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Washington, D. C., June 29. F the Harding administration insists upon fomenting a railroad strike, it will get one, say the railroad labor organizations' officers, after looking over the decision of the anti-labor majority of the Railroad Labor Board, cutting the wages of employes.

This slash in rail workers' pay was forecast by the President himself, just after his talk with the railway executives, when he suggested that wages and freight rates must in general move up or down together. He ignored the fact that they did not so move when freight rates were increased 22 per cent in 1920, but he made it clear that he would not be happy unless wages dropped when freight rates did. The mere fact that the wages now paid to maintenance of way employes are too low to provide a decent living for the workers' families has no significance for Mr. Harding.

Strike ballots for the shop, maintenance and miscellaneous crafts belonging to the railway employes department of the A. F. of L. have gone out to the membership, under the order of the recent departmental convention at Chicago.

Aggressive policy in more than one direction is coming into favor among the railroad workers, due in part to their resentment at the treatment received from the Railroad Labor Board and in part to the effect of their own educational propaganda conducted by their own press. Glenn Plumb, the most magnetic and inspiring of their educational speakers, has been stricken and will never again bring their conventions up cheering and enthusiastic over the mere statement of the principle of industrial democracy. But his teaching and his example, with the teaching and example of the officers and unofficial leaders of progressive thinking among the rank and file in these past few years, have swept the movement far ahead.

Take, for example, the action of the recent Dallas convention of the Brotherhood of Railway and Steamship Clerks, Freight Handlers, Express and Station Employes, with 1,047 delegates in attendance, adopting a program of consolidation and economy in its own affairs, amalgamation on industrial lines for all rail labor organizations, and cooperation with all wealth-producers for betterment on the political field. It was an illustration of what American labor is today ready to do when the spirit of the informed membership dominates every major act of a convention.

The resolutions committee reported favorably, and the convention endorsed by unanimous vote, two resolutions dealing with solidarity in action for labor's defense. The first read:

"Resolved, That we go on record as favoring an amalgamation of the railroad and transportation organizations and the closest working body possible for unity of action with the miners.'

The second, complete as adopted, said:

"Whereas, The employers throughout the nation have solidly united, being bound together by a solidarity of interest and organization which leaves no room for divided action or desertions and, moreover, they are supported by the government, the courts and the press in any union-smashing undertaking they engage in; and

"Whereas, They are carrying on a vicious attack upon the labor movement, singling out various unions and forcing them to engage in a bitter struggle for self-preservation; and

"Whereas, These unions, because they are divided against themselves, along trade lines, and are thus unable to make united resistance against the employers, constantly suffering defeat after defeat, with heavy losses in membership and serious lowering of the workers' standards of living and working conditions; and

"Whereas, The only solution for the situation is the development of a united front by the workers through the amalgamtion of the various trades unions so that there will remain only one union for each industry; therefore be it

"Resolved, That we, in regular convention assembled, call upon the American Federation of Labor to take the necessary action toward bringing about the required solidarity within the ranks of organized labor, and that as a first step in this direction that the various international unions be called into conference for the purpose of arranging to amalgamate all the unions in the respective industries into single organizations, each of which shall cover an industry."

This is almost identical in text with the resolution adopted some time ago by the Chicago Federation of Labor and many other city central bodies, and by local groups of rail labor unions in various cities. Under the instructions voted by the Railway Clerks' convention, their delegation at the forthcoming convention of the A. F. of L. will unanimously propose, and insist upon, action by the Federation to bring about this move toward a removal of internal strife and weakness in face of labor's enemies.

But the Railway Clerks did more. They voted to establish a co-operative bank of their own; they voted to establish a deathbenefit department; they voted to subscribe for "Labor," the brilliantly progressive weekly organ of the rail workers, for all of their membership; they saved $42,000 in their salary list by cutting the number of

their vice-presidents from 14 to 7; they established their own auditing and bonding department; they provided for construction of a national headquarters building in Cincinnati; they ratified the co-operation of their officers in the movement for progressive political action with the organized farmers and progressive labor of the country.

Reports from the Houston convention of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen show that that organization met an acid test of unselfish statesmanship by approving the preliminary plan for amalgamation with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. Moreover, it advanced a series of resolutions quite as progressive as those of any other great labor organization which has met this year, and gave point to its resolutions by providing for the raising of a fund of two million dollars to establish and maintain daily newspapers that will really speak the mind of the organized railroad workers.

In the face of this showing of the alertness and self-reliance of the rail unions, the Harding administration continues to treat the railroad issue as a purely personal argument between the big shippers and the railroad managers, as to how much the profits of the railroad investors shall be. Mention of public ownership or of democratic control, at a White House press conference, would raise a sneering laugh. To a dangerous and almost startling degree the men tossed by the last national election into irresponsible control of governmental power are ignorant and intolerant of any expression of the human element in the railroad industry. This ignorance and intolerance, in only less degree, has marked the administration's treatment of the coal strike. Rail labor officers know that they must begin to teach Mr. Harding that railroads are dependent upon human labor, and that in America this labor must not be slave labor. He will learn slowly, and will try to run away from the lesson, but he may finally learn.

War Contractors Who Robbed.

The present session of congress has appropriated $2,217,000 to uncover and prosecute certain American citizens known as "war contractors," who evidently plundered the public treasury of unnumbered millions of dollars in excess charges for war supplies.

There are 150,000 war contracts. The war department's policy seems to have been to pay war contractors' bill to the full amount submitted by the contractors themselves with hardly the shadow of an audit.

Since the armistice the finance division of the war department has been examining the war contract payments to determine the extent to which profiteering contractors overcharged the people. The house of representatives appropriated $1,000,000 for the finance division. The senate added $617,000 in order that the investigation may be com

pleted during the present generation and before the war contractors die.

"At the present rate of progress," declared Senator Wadsworth, chairman of the senate committee on military affairs, "it will take 15 years or more to go over these war time contracts with this expert audit. The committee believes that with an appropriation running annually they can clean up this work in four or five years. If it is allowed

to go beyond four or five years, it is the general consensus that the whole thing will get out of the hands of the government. Witnesses will disappear. Papers will disappear and be destroyed. It will be impossible to make an effective audit after three or four years have gone by."

To date the finance division has audited 15,000 of the 150,000 contracts and has reported that the contractors concerned lifted from public treasury more than $100,000,000 in excess of the amounts the government agreed to pay. These findings are in the hands of Attorney General Daugherty, and constitute the data upon which the government relies in the prosecutions for which congress has appropriated $500,000.

There remain some 135,000 contracts to be investigated. If the amount of fraud uncovered in these unaudited contracts maintains the proportion developed in the 15,000 already audited, the war contractors will face the charge of having robbed the people of a billion dollars while the soldiers were going over the top for a dollar a day and the civilians at home were taxed to the limit to pay the war bills.

Strike Lessens Deaths.

While the coal strike brings hardships to the miners and their families, at least there are not as many of these workers killed while a strike is on.

The United States bureau of mines reports that during April last but 72 accidental deaths were reported, as compared with 164 during the same month last year. All of the 72 fatalities were at non-union bituminous mines. No anthracite coal was produced during the month except about 24,000 tons of steam sizes dredged from the rivers.

During the first four months of this year 648 coal miners lost their lives by accidents, as compared with 658 during the corresponding period last year.

Home Buyers Charged Extortionate Interest.

Money loaners in the capital of the nation mulct home buyers from 20 to 40 per cent in excess of the actual value of the money borrowed for home buying purposes, according to a report by Mrs. Eli A. Helmick, chairman of the citizens' committee to investigate housing conditions in the District of Columbia.

The report points out that most of the banks decline to make second mortgage loans, which are recessary for the home buying wage and salary carners. As a re

sult there are many individuals and financial concerns who charge 20 per cent for discounting second mortgages. It is contended that this gouging prevents potential home buyers from buying homes and compels those who do buy to pay extortionate prices.

"In the stock selling literature of some of these financing concerns," says the report, "the open boast is made that they make from 30 to 60 per cent on their capital and that the profit on discounts of second mortgages is at least 25 per cent. The home buyer, therefore, pays from 20 to 40 per cent above the actual value of such money borrowed by him on the property purchased."

It is charged that bank directors and big business are in league with the second mortgage concerns to compel home-buying wage and salary earners to "pay a bonus of from $300 to $1,000 in addition to the inflated cost of the dwelling purchased or built."

"Money lenders, because of their unique position," concludes the report, "have taken advantage of the dire necessity for home buying in Washington on the part of persons with small capital and no established bank rating to reap unconscionable premiums for the use of their money beyond the rate of interest allowed by law.

"This seeking of abnormal profit more than any other condition creates the lack of needed and suitable housing facilities in the District."

Wage Earning Mothers.

"Gainful employment of mothers of young children frequently means that the children receive inadequate care during the day, or no care at all, with over-fatigue and illhealth of the mothers," according to a report on the children of wage earning mothers made public by the United States Children's Bureau, which made a study of 843 families of working mothers in Chicago, in which were 2,066 children under 14 years.

School attendance of children of working mothers was much less than in other cases, and a large amount of retardation is charged to school absence.

The report pays a tribute to the skill in planning and management shown by many of the women in carrying the triple burden of wage-earner, housekeeper and mother, and states that a large proportion were doing housework without assistance. More than half of 380 mothers whose household arrangements were known were doing all the washing and cooking. The mothers in general showed a tendency to sacrifice themselves in order to save their children from tasks too heavy for their years.

Improved economic conditions that will make the fathers' earnings adequate to support the family and mothers' pensions when the father is dead or incapacitated are recommended as measures for reducing the necessity for wage earning by mothers of young children.

Washington, July 1.-The annual convention of the International Federation of Technical Engineers, Architects and Draftsmen's Unions was held in this city recently.

This is one of the newest chartered international unions of the American Federation of Labor. It has been making good headway in organizing engineers, architects and similar workers of the technical branches.

The gathering was a representative one, and was marked by a determination of these technicians to uplift their calling and to improve conditions by standing together.

It was agreed that the federation has weathered the storm of anti-unionism and unemployment in splendid shape and that the pendulum of reaction is beginning to swing backward. The hope was expressed, and not without reason, that everything pointed to a resumption of activities in the very near future which would stimulate greater interest than heretofore among the members of the organization.

Before final adjournment the delegates declared that aggressive activity, rather than "watchful waiting," shall be the slogan for 1922.

President C. L. Rosemund was re-elected for the ensuing term. His offices are Room 200, A. F. of L. Building, Washington, D. C.