large, and there is room for all. Each year sees an increase in the amount of printing, and there is no reason why it should not be done at a fair profit. The employers have only themselves to blame where low prices prevail. Good printing should always command a good price.

RHODE ISLAND has enacted a law which prescribes a fine of $350 to $500 or imprisonment for three to six months for any employer or corporation attempting to prevent working people from belonging to a labor organization as a condition of new or continued employment. At least, that is the way the dispatches give it. Where were the "open shop" lobbyists when this happened?

AT the February meeting of Milwaukee Union resolutions were adopted providing for an eight-hour committee, said committee to call a conference of delegates from all the unions in Wisconsin to agree on a plan for bringing all non-union printers into the union by January 1, 1906. This committee has made arrangements for an eighthour convention to be held at Oshkosh on April 30. To date ten unions have elected delegates. The committee is printing pamphlets explaining the eight-hour movement. At the request of the committee, the initiation fee of Milwaukee Union was reduced from $5 to $2.

IN all the discussions between the advocates of unionism and its opponents, says an exchange, there is one peculiar fact that deserves special attention. The advocates of unionism are all union men. The mechanic at the bench, the printer at the case, the carpenter at the lathe-every branch of organized labor-furnishes men who can stand forth and give a reason for being union men and defend their cause with tongue and pen. Did you ever see a "scab" that could do it? Have you ever noticed that all the arguments in favor of the "scab" and against unionism are advanced by the employers? If the "scab" is the "free and intelligent" man, the "unfettered workman" that the employers say he is, then why, in God's name, don't some "scab" stand up and speak for himself?

Ar its last meeting Ottawa (Ont.) Union No. 102 adopted resolutions protesting against a custom that prevails in the government bureau of printing at that place. It has been the practice of the powers that be to select the proofreaders for the bureau from outside applicants, who have not served an apprenticeship nor worked as journeymen at the typographical art in any of its branches. These appointments are looked upon as promotions by the members of the various crafts employed in that institution, and they therefore ask that, when making additions to the proofreading staff in the future, the said powers "advance the men in the ranks, who have, by years of application, acquired an especial technical knowledge of the printing business." The resolutions go on to state that such a move "could not fail to create a sentiment among the operatives that would produce a more efficient staff of skilled men and give a superior class of printing, at a fair expenditure, to the taxpayers of Canada."

AS SHOWN by the monthly report of the International secretary-treasurer, published in the official columns, there was a balance of $63,500.02 in the regular funds of the organization on March 21, divided as follows: Burial fund, $20,609.29; joint defense fund, $7,816.04; special defense fund, $32,521.45; general fund, $1,104.95; TYPOGRAPHICAL JOURNAL fund, $1,448.29. In addition there was a balance of $10,813.92 in the Cummings memorial fund, and $7,195.58 in the Home fund. And every cent of the balances shown in the monthly financial reports can always be produced at a moment's notice, notwithstanding the contemptible efforts of a few scandalmongers to create an impression to the contrary.

THE members of the International Cigarmakers' Union recently defeated a proposed constitutional amendment providing for the establishment of a sanatorium for tuberculosis sufferers in that trade.

NUMEROUS inquiries have been made concerning the workings of the Illinois prison labor law, and the comprehensive report on the subject by President Wright, of Chicago

Union No. 16, printed in the correspondence department, should certainly answer all questions.

THE central labor union of Omaha and the local ministers' association have arranged for the exchange of fraternal delegates.

FIGURED on the conservative average of thirty thousand ems per day, it is estimated that the output of the ten thousand linotype machines now in use is three hundred million ems a day.

GEORGE S. DICKERSON, who has been traveling in the south for the Merganthaler Linotype Company for the past year, has resigned his position and picked up a humpback rule. He is now foreman of the Mobile Item.

THE Carpenter, the official organ of that trade, comes out this month in a new attire. At the last convention of the brotherhood a resolution was adopted to change the paper to magazine form. Now it ranks among the best-dressed trade publications.

NINETEEN dead and twenty injured, half of whom are children, is the result of the latest tenement house fire in New York city. Another "investigation" has been started by the mayor, in an endeavor to fix the responsibility. More stringent building inspection laws, or the enforcement of those now on the statute books, will do away with the necessity of a great many of these “investigations."

W. ABRAHAM, the labor member of the British parliament who recently visited this country, is quoted in the press dispatches as saying that he returned home with his "preconceived ideas of American liberty shattered," and as declaring that "capital is riding the American workingman to death." Possibly Mr. Abraham's ideas of our much-boasted liberty were misconceived, hence his great disappointment. American trade unionists have much to learn from their brethren across the water. Yet we are progressing, despite the obstacles with which we contend.

THE United States Daily, published at Detroit, Mich., suspended on February 28, after a career of sixty-eight days. The scheme on which it was operated was a novel one. The paper was not sold. In each copy, distributed free to customers by merchants, were trading coupons, red triangles in the page corners, to be detached and good for trade at the United States Daily clearing house. Though the backer of the paper, S. B. Hutchinson, of Ypsilanti, made his fortune out of the trading stamp idea, it failed to work in the newspaper business. An effort was then made to obtain a legitimate circulation, but without satisfactory results. After sinking some $75,000 in the enterprise, the "angel"-to quote W. J. Abbott, the editor of the United States Daily-got "cold feet," refused to spend more money, so the paper suspended. The employes of the office had no intimation that anything was wrong until Mr. Hutchinson failed to come down to sign the pay roll.

ACCORDING to the Caxton Magazine, of London, the printers' society of Vienna, Austria, recently established a shelter, having in view the convenience of traveling compositors. It is the intention to furnish free lodgings and breakfasts. There are twenty-four beds, with an equal number of clothes chests. There are also warm baths for the weary ones. The plan may work all right in Vienna, but we believe it would prove a failure over here. The average American tourist would scorn such aristocratic tendencies. Real beds, clothes chests and warm baths! Not for him. A nice, soft roll of paper in the pressroom has more charms than all the beds in the world.

IT is stated that the West Side Branch of the Young Men's Christian Association of New York City will shortly inaugurate a series of lectures on the economics of the printing trade. It is the intention to deal with composition, press work and estimating, with special lectures on paper, ink, engraving, electrotyping and kindred subjects. Printers of prominence will deliver these lectures. It is announced that the school will be of a nature to especially appeal to

foremen, superintendents and owners of printing plants. This may be a short cut to acquiring a knowledge of the printing business, but, like the Scotchman, "we ha' oor doots."

SOME interesting data appears on the "President's Page" in this issue of THE JOURNAL regarding the efforts of the typothetæ to organize in opposition to the eighthour day.

A CALL for the thirteenth annual convention of the Iowa State Federation of Labor has been issued by President Urick. The meeting will be held at Council Bluffs, beginning May 9, 1905.

THE Chicago Tribune says: "A judicious baking of your old and ragged paper money might destroy the microbes. There are reasons why it wouldn't do to boil it." Most of us manage to dispose of our money without renovating it.

THE United Cloth Hat and Cap Makers' Union recently engaged in a struggle in New York city against the open shop. Out of 2,000 men and women involved, not one returned to work during the trouble. A number of attempts were made to break the strike with Italians and Russians, but every such move failed. More than $50,000 was spent by the strikers. Victory has finally crowned their efforts, and they have gone back to work, the open shop being abolished.

"THE lobby of organized labor in Washington and at every state capital," says the New York Times, "is a danger the magnitude of which has not yet been realized." THE JOURNAL agrees with the Times, and will go further, and say it does not believe this "danger" will ever be realized. Did you ever hear of a "labor lobby" corrupting a legislative body? Did you ever hear of it buying votes? Did you ever know of a labor lobby advocating the passage of any measure that was not a direct benefit to the common people? There are other lobbies well worthy of the Times' steel, and which are a danger that has already been realized.

A LITTLE advertising booklet is being widely distributed by a notoriously unfair concern located near Chicago. On the first page is the following announcement: "Pure country air, smokeless sunshine and high wages are our partners in this business." We'll stand for the pure air and smokeless sunshine part of it, but when a firm of this kind makes an appeal for business on the statement that it pays high wages-then we begin to seek a way of expressing ourselves so as not to come in contact with certain rules and regulations of the postoffice department. Possibly high wages is the silent partner-decidedly silent.

KANSAS is still after the Standard Oil trust. The legislature has passed a bill to prevent the operation of trusts within the state. The measure is patterned after the Texas law, and is similar in purpose to the anti-discrimination act already passed by both houses of the legislature. It provides a fine of $20,000 for each attempt to stifle competition in any business. Provision is made for the expulsion from the state of any firm that persists in violating this law. And the Texas anti-trust law has been declared constitutional. We fear Rockefeller will have to cut the acquaintance of these states.

THE address of the Rev. Charles S. Macfarland, which was published in THE JOURNAL last month, was widely copied in the daily press, many papers reproducing the article in full.

PRINTERS are advised to stay away from Moscow, Russia, says an exchange, owing to the interruption of trade conditions. Members will please take note.

THE Boston Globe says: "It is owing to the fact of labor organization that the potency of the people has become manifest in these days in all countries."

You can now get a union label house. The building trades have adopted a label designating their work, and all union men are requested to look for it.

"THEY'RE after me." John Rockefeller must think they are if he reads the daily papers. The investigating fever seems to have suddenly seized the legislators in several states.

MR. GARFIELD, United States commissioner of corporations, says the average net profit of the beef trust in 1903 was 99 cents per head. Perhaps he is right, but we can't see how they live on the margin.

MEMPHIS, TENN., has the only Trades Union Savings Bank and Trust Company in the south. It is conducted and controlled exclusively by members of the trade unions of the city. While designed primarily to handle the custom of the workingmen, the bank will do a general business. The success of the enterprise will be undoubtedly watched with great interest by organized labor everywhere.

THE appellate court of Illinois has decided that the lessee of a safety box or vault may recover for the loss of money or valuables stolen from the vaults or otherwise lost. This ruling was made in affirming the decision of the circuit court in the case of the Amalgamated Woodworkers' International Union versus the Masonic Temple Safety Deposit Company. The woodworkers sued for property lost from the vaults, and were given a judgment by the lower court. An appeal was taken, with the result noted above.

THE recent strike of the interborough employes in New York points a moral that should be seriously considered by all union men. According to press dispatches, this strike was wholly unauthorized by the international organizations with which these employes were connected. Such ill-advised moves can only result disastrously. When a union engages in a contest of this kind, without the approval and support of the parent body, the press bureaus are quick to take up the fact and spread it broadcast over the country. Thus public opinion-or at least the opinion of that great part of the public which allows the daily press to do its thinking for it-is immediately prejudiced. And public opinion is not to be scorned.

PRESIDENT HIGGINS, of the International Printing Pressmen and Assistants' Union, in his column in the American Pressman, had this to say of the meeting of the joint conference board held at Indianapolis, January 13 and 14:

The unanimity of action on all questions that come before the conference board demonstrated that it was the desire of the representatives of all the International organizations signatory thereto in the making of that body a practical working institution for the general advancement of the printing crafts, ever mindful of the fact that the general welfare of each is in close proximity to the other. If in its general workings, and application of adjustment of all questions for which it is designed can be harmoniously worked out, its scope of usefulness may, within the near future, admit of far greater advantage to the organized printing trades than has heretofore existed between them. The agreement as amended simplifies its intent, and was brought about through the observations of the past years, as the first year of its usefulness. It was felt by the members of the board that if the membership of all the International organizations under the agreement followed its provisions with care that friction would be reduced to a minimum.

PROFESSOR JOHN BASCOM, of Williams College, in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, says:

An essential step in the organic growth of the community is the combination of labor. Singly, the employe can make no terms with the employer. He is easily pushed from the shore, like a spent swimmer. When workmen stand together in recognition of the fact that labor is a primary constituent in all production, they have a position from which they can make a contract with capital in defense of mutual rights.

With the college professors beginning to sit up and take notice, we may yet be able to shed a little light into the mighty brain of a certain scab-loving college president.

A MOST excellent custom prevails in Pueblo Union No. 175. Each candidate, immediately on being initiated, is presented with an International Typographical Union button. Not a bad idea. The cost is small, and it adds not a little to the impressiveness of the initiation.

AN "industrial edition" of the Burlington (Iowa) Union Labor Advocate contains an interesting history of No. 75, with pictures of the International and local officers and prominent members.

THE Outlook recently published a table in which the figures were made to show that in the period from January 1, 1902, to June 30, 1904, the number of non-union men killed in "strike riots" was 116, while the number of union men killed was 51. This table has been given a wide circulation in the anti-union organs, and is evidently looked upon as a very convincing argument against organized labor. Statistics are always impressive. These figures of the Outlook's are said to have been gathered from "probably the very best sources." They probably were-from the very best sources from which to obtain anything adverse to labor. We do not believe they should be accepted without question. While the Outlook is on this line, we would humbly suggest a few other tables for it to print. For instance, a very impressive exhibit could be made by a table showing the number of men starved to death or driven to crime or suicide because of lack of work or insufficient wages; a table showing the number of little ones stunted-morally, mentally and physically-by enforced employment in mills and factories; a table showing the number of women driven to ruin because of prevailing rates of wages in department stores and factories. While you are in the statistical business, go all the way down the line.

ARE you ready for Oslerization? In other words, are you over sixty and waiting for the chloroform? Dr. William Osler's statement that "men are comparatively useless after forty and should be chloroformed at sixty" has caused much comment by the press. The doctor himself is fifty-six, and at sixteen years past the useful period, and only four years from the chloroform, is about to enter a new and responsible position as the head of the medical department of Oxford University. No one will deny that this is an age of young men, but there are a few "old boys" hanging on here and there who believe they are pretty good ones, even if they are over forty. Dr. Osler's statement is refuted by past as well as current history. Most of our great men have achieved their greatest triumphs and performed their best work after the forty mark had been passed. Consistency is a jewel,

even in men of science. Dr. Henry M. Hurd, president of the Johns Hopkins hospital, is quoted as saying: "Dr. Osler, when I first knew him, was in his thirties, and then used to say that a man's active usefulness ended at forty; when he reached forty himself he put the age forward to fifty; now that he has passed fifty he says sixty is the limit, and I venture to say that within a few years he will declare that seventy is not a bad time to quit." In the end the doctor will probably do like the rest of us: Keep up the fight until "30" is called and he has to quit at least as far as this sphere is concerned.

FIVE hundred persons attended the annual banquet of the Creve Coeur Club at Peoria, Ill., on February 25. In attendance were Governor Albert Cummins, of Iowa, exGovernor Peck, of Wisconsin, General John C. Black and the Rev. Caspar Wistar Hiatt, of Cleveland. All delivered stirring addresses. Governor Cummins spoke strongly against the combinations of the railway companies and large manufacturing industries. We quote as follows from his remarks:

There are many things the government can do to check the rising tide of combination for the suppression of competition. It can so amend our laws that the stocks and bonds of corporations shall not . exceed the capital invested in the enterprise, and there will be instantly removed one of the most potential motives for modern consolidation. If this had been the law, Carnegie would have endowed fewer libraries, but there would have been less softening of the moral tissue for educational processes to strengthen.

I venture the assertion that had such a law been in force during the last quarter of a century, ninetenths of the consolidation which has revolutionized business would not have occurred, and while we would have fewer magnates, we would have more men. It is quite likely that some manufacturers would have gone down in the rivalries of trade, but it is better to die fighting than to be stifled in the dust, trudging along behind the conqueror's chariot.

"Fewer magnates and more men"-real men-is what we sadly need these days. Our magnates are not men in all that term implies. They have lost their manhood in the mad rush for wealth. Their better selves have been supplanted by an insatiable greed, to appease which everything is sacrificed. When all men with capital recognize that all men who labor have a right to live,