capitalism which has no interest in anything except profits, is therefore a question which can never be settled satisfactorily for Labor by anybody, except by Labor itself. Politicians, political health departments that change their policies and standards with every new administration, and the favors of "bosses" cannot help you. Lead poison is a war between workers' bodies and profits.

The largest industries in America have medical departments. Why? Because it "pays." How does it pay? Read their reports and learn for yourself that it pays "Big Business" to prevent sickness and give workers prompt medical treatment in accident cases, because this means less time lost from the job. Less time lost from the job means more work done-more work turned out means greater profits.

What is the solution for painters? It is time for Labor to take these matters into its own hands through the Trade Union. Much of the scientific information is ready to be used as soon as Labor undertakes this responsibility. Labor can wipe out trade dangers and get rid of conditions that cause accidents. Labor can prevent unnecessary sickness and disease through offering every member a regular medical examination at least once a year. Today, as you well know, you are spending money only for sickness and death benefits. A regular yearly examination of your human machine will help to prevent much unnecessary sickness. Through this kind of inspection, physicians say that twenty years can be added to the average life of a worker. Now the question is, are you willing to give one day's pay a year to add twenty years to your life? And the answer must rest with you, as members of the Brotherhood who have gone on record as the first Trade Union body to adopt a national health resolution based on the plan drawn up by the Workers' Health Bureau.

The Workers' Health Bureau was started in July, 1921.

The function of the bureau is to help Labor organize the most thorough kind of medical inspection and supervision for every worker in order that any weakness which may be developing can be checked at once; to help Labor get the scientific facts about trade dangers and to show up these facts without any soft pedalling or pussyfooting, and to work out a complete program of health education suited to the needs of the working class that will enable workers to care for their own human machines in an intelligent way. Lectures on any part of the body given once in a while, cannot be called health education, any more than one can say a room has been completely redecorated simply because the ceiling has been kalsomined. In the same sense, an examination made by a doctor once in a while, the facts of which are marked on a card and filed, cannot be called a thorough physical examination. Statistics about your case are useless. A regular examination once a year

with full instruction given by a doctor to teach you what is wrong, followed by a system of health education that gives you the plainest and most necessary information about the way your body works, is what is needed.

Medical care and inspection to prevent disease pays. It pays to secure the chance to live without carrying the terrible burden of disease. The struggle to get barely enough food, clothes and shelter is so great that every nerve must be strained throughout the best years of our lives-we are lucky when we do not starve. We are lucky too if we do not have to send our children to the shop and factory to waste their youth -and we are very lucky if in our old age we escape having to sit in the park squares, penniless, freezing and homeless. This is the picture under capitalism-profits first, human beings last. Our whole trade union philosophy is dead against this-human beings first, everything else afterward. The Workers' Health Bureau stands in relation to you as does the engineer in building a skyscraper. He can draw up the specifications, figure the amount and cost of material that goes into the building, figure the foundation necessary to carry this structure and the strength of the steel girders that must be there if the building is to be properly supported. You stand in the place of the contractor-you can cut down on your supplies, you can substitute cheaper materials, or insufficient support-when you do that you will get the same results that they got in Brooklyn, New York, recently when a building collapsed through faulty construction, and crushed ten workers to death. You, the Brotherhood of Painters, have to begin to do even more than you have already done. You have to show Labor all over the country that Resolution No. 234 is not a scrap of paper-not merely fine phrases set down in your minutes to decorate your records, but an actual living policy to save members of your trade from "unnecessary death and suffering." Those are the words used.

The Workers' Health Bureau stands ready to help you do this. Its Advisory Committee represents the very highest type of medical scientists.

Now that the idea is under way, the question of Labor support and control must be worked out. Plans are under consideration for developing a membership policy which will entitle Labor groups to the full services of the bureau, and at the same time give them representation in the Bureau's Executive Committee. The actual health department is to be organized within the local unions, supervised by the Workers' Health Bureau, but with all the expenditures under the control of each union or local through its elected Health Committee or Board of Control.

(The above plan was endorsed by the Twelfth [Dallas] General Assembly.)

CO-OPERATION AND HUMAN NATURE.

T

By G. HOLYOAKE.

HE moral miracle performed by our co-operators at Rochdale is that they had the good sense to differ without disagreeing; to dissent with each other without separating; to spat at times, and yet always hold together.

In most working classes, and, indeed, in most public societies of all classes, a number of curious persons are found who appear born under a disagreeable star. They breathe hostility, distrust and dissension. Their tones are always harsh. It is no fault of theirs; they do not mean it; they cannot help it. Their organs of speech are cracked and no melodious sound can come out of them; their native note is a moral squeak. They are never cordial and never satisfied. The restless convolutions of their skin denote a "difference of opinion;" their very lips hang in the form of a "carp;" the muscles of their faces are "drawn up" in the shape of an amendment, and their wrinkled brows frown with an "entirely new principle of action." They are a species of social porcupine, whose quills eternally stick out. Their vision is inverted; they see everything upside down. They place every subject in water to inspect it-where the straightest rod appears hopelessly bent. They know that every word has two meanings and they always take the one you do not intend.

These people join a society ostensibly to co-operate with it, but really to do nothing but criticise it, without attempting patiently to improve that of which they complain. Instead of seeking strength to use it in mutual defense, they look for weakness to expose it to the common enemy. They make every associate sensible of perpetual dissatisfaction until membership with them becomes a penal infliction and you feel that you are more sure of peace and respect among your opponents than among your friends. They predict to everybody that the thing must fail-until they make it impossible that it can succeed-and then take credit for their treacherous foresight and ask your gratitude and respect for the very thing that hampered you. They are friends who act as the fire brigade of the party; they always carry a water engine with them and under the suspicion that your cause is in constant conflagration, splash and drench you from morning till night, until every member is in an everlasting state of drip. They believe that co-operation is another word for organized irritation, and, instead of showing the blind the way, helping the lame along, giving the weak a lift, imparting courage to the timid and confidence to the despairing, they spend their time in sticking pins into the tender, treading on the toes of the gouty, pushing the lame down stairs, leaving those in the dark behind, telling the fearful that they may well be afraid, and assuring the despairing that it is "all up."

A sprinkling of these "damned good

natured friends" belong to most societies. They are few in number, but indestructible. They are the highwaymen of progress, who alarm every traveler, and make you stand and deliver your hopes. They are the Iagoes and Turpins of democracy and only wise men and strong men can evade them or defy them. The Rochdale co-operators understood them very well-they met them-bore with them-worked with them-worked in spite of them-looked upon them as the accidents of progress, gave them a pleasant word and a merry smile, and passed on before them. They answered them not a word but by "act," as Diogenes refuted Zeno. When Zeno said there was no motion, Diogenes answered him by "moving." When adverse critics, with Briarian hands pointed to failure, the Rochdale co-operators replied by "succeeding."

Whoever joins a co-operative society ought to be made aware of this curious species of colleague whom we have described. You can get on with them very well if they do not take you by surprise. Indeed, they are useful in their way, they are the dead weights with which the social architect tries the strength of his new building. We mention them because they existed in Rochdale, and that fact serves to show that the pioneer co-operators enjoyed no favor from nature or accident. They were tried like other men, and had to combat the ordinary human difficulties.

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, 1926.)

ADVERTISING-Correspondence relating to advertising should be addressed to A. S. Murphy, Advertising Representative, Colonial Trust Building, Philadelphia, Pa.

The publisher reserves the right to reject or cancel advertising contracts at any time.

The Painter and Decorator, published at LaFayette, Ind., is the official journal of the Brotherhood of Painters, Decorators and Paperhangers of America and the only publication issued under the auspices of that organization.

The A. S. Murphy Co. is the only agency or person authorized to solicit advertising for the official journal of the Brotherhood. Local unions and District Councils publishing programs, semi-annuals, annuals, or souvenir publications of any description should refrain from designating them as "Official Journal of the Brotherhood," either upon the publication itself or on their advertising contract forms or stationery.

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 expressed by correspondents. Address all mail 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.

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

Death has visited the General Offices. Miss Addie Stanton, who since 1902 served as assistant bookkeeper, has passed on. Her associates and friends will miss her cheery presence-her loyal co-operation. The Brotherhood loses a faithful and respected employe.

The only reason that the great majority of people are unable to secure a sufficiency of the things needed to make life worth while, while others have more than they can use, is that production has been wilfully restricted. Those who control the raw materials, the machinery of production and credit, allow industry to proceed only when it brings them profit. If the producers are not able to pay tribute to these industrial lords they may go barefoot and naked, though tanners and shoe makers, textile workers and tailors hunger in idleness and machinery rusts.

President Harding has a kindly heart; the prevalence of strife and want and suffering distresses him. Rather than to permit these conditions to continue he would compel men to live and work together in peace. To bring this about he would establish industrial courts, clothed with power to settle disputes between employer and employe, to adjust differences on their merits and in accordance with the principles of economic justice-but regardless of the wishes of employer or worker. He imagines that he has discovered something new. He has yet to learn that his plan of a beneficent despotism is ancient history, that the control of industry by courts has been tried and found wanting, that courts are not impartial and that their decisions become a dead letter whenever they seriously traverse the interests of either of the contending parties. It is unlikely that the shrewd managers of his party will permit the President to assume responsibility for an experiment that would invite the antagonism of the labor movement and inevitably end in failure.

The United States should be represented at the Genoa Conference. The American people are vitally interested in the stabilizing of economic conditions in Europe. With uncalled-for reductions in wages restricting the home market there is a growing necessity for foreign markets for our surplus farm products and manufactured goods. To create this market foreign governments must be induced to live within their incomes, the Versailles Treaty must be rewritten, the ruinous competition of Germany be checked; the markets of Russia must be

thrown open to the world and Russia given an opportunity to exchange its raw products for manufactured goods. The Genoa Conference is the first intimation of returning sanity. Good sense and our duty to ourselves and to humanity demand that the United States shall encourage this belated move toward better things.

Judge Gary is a foeman worthy of our steel; he plays the game, cynically indifferent to criticism. While he advocates the "American plan" he does not hide behind the flag; he fights in the open. He holds that the wage earner should have no say as to what his wages or hours shall be or as to the conditions under which he shall work. Other unfair employers cherish the same opinions but lack the courage to express them. The Judge, brutally frank, impatient of camouflage, lays his cards on the table. Speaking of the stockholders of the United States Steel Company he states clearly and forcefully, without hesitation or reserve, his conception of the relations that should exist between capitalist and worker. But let him speak for himself; this is what he says:

*

"Their capital permits the existence, the activities and the success of the corporation. They properly may and ultimately will dictate the personnel, the governing rules, the policies, sales and purchases, extensions and improvements, rates of compensation to employes, terms and conditions of employment, and all other matters pertaining to the properties and business and management of the corporation. * * They (the stockholders) are entitled, not only to a fair and reasonable return on their investments, but to all the net proceeds of the business.

* *

The Judge maintains that the returns from industry belong to those who furnish the capital, that the worker is only entitled to a wage to be dictated by the employer, that he has no right to share in management or ownership, not even to a voice in determining the wages he shall receive or the conditions under which he shall live and labor. It is well that the public should know, as organized labor knows, that "the American plan"-the open shop-stands for autocracy in industry, a dictatorship over the lives of men and women and children as absolute as that of the southern slave holder over the life of his chattel slave, and with denial of legal or moral responsibility for the consequences. Chattel slavery passed out of American life; that blot upon the escutcheon of a free people was washed out in a sea of blood. Industrial slavery remains-for the time;

it, too, will pass. The struggle daily grows in intensity, the issues are joined. No nation can remain half slave-half free.

At last Congress is showing resentment at the humiliations heaped upon it by the Supreme Court. The recent decision declaring unconstitutional the Arizona statute embodying the provision of the Clayton bill forbidding courts to issue injunctions in labor disputes is the last straw. The champions of State rights realize that if that decision stands, their cause is lost. Congressman McSwain of South Carolina has introduced a bill which provides that at least seven of the nine justices shall concur before an act of Congress or a statute of a State legislature may be declared unconstitutional. Discussing the repeated "five-to-four" decisions of the court, Mr. McSwain points out that a bootlegger cannot be convicted unless the jury is unanimous, while the will of the majority of the people of the United States or of a sovereign State can be set aside by a majority of the nine members of the Supreme Court, that one man can and does overrule the American people. If this usurpation by the Supreme Court of the power to legislate is permitted to continue representative government has ceased to exist. Mr. McSwain's bill would lessen the evil but the real remedy is to strip the court of its assumed power to pass upon the constitutional validity of measures enacted by Congress and the State legislatures.

The ex-service men should receive a liberal bonus. To these men who risked health and life, who sacrificed precious time and opportunity, who were sadly handicapped at the outset of the battle of life, the nation owes a debt that money will not pay. A few hundred dollars will relieve their present needs, will lessen resentment at seeming ingratitude, but if substantial justice is to be done, if anything really worth while is to be accomplished, the evil of unemployment and the denial of economic security, that constitute so damning an indictment of the existing industrial order, must be removed, the democracy for which the war was fought must be applied to industry and the right of a man to work and to enjoy the full fruits of his labor must be recognized and guaranteed.

The men who fought overseas were told that upon them rested the preservation of civilization; the men who remained at home to work upon the farms and in the ship yards, the shops and the mines, were told

that upon them depended the outcome of the war. They accepted the responsibility— they won the war. They will not forget that they are the driving force of civilized society-that upon them devolves the task of shaping the destinies of the race. Men with this knowledge will not be satisfied with a chance to exist at the sufferance of others but will demand the right to live-and to all that the term implies. And it will not be well for those who attempt to deny them that right.

Tweedledum and tweedledee

In his anxiety to retain a monopoly of the home market by the imposition of tariff rates based on the American valuation (selling price) of imported goods, the American manufacturer is disclosing many interesting facts regarding which he would be discreetly silent under other circumstances. To justify his demand for higher tariff rates the manufacturer points to the low wages of the German workers and to the advantage the German manufacturer enjoys in buying labor and materials in the cheapest market of the western world with the opportunity of selling the finished goods in the dearest. Some time ago it was reported that in order to overcome this handicap -or share this advantage-the General Electric Company and the International Harvester Company had established factories in Germany from which they intend to fill all foreign orders, producing in their American factories only for the home trade. It is now announced that the American Woolen Company, with mills scattered throughout New England, has purchased eight factories in Germany and Czecho-Slovakia, that Yale locks are to be made in Hamburg and that Henry Ford has acquired a plant in Germany from which the markets of Europe, Asia, Australia and South America will be supplied with "American" goods. The famous Krupp worksnow engaged in the production of useful machinery-employ more men than before the war and Germany is crowded with American buyers.

These are cogent facts, but there are others equally disturbing to the American business man whose market is confined to the United States and who can not take advantage of the cheap labor of Europe and Asia and that should cause the American wageearner to sit up and think. A member of the House of Representatives has been inquiring into the prices paid for imported goods on sale in the store of a leading business house. He finds that the selling prices leave a mar

gin of profit varying from 35 to 1000 per cent. and that on all but two of several hundreds of articles investigated the profit exceeds one hundred per cent. This shows clearly that the American consumer does not profit by a low tariff and the low prices at which goods are purchased abroad-that a low tariff simply means high profits to the importer. On the other hand a high tariff benefits only the manufacturer; wages of the workers in protected industries-the steel industry for example-are below those paid in unprotected industries, while as consumers the wage earners pay a higher price for everything they use. So the city workers and the farmers, the actual producerswho constitute 90 per cent. of the consumers get it coming and going. High tariff, low tariff or no tariff they must fight for living wages, fair prices and decent working conditions. So long as Congress is filled with lawyers and other representatives of "business" and the Administration of the law is in the hands of unfriendly courts the workers must continue to depend upon their economic organizations for the protection of their liberties and the advancement of their interests.

During the war the air-service of the War Department and the big lumber men of the Pacific Coast induced many of the members of the International Union of Timber Workers to desert the organization and join the Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen-a super-patriotic order controlledsupposedly-jointly by employers and workers. The Board of Directors of the Legion recently met in Portland, Ore., and reduced wages from $5.30 to $2.50 per day. This is typical of the policies and methods of the "company union" and is the reward for the patriotic sacrifices made by the loggers in the time of the country's need.