subscribe, and would be under no obligations to respect, is worthless as a guarantee of peace.

Our national expenditures for the year 1920 amounted to four billions, five hundred and eighty-two millions of dollars. Of each dollar spent, 63 cents was for past wars (to pay pensions and interest on war bonds); 29 cents was for future wars (to maintain our standing army and present navy, to build warships and to develop deadly gasses); 5 cents went to conduct the civil departments of Government; 2 cents for public works (breakwaters, harbor improvements, roads and public buildings); the remaining 2 cents was expended for education and the protection of public health (the maintenance of agricultural experiment stations, the quarantine service and the Smithsonian Institution).

If the naval programme were carried out, the army kept at its present strength and the air-service developed as proposed, the people of the United States in the next ten years would pay out for war purposes more than the burden imposed upon the German people by the victorious allies. It is universally admitted that the burden imposed upon Germany condemns its people to industrial slavery for a generation, that all they produce above the cost of a bare existence will be required to meet their foreign obligations. This is the penalty imposed by victors upon the vanquished. Will a sane and self-governing people who love liberty permit jingo politicians, moneylending bankers and those who profit by the manufacture and sale of war supplies or whose trade is war, to continue to impose upon them the crushing burdens that the fortunes of war and retributive justice have placed upon the bent backs of the German workers? We are a patient people, but surely there is a limit to our patience.