Most of us must answer nothing, absolutely nothing. Our intentions have been good but we all figured that we have a lot of time to do it in, and so another year has found us just where we were last year this time; that is, with the exception that at this time we are one year older and one year nearer the end of our time of usefulness. We are not any better off financially, not any better off physically or moral. ly, and this is a grey old world we are living in, with nothing to look forward to but the same old grind in the same old way, and the same old payday with the same measly little salary, and the same brain. racking to make that salary pay your bills, and the same old worry and conniving to make the next month's salary go a little farther than this month's by doing some extra stinting.

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Well, this is one side of the story. We are in a rut and we are jogging along leisurely, and some of us will continue to do so until we come to a big wall-the wall of old age and we can go no farther. You and your vehicle are old and worn out from the long journey. It is out of the question to turn back, for you are worn out and tired and bent with age, so pull up your reins and do while you still have energy and get up left in your makeup. If you are member, include in your Christmas present to your loved ones a membership card in the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, as well as a certificate in the Mutual Benefit Department. If you are a member and have been lukewarm, make your fellow man a Christmas present by attending lodge regularly and helping to bring in the non and making this Brotherhood a tower of strength both financially and numerically, for when we can produce the number of members on any system or road the railway officials will listen to our demands, and such a thing as being compelled to go out on a strike to gain your requests will be unheard of. But should such extreme measures have to be resorted to, if we have the numerical strength, we will then have the financial strength to withstand the manoeuvers of the railroad companies to the end of time. Not long ago a railway clerk was telling us, when approached to join, how bitterly opposed his wife was to all labor organiza. tions because at one time this railway clerk lost all of a measly $50 per month job through belonging to the B. of R. C. and

Now

walking out with the boys. It is true that he was out for more than three months, and it is also true that times were hard, but the company finally took this clerk back at $80 per month, and although the railway company won out, the working conditions were very much better in every way. this clerk nor his wife can not see that it was the Brotherhood which really forced the railway companies to give him this increase in salary and better working conditions. They also can not see that if this strike had never been that this clerk would still be working for $50 a month under the same hard conditions which prevailed before that strike. They can not see that they are at the mercy of the railway officials and that his salary can be cut at any time, and that they can bring a man in from anywhere to take his desk whenever they please; that he is absolutely at the mercy of the whims of petty officials with no right to appeal or to get recourse of any kind.

But let me point out a vision of good cheer. The clerks who are organized and have working schedules, they do not have to worry about their jobs, for they know that as long as they faithfully perform their duty they will get justice, for they have their grievance committees and right to appeal. They do not have to be afraid of any one getting their desk or the desk above them, for they have seniority rights, and the desk above belongs to the organized clerk by that right if he is competent to fill it.

There is one agency in the South where for the first time in its history it has been filled by a railway clerk, as before organization this position was always filled by the reigning political party, but a schedule with seniority rights paved the way for the railway clerk to whom it rightfully belonged. What has been accomplished there, you can accomplish, so grasp your opportunity now, at once.

Your Christmas this year may not be a very joyful one. Your New Year's day instead of being happy may only seem to you as the beginning of another 365 days of hard labor and small pay, but you have the remedy at hand, join the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks and then help them to get all the other non clerks into the fold. Picture to yourself if you can 200,000 railway clerks, all organized, demanding their rights and wielding their power at the bal

lot boxes. You are one of that number, and every clerk brought into the organization is one more soldier to be counted on in time of war between capital and labor. So let us be up and doing, Railway Clerks of North America, and make the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks one vast army whose demands will always be just and righteous but insisted upon on account of our very strength, and by that very strength create that secure feeling for the future which will enable us to really enjoy a merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year by the time 1912 rolls around.

ATTEND YOUR LODGE MEETINGS. The importance of attending the meetings of your lodge cannot be overestimated. Your lodge is as much a business institution as any commercial concern. You have invested your money in it, with the expectation of receiving dividends, in the form of increased salaries, and bettered conditions of service. You are, therefore, stockholders in every sense of the word. When a commercial institution calls a meeting of its stockholders for the purpose of considering ways and means for increasing the individual dividends, there are but few absentees.

Your lodge is nothing more nor less than a business meeting of the stockholders of your Brotherhood; held for the purpose of discussing plans for increasing your dividends, and when you neglect or refuse to attend them, you are not doing justice to your own personal interests.

The following circular letter, which the officers of Spokane Lodge No. 34 have sent to all its members, is reproduced for the benefit of members of other lodges. It is pertinent and we hope that it will be the means of stimulating attendance at all lodge meetings:

"You who are a member of the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks should now and then ask yourself, 'What am I doing towards furthering the interests of that grand order of which I am proud to call myself a member?' A great many of you brothers, in justice to yourselves and the Brotherhood, must admit that you are doing but very little.

"This is why this letter is addressed to you. The Grand Lodge Officers and the officers of the Subordinate Lodges, who have the best interests of your noble Order

at heart, want to convey to you the necessity of doing more than paying your dues, in order that you may further the interests of the Brotherhood and better the conditions of the railway clerk.

"We all know that a great many of you feel that you have performed your duty towards the Brotherhood when you have paid your dues. Truly this is a most important feature, as without finances an institution such as our Brotherhood could not be maintained. But, dear Brother, there is one thing more that comes next to the payment of your dues that should receive your personal consideration, and that is the attending of your lodge meetings. What good is an organization when its members do not meet together in large numbers and discuss ways and means for promoting its progress and advancing its prosperity? What good is an organization where thirty per cent of its members have so little personal pride in its advancement as not to attend a single meeting within a year? I would like to ask those members why they do not endeavor to fulfill the solemn obligation they took when first entering the Broherhood. Members should at all times remember that they obligated themselves to attend regularly the meetings of their Lodge.

"Now, Brother, the old saying, “In Union there is Strength" is very applicable to our case. We want unity in the Lodge-room. We want the members of our Lodge to show that they have enough pride in the Order that is endeavoring to better their conditions, to make their attendance at the meetings of the Lodge a regular thing, and, without regular attendance, there is not much enthusiasm, and if we are not progressive, enthusiastic members we are more of a drawback than a unit of support to our organization in general.

"Consider this an appeal from the officers of your Lodge, who, in duty to the Brotherhood and the members who placed them in their respective positions, desire that you henceforth attend the meetings of your Lodge regularly, and show by your attendance and enthusiasm that you are opposed to the present conditions under which the intelligent railway clerk is working, and that you are with the Organization in its endeavors to provide ways and means for its

future advancement and the consequent betterment of the railway clerk.

"And if, on the other hand, you think you are enjoying the treatment you deserve from the company employing you, then possibly you are and your usefulness to the Brotherhood must necessarily have ceased. But, we are satisfied that we have not any in our midst who think they are getting all they are worth, in the line of proper remuneration, and in order that there may be some guarantee of their getting it at some future date, would request them to come up to our meeting room at Pacific Hall on the regular meeting dates, as shown on postal advices mailed to each member by your Secretary.

"Do you know, Brother, that our Brotherhood is initiating hundreds of members per month? Consider in how short a time at the above rate of progress, when our organization will be up to the front in membership, and when that day arrives the dream of the railway clerk will be realized, and the railroads will think twice before reducing his salary or heap further indignities upon him.

"Lastly, will say, do not throw your postal, advising you of a coming meeting, in the waste basket and then forget all about it, but, on the other hand, make a mental note of the date and be on the spot when the meetings are called to order. By so doing, you will not only be assisting yourself and your immediate family, but you will be building up a battlement that will protect and shield the widows and orphans of railway clerks in time to come.

"May our united efforts attain for us its well deserved reward."

MISLEADING TACTICS IN STRIKES. "In time of peace, prepare for war." This is an old maxim, but one which every civilized country follows. And it is as applicable to organizations of wage earners, who are banded together for mutual protection, as it is to nations.

The strike is the war of our industrial life. It is a "necessary evil" which no organization of working men which ever accomplished anything for the class it represents has been able to wholly get away from. The strike, as a weapon for securing and maintaining industrial liberty, is as old as civilization itself. And there is nothing to

justify the hope that the future will be crowned with industrial peace. There are battles yet to be fought.

In these industrial wars those who represent the employing class, as a general thing, possess master minds; they have unlimited money back of them, and in many instances the powers of government are permitted to be used in aid of those interests which labor is fighting, for at least a degree of justice. They do the will of their masters, and their masters' God is gold. "All is fair in love and war," is another maxim which applies with equal force to industrial wars, as well as those between nations.

In every strike we see the employing class taking undue advantage and even many questionable methods are employed to defeat those who are fighting for their rights. These range from Federal injunctions to the employment of thugs, incendaries and murderers. From trying to bribe men, with the promise of advancement, to prostitute their manhood, to moves bordering upon riot and anarchy, having for their purpose the swaying of public opinion.

The purpose of this article is to point out some of the devious ways in which the ends of justice are defeated, and if it proves to be the means through which even one individual is warned from being misled in some future industrial war, it will not have been written in vain.

The great strike of the American Railway Union is still fresh in the minds of many. It will be remembered that an immense amount of property was destroyed in the city of Chicago that the cry of anarchy was raised all over the land, that the strikers were designated as a lawless mob which was defying all constituted authority, and so great became public clamor, that President Cleveland was forced to use the military powers of the United States, for the ostensible purpose of restoring order, but in reality to break up the strike of the men, with which the railroads were unable to cope. After the cause of the strikers was defeated, the President appointed a commission to inquire into the responsibility for the destruction of this property; but the matter was hushed up. The public was left to believe that the responsibility rested with the strikers. But, it is alleged, some ten years later this report was found pigeonholed in Washington and was to the effect that certain railroads had themselves conspired and arranged for

this destruction of property, which consisted in the most part in antequated rolling stock. The purpose being to swerve public opinion to the side of the railroads, and so inflame it as to force federal interference, and due to public incredulity the ruse was successfully carried out.

Many are the ways which are employed to mislead both the general public and the strikers themselves in every strike. One of the most common being to place a large force of incompetent persons in the office or shop, and make a great pretense of transacting business. In the commercial telegraphers' strike a few years ago many offices were filled with boys and girls who did not know the first principles of telegraphy and who drew their salaries for simply sitting at the telegraph tables and scribbling on blanks, or drumming on the keys. The word went out that practically all positions had been filled, yet it was a well known fact that telegrams were only received subject to indefinite delay-which meant in at least some instances, to mailing them to the points for which they were intended-and this, as was the object, caused a break in the ranks of the strikers and a wholesale scramble for their old positions.

Many persons marvel at the rapidity with which positions in shops can be and apparently are filled, when a strike occurs. How many such strikes have there been, where the public was admitted to the shops to see for themselves just what was going on? Usually there is a high board fence hastily constructed around the buildings and occasionally the fires and anvils are further screened from public view. But there is always a great show of activity; orders are blatantly cried out, an eternal din is heard coming from the inside of the shops, with the result that the public is lead to believe that business has been but little interfered with through the cessation of work by the men. But could the public be permitted to peep within it would soon be undeceived. Instead of the skilled mechanic, it would see the drunken bum aimlessly pounding upon "the anvil.

In a certain eastern city, where strike breakers were being recruited to take the place of striking railway clerks, a member of the organization inaugurated a scheme through which he was able to personally interview every man who had been enrolled by the strike breaking agency. Among the

entire number, and there were many of them, but one man had ever even been in the inside of a railroad office. Among the number were two ex-street car men, who had become tired of scabbing in their own trade, and in fact almost every trade was represented, but the representation in railroad clerical work was only by one man, and when the situation was explained to him, he promptly refused to have anything further to do with the proposition. One young man, fresh from the farm, stated that he had been hired as a biller, and innocently asked what that meant. Offices are filled up with this class of men and the word then goes forth that the company has all the places filled, but as this member put it, they are filled with the kind of men who "Can do the strikers no harm, if they (the strikers) keep their doors locked at night."

If you are ever called upon to go into one of these industrial wars, refuse to be influenced by what you see or hear, unless you are sure of its authenticity. Do not be alarmed over the outcome when you see scores of men apparently taking the places vacated by you; and above all do not place any credence in the average daily press, which is for the most part controlled by capitalistic interests, but have an abiding faith in the integrity of those whom you have been instrumental in selecting to lead you-refusing to believe anything which you may hear, or even see with your own eyes, which does not pass through their hands.

PERCENTAGE AND ITS RESULTS.

The contract recently secured by the boys on the New York Central very conclusively shows the necessity for "being ready" before going before the management, and the boys there are certainly to be complimented on the results attained under the circumstances.

Early in April they tried to secure an audience and some consideration of their claims for a schedule but were refused and their committee knew full well they were not strong enough to force any claim they might have, however just, and even last month when they did secure a contract covering seniority rights and rights of appeal their committee knew full well that they were not in a position to contend for, with any hope of obtaining any further concessions. The committee are to be congratulated on securing what they did for it gives them a foundation upon which to stand and places them in a position to strengthen and