As to the war, opinions differ very much and vague discussion leads nowhere. Perhaps the most correct and proper opinion is that it is the duty of the people everywhere to get their governments to end it as quickly as possible. We shall, however, be glad to answer distinct queries, provided they have some connection with trade unionism and labor.-Editor.

OUR UNION AND THE UNION LABEL Editor "Ladies' Garment Worker":

As a member of Local No. 33 for nearly two years, I notice in our constitution book "Rules governing the Union Label." I am told that the International Union has a label. I guess this label could be put on corsets, for example, and on all women's garments. I understand that at least half the women's garments in America are made by union women and men. Would it not be easy to put the union label through for use by manufacturers who sign for union shops and employ union help? To me this is some mystery. I cannot get over the fact that our union has a label and does not make use of it. Won't you explain this, Mr. Editor?

F. D. G. Answer:-There are many reasons why the union label of our International is not on the market like labels of other unions. One of these, and by far the strongest reason, is that working men's wives and daughters are not patronizing the label, are not asking for it as they should. The style seems to be more important to them.

In past years our International Union spent large sums of money on label' agitation in many parts of the country, but only few firms here and there adopted the label.

It is hard to tell whether a new agitation would meet with better success. First of all we have to overcome the feverish desire of women folk to prefer style to union made garments. Manufacturers are aware of this, and being, as a rule, opposed to unions, they have a way of suppressing the labelled garments and offering the stylish woman the style she is after. Of course, it is not wrong for women to desire to dress stylishly, but it would promote the cause of the union label and union labor if they could somehow develop the habit of asking for the union label with the style. This would be a great work for active unions of women workers.

At our last convention it was decided to start a label agitation, but our International has recently had many strikes and other troubles, and now there is the war difficulty. Hence the delay.-Editor,

THE UNION DENTAL CLINIC Editor "Ladies' Garment Worker":

I was very much interested in the article on the Union Dental Clinic, opened by the Joint Board of Sanitary Control for the benefit of the workers in our trade. It is certainly a great idea.

I have had some work done for me by private dentists who were recommended by friends, but not until I attended the Union Dental Clinic did I realize how much better service I am getting for less money.

More than anything else I feel that it is a great thing for the workers to have a reliable place to go to when anything is wrong with their teeth. It seems to me that every girl should consider it a misfortune to have her teeth damaged or ruined by bad dentists, and no member of the union, man or woman, need neglect attending to his teeth, now that we have a place like this that we can almost call our own. I am telling all my acquaintances of the Union Dental Clinic and hope those who will read this will do the same.

RAND SCHOOL ITEMS

B. S.

Dear Editor: Kindly print the attached story in the next issue of your publication:

A Map Wanted

The Rand School, 140 East 19th Street, needs a map of Europe. What is wanted is a white map with no lettering, and showing only physical features such as coast lines, rivers, mountains, etc. It is intended that the students mark on the cities, the languages and race groups, and the old political boundaries, and those that obtain after the war. They will also do the lettering, make a key index, etc.

The map should be at least three feet from top to bottom, take in all Europe unbroken, and should be mounted on canvas and provided with a frame and glass. will be finished by the students working with the instructors in history and art.

It

After Europe is finished, and the new boundaries settled, the other continents will be taken up in succession. What friend of the School will contribute this map?

Shall We Have a Gymnasium?

On the top floor of the people's house at 7 East 15th Street, (the new building ac

quired by the Rand School) is a large room suitable for use as a gymnasium and there are several small rooms on the same floor that may be used for shower baths, lockers, smoking rooms, or for other purposes. Just what use those rooms will be put to depends upon the demands of the comrades.

If there is a great demand for a gym, all these rooms will be arranged accordingly. If boys and girls are to use the gym at the same time, larger space will have to be reserved for lockers and showers. If the gym is also going to be used for dances, and

the other rooms on that floor for social purposes, the space will be arranged differently.

Lessons in first aid will be given and some clinical work done in those rooms. A. notice will soon be published asking students and workers to enroll for the first aid classes. Meanwhile, if you are interested in the gym or the first aid classes, write to Herman Kobbe, care of Rand School, 140 East 19th Street, for full particulars.

HERMAN KOBBE.

This remarkable woman is now 73 years old, and fifty of these years she spent in prisons, in Siberia and at hard labor, for preaching the gospel of revolution and a free Russia. Her hair is already snow white, her figure shrunken, her eyes devoid of the old fire-a grandmother indeed. But her spirit is young. Her noble soul is still full of love for humanity, and her faith in the power of the human will, unshaken.

Upon her recent return from Siberia, whither she had been banished anew some years ago, the free Russian people accorded her a triumphant welcome, in gratitude for the noble life she has lived for the revolution.

Breshkovskaya gave signs of her future career while yet five years old. She was then surrounded with several governesses who taught her foreign languages, and scandalized her mother by presenting to a little peasant girl her velvet cloak. Serfdom in Russia had not yet been abolished and that made her act particularly shocking and unpardonable to her parents.

That was sixty-eight years ago. Since then she has continued to shower her sympathy and love for the lowly and oppressed. Wherever she perceived pain and agony, wherever men and women suffered hardship and injustice, there was Breshkovskaya to defend, teach, enlighten and dry the tears of wounded and smarting sufferers.

While yet in her teens she seems to have been animated by the desire to succor the

poor and oppressed. What a noble selfsacrifice hers must have been to give up luxury and the surroundings of the idle rich and go and live among the untutored peasantry in order to infuse rays of light and hope into their dark, penurious lives.

For Breshkovskaya was the offspring of the Russian nobility. Her parents were land owners, and land owners at that time owned their laborers, or serfs, body and soul. Serfdom had been abolished everywhere in Europe but still lingered in Russia, and the serfs were slaves in every sense except that they got their bare living out of the soil while tilling it for their idle owners. The muffled voices of those who were flogged, tortured and cruelly treated penetrated thick castle walls and reached her ears. These had their meaning and message for her: they called her to serve the people and help in the struggle for democracy and popular rights. Like so many others of her class who were fired by the noble ideal of freedom, she turned her back on a life of luxury and idleness and joined the revolutionists.

At twenty-six she was already a political suspect, watched by the police. She went about in the out of the way villages spreading the light of the new ideas and trying to comfort the people, telling them of better times to come.

To do this was by no means easy. For the peasants feared and distrusted anyone who in manner or speech betrayed his con

It is reported that the government is considering the confiscation of all incomes above $100,000, together with the levying of big increases in the tax on incomes under this figure.

The proposal has not developed beyond the talk stage, but the idea is one that will find hearty favor with every one except those whose incomes will feel the "pinch." Naturally, the gentlemen in Wall Street, to whom $100,000 is a disdainfully inadequate allowance for even mere "pin money," may be expected to holler when hit with such a "Socialistic" bombshell.

However, if the government is really in earnest in its talk of conscripting incomes, it needn't stop at the $100,000 mark. Why not go the limit and conscript all incomes down to $5,000? Five thousand a year will enable a man with a small family, whose tastes are not too extravagant, to live fairly well. Thousands of workingmen with large families get along on less. It is true that they don't live extra well, but they manage to exist, and gentlemen with big incomes. if they are half as patriotic as they pretend to be, could manage on $5,000, and ought to be willing to do so if the country's needs should demand this sacrifice.

When one considers what would be the lot of thousands of workingmen, mere ordinary citizens of the country, who would endure the hardships and brave the hazards of war for a mere pittance of a monthly

wage in time of war, the suggestion to limit incomes to $5,000 a year seems altogether reasonable. Indeed, it would seem a positive crime to allow any one to stay safely at home and enjoy any greater income than this while the soldiers were serving miserably in the trenches for practically nothing, not to speak of the condition of their families left at home without protection or support.

One hundred thousand dollars a year in profits for the man who expects to continue business at the same old stand while his less fortunate fellow citizens march off to war, to certain suffering and possible slaughter! Doesn't this strike you as terribly unjust? If the government is going to let the captains of industry and finance escape with $100,000 in loot, in profits made from war, it will but make a ridiculous farce of the whole affair. It will not succeed in altering the situation of profits made by one class at the expense of hardships and hazards endured by another class of citizens, which is the outstanding and shameful feature that degrades the business of war and makes patriotism a hollow and largely meaningless term.

Conscript all incomes above $5,000! Make the capitalists pay the cost of war-the financial cost, at least-down to the last dollar of their unholy profits!-Appeal to Reason.