But the ideal of the new nation was pregnant with inspirations against which neither sneers nor ridicule could prevail. The ideal spread and new States continued to apply for admission to the Union which stood for human equality. It spread from coast to coast, and then came the first great test to which the ideal was put.

The human rights guaranteed by the "new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal," came into uncompromising conflict with the property rights of slave owners entrenched behind alleged state rights.

But before the new nation was put to this supreme test, its ideal had blessed its working masses with such "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" that they were willing to lay down their lives for its preservation so that their children to come might enjoy the same human rights they had enjoyed against all the forces of property rights.

And in the battle between the ideal of human equality and the clamor for unequal property rights, the ideal won, government of the people, by the people and for the people did not perish from the earth.

The ideal of human equality survived its supreme test triumphantly and continued to grow and spread. It grew as it became more and more directly applied to the laws of the land and the machinery of its government. It spread as other people seized its inspirations and began to hunger for its freedom.

The American ideal crossed the seas and was transplanted on foreign soil.

It invaded the mightiest empires. It defied the proudest traditions. It overwhelmed the privileged classes and captured the hearts of the working masses everywhere.

It girdled the earth with its inspirations and hopes when again it faced a gigantic conflict.

The American ideal of human rights,

which had triumphed over the principle of property rights, finally was challenged by the autocratic principle of divine rights.

But before the American ideal of human rights was challenged by divine rights, it had won itself a secure place in the hearts of all races. Nation after nation had sworn allegiance to the American ideal and made themselves free.

They accepted the challenge of divine rights with all the courage and conviction of the men of 1776 who struck the first blow for human equality.

And so the world to-day stands battle arrayed with the North and the South, the East and the West filled with the true Fourth of July spirit, proclaiming the bleeding for human rights and, in Lincoln's immortal words, seeking "a new birth of freedom that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth."

war.

Kings have fallen, ancient thrones have been overturned in this The hosts of democracy battling for human rights against the autocratic armies of divine rights are ever growing.

On land, on sea, under the sea and in the air, freemen to day shout the Fourth of July battle cry. They are willing to offer "the last full measure cf devotion" to the American ideal of government, not for conquest, not for glory, but that all men may be free.

This is the Fourth of July spirit of the world to-day. It is the spirit of the first Fourth of July, which goes marching on and will not be denied its world triumph.

For as surely as the world to-day is filled with Fourth of July dedication, it will keep up its Fourth of July fighting spirit until in years to come it may rest safely in Fourth of July glory the world over. The Progressive Labor World.

The cheapest way to buy eggs, if you really wish a lot of them, is to purchase shad roe.

A STRENGTH TEST.

A party of English officers serving at the Dardanelles made a wager one day as to which smelled the louder, a goat or a Turk. To settle the wager, a goat was brought into the colonel's tent, and the colonel fainted. When the colonel was revived they brought a Turk into the tent, and the goat fainted.

PROVIDED FOR.

Patient-Doctor, what I need is something to stir me up-something to put me in fighting trim. Did you put anything like that in this prescription? Doctor-No. You will find that in the bill.

A CHEERFUL GIVER. The father of a St. Louis lad had given him a ten-cent piece and a quarter, telling him that he might put one or the other on the church contribulate. At dinner the father asked the boy which coin he had given. "Well, father," responded the lad, "at first it seemed to me that I ought to put the quarter on the plate; but just in time I remembered the saying, 'The Lord loveth a cheerful giver,' and I knew I could give the ten-cent piece a great deal more cheerfully. So I put that in."

WHY HE LEFT.

"I'm very sorry, madam," said the new boarder, "but I have arranged to leave at the end of the week."

"Indeed!" rejoined the landlady. "Are you leaving the city?"

"Oh, no," replied the N. B., I'm merely making a change on account of the water."

"What's wrong with the water?" queried the landlay.

"I'm afraid it is impure," answered the other. "I have detected a slight flavor of coffee in it during the last two or three mornings."

Minneapolis, Minn.

To the Editor:

It has been some time since I have called on you and have been taken to task for not writing, but as Mr. Pierce met with an accident in November, and I took it upon myself to join the working force, I have not had much time to visit, as much as I like to quarrel.

No. 1 is still in the ring. We have just had our first picnic for 1917. We held this one at Minnehaha Falls, where the kiddies could have a good time and we could have hot coffee, and it is perfectly superfluous to say we had a "perfectly lovely time." There isn't anything or any place that quite equals "the falls" when everything is considered. The Zoo is located there, though not all the wild animals of the "Twin Cities" have been caught yet. The State Soldiers' Home is at one end of the park, just where Minnehaha Creek empties into the old Mississippi. Its grounds are beautifully kept, and just beyond, only a short walk away, Fort Snelling is situated, and just now is the busiest place in the State with its preparations for war. No. 1 will hold its first meeting in series 8 this month, and we have applications for four new members.

Last summer, in one of the issues of the Journal, Brother McAllister gave as a reason for Philadelphia not organizing that the homes were too far apart-the membership too scattered. Well, brother, it doesn't seem too far for the men, and I am sure the women are just as good travelers as the men are. Our club is made up of both St. Paul and Minneapolis women, and while I know this is a very small burg compared with Phila

to go a little ways to "arrive" any way; but that is just the trouble. The unions do not encourage the organizing of any auxiliary, and the women still are under the old rule, to a certain extent, that the man is the head of the house, and we hate to do anything that does not meet with hubby's heartiest approval.

If the women were urged a little and made to feel that it was worth while there would be more of it. I speak from experience. When No. 1 first organized we were treated like a huge joke and given two years as the limit of our existence, but we knew they were from Missouri and we-well, have we shown them?

I am glad to hear that No. 8 has an organization of its ladies. Now, Mr. Schneider, get busy and give them their number. I do not see that it is necessary at this early stage that our purposes should be the same as long as they are beneficial to the ones most interested.

I want to ask, through the columns of the Journal, the address of Mrs. H. H. Hughes, of Atlanta. In the excitement of the past year I've lost it, and as she wrote such lovely letters I can't afford to miss them.

We have lost a couple of our members. One of them-Mrs. McMunnhas gone to Pittsburgh to join her husband, who has been working there since last October.

The work here seems to be fairly good just at the present time, but has been very much on the hit-or-miss order for some time past.

Well, I must ring off for this time.
Fraternally,

Local No. 1.

MRS. FRED PIERCE.

NEW YORK.

To the Editor:

Please accept our thanks for the splendid article, entitled "Duncan to Russia." It is what we need at the present moment, and should arouse in us the spirit of emulation to do our part, as members of organized labor, in the great world problems which are confronting us to-day.

The choice of a labor representative by our President is a frank acknowledgment of the assistance which we can render, and is also a splendid tribute to the sterling character of James Duncan.

We understand that the object of the commission to Russia is to explain to the soldiers and workmen, through certain representative men, our Government's purpose in entering the war and to assist the newly formed republic by advice and cooperation in every way possible.

The chairman of the commission, Mr. Elihu Root, is one of our most brilliant statesmen. Honors have been showered upon him to an almost unlimited extent-Secretary of War under President McKinley; Secretary of State, 1905-1909; United States Senator for the term of 1909-1915, and Chief Counsel for the United States before the Permanent Arbitration Court in 1910.

Another member of the commission is Mr. Charles Edward Russell, a Socialist who puts America first. He was forced out of the American Socialist Party because he would not surrender the convictions of a patriot as demanded by the German wing under the domination of Morris Hillquit.

With these and several other representative men is our own James Dun

can, and still the Socialists are not satisfied. As usual, they are doing all that they possibly can against the Government, as represented by this commission.

President Gompers, here at home.

is left to fight alone against the persistent and treasonable effort now under way to destroy the work of the commission; to make its efforts fruitless and divert its aim is the object of these Socialist troublemakers, and if they are successful it will be a serious blow to democracy in Russia and our Government as well. It should be considered as treason and not passed over as the vaporings of a few fanatics of pacifistic activities. We know this Socialistic breed, and a tough gang they are.

They have done all they could to prejudice the Russian mind against the men composing the commission. They have claimed that James Duncan is not a true representative of American labor. All this despite the fact that he has been appointed by the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor and by the union of which he is president.

President Gompers well said in his cable message to the Executive Committee of the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates: "The Kaiser's agents in New York, as well as in Russia, carry on a campaign of misrepresentation and vilification." The Kaiser's agents, here referred to, are the German Socialists and pacifists of other persuasions. Their purpose is to thwart the efforts of the American Government to come to a more perfect understanding with its Russian ally and friend. Germany will be the beneficiary of this Hillquit, Berger and Lee conspiracy.

Suppose we learn a few facts in reference to this pro-German Socialist Hillquit, the leader of those who objected to James Duncan being received by the Russians as a representative American workman. Hillquit is often referred to as the Socialist boss of America, a very able and plausible lawyer. He is one of the most outspoken pacifists of the "red" wing of his party. He believes, because he wants to believe it, that America is pro-German at heart and longs to tell the Russian nation how we love the Germans not the German people, but

Kaiser.

that colossal egotist, the Some day the cheap absurdity, the stupid vanity of kings and emperors will disappear forever. To Hillquit's mind, anything that he desires is right in morals and law; opposition of any kind is ridiculous. He wants what

he wants when he wants it! Bang anybody and everything if in the mood to do so. A splendid world this will be when everybody is a law unto himself only. It was this lover of the divinely appointed Kaiser, this believer in "direct" measures who, a few years ago in Congress, when a naval appropriation was under discussion, made a speech saying that it would be a good plan to take the big guns of the navy and train them on the landlords -the landlords at that moment being the special kind of "capitalist" against whom his benighted soul rebelled. He could and would have used the same words in reference to labor unions if they had been under discussion. But, after all, why trouble ourselves about Hillquit and his folowers. The State Department has quieted him for a little time at least.

Let us return to our subjectJames Duncan-who may be at this very moment laying down in sturdy kitchen English, real old-fashioned American principles to a lot of frowzy, long-haired dreamers who have just awakened from a sleep so deep that nothing less than the trumpet call of a new national life could arouse. They have just slipped out from underneath a weight of despotism too terrible to think of without a shudder, and, of course, they go to extremes. They have been in a cavern called oppression so long that they are liberty mad and long for its blessings. They will learn in time that liberty is not the absence of restraint; enough for them to know, however, that they are free from the hated domination of a czar. They have experienced in the past so much of restraint and compulsion that they blindly refuse all restraint and compulsion. They suppose that individual caprice or passion is freedom.

This is only a counterfeit of real freedom, as they, poor souls, will soon learn if they already have not done so.

Any one who has come through the struggles and earthquakes of the American labor movement, as James Duncan has done, will feel at home and confidently sure of the successful outcome of the impending scrap, however rough and threatening his auditors may be.

As stated, Duncan has been seen to smile in victory and in defeat, but Duncan himself has never been defeated; no man is who steadfastly refuses to acknowledge defeat. We cannot believe that he was a two-fisted knuckle pusher by instinct. If he ever appeared in that role it was because the job required that kind of a pusher.

Duncan's face is kind, not hard, but firm and interesting. It required a firm character to make any impression upon the master granite cutters of Quincy, Mass. Not only upon the employing cutters, but upon the employed as well. The problem of how to adjust all the conflicting interests that are sure to arise in any organization composed of hard-headed and assertive men, so as to combine the utmost production with the greatest improvement in processes, is one of the most difficult ever undertaken. The problem will not be finished in our time, or for many generations after-possibly never.

Duncan's ability as a financier must be wonderful. To gather and keep, especially to keep, a strike fund of $1,000,000 is marvelous. Duncan's system of keeping money in a union's treasury should be adopted by every trade union in the country. It does take some courage to preach high dues, not much, but some; but to preach economy and caution in the expenditure of money received as dues requires the courage of a martyr and the perseverance of a saint.

One must be a believer in high and constantly increasing high dues; voting money for everything in sight and a great many things not in sight, be