Child of the boundless prairie, son of the virgin soil, Heir to the bearings of burdens, brother to them that toil; God and nature together shaped him to lead in the van, In the stress of the wildest weather, when the nation needed a man. Eyes of a smouldering fire, heart of a lion at bay, Patience to plan for tomorrow, valor to serve for today; Met were the man and the hour-man who was strong for the shock- Swift slip the years from their tether, centuries pass like a breath, TEAM WORK GETS BIG RESULTS Once you get the spirit of real co-opera- It is with pardonable pride that we point to the successful results and harmonious feeling which has in the past characterized to a notable degree the team work in our organization, which has had for its result a BROTHERHOOD, not in name only but in reality-of Painters, Decorators, and Paperhangers, which like the giant oak grew from the acorn of a fixed desire to co-operate, by the unified action of a live bunch of earnest self-sacrificing men, whose great impulse was to better their condition, make their efforts redound to the benefit of their families and, last but not least, a consideration for those employed in other branches of the building trades. And we say, a continued spirit of growth enunciated along these lines will make for our betterment, giving momentum for the making of a bigger, better and more ef fective brotherhood. LOCAL OFFICERS SHOULD KEEP RECORDS AND FTENER than it should occur, Local Ο Unions find that their records are in bad condition, in most instances these facts being brought to the surface at General Headquarters, when examination of the records is made in passing on death claims, and when older members become eligible and desire to transfer to exempt membership in accordance with section 103 of our constitution. It is unfortunate that we find occasionally a trusted member whom the membership, through their confidence and esteem, have elected Financial Secretary or Treasurer, and charged with the high responsibility of handling the funds of the Union, discover shortly afterwards that these men have violated their confidence by the misuse of the organization funds. Some rare cases have shown where the member who practiced the irregularity did so, expecting to replace the money prior to investigation by the trustees. The old lesson on the intimate relation between inadequately and carelessly kept records and official irregularities has been so often impressed on the membership, that where one is found to exist, a suspicion of the other ought to be at once irresistable. The financial discrepancies that almost invariably accompany such records may in some few instances be innocent enough, at least not to indicate any wrong intent. Too often, however, they are due to deliberate design. Discrepancies that may not at first be due to misappropriation speedily become intentional when the ease with which the first are concealed in mazes of almost meaningless figures is seen and the work of the trusted officer is accepted by a too confident set of trustees. BAD RECORDS ACCEPTED BY THE TRUSTEES ARE AN INVITATION ΤΟ THE OFFICER ΤΟ PLUNDER and are to be fought as vigorously as the plunderer himself. Those of the new trustees, elected with the older trustees by virtue of the authority vested in them by the Constitution, have sufficient power to force the officers to keep an ample and comprehensive record and system of accounting in conformity with the general laws and system adopted by the membership who have a right to know that money paid in by them should be properly credited to them. If the trustees will do their full duty and check up every member's ledger account with day book record, and also check up receipt and expenditures quarterly, the OF. FICER WHO KEEPS THE RECORD IN HIS HEAD AND THE CHANGE IN HIS POCKET, will be few and far between and the discrepancies discovered before they get very far. Incompetent Financial Secretaries, Treasurers and other officers should be asked to resign or dismissed and falsifying officers should be prosecuted. MOTHER JONES SELECTS HER LAST RESTING PLACE No woman is so deeply loved by the Coal Miners of America as is Mother Jones, who rendered such great help to them in founding their union and thereby securing better conditions. Mother Jones has filed her request in the Macoupin County (Illinois) Court House that she be buried in Mount Olive cemetery near the union miners who were murdered in the historic Virden (Illinois) riots of October 12, 1898. In spite of her advanced years, Mother Jones is still a warrior for the emancipation of the worker, known most generally as the "Angel of the Miners." AMBULANCE CHASER BANISHED IN BUCKEYE STATE Columbus, Ohio, Feb. 5.-"By the people's adoption of the constitutional amendment to the workmen's compensation law, additional power is given this model legislation," declared Thos. J. Donnelly, secretary-treasurer of the Ohio state federation of labor. "The employers' organizations worked with trade unionists to secure this amendment," said Secretary Donnelly. "Now every compensation for injury or death will be paid without law suits or court costs or employment of attorneys. Where the employer has failed to comply with health or safety laws, and death or injury results, the worker is given additional compensation, also without suits at law. "It provides a fund to be expended by the industrial commission for the study and application of methods to prevent industrial and vocational accidents which will result in saving many lives and prevent the loss of limbs and faculties. "For the employer the amendment wipes out the 'open liability,' whereby employes could refuse compensation and enter suit for damages in case of violation of lawful requirements. It fixes a limit of financial liability in such cases and protects the assets and credit of the employer. It defines lawful requirement' so as to bring it within the rule of reason and gives the employer notice of his specific obligations under it. "It provides a fund for laboratory analysis of accidents and the provision of means for prevention, which should result in saving of life and limb and a substantial reduction in total awards and premiums. "It abolishes the 'ambulance-chaser' in connection with these claims." *5*5*5*5858585 EXCELSIOR FRESCO STENCILS for artistic Interior Decoration. My new complete catalogue con- H. ROESSING, 1107 Wolfram St., CHICAGO, ILL. T URGES EDUCATION FOR ALL PEOPLE By SPENCER MILLER, JR., Secretary, Workers' Education Bureau of America I HE genius of America consists in our correlation of government by the people with education by the people. In the development of this genius, the working people of this country have played a conspicuous and distinctive part. The movement to achieve political democracy which began over a hundred years ago in the United States culminated with the achievement of the corner stone of an educated democracy-universal free education. And it will ever re:nain one of the outstanding achievements of the working people of this country that they had the vision and the will to rect a system of free public education for the children of the entire citizenship. No worthy appeal for education directed to the working people of America has ever fallen on deaf ears. It is with this knowledge and assurance, that whatsoever is of good report will have a full measure of your co-operation, that I have accepted the invitation of your President and your Executive Council to present to the delegates to the 43rd Annual Convention what I conceive to be the Promise of Workers' Education. For this privilege, and I assure you that it is one, I am grateful personally, and the Workers Education Bureau of America which I have the honor to represent is equally appreciative. It is not necessary for me, I am sure, to point out how many and varied are the reasons that are turning men's attention more and more toward education as the process by which we must shape the course of our future development as a nation. Those rea sons are implicit in the very character of our modern complex industrial society. They are a part of the dynamic quality of the machine age which in less than a hundred years in America has so transformed the character of our national life that from an agricultural people we have become today the greatest manufacturing nation in the world. So rapid has been the development and so complex has become the modern system of production and distribution that it is well nigh impossible for the average man to fully comprehend the world in which he lives. Furthermore, in our modern industrial society, knowledge increases more rapidly than our understanding. The rapid accumulation of this unrelated knowledge greatly adds to the complexity and confusion of our life. As a result the industrial worker, in company with other workers, finds it increasingly difficult to understand the world which he has done so much to create. The primary task of workers' education is to interpret modern industrial society to the worker that he may better understand his relationships to the industry in which he works and the society in which he lives. Fully twenty years and more have elapsed since Walter Vrooman, an American, fresh from his efforts in establishing Ruskin College for the working people of England, came to this country and to your annual convention to invite the American Federation of Labor to participate in the direction of Ruskin College, which had been established a short time previously at Trenton, Missouri. But the time had not come when this Federation felt workers' education to be |