accident, at a nominal cost and thereby create happy homes without fear for our old age, and when we do this we are only keeping abreast with the times. It is not essential that we stay in the same place where we started, but keep on moving. To illustrate the inexpensiveness, I will call your attention to what has been done with part of our grand dues, of which Brother Nixon speaks. I have before me the report of the Grand Chief for November and in that month was paid indigent and pension claims to the amount of $3,570. Any delegate that has ever been to a convention knows that these payments went for a worthy cause, yet it is done every month and all with part of the grand dues. I personally donate more than that paltry sum of $2.50 annually to charity parties perhaps I do not know of, and I believe every one of you does the same. It is not generally known that we have a list of pensioners. Last convention we had 145 members on the pension and indigent list, which has increased since receiving a monthly allowance. Are you not willing to contribute to these unfortunates? Your answer is, yes. The proposed pension plan will do more than that and should be in operation before this only for the tardy members in answering and furnishing the necessary information. As for the indemnity insurance—well, that speaks for itself. There is no member of this order who carried on more discussion over it with the Grand Officers than I did before I finally took out a policy myself, as well as a great many of our members; in fact, they come into it as fast as their old policies run out because they can save money, and I am satisfied that it will be much cheaper than at present when we get fairly estab lished. It need not interfere with local health associations whatever. You can continue your local health establishment just as long as you wish, but I do not believe there is 5 per cent of our Subdivisions who have such establishments and I do not think that the other 95 per cent should suffer inconvenience on their account. Now, as to the reserve fund of 25 cents per quarter. Had this been done when this Brotherhood was founded you would have a fund at this time that would pay all of our running expenses and a large part of pensions and indigent claims from the interest alone, and it would not be necessary to pay grand dues at this time. Now in conclusion, why was it left to the Grand Officers to conclude? This was an economical streak and as long as there was nothing compulsory about it no harm could come of it to the organization generally and was generally assented to, and the indemnity insurance is in effect and working O.K. and saving our members more annually than it would cost them to have a pension in addition to it. So, trusting that I have made my position clear on these points, I will close for the present, with best wishes to all. Fraternally yours, J. F. FREENOR, Div. 372. Subdivision No. 111 Prospering. BLUE ISLAND, ILL., Dec. 11, 1906. EDITOR JOURNAL: As I have not seen anything in the JOURNAL from Div. 111, I wish to say that the members from Div. 111 are waking up after a slumber of the years gone by and much interest is now taken by old and young alike, and we are making Div. 111 a Division to be proud of. Our membership is increasing rapidly. There are many coming in now, simply because nobody asked them to come before. Our young members are taking a deep interest and in the past year we have initiated eighteen new members with prospects for a better showing the coming year. My experience is that few will come unless we extend to them a warm hand and a cordial invitation to come and make them feel that we want them. A great deal depends upon the officers to make the meetings good and interesting and, above all, keep down petty jealousies and unnecessary discussions. Start promptly at stated time for meeting and do the visiting after the meeting. Get the members interested and keep them interested, and it will be a pleasure when meeting night comes and we will find our attendance growing and our organization will go forward with bounds and leaps instead of being a slow drag. Another important point, don't forget the financial part of the Division. Keep the financial part up-to-date, as that is the most important part in all organizations. Without funds we can do nothing and everybody will soon lose interest. I, as an individual, would rather be a member of a Division with 50 members in good standing than to be a member of a Division with 500 members in poor standing. At a Division meeting December 10, 1906, our retiring F. A. E. and Insurance Secretary, Bro. F. E. Hayes, was presented with a solid gold chain and charm as a token of the high esteem the Brothers had for him and the manner in which he held his office. Our General Chairman, Brother Kilduff, and members of our General Committee paid us a visit in a body and were entertained to the best of our abilities. At the close of the meeting the doors to the dining-room were opened and supper served to the satisfaction of all. After supper an hour was spent in visiting and all went went away with a feeling that it was good to be there. Fraternally yours, W. N. LEYDA, F. A. E. Div. 111. Railroad Employees' Home. HIGHLAND PARK, ILL., Nov. 30, 1906. EDITOR JOURNAL: The following donations have been received at the Railroad Men's Home for the month of November, 1906: FROM B. OF L. E. DIVISIONS. $96 50 730 75 156 00 419 38 158 64 267 02 O. R. C. Divisions. L. of A. C. Divisions........... L. A. to B. of R. T. Lodges.......................................................... James Costello, of Div 270, O. R. C............ Rebate on freight.. Kekionga Aid Society to L. A. C Mrs. F. Brumage, of Div. 215, L. A. C........... Total. 10 55 13.00 1 00 I CO I 00 I 00 1 00 I CO I 00 50 5 00 33 05 41 97 5.00 I 00 30.00 650 15 00 $1996 86 We will suppose and sincerely hope that every reader of the JOURNAL has followed Longfellow's advice; usual conditions prevailing none are better able to "make good cheer" than engineers' families, thanks to the B. of L. E. With 1906 a closed page in the G. I. A. ledger we stand pen in hand to open up a new account, to ask new favors and grant concessions in our turn. It rests with each one individually what shall be credited to her in 1907. What a glorious record would be ours if each Sister would be guided by the suggestions contained in our late passwords. They were chosen after careful thought and with a prayer that they would lead some to the light. May each one look for goodness only in our associates, thereby bringing ourselves into harmonious relation with the best there is in our friends, placing ourselves in the sunshine as it were. How soon our souls will respond to the warmth and glow, as will a delicate plant that is carefully nourished. Place high ideals for ourselves and shape every act of our lives toward attainment of the same. To reach the "heights" we must deny self and enlist in the ranks of Truth. Having disciplined self we are ready for the easiest of life's work, and our earnest prayer is that each Sister will win success for which we are striving. "The union of women for accomplishing high and difficult things is the ladder that raises the climber while it makes the heights accessible." In our several stations each has her especial ambition, be helpful to one another. In our Divisions the new presidents feel their responsibility. They are anxious that the attendance should be good, that each officer shall be on hand at each meeting to contribute her share to the success of the Division. The Secretary views with concern the list of delinquents for 1906, and sincerely hopes every last one of them will think of her dues and pay up before it is necessary for her to present the list for suspension. The chairmen of the different committees feel anxious that each member will do her part toward the success of the social plans for the term. Change of officers should mean change of thought, change of plans, and renewed life to Subdivisions; and it will if each member performs her part. All good cannot come from one alone. Remember "All your strength is in your union, All your danger is in discord." When our President asks us to perform a part we should feel it a duty to comply; do not hesitate because of inability, do your best. "Use what talents you possess, The woods would be silent if no birds sang but those which sing the best." Further, let us suggest total absence of criticism until the new officers become accustomed to their stations. They will then accept suggestions gracefully. Let us be a unit in the hope that this our twentieth year shall be our best. Yours in F. L. and P. MRS. W. A. MURDOCK. A Happy New Year. There are few thinking people who do not spend the period preceding the New Year in recalling the twelvemonth just past. The successes and failures are known and compared, and they should be of a character to encourage hope rather than useless repining. The past is a record of events which may serve as a guide to the future, since we can learn from the experience of others as well as our own, and custom has fixed upon the beginning of a new year as a time fit for taking hopeful glances forward. As we look over the past year we find that our aims were not quite reached and our hopes only partly realized. If so, let us not grow discouraged but rather let it inspire us to renewed efforts and stimulate us to still higher aims, and more generous hopes. If we do our best and fall short of our ambitions we surely have gained something if we have not gained all. "Not failure but low aim is crime." New Year's resolutions are generally greeted with a jest or unconcealed dis dain, but there is certainly much to be commended in a strong wish to make the future better than the past, and it cannot be true that all such resolutions are broken. We are largely creature of our own will. Many a bad habit clings to us because we actually believe that we cannot break it off. When New Year's day gives the incentive to resolve and the resolution is kept for even a week it is so much gained, and the one who resolves sees for the first time, perhaps, that he can be his own physician, and this gives him strength to persevere. Is not this worth the while? There is no one so immaculate as to have no fault to reform. It may be only a defect in disposition, such as temper, selfishness, jealousy, or indolence, and it will pay to try to reform it. We are all capable of self-examination, let us discover our faults, confess them to ourselves and try to overcome them. The results will surely repay the efforts. To our large and growing family, the G. I. A., I would say, "Let us make a resolution this New Year's day that we will do our best to follow the golden rule so often quoted by our lamented Brother Arthur, and 'do unto others as we would they should do unto us." We can then be happy in the consciousness of at least trying to do right. Our order is growing rapidly. We call ourselves "Sisters." It lies with each one of us to make this word mean all that it stands for. Let us say farewell to 1906, bury with it all that has been unpleasant, hold on to that which was good and endeavor to make it better, and may this indeed be a "Happy New Year" to every member of our beloved order, and also to those whose interests are the same as ours in connection with our brother order, the B. of L. E., and who have not as yet taken their place by our side. We sincerely wish for all B. of L. E. families a "Happy New Year." We will say "farewell" to the year that is past, And trust that the next shall quite equal the last. With our hearts full of faith, we will look up to heaven And hail the glad dawn of Nineteen Aught Seven (1907). MARY E. CASSELL. Progress. The iron horse that now traverses the length and breadth of the North American continent was in 1823 among the things of the future. Five years afterwards while on a summer afternoon excursion with a party of young friends from Boston to Quincy, an old acquaintance of ours came to a place near the quarries where a double row of plank, set edgewise in the ground and bound with bar iron, crossed the road, presenting to his eyes and to those of his companions a view of the first enterprise in the form of a railway ever seen on the American shores of the Atlantic, having been constructed for transporting the granite from the quarries for the Bunker Hill Monument. So few opportunities had the residents of southeastern New Hampshire ever previously had of seeing a steamboat of any description, when in the summer of 1828 the "Connecticut," on her way from Portland to Boston, came into the port of Portsmouth for a supply of wood, people flocked to see her, while now the coming and going of the large ocean steamships are scarcely noticed. The steamers on the line between New York and Providence at that time bore no comparison with the ferryboats of the present day on the East and North rivers, and the floating palaces of the Fall River Line had not been dreamed of. It was ten years later that the first steamships were seen in the port of New York, when two, the "Great Western" and the "Sirius," arrived from Liverpool within a few hours of each other, and although it was then predicted that such a mode of navigation would in a very few years supersede the use of sailing vessels few realized the extent to which it would be done, or that such immense and elegant structures would take the place of the old packet ships. Most marvelous of all the strides in the world's progress is the electric telegraph. So much so, it can hardly excite surprise that when heard of, before being carried into practical operation, many regarded it as but the impossible project of an enthusiast, like the search in the olden time for the "philosopher's stone," that would change everything it touched into gold. Notwithstanding the previous use of the wires for years, over thousands of miles on land, when the first ocean cable was laid and in successful operation for nearly a week before it parted, there were hosts of people who would not believe a single message had ever been transmitted through its means, even though the books of the company showed that it was used in hundreds of instances for business purposes alone. The mode of taking likenesses through the photographer's art is another of the wonders of these later years. The more costly depictions seem to have reached a degree of perfection in their exquisite beauty that can go no further. These things had their origin in the invention or discovery of Daguerre, who had no other idea in its use than that of taking views, the first likeness, as claimed by two different parties, being taken in New York. No other art has progressed more than printing, both in the elegance of book printing and in the rapidity with which newspapers are now thrown out from the press. It is a curious fact that it was but a year or two previous to 1823 that cook stoves first began to give warmth to the frigidly cold kitchens of New England, as well as saving much of the labor of cooking. People looked upon them for the first time with as much curiosity as they would now upon the rarest invention, and when parlor stoves took the place of the old-fashioned fire upon the hearth, it was regarded as one of the greatest achievements of the age, saving, as they were found to do, half the fuel, as well as giving a much greater degree of heat from what was consumed. Heating a house by steam or hot air from a furnace, were among the things then unimagined. The first stove set up in New England |