Page images
PDF
EPUB

correspondingly wise who will pay and work long to secure a shorter workday, so that he can the longer enjoy the comforts at home. The start has begun. Successful may be the end.

The ponies have gone. The bookmakers also. A few dollars still remain. Oh, system, where is thy merit?

President Gompers' re-election was the proper caper. The same is equally true of Frank Morrison. Whenever a successor to Gompers must be made Morrison will be a good man.

The message of President Roosevelt is undoubtedly Rooseveltian from beginning to end. It may be disappointing to those who were instrumental in his nomination and who aided in his election, and it may not be. The language is plain, and his position is made plain on every subject. He is insistent on the "open shop" question, and takes a step forward when he says it is "a very grave impropriety for government employes to band themselves for the purpose of extorting improperly high salaries from the government." But who is to be the judge of "high salaries?" That Mr. Roosevelt intends to be the president of all the people in his own way goes without saying. With what success he will do it remains to be seen.

While the proposed addition to the Home to commemorate the sterling worth of the lamented Cummings is in keeping with the sincerity of the printers' generosity and beneficence, it might be well not to be too insistent in putting in effect the Kidd resolution adopted by the St. Louis convention. Naturally, every union printer is prideful of the Home at Colorado Springs, and he is always willing to contribute to further increase the usefulness of the institution and beautify the surroundings, yet it seems wise to be the more earnest that the eight-hour assessment shall in no case be embarrassed or discouraged by additional contributions, no matter how worthy. Whatever delay may follow in the Home improvements their ultimate completion will be all the more illustrious and gratifying.

President Roosevelt was kind enough to say that "wage workers" had a right to organize. Liberal thought.

D. W. Baird, hale, hardy and as big as ever, came to Washington recently, and is doing well. Frank Burdick is wintering at the country's capital. The gale by the lake was too severe for him.

To "Uno," of Niagara Falls: You know.

The fellow who is continually wielding a hammer is perchance a carpenter. Sometimes he is a blacksmith.

If you can't boost, don't knock.

The evidence that J. B. Nesbit, of Des Moines, is a contributor to THE JOURNAL as a correspondent is an assurance that news from Iowa's capital will be given in good thought. If he will inject humor into his correspondence, as he measuredly does in talk, all will have a good laugh once a month. Get busy.

The Progressive Printer is somewhat of an alarmist. It speaks about the eight-hour day when it "becomes a condition." It ought to know that it is a "condition" now. In the big printery oper

ated by the government compositors et al. work only eight hours. The same is true with many newspapers throughout the country. The printers will not win the "fight" they will inaugurate in 1906 because the employers will be the weaker, but because the latter are the more sensible and farseeing. The prudent employer wants more rest and recreation himself, and when he gives his men a shorter workday he himself reaps as he sows. He will easily adjust himself to conditions, and he will not welcome nor invite a "fight." The Progressive Printer knows this, if it is what its name implies. It will not cost as much to run a plant eight hours as it does nine. There's the saving, sure.

Sympathy and condolence are extended to the esteemed Harry Ogden, of Cincinnati, in the loss by death of his son.

The going away from Washington of Peter Emsher left a void. No one has had a line from him. God bless the women. How well they are do

ing in the auxiliary line. Let the good work go on. It is a pleasure to note the unity of action.

If Scranton goes after the International convention no other city will have a look in. The metropolis of the anthracite coal region had the American Federation of Labor, and did itself proud. And why not the printers? Go to the front, ye coal barons.

Mr. Degelman, of Butte, Mont., did well in his write-up of convention cards. He is minus a few, but his collection is great.

When the president of the United States made the big printery an open shop the act was similar to the action of a czar. Ruler I will be.

The power of a card-a working card. Its force was recently shown. A certain printer in Washington was forced by illness to seek the mountain region of West Virginia. He was a member of a relief association. He knew no one in the town, and when he received a money order for his weekly relief he could not be identified. "There is my working card," he said to the postmaster. "That's good enough for me," said the latter, and all was well.

A word from the esteemed Dirks is assurance that the Society of Typographical Journal Correspondents is in a state of strong growth. Every union of the International should have representation therein. Take your pen in hand.

There is a printer Rough Rider in Washington. "Col." William Maddox is his name. The other evening he met a party of far-away compatriots. They were Liet.-Col. A. O. Brodie, of Arizona; Maj. B. H. H. Llewellen, of New Mexico, and Capt. Frank Franz, of Arizona. They were distinguished fellows, and they were at the country's capital to have President Roosevelt to accept a Rough Rider escort at his inauguration. He ac cepted the proposition, and Colonel Maddox was delighted. But to the reunion. That was the capstone of good fellowship-the effervescence of jollity. Two days later "Colonel" Maddox reported for work, and the western trio had gone the way of the lamented Greeley's idealism.

If you get to Toronto, and George Esterling, of Denver, is there, which is very likely, get ac

quainted with him. He has the nicest lot of cards -in stock-you ever saw. Lorenzo Hover, of this city, who, by the way, is his double, will please you for ninety minutes by showing you a large assortment of fine views of the Rockies, the Indians, etc. It is a most beautiful collection, and Hover is as proud of it as he was of his first pair of boots, and he has only recently gone away from that antique footwear. At St. Louis Esterling could not supply the demand for his card. Meet him at Toronto.

Remember the shorter workday crusade. We must all pull together. Take a firm hold.

The members of the Post chapel presented John F. Wilkins, a son of the Hon. Beriah Wilkins, and an officer in the Post Company, with a handsome cut glass punch bowl as a wedding gift. Mrs. Wilkins' letter of acknowledgment was a most pleasing note.

Columbia Union, at its regular December meeting, refused to extend the session to consider the report of the committee on revision and codification. This action may be considered as a snub.

JAMES MONROE KREITER.

Columbia Union's memorial services, on Sunday, December 4, were most impressive, and the hall was filled to the limit of its capacity by the members, families and friends. Prof. Will A. Haley's orchestra and the Nordica Mandolin Club furnished the instrumental music; Mrs. Jessie Spencer Hover, Mrs. Nellie V. Suess, Miss Nettie Wallace, Wiley H. Davis, Thomas L. Jones and Will E. Burchfield-all printers, or the wives or relatives of printers-pleasingly sang their several numbers, and Mrs. Bessie N. Wild, wife of a printer, was the very capable accompanist. President John R. Berg presided, introducing ex-President Joe M. Johnson and Mr. Jackson H. Ralston-the latter of whom has made an international reputation as a lawyer, but who is as true to the International Typographical Union as when, in 1879, he represented it at the international congress of printers at Paris-both of whom made interesting addresses. Secretary George G. Seibold read the roll of the dead, at the conclusion of which "Taps-lights out!" was sounded by the cornetist. The altogether successful program was the work of Philip S. Steele, S. J. Gompers, Wiley H. Davis, E. S. Wild, and Henry W. Weber, the standing memorial committee of the union. It is rather late to give an extended account of the exercises, more of which than the above would scarcely interest those not living here.

I am convinced that THE TYPOGRAPHICAL JOURNAL is a great advertising medium, though I felt sure of that before the testimony was laid before me. In a recent number I asked if any one could tell me what had become of "Texas" Smith, my long-time friend, when along comes a paper from West Mansfield, Ohio, announcing that he had been a guest of that office on Thanksgiving day. If I had occasion to communicate anything of interest to the printers of this country and Canada, THE JOURNAL would be my medium.

Capt. Aven Pearson, the foreman of the treasury department division of the government print

ing office, died on December 1, aged seventy-two years. He was originally from Chicago, but had been here more than thirty years, during which time he had been assistant foreman and foreman of the Congressional Record, besides the foremanship held at his death. He was succeeded by Benjamin F. Constantine, another Illinois man, who has been day foreman of the Record for a year or two, Albert K. Mundheim, the assistant foreman of the treasury branch, succeeding Constantine in the Record.

David J. Snyder died on the night of November 30, after a lingering illness, he having been stricken with paralysis four or five years before, from which he never fully recovered. He was a former Indiana man.

Charles W. Fear, associate editor of the Kansas City Labor Herald and secretary of the label committee, recently favored me with copies of the quarterly issue of the Union Label Bulletin, which I regard as the most promising means of forwarding the union-label movement which I have yet seen. Instead of being a boycott list, it furnishes a catalogue of all articles which bear the union label, including everything any ordinary man could want, and a list of the business houses at which such goods can be purchased. Our most ardent enemies-D. M. Parry excepted-could not criticize that means of advancing trade unionists' in

[blocks in formation]

I recently received a friendly greeting from Al M. Robinson, now an inmate and in charge of the printing office at the soldiers' home at Santa Monica, Cal. He was formerly employed here, where his brother, Charles M., is foreman of the proof division of the government printing office, and Al and his brother George, who died three or four years ago, were known all over the Pacific coast.

Frank K. Foster, of Boston, one of the International Typographical Union delegates to the American Federation of Labor, was in this city for a day or two early in December, on his return from San Francisco, but I did not have the pleasure of seeing him.

James Wignall, E. Richardson, F. Peacock, and J. Mortimer, representatives of the Fall River textile workers, published a card in the Trades Unionist, recently, thanking the various trade unions of this city for many favors received during their fortnight's stay here in the interest of their organization. Quite a little sum of money was raised for the relief of the Fall River strikers in the government printing office. It is about the only way in which we can express our gratitude for the support generously given us by the unions of the country when we have needed their aid.

A letter from Carlos B. Tomlin, of this union, now at the Home, indicates that he is making satisfactory progress toward recovery, he having

had a very severe attack of pneumonia last spring, as soon after which as possible he returned to the Home, where he had been until some six months previous, when he returned to this city.

Joseph A. Borden, formerly a compositor in the government printing office, now treasurer of the Shaw & Borden Company, the largest printing and stationery house in the Pacific northwest, recently sent a friend a copy of a pamphlet, "The Test of Time," illustrating the magnitude of their enterprise. The government printing business has reason to be proud of all its graduates who have gone out into the world.

The remains of John Henry Boner, "North Carolina's first man of letters," who died here in March, 1903, were recently disinterred and conveyed to the old Moravian graveyard at Salem, N. C., in which in his poems he had expressed a desire to be buried. Mr. Boner was for a number of years a compositor and proofreader in the government printing office and for a term president of Columbia Union, after which he went to New York, where he remained for fifteen years or so, part of the time as literary editor of the World, as compiler of Funk & Wagnall's dictionary, and as proofreader in the various book offices, returning to this city in 1890. The move for returning his remains to North Carolina was engineered by Dr. Marcus Benjamin, of the United States national museum, at one time a colaborer of Boner's in New York, and he raised the necessary funds among the literary friends of the deceased.

I have received from J. J. Dirks, secretary, a copy of the constitution and by-laws of the Society of Typographical Journal Correspondents, which he commends to my consideration. I don't see exactly what for. but as I am always in favor of organization I am "wid it." One of the first moves we should make is to compel Editor Bramwood to recognize us and not accept anything for publication except from a card holder in the S. T. J. C. I see my friend Herbert W. Cooke is second vice-president. I am a little disappointed in Herbert-not grieved, but disappointed-for I have had it driven into me that though a jokesmith he doesn't know a joke when he sees it. I'm going to send him a private diagram when I attempt one again. On second thought, maybe I am subject to the same weakness of not understanding jokes except of my own perpetration, and perhaps Herbert is joking with me after all.

At the meeting of Columbia Union on December 18 a resolution was adopted asking the executive council of the International Typographical Union to submit to the referendum a proposition to continue the payment of the International Typographical Union benefits to Philadelphia Union. A Christmas present of $2 to each inmate of the Home from this union was voted.

A. F. BLOOMER.

NEWBURGH, N. Y.

The December meeting of No. 305 was fairly well attended, and considerable interest manifested. The election of officers took place. President Hilliker declined a re-election, and Nelson B. Lent, of the Journal office, was elected. Mr. Hil

liker has served the union faithfully for the past year, and he retires from the office with the good wishes of the members. Mr. Lent has been employed in the job printing department of the Journal for a number of years, and will make a conservative officer. Secretary-Treasurer Barrus also declined a re-election, but the members refused to consider it, and he was re-elected for the fourth term. The members know when they have a good recording secretary, so the present incumbent, Charles E. Petty, was unanimously re-elected. Sergeant-at-arms Broas, the veteran member of No. 305, was re-elected to fill that position for the 'steenth term. Mr. Broas is as young as the rest of the "boys," and is still working at the case, and can "pick 'em up" as swift as the next one. The balance of the offices are ably represented. Two candidates for membership were elected.

BATTLE CREEK, MICH.

ΑΝΟΝ.

At the present time Battle Creek is greatly agitated about unionism. C. W. Post, a prepared food manufacturer and vice-president of the Parry association, has inserted rabid attacks on organized labor in the local press, and feeling on this subject is running high. The local citizens' alliance recently held a public mass meeting to explain its purposes. The alliance made attacks on unionism, and refused the right of free speech to the citizens. C. W. Post was hissed to the echo.

The outlook for printers in Battle Creek is any thing but desirable. There is only one union office in the city-the Phoenix Publishing Company. The rest are open offices, and, with one exception, work the ten-hour day for less wages than printers in adjacent cities receive for nine hours. Battle Creek Typographical Union No. 429 recently printed a small pamphlet which presented the true condition existing in the printing trades of this city. This pamphlet shows where one office, the Sunday Record, works from eighteen to nineteen hours on Saturday for single time, and gave a synopsis of the contract which was prepared by the Gage Printing Company. This contract would have bound the employes body and soul to the Gage Company, but it aroused so much adverse comment when published in the local press that it has never been put into effect. Fred Gage, of this company, is president of the local citizens' alliance. As the local press refused to print the union side of the question, or wilfully misrepresented it, the executive committee of Battle Creek Typographical Union started the Weekly Herald, which is molding popular opinion in the proper channels. The evening papers sometimes say a good word for us since the Herald was launched. C. W. Post is reported to have a mortgage on the only morning paper in the city, and he uses it to attack unions and boost the citizens' alliance. What the future holds for our beloved city, if it once gets into the clutches of C. W. Post's alliance, is hard to foretell. Eleven members of our union have left town in the past two months, and others are looking for a chance to do so. Tourists stop long enough to catch the next train. A UNION PRINTER.

ST. LOUIS, MO.

The local job scale is under consideration at the present time. Preliminary to its being taken up, however, there is to be decided the question whether it expires in January or June, an error having been made in copying from the original. In considering the new agreement the committee, of course, will keep in mind January 1, 1906.

That label talk of Willis L. Hall in the December JOURNAL was decidedly apropos.

James R. Trimble, a well-known member of No. 8, died November 21. Attendants at the convention barbecue will remember him as the announcer of the athletic events.

No. 8's social committee, composed of W. N. Danvers, Ed Springmeyer, Alex Neusel, Clay Bennett and Hart Hood, will give a dance the latter part of January.

Gus Geldbach, the genial machinist on the World, was married on December 8.

A well-known St. Louis printer of generous proportions, while taking his constitutional in company with his pet dog, which also appeared to have been securing ample nutriment from its food, attracted the attention of a pair of diminutive AfroAmericans. "Look at de fat dawg," ejaculated the first one. "W'at you 'spec'?" said the other.

"Look at his papa!"

The Missouri board of arbitration will ask the legislature to enlarge its powers, the courts recently having denied its authority to summons persons or demand documents.

William H. Woodward, president of the mammoth Woodward & Tiernan printing concern, died suddenly of heart failure while presiding at a meeting called to organize a public museum. Mr. Woodward was always cordial and fair in his dealings with organized labor, and No. 8 feels a distinct loss in his demise.

The Woodward & Tiernan relief society gave a ball on Thanksgiving eve, which was a success in every way.

There was a fall of plaster in a local courtroom lately, resulting in slight injuries to two persons. And thus was there a demand for court plaster.

A local machinist, fat and jol, on alighting from a street car while returning from a fishing trip, wearing a rain coat, and with a bait bucket in one hand and a basket in the other, was hailed by a couple of convivial parties, thus: "Give us a couple of wieners." The fisherman saw the point a few minutes later, when he passed the "red hot" man on that beat and noticed the resemblance.

The many friends of Lew Bird were pained to learn of his death at Chicago recently.

The press exults because the 'Frisco American Federation of Labor convention defeated a resolution declaring that organized labor protects the unorganized workingman. Take the union scale prop away and see where he would be. Without that comparison his pay envelope would be as fat as that of a coolie.

Herr Most, the noted anarchist, was prevented from lecturing here recently. The press took fiendish delight in referring to the hall wherein

he was to speak as "union labor headquarters," and led to the inference that the lecture was to be given under the auspices of organized labor.

A dispatch to a local daily from Zeigler, Ill., the capital of Leiter's grand duchy, was inscribed "special cablegram." The eternal fitness of things sometimes prevails in spite of the proofreader.

"Dogberry" Bell, of Colorado, has been characterized by his biographer as "a bogus hero." DeWitt C. Hotchkiss, a veteran member of No. 8, died November 24, after an illness of more than two years. He was sixty-four years of age and had been a resident of this city for thirty years. He had represented Detroit, Mich., and St. Louis unions in conventions of the International Typographical Union. He was a native of Massachusetts, enlisted in the Union army for the civil war as a private, and was mustered out a lieutenant.

[graphic][merged small]

After traveling in the east and middle west, he settled in this city in the year 1874, and entered the employ of the Globe. At the time of the consolidation with the Democrat he moved to Jefferson City. He returned shortly, however, and has been working on the Globe-Democrat almost continuously ever since. He leaves a widow. Mr. Hotchkiss was highly esteemed by all his acquaintances and especially by his fellow workmen. The interment was held on Sunday, November 27. The pall-bearers were M. R. H. Witter, Homer Danford, Wallace Cato, D. A. Rhodes, Edward G. Windegger and William Cruikshank, all of the Globe-DemoAmong the many floral tributes that of the Globe chapel was the most appropriate, having "30" conspicuously placed. Rev. Mr. Eby delivered a most practical eulogy.

crat.

President Van Cleave, of the St. Louis branch of the citizens' alliance, declared at the recent convention of that organization that organized labor was spreading socialistic doctrines over the

country. The movement which the gentleman is connected with is making more socialists in a minute than organized labor could make in a lifetime.

W. J. Frickel was the operator at the linotype exhibit at the fair during the last weeks of the big show.

"Do you put an apostrophe in o'possum?" inquired the intelligent operator of Hibernian de

scent.

"One reason given for the election of Douglas to the governorship in Massachusetts is that he has distinguished himself by unusual interest in the welfare of employes. That sounds more reasonable than the story that free trade was the winning card." And that is about as near as one could expect the Globe-Democrat to get in giving the workingman credit for having learned how to

scratch.

Secretary Hay calls the democratic party "a fortuitous concourse of unrelated prejudices." When you can "cuss" thus gentlemanly you stand a chance to be secretary of state.

The initial number of The Stick has made its appearance from the Typeart Press. Louis F. Fuchs makes excuse for the newcomer by saying in his salutatory: "It is the aim to make The Stick an acceptable vehicle for the presentation of actual specimens of type art, practical enough to be used in working out the problems confronting printers every day." Nothing further than this statement is required from the utilitarian standpoint. Typographically speaking, The Stick needs no excusers. It is the product of the Typeart Press. That's all!

The appointment of a theorist to the post of labor commissioner is not complimentary to the "It president's grasp of the industrial situation. is a condition and not a theory which confronts us." J. J. DIRKS.

NEW CASTLE, PA.

Work has been exceedingly good during December.

The label is being pushed on any and all occasions.

This is an eight-hour town in all branches of the printing business.

Woe be to the candidate for city office who does not have the label on his card.

PHILIP S. EVANS.

ITHACA, N. Y.

As is usual in such matters, there were a few "scary" ones when it came to signing the petition for a charter for a local typographical union, but the signatures were finally obtained, and since it was granted there has not been an atom of friction with the employing printers or between the members themselves, which last proposition has been the downfall of more than one local. Everything went smoothly, and when an agreement was presented to the News it was signed after due deliberation on both sides, and it has proved to be the entering wedge, three firms having followed suit since the signing of the agreement by the News, and another will probably have the label within

the month, leaving only one job shop without it. This firm is not at all antagonistic to the locals, employs only union help, and no trouble is expected in getting its signature when a few things are explained. All agreements will expire on August 1, 1907. We now have a membership of over fifty, about one-quarter of which is ladies.

Expect shortly to have an organizer from the Woman's Label League in the city to interest the women by lecturing on the subject.

When my JOURNAL comes the first correspondence I look for is the Los Angeles items, for I like to hear from Hay-it reminds me of old times, when he and "Whitey" held 'em down on the Sun in Syracuse. Here's luck to Arthur and the anti-Times bunch, and scatteration and despair for the Auntie-Otis crowd, whose time is short, according to my way of thinking. TERRY THE FOX.

LITTLE ROCK, ARK.

By the time this letter appears in print Little Rock will be numbered among the cities that can afford the luxuries of the monotype machine, the Democrat having installed two keyboards and one caster, being the first printing office in this part of the south to order the new machines. This company has just completed an elegant three-story building one of the finest newspaper buildings in the entire south or west. The job office, bindery and pressroom were moved on Thanksgiving day and the following Saturday night and Sunday, thus losing no time whatever. The newspaper part of the plant will remain in the old building-which adjoins the new one-until the $20,000 Goss newspaper press which is being built has been installed and is in running order, which will probably take at least thirty days yet. The building is a model printshop and was constructed with special care as to the health and comfort of the employes of the company, and those who visit this city in the fu ture will be surprised at the elegant quarters provided for the prints at the Arkansas Democrat office.

While I am talking about printshops I might also state that the two-story building being erected on the corner of Fourth and Louisiana streets for the Kellogg Newspaper Company will be ready for occupancy in about thirty days. This is also a model printing office, and will be equipped with all the latest machinery for handling high-class newspaper, book and commercial work of all kinds. It is understood that Kellogg's will be especially equipped to handle the entire state printing in the future, most of which has been going outside the state, to Austin, Texas, and St. Joseph, Mo. However, in the future the state printing will have to be done within the state, as the next legislature, which meets here in January, will undoubtedly pass a law which will prohibit outsiders from being able to bid on the work. The state federation of labor has taken the matter in hand, and, with the support of No. 92, will endeavor not only to have the printing done within the state, but to also require that it bear the union label. Little Rock has sent two union men to the legislature who will no doubt use every effort to see that this bill is

« PreviousContinue »