An employer who will put in over a body of his employes a man as foreman who is a drunken, disreputable character whom such employes would not willingly associate with, or one who is so void of manly characteristics that he is dispised by all who know him, thus insulting every honest man, is certainly doing anything but keeping his employes in a state of mind to act with reason, and when such is done over capable, honorable, faithful men, they will doubt the advisa bility of trying to be honorable, and be apt to jump to radical conclusions whenever the employer makes a suspicious move, and why should they be condemned for it? Let those who have organized labor act right, setting the example.

There are plenty of exceptions to this class of employers, but where the exceptions are there will be found organized labor prosperous and doing right.

Also as a general rule, employers who are directly over their men are also exceptions. The abuses come in where his place is delegated to others, as is found on railroads and under other large corporations.

WHERE TO BEGIN.

One of the greatest obstacles that organizations, which have for their object mutual benefit to their members and the establishment of better social relations, have to contend with is the difficulty of getting unison of action-a pull together spirit among the members. That this is remarkably true of labor organizations is known by every observing person. The cause for this arises through the great variety of views of life that men have been taught in their you'h, and national, religious and class prejudices, and the varied intelligence of members, which includes all degrees from the most stupid to the brightest minds. Slow progress must be expected with such conditions.

Organizations of labor must be democratic in their government, hence cannot be handled as an army; they must act entirely on what little it is possible for the main portion to agree upon, and this on account of surrounding conditions is as liable to result in disaster as to accomplish immediate good.

The majority become members through force of an emergency and without any previous knowledge of what they have before them. It is much like placing an improved firearm in the hands of a Fiji Islander, they are more liable to injure themselves than their enemy, until they learn the use of it; and thus to the common difficulties confusion is added.

The youthful impressions of man carry more influence than anything else on the acts of mature manhood. Early teachings and beliefs are seldom changed, and early teachings are as varied as men's personal appearances. When they reach that period of life when they must change their views or when a different course must be pursued they are illy fitted for such divergence, and if it is done at all it must be as bending a tree when it has grown.

Religious teachers have long recognized the benefits of youthful impressions, and churches are recruited and sustained by the material prepared in youth. Labor organizations will have to follow this plan if the future sees any remarkable changes over the present condition of things, and there is no better place than the fireside and the public schools to do this, where a love for independent thought and a spirit of inquiry should be propagated.

There is a right and a wrong side to everything, but investigation will bring out the proofs and the evidence found by each individual will not differ much, thus the different ideas which now govern bu

manity will be lessened in the number.

No labor organization wishes to put into practice any particular idea, belief or theory, but there is a wrong (the wrong lays with humanity itself), which the desire is to right, and to move in the right way toward accomplishing this, but at present without any popular plan, confusion and staguation nec. essarily exists, and there can be no popular plan until there is popular thought, which must come from teaching men in their youth to be doubters of and investigators of everything. Why should be the foremost thought.

Pride in self, self reliance and self respect, must be among the youthful lessons. To feel that they are the equals of others and be able to prove it, this will crush out that groveling servile nature that is shown by so many of the workingmen, and which prevents their ad

vancement.

How much will the man ever raise himself that has a nature that causes him to pull his hat off when he approaches a foreman or employer of labor out of doors, as the writer has seen many times, and what of the son of such a father, who should pattern after or inherit such a disposition, as he will if there is not some influence brought to bear to change it. It is not to be expected that a man whose disposition has been influenced by such will work in accord with one who has the opposite disposition. The one with self respect will either scorn or pitty the other, while the ignorance that is coupled with the other's disposition will keep him in the rut that he has got in, and make him complain if anyone attempts to disturb him or assist him out. It is hard work to learn old dogs new tricks. It is difficult to make a man who has been brought up to depend on the employment furnished him by another, believe that he could live in

The

ter than a pound of cure. An ounce of preventative is betchange must be made by applying the preventative to the youth, by teaching them self respect, with which goes ambition, and ambition coupled with honesty will bring about the progress we all desire to see being made. A young man of such early teachings may be bound under circumstances for a time, but he cannot be kept down always, he will watch for and grasp every opportunity to free himself and will be ready to co-operate with kindred spirits. With the popular disposition such, there would soon be an end to many of the abuses complained of. The advantages of being one's own employer would be seen and co-operative enterprises would spring into existance with a bound. Thus, instead of trying to make present conditions easier or to be contented with making a show of objecting to them, it would be better to get out from under them altogether. Organizations would then advance their principles faster, for they would be composed of the material prepared to do it with, their usefulness would soon be at an end, for their object would have been accomplished.

It is the natural desire of parents to see their offspring grow into manhood and womanhood under more favorable conditions than they did, to avoid the mistakes they have made, to be honored and respected by their fellowmen; to have this they must respect them

selves; the parent can do no more than to give them every opportunity to acquire it.

A young person leaving a home no matter how humble, where intelligence and honesty of purpose has ruled, self reliance taught from

the cradle, will seek kindred associates wherever circumstances may drift him, and will thus be thrown in with and under the influence of those who have had the same training as himself, and the associations thus formed will tend to strengthen his self respect and ambition to excel, at least he will not be likely to retrograde.

Schools where the text books and the lectures of teachers keep before the youth the idea that there must be two classes, the employer and employes, are not doing what they should to raise independent and enterprising citizens, and the influence of organized labor should be brought to bear on this evil.

Obedient servants is not what the nation wants, but more self reliant men and women and as fast as possible make our nation one that has not a wage worker in it, but a nation of producers enjoying the full benefits of what they produce and not a drone to live off of them.

The young man who has been taught in youth, that on reaching manhood, the greatest blessing he should hope for is to find a person who will give him steady employment and pay him enough to exist on and perhaps see and enjoy some of the luxuries he has produced, has certainly been started in the wrong direction, he will find those who will employ him, but unless he is more fortunate than the average wage worker, he will find that when old age has overtaken him, that he has worked hard all his best days and merely existed, and the employer has reaped the benefits of the surplus of his labor. No man lives that has from savings cf

his wages made himself independent in old age.

Every effort should be made to reduce the number who seek for

employment at wages and to increase the number who are engaged in private enterprise, or associating themselves on an equal basis with others in industrial pursuits, in which returns are given to each of a full share of the profits of the labor he has invested in it. There is nothing so great but what can be accomplished thus.

There are probably about 15,000 Railroad who do not own a cents men operating the Union Pacific worth of it; there are about 7,000 share holders, who are nominally the owners; there is no reason why the 15,000 workmen should not own all the shares, and besides the amount now received, divide the surplus earnings, and if they did own it the surplus would be greater, for there would be an interested and practical person watching everything, the useless waste under the present system would be stopped.

General Master Workman Pow

derly, in his letters on the work of Knighthood uses these words :

Knights of Labor, trades unionists and friends of labor everywhere, bear these words in mind: Reforms to be lasting must be based on the intelligence of an educated people. It is not essential that they understand Greek and Latin or that they be versed in the classics, but it is absolutely necessary to the well-being of tions that the people of all the land be a republic and the stability of its institueducated. Let us adopt the means of maintaining the parents of the children upon whose labors the parents depend for support, and place the children in the school-house. The work of Knighthood will be made easier through education. Fill the school-houses of to-day that the poor-house of the future may be tenantless.

THE READING STRIKE. The strike of the employes of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad and Coal Company, which was started on Christmas eve, is proba

bly the largest strike of organized labor that has occurred in this country, the total number of men idle being greater than in the famous strike of 1885 on the Gould Southwest System.

What the real merits of it are, and where the blame lays for bringing on such a conflict there is a wide difference of opinion, but whatever view may be taken it cannot all be with the men, for 60,000 men do not go into a conflict of this kind for fun, or without some incentive for so doing. Opinions as to the justness of the case at the opening differ both among labor, commercial and capitalist papers.

A

To our minds it appears that a great event has been brought about by a circumstance which in itself was of a very simple nature. simple bruise which has, by contact and irritation, led to blood poisoning, a condition that the railroad company aided in bringing about in order that they might have an excuse to justify themselves in an open attack on the organization of their employes, and a repudiation of the agreements previously made with them. Such has been the tactics employed by large corporations before in other localitics, sometimes successful and sometimes not, depending much on the good judgment used by those representing organized labor against whom their attempt was made.

Persons brought before a court charged with assault, be that court the one of public opinion or the legal cne, strive to show that they were not originally the offending party. "Who struck the first blow" is a question often asked, and public sympathy generally goes with the party who retaliated in defense, though the second party may have used every means to aggravate the first party, and to cause them to open the conflict.

To have the right side of public opinion gives strength to every position. At the commencement of

this strike the railroad corporation appeared to have the weight of this power in their favor, but they have been steadily losing it, as the details of the case become more generally known. The men have acted with manliness, and to this, in a great measure, the willingness of the public to listen to their side and to inquire into the details may be laid.

Whatever may be the final outcome of the strike, that lawlessness that is so often charged as entering into strikes of organized labor has not as yet been developed.

The strikers' Executive Committee have issued a paper called the Pointer, in which has appeared the most reliable information from their standpoint that it has been possible to get. In it has appeared a letter to G. M. W. Powderly from Chairman Lee, of the Executive Board, which gives a very concise statement of the original cause of the trouble. We quote from it the following:

That you may get a truthful statement

of the real cause of the strike I deem it my duty as Chairman of the Executive committee, and as a true Knight of Labor, to give you all the facts in this case, that you may understand the position we are forced into, and you can see that it is a the Railroad Company to crush out the conspiracy amongst the operators and spirit of organization amongst the wageworkers of the Anthracite Coal Fields.

First. The employes of the P. & R. Co., at Elizabethport, N. J., refused to load a barge of coal for Eckley B. Coxe, believing that the Company was working with the said Coxe to defeat the miners of the lower Lehigh_region. For so refusing to obey the Company's order all

hands were discharged.

Secondly. A firm who were antagonizing and discriminating against the K. of L, by hiring what we call scab labor, had some work to be done by our memPort Richmond. They refused to handle bers who were on shifting-engines at the goods and, as a result, were promptly discharged by the Superintendent. A committee of the K. of L. visited the General Superintendent, and called his tered into, that all employes, before beattention to Article 13 of agreement ening discharged, should have a fair and impartial hearing the matter should be