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61

FLOOR VARNISH

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Vitralite

The Long-Life
WHITE ENAMEL

PROGRESS OF THE TRADE UNION MOVEMENT IN GERMANY

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BY HANS FEHLINGER, MUNICH, GERMANY.

Germany trade unionism is now stronger numerically than in any other country. In 1911 the average membership of all unions was 3,042,203, as compared with 2,688,018 in 1910, being an increase of 354,185 members or 13 per cent. However, the labor movement in this country is not a united one. There are three principal groups of unions, nameiy, the so-called socialist unions affiliated to the General Federation; the Christian trade unions, favoring a close connection between the labor mevement and churches; and the Hirsch-Duncker unions, the last named called after two Prussian liberal deputies who played a prominent role in the establishment of unions which aim at "industrial harmony."

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The unions affiliated to the General Federation admit to membership every workman of good character without regard to his religious or political conviction. It is true that, with few exceptions, the leaders of the unions of this group are avowed socialists and members of the Social Democratic party, which in almost every question affecting the welfare of the working classes co-operates with the General Federation of Trade Unions. But the leaders do not interfere with union members not belonging to that party. Within the union everyone has equal rights and duties, yet nobody is allowed to act against the interests of his fellow-members.

In 1910 and 1911 the average number of members in each group of unions was as shown by the table below:

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The number of national unions belonging to the General Federation decreased from 53 in 1910 to 51 in 1911, because the unions of bricklayers and masons, hod carriers and building laborers, and insulator workers amalgamated to form the "building trades union;" during the current year the plasterers' union also joined this amalgamation. At the close of 1911 there were seven unions of building trades workers in existence, namely, the building trades union with 295,688 members, the painters' union with 45,926 members, the asphalt workers with 1106 members, the roofers with 8339 members, the pavers with 10,537 members, the carpenters with 59,320 members, and the plasterers with 10,781 members.

Thirty-three unions included female members; the total female membership was 191,332, as compared with 161,512 in 1910.

The income, expenditure, and funds of the unions affiliated to the General Federation were always much higher than those of all other groups combined. The figures of the following table, relating to the year 1911, serve to illustrate this fact:

Groups of Unions

General Federation
Hirsch-Duncker Unions...
Christian Trade Unions.

Total, 3 groups...

Total Total Income Expend- Funds iture

Doll. Doll. Doll. 17,164,000 14,292,000 14,787,000 625,000 549,000 402,000 1,487,000 1,260,000 1,686,000

19,276,000 16,101,000 16,875,000

Figures concerning the finances of the unaffiliated unions are not available.

It is the primary purpose of trade unions to secure for their members the highest possible standard of working conditions, and the efforts made to reach this end frequently lead to industrial disputes, strikes and lock-outs, even if the unions are extremely cautious in all their movements. For assistance to members involved in such disputes (including victimized members) the following amounts were paid out by each of the three groups of unions during 1911:

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The payments for this benefit cannot be accurately gauged by any one year's expenditure; strikes and lockouts occur at irregular intervals, whilst the other benefits are tolerably regular in their recur. rence, year by year. But the total as well as the per capita expenditure for dispute benefit is always highest in the unions affiliated to the General Federation. The expenditure on benevolent benefits and legal assistance amounted, in 1911, to the sum of $4,876,000 in case of the last named unions; the Hirsch-Duncker unions expended $277,000 and the Christian trade unions $296,000 on benefits of this kind. Of the $4,876,000 expended on benevolent benefits by the 51 unions affiliated to the General Federation there were paid on unemployment and traveling benefit $1,842,000; sick benefit $2,444,000; permanent disability benefit $128,000; funeral benefit $249,000, and on other benefits $213,000. In the earlier period of trade union development in Germany there was considerable oppo. sition against the introduction of complicated schemes of benevolent benefits. Many prominent men feared that if the unions adopted benevolent benefits, their primary object, the securing of better conditions of work, would be subverted. But as mutual assistance is the essence of a trade union, nothing was more natural than that some provision should be made for the common casualities of life among workmen, such as sickness and privation. Furthermore the benefit provisions of the unions tended to minimize the fluctuations

in membership and to steady the organizations.

During the 21 year period from 1891 to 1911 the unions affiliated to the General Federation expended on strike, lockout and victimization benefit a total sum of 28 million dollars, while the total cost of the various benevolent benefits amounted to 32 million dollars.

WAR.

By Berton Braley.

War-and the tramp of the troops once more.
The blare of bugles, the cannons' roar.
The waving banners, the swing and sway
Of men that march to the bitter fray.
Where glory beckons, and honor calls
And brave men batter the fortress walls.
War-that summons the soul of Rome,
While the women weep with their babes at home.
War-and the smiling fields are black
Where fire and battle have left their track.
War-and the brave blood running red,
And the sunken ships and the host of dead.
War-with its wake of wrong and wrath,
With famine and misery in its path,
War that has wakened, long asleep,
While the children wait and the women weep.

War-red war in the world again,
War with its trail of broken men.
War that gorges itself in truth
On the land's best strength and finest youth.
And all for the sake of a barren land
And a cluster of huts on the desert sand.
The sultan battles the might of Rome
And women weep with their babes at home.

THE FUTURE OF THE UNITED STATES The Political Aspect.

By ALFRED POMEROY.

HEN the Constitutional convention at Philadelphia finished its work, on the 17th day of September, 1787, there is little doubt that the fifty-five gentlemen present concluded that they had arranged an instrument that would be satisfactory to those who were to profit by it.

There was no safeguard for the political liberties of the people nor, in fact, any liberties granted to them. There was no Bill of Rights, no arrangements for trial by jury, no guarantee for liberty of the press, nor freedom of speech.

It is not strange that Edmund Randolph declared that they would not find nine states to accept it and that George Mason exclaimed that he did not know whether they were setting up a monarchy or a tyranny.

The great mass of the Continentals, who had spent eight years on the battlefields and borne the brunt of the war's sufferings, were not represented in that convention.

The aristocrats, land owners and over lords reserved to themselves the right to elect all public officials by placing property qualifications upon the electoral franchise and, naturally, that debarred the masses from a voice in government affairs.

The Tory of 1787 was the same as the Tory of 1912.

The verse of John Boyle O'Reilly fitly describes the political and industrial conditions through all ages.

"Patrician, Aristocrat, Tory-what ever his

age or name,

To the people's rights and liberties a traitor ever the same.

The natural crowd is a mob to him, their prayer a vulgar rhyme,

The freeman's speech is sedition, the patriot's deed a crime. Whatever the race, the law, the land, Whatever the time or throne, The Tory is always a traitor to every class but his own".

Every intelligent reader of American history clearly discerns the subtle cunning of the exclusive class in allotting the House of Representatives only to the general mass

of the people and separating from and placing beyond their influence all other branches of government.

The Senate, the Presidential office and the Judiciary were all placed beyond the control of the people, and obviously to hold in check the one branch of government that was to be elected by direct vote of the people.

Had the Alexander Hamilton following been strong enough, all of these segregated positions would have been made a life tenure.

It is, in round numbers, a century and a quarter since the constitution went into effect, but the same sentiment of distrust and contempt of the masses, the same acclaim of superiority and Divine right to rule, obtain with the Tory element.

This sentiment was well illustrated in the Colorado legislature of 1505. A constitutional amendment for the Initiative and Referendum was before the House when a lawyer, on the Republican side, took the floor and declared that "The gentleman from Lake is mistaken. The people do not want the law making power in their own hands, and even if they do they are incompetent and should not be trusted with it."

During the anthracite coal strike in Pennsylvania, Mr. Baer, who controls, directly and indirectly, ninety-eight per cent of the anthracite produced, declared that the working people of this country would be looked after, not by the labor agitators, but by those in whose hands it had pleased Divine wisdom to place the property interests of the country.

Prior to Christianity, human slavery was held by the aristocracy of nations as a property right alone, but after the establishment of Christianity it was held as a Divine right. But it never was a right of any kind.

Human or industrial slavery is intolerable, because it is a blasphemy against the principles of equity and justice.

The World's oligarchy of wealth has always allied with itself, every factor of power to maintain itself. Knowing the weakness of its own foundation, it has been nec

essary to prop up its superstructure with every element it could use. These factors have made its existence possible by preying upon the ignorance of the masses. Education of the common people has always been bitterly opposed by the wealthy classes of the world.

When the organized workingmen of Philadelphia and New York agitated for the common school system of education in 1829, the aristocracy and big business interests of the country formed citizens' alliances to oppose it. They denounced it as arrogance and anarchy on the part of the common people. Persistence on the part of the common people finally won a victory for a general system of education.

When the feudal Barons of England compelled King John to sign the Magna Charta in 1215, it was not a victory for the common people, but was the result of a determined purpose in the part of the titled gentlemen of the kingdom to share, in part, the alleged Divine right of rulership.

The Writ of Habeas Corpus in 1679, under King Charles of England and the Bill of Rights in 1689, were to some extent concessions to the people in general. Parliament enacted the Bill of Rights under King William to place restraints upon the crown.

The political evolution of nations has been, as Aristotle said some 350 years before Christ, Democracy, Aristocracy, Oligarchy and Monarchy.

As some few accumulated the wealth of a country, they segregated themselves into a distinct class that arrogated to itself certain privileges based on property rights. This element rapidly developed into an oligarchy, as it realized that political control of a country gave greater security to the privileges assumed to accompany property rights. But, as the tenure of oligarchy was considered neither sound nor stable enough, a Monarchy was founded.

The swing of the cycle has been rapid in the history of the United States.

No sane and intelligent man denies that we are now on the border of the system called oligarchy. It has reached the period of time when the people must decide whether they will accept the system of oligarchy, with the menace of the system which follows after it, or revert to the system of Democracy.

Political palliatives may stay the rapidity of present tendencies, but the quicker the people determine to revert to the full meaning of the old Greek word Democracy

the fewer obstacles they will have to contend with.

Demos, the people, and Kratein, to rule. It must be that or the acceptance of the inevitable.

Shall the chain be broken at the link of Oligarchy? We are there now and the people must decide.

They must decide whether the nation shall be governed and should be governed by those who produce its wealth and fight its wars, or whether it shall be governed and should be governed by those who have grown rich and powerful by a system of exploitation and the assumption of Divine rights.

In view of the conditions that now obtain, it seems that Lincoln's prophecy was almost like an inspiration. Shortly before his death Abraham Lincoln said: “As a result of the war, corporations have become enthroned and an era of corruption high places will follow. The nominal power of the land will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few."

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Thomas Jefferson declared that the germ of dissolution of our Republican form of government was in our form of judiciary. He foresaw, that in the system of life tenure and utter irresponsibility of the Federal judges to the people, the courts would be used as the bulwark of defense by the rich malefactors and powerful corporations, behind which they could safely carry on their high crimes and conspiracies against the commonwealth.

THE SONG OF THE PUTTY MAN.
By George Stanley.

My hours are filled with arduous toil,
My nostrils are charged with the odor of oil,
My brain is confused with constant turmoil-
The Putty Man am I.

The grind, grind, grind of the mighty mill,
With harmony sweet my ear-drums fill-
To make a good putty requires some skill-
The Putty Man am I.

My spirit is filled with laughter and fight,
As I empty a barrel of bolted white;
And I quarrel and sing as it suits my plight-
For the Putty Man am I.

With a jerk and a grunt the chaser is sped,
Around and around in his old iron bed;
And I chuckle with glee at his crunching tread-
The Putty Man am I.

And I laugh at his groans, the old reprobate,
Of whiting and oil does he freely partake;
So why groan and growl and complain of his state-
For the Putty Man am I.

In the heat of my work and the hazard of toil,
I sweat and endure, I labor and moil,
And I bless the old mill, the whiting and oil-
For the Putty Man am I.

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