or Washington, D. C.-Whether not the truth about industrial conditions in America is to be suppressed depends now on the United States Senate. The fate of the rsolution ordering the printing of 100,000 copies of the final report of the Commission on Industrial Relations and 10,000 copies of the testimony now hangs in the balance. Unless an agressive fight is made, it will be defeated by a handful of reactionary Senators, led by Hoke Smith of Georgia. They will accomplish this by taking advantage of senatorial red tape, and particularly of the vicious system known as "senatorial courtesy" by which one senator can often block action. Whether or not the interests that want the report suppressed succeed will depend largely on the pressure brought to bear on the Senate by those who want the facts about American industrial conditions known. An agressive demand for action will cut through all the red tape and win speedy favorable action on the resolution to print the report. Write your Senator today! For months the resolution to print the report and testimony of the United States Commission on Industrial Relations has before the United States Senate. Under one pretext or another no action has been taken on it. The selfish, reactionary interests are trying to prevent the printing of the report and testimony, because they disclose the truth about industrial conditions. Labor must help the Labor group in Congress to force the Senate to adopt the resolution to print. Write to the Senators from your State! The best group of Representatives in this present Congress is the Labor Group. They are only about a score in number, but considering their number they are the most effective men in Congress. In the five or six years it has been in existence this gradually growing group has been the driving force, so far as Congress itself is concerned, behind all legislation in the real interest of the people. Working quietly and with only a handful of members, this group is today the most hopeful thing under the dome of the Capitol. Yet its existence today is only a prophecy, not a fulfillment, of what can be accomplished. IF LABOR WAS REPRESENTED BY AT LEAST FIFTY MEN IN THE NEXT CONGRESS THE LABOR GROUP WOULD HOLD THE BALANCE OF POWER. THEY COULD COMPEL LEGISLATION FOR THE RIGHTS OF LABOR. THEY COULD PREVENT THE PASSAGE OF BILLS TO GRAB THE PUBLIC WEALTH AND TO MONOPOLIZE NATURAL RESOURCES. Every special interest antagonistic to Labor has the fullest representation in Congress it can get. The banks, the railroads, the political machines, the steel and oil and coal trusts have their groups-and all these unite in one general group against the rights of those whose labor in factories and on the railroads and on the farms produce the wealth they covet. Why should not the organized labor movement, the trade unions and the organizations of farmers and Strikebreaking Denounced In sentencing two strikebreakers to jail, Judge Connelly, Detroit, Mich., scored corporations for importing these men into the city. The accused were employed by the Michigan Central Railroad during its recent strike of railroad clerks. When the strike was settled they were discharged, and then they stole from the company. In sentencing them to 90 days in the house of correction, the court said: "When a corporation brings an army of strikebreakers, many of them men with criminal records, to a city and then turns them loose on a city and the criminals steal from the corporation, I can't see why the officials expect the court to become wrathy because of the criminals' misdeeds. "I can't work up much enthusiasm over this case. It is simply a A TREMENDOUS TASK case Photographer: You are all right, now, except your expression. Please look pleasant. Jan Green: Gosh-dang it, I can't! I'm bow-legged, an' am tryin' to hold me knees together so's it won't show. When I smile I forgit all about my knees, an' when I pay at where the criminal bit the hand that fed him, or the biter was bitten. It is only a natural course of development. The only good thing about the matter is that the corporation is the sufferer in this case and not some innocent citizen." The Detroit News makes this editorial comment on Judge Connelly's views: "The men were brought to Detroit by a corporation as strikebreakers, at high wages presumably, and were discharged when the strike was settled. "Imported strikebreakers are not noted for self-control, nor for any precious respect of law and order. The court's disposition to blame the importer together with his hirelings is logical." Cement Mill Workers' Union No. 14501, Mitchell, Indiana At the Seattle Convention of the American Federation of Labor the delegate of the Cement Mill Workers, of Mitchell, Indiana, presented a resolution urging the unionizing of the Cement Manufacturing industry. When the Cement Manufacturers learned of the activities of the Cement Mill Workers, the entire union force of the Lehigh Portland Cement Company, at Mitchell, Indiana, were locked out and are still locked out. All the tactics that a powerful corporation can use to crush the spirit of the workers were used against the locked out employees at Mitchell, Indiana. Riots were created wherein men lost their lives. Sluggers and gunmen employed to intimidate and browbeat the union members. Bribery, open, brazen and vicious in the extreme, was resorted to and scores of our men jailed, persecuted and prosecuted, but the spirit of unionism was so well imbedded in the minds and hearts of the union men that they are just as determined now as they were at any time in the past to assert themselves and secure the right of association, organization, collective bargaining and some measure of justice at the hands of the employers. Prior to the lockout, the Lehigh Portland Cement plant at Mitchell, Indiana, was operated upon a twelve hour day basis, with a large part of the working force working seven days per week. The wages under these conditions was one dollar and fifty cents per day. The Mitchell, Indiana, Tribune in trying to induce new industries to locate in Mitchell, held out this alluring advantage: "In Mitchell We Have the Cheapest Labor This Side of China" Recently the Cement Mill Workers started an agitation to induce fellow trade unionists who use cement to give preference to cement manufacturers who are friendly to labor unions and to refuse to use cement manufactured by the enemies of organized labor. This agitation made the Lehigh Portland Cement Co. sit up and in order to offset its effect the Lehigh Company established the eight hour day in their plant and made the minimum rate of wages for eight hours, one dollar and seventy cents. We regard this move on the part of the and company only a delusion snare and is only done to make cement users think that the company is fair to organized labor but it is another trick of the company to receive the public. as The Lehigh Portland Company plant at Mitchell, Indiana, is absolutely non-union and the company is the avowed enemy of union labor. Union men are not compelled to patronize their enemies but we are duty bound to stick to our friends. N. H. TOMLINSON, Pres. JAMES H. COFFEY, Sec. Cheering Him Up The pessimist was suffering from rheumatism. "Every bone in my body aches," he complained. "You ought to be glad you are not a herring," said the optimist.-TitBits. Every woman can hammer nails like lightning-which doesn't strike twice in the same place. An Appeal to the Workingmen's Conscience Fundada el 14 de Julio de 1899. FEDERACION LIBRE DE LOS TRABIADORES DE PUERTO RICO. Afiliada a la American Federation of Labor Santiago Iglesias: Presidente Rafael Alonso: Sec. Gen. Allen No. 7, Box 270 Telefono 645 THE PORTO RICAN LABORERS OUTRAGED AND OPPRESSED TO ALL THE LABORING PEOPLE OF AMERICA AND THE REST OF The WORLD. Dear Fellow Workers: The Free Federation of Laborers of Porto Rico, affiliated to the American Federation of Labor, representing practically the large masses of the wealth producers of the Island, since 1915 has determined, considering the high price at which sugar is quoted in the American market, to declare on strike generally throughout the sugar producing regions of Porto Rico and is now out for wages amounting to $1.00 per day for each eight hours. The chaotic situation that has developed last year was investigated by the United States Industrial Relations Commission, and all the facts, crimes, suppressions of political rights and tyranny industrial and gubernatorial were told in Mr. Basil M. Manly's report. The same conditions have occurred this year as we shall see from the following: The Almighty Dollar is Crushing Humble Labor More than 20,000 agricultural workers went to strike in January, 1916, for better conditions, wages and eight hours. Police and local magistrates favoring "SUGAR TRUST." In Juana Diaz, police without excuse fired against strikers and citizens killing one, two more died in hospital, wounded four women, two boys and ten men. In Rio Grande, police fired, clubbed and cut strikers. In Loiza, police fired and clubbed strikers killing one like a dog and wounding several more. In Arecibo, police fired and clubbed strikers killing one and wounding many of them and also several arrests have been made. Also peaceful parades of defenseless women have been brutally disbanded by shots. In Bayamon, police fired to the Assembly hall of the American Federation of Labor, breaking charters of Unions with bullets. Clubs and bullets are used freely to frighten poor laborers in the country. Parades are destroyed and hundreds of arrests have been made to justify local official barbarism. GOV. YAGER HAS DICTATED OPPRESSIVE ORDER ABSOLUTELY PROHIBITING PEACEFUL LABOR ASSEMBLIES, PARADES AND GROUPS OF THREE PERSONS IN STRIKE DISTRICTS. Which is the Economical Situation of the Island? Producing masses oppressed and trampled with, absolutely restrained from lawfully fighting the MONSTER MONOPOLIES, AND AS A RESULT THE REIGN OF INDUSTRIAL TYRANNY AND OPPRESSION IS GOVERNING SUPREME OVER LIFE AND LABOR. We are demanding a complete and full investigation of our resources and of the miserable conditions under which laborers work, by United States Congress, by means of an impartial, fair and unflinching commission, one without selfish motive or interest behind in the monopolies and underhand speculations which is bleeding to death the Island. URGENT APPEAL FOR FUNDS. The law suits which the State Branch of the American Federation of Labor in Porto Rico has to sustain as well as the petitions for help from the mothers, children and other relatives of the persecuted, and the struggle we are expected to keep up so energetically to combat and overcome calls for a good deal of funds which we have not got. The most of these law suits are to come off before the Supreme Court of Porto Rico and some of them involving constitutional rights will have to appear before the U. S. Supreme Court. We earnestly demand the co-operation and financial assistance of all the labor organizations and of all the public-spirited and generous men of our movement. THIS IS THE FIRST TIME WE SEEK FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE OF THE SISTER UNIONS ON THE AMERICAN CONTINENT. A people struggling for its rights and public liberties, under horrible conditions of oppression and tyranny places its trust in your financial co-operation, and believes it will be cheerfully given. Responding in this wise to the great spirit of justice which has ever characterized your conduct, we hope to enlist your generous co-operation and that you will respond generously, we are as ever, Yours fraternally, Executive Council of the Free Federation of Workingmen of Porto Rico: RAFAEL ALONSO, Sec. Gen. SANTIAGO IGLESIAS, President. NOTE-All contributions should be sent to Rafael Alonso, Gen. Sec. Federacion Libre, Box 704, San Juan, P. R. |