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These three points are essential, for the reason that it is not easy to interest everybody in certain studies unless such studies carry with them a personal appeal and mental pleasure. Lessons in local history will appeal to every member of that local personally, while the proposed social intercourse and other good things will invest the entire educational plan with attraction and accomplish valuable results.

The Educational Committee has succeeded in securing the permission of the Board of Education to use public school rooms in various districts for this important educational work. The committee will have its headquarters in the Washington Irving High School, Irving Place and Sixteenth Street, New York, two short blocks away from the General Office. In this school the International courses and higher classes will be given for New York, where are located the biggest locals and the majority of the membership of the International.

The plan cannot be inaugurated at the same time in all cities having locals of the International, owing to many and various difficulties easily understood. But the Educational Committee will be pleased to communicate with every local out of New York, and give every information as to how the local educational committees should start and proceed with their local educational work. The Educational Committee will likewise, as far as possible, transmit to other cities, in the form of correspondence courses, the lectures and lessons delivered in New York, and, as soon as possible and practicable, the same work will be also inaugurated in the locals out of New York.

Thus a good, practical beginning has been made. From the foregoing facts it can be seen how advantageous our new Educational Institute will be for our locals in general and every member in particular. The resolution adopted at the Philadelphia convention is being effectually carried out. All beginnings are hard, and it has taken us more than a year to make this beginning, because the plan was beset with many difficulties. But now that a good and solid foundation has been laid, we may be sure that henceforth our course will run smoother and that the work will be perfected more and more and bear good fruit.

The officers of the Educational Committee, consisting of Juliet Stuart Poyntz, director; Elias Lieberman, chairman and Fannia M. Cohn, organizing secretary, feel that they have made a strong endeavor to carry out their ▸ task to the best of their power and ability. The Educational Committee and the officers of the International see with satisfaction in the practical beginning of this work the unfolding of a branch of union activity destined to prove a source of intellectual and moral development and bring the International and its locals to a high level of organized efficiency and power.

Let us, however, bear in mind one essential thing, that without the earnest and abiding interest, enthusiasm and co-operation of the locals, their officers, executive boards and members, this plan cannot succeed..

Let the local educational committees carry out the work devolved upon them with diligence and earnestness. Let the active members of every local co-operate with their local educational committees and with the general Educational Committee and thus enable them to accomplish the work mapped out. With their active co-operation it will not take long before the desired results of this good work will make themselves felt in the spirit of unity, harmony and discipline pervading all the members of the International.

THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR

The garment trades of the country comprise more than half a million. wage workers. If the opportunity were afforded to organize them all and bring the existing organizations into closer unity these trades would form a consolidated power that would react with mighty good effect on the entire labor movement of the United States and Canada.

Those who are organized, number over 200,000, and their organization is due to the enthusiasm and spirit of enterprise of the Jewish workers. Approximately 160,000, mostly Jewish workers, are affiliated with and pay per capita to the American Federation of Labor. Thoughtful people everywhere know and recognize the fact that thanks to the fighting spirit and sacrifice of the Jewish workers the sweating system in the garment trades was abolished. Their ceaseless agitation in the last quarter of a century and the powerful unions they have built up have finally forced the employers to act more humanely towards their employees.

Thus the unions in the garment trades merit recognition and encouragement at the conventions of the American Federation of Labor, at least to the extent of being accorded moral aid to continue their organizing efforts, their noble work of bringing in line and elevating the thousands of workers still outside of the ranks. Yet upon coming to the annual convention with plans and proposals for strengthening their positions and reaching the unorganized masses these proposals do not receive sufficiently serious consideration.

At the convention in Buffalo the delegates of our International called for a matter of apparently little import, but of great and far-reaching significance to the garment trades of the country. They introduced a resolution instructing the Executive Council of the Federation to form a Needle Trades Department on the same lines as the other trade departments in the American Federation of Labor. The present condition of the garment trades render such a department essential to them. Good results would follow from a central organization of this kind. It would stimulate the representatives of the various unions to plunge into the work of expansion with all the energy and enterprise of which they are capable.

In the terms of the resolution (see page 11) the needle trades are in many respects similar to one another, and owing to their seasonal character the workers of one trade in the slack season are driven by dire necessity to seek employment in a similar trade. And as the organizations have no mutual understanding for regulating these incursions, friction and troubles arise in the shops. Naturally, the resolution concludes, a measure of unity among the organizations in these trades would strengthen them and protect the workers.

A department such as the resolution calls for would cement the relations between the existing unions and gradually bring about closer unity or possibly complete amalgamation of the various international unions. The desire

for this consummation has often been expressed at the conventions of the Federation, and no one will deny that the realization of this ideal is very desirable.

But instead of receiving the sympathy and support of the convention and of the officers of the American Federation of Labor the delegation of our International Union experienced much unpleasantness. The delegate of the New York State Federation of Labor and the delegate of the New York Central Federated Union, to whom the political game is of more concern than the urgent interests of the garment trades, confused the entire issue with a resolution against the United Hebrew Trades, and their backers, the delegates of the United Garment Workers' viewed the matter as though a cloud and opposed the idea of a Needle Trades Department.

Ostrich-like, the opponents of the resolution could not see the menace to all the garment unions looming in the distance. In the trade organs of the manufacturers the idea of combining all the garment manufacturers' associations is frequently advocated. A Needle Trades Department would provide the best opportunity to prepare for and obviate this menace which will be here sooner or later.

The resolution was not carried. Instead of this the report of the Committee on Organization was adopted to refer the entire matter for investigation to the Executive Council of the Federation, and if the Council sees fit it' will form the proposed department.

We hope that the investigation will be conducted in the right spirit. President Gompers is well acquainted with the garment trades' situation and understands the peculiar psychology of the employers in these trades. President Gompers realizes that the militant spirit of the Jewish and Italian workers and their innate tendency to act quickly is the result of the employers' warlike attitude. This explains why the organizations in the needle trades sometimes act not quite in accord with the cold stereotyped methods adapted to cooler temperaments. President Gompers knows, however, the earnestness and the best intentions of our people.

The mere fact that a Garment Trades Department could bring about unity and harmony among the existing organizations is the best reason why it should be established as speedily as possible.

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR VISITORS

November 6, 1917, will linger long in the memory of our active members. It was the first Election Day in America that afforded some compensation to our Socialist friends for the fruitless efforts of many years.

The victory has exceeded all our expectations. Morris Hillquit, the close. friend of our union, who was the Socialist candidate for mayor, polled nearly 150,000 votes, four times the number of votes received by the Socialist candidate for mayor in 1913.

In addition to the two Assemblymen from Brooklyn, nine were elected from districts in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Bronx. Among the new Assemblymen is Elmer Rosenberg, first vice-president of our International,

A very important victory was that of our well-known friend Jacob Panken, who was elected judge in the second municipal district. For the first time in the history of our movement the workers of New York secure entrance into the palace of justice. Panken was elected by a large majority, which shows how highly his many years of service in the Socialist and trade union movements is esteemed in our labor circles. And once the working class has realized the meaning and effect of a Socialist judge its voters will increase the number of these judges at the coming elections.

And for the first time in the history of New York seven Socialist aldermen elected by the people will represent the people's interests in the municipal government of this city.

We congratulate Assemblymen-elect Ab. Shiplacoff and Joseph Whitehorn on their re-election, and their new colleagues, Feigenbaum and Wile, from Brooklyn; Orr, Gitlow and Garfinkel from Bronx, and Karlin, Claessens, Rosenberg and Waldman from Manhattan. They are the first solid group of Socialists in the New York legislature.

We congratulate Judge Jacob Panken and the Socialist alderman Algernon Lee, Dr. Calman, B. Vladek, A. Braunstein, Adolf Held, B. Woolf and A. Beckerman, and we congratulate the Socialist Party on these victories.

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Our heartiest felicitations to the women of New York, especially our tens of thousands of members in our local unions, the heroic fighters in many strikes. Their victory on November 6, 1917, gladdens the heart of every progressive and right-thinking person.

Those of our sisters who as yet are not citizens should try to get their naturalization papers without delay. We feel confident that also in the political struggle they will range themselves on the side of Socialism and trade. unionism and help the working class come to itself become the dominant power in the industry and politics of the land.

HAND OF LABOR

Hand of labor, hand of might,
Be thou strong in things of right.
Master thou of crafts untold,
Driving them in heat and cold;
Working high and working low,
That the world may brighter grow,
Press, the loom, and traffic great,
Know the drive behind thy weight,

Hand of labor, rude and fine,
Things of earth are mostly thine.
Mines of gold and fields of wheat,
Harbors deep where pennants greet;
Ships of war, canals and locks,
Roads of steel and bridges, docks,
Strain thy sinews day and night,
Be thou strong in things of right.

Mills and shops in clang and roar,
Foundry fires and molten ore;
Sullen mines and heaving seas,
Lands of rock and timber trees;
Cotton fields as white as snow,
Forges black 'mid flames aglow,
Strain thy sinews day and night,
Be thou strong in things of right.
Hand of labor, great thou art;
Be thou fair, and bear thy part
Like big souls, sincere, intense;
Stoop not low to base offense,
Nor, in heat, forget that men,
Large and small, all kind and ken,
Have their place and must remain
'Neath the sway of guiding brain.
-Lilburn H. Townsend.

The American Labor Movement in the Present Crisis

By A. Rosebury

CONVENTION OF THE AMERICAN

FEDERATION OF LABOR.

The annual convention of the American Federation of Labor began its sessions under more auspicious circumstances than any previous convention. For the first time in its history it had the honor of the President of the United States addressing the delegates.

As President Wilson is world renowned and his utterances are of great consequence, the mere circumstance of his visit to a labor convention indicated that labor is the main factor in the world's progress. The President said that he "esteemed it a great privilege and a real honor to be thus admitted" to the labor public councils. This cannot be otherwise interpreted than that organized labor has received the official recognition of the United States Government.

It was, indeed, a great surprise both for labor and its foes. Working people were surprised at the President's visit and his address because it practically amounts to a revolution in thought, regarding labor. Some delegates, when told the previous day that President Wilson would practically open the convention, regarded it as incredible. For it is not so very long since unions have been publicly denounced and union men placed beyond the pale of law in time of strikes.

The manufacturing interests and big business, on the other hand, were visibly piqued at government compliments being thus officially paid to labor. In their opinion the President has gone too far. When a city mayor extends a welcome to a labor convention it is mostly for the good and welfare of the city's business. The compliments paid to labor by such personages on such occasions are mere formal utterances and express, at most, private opinions. But the compliments of the President of the United States carry great weight.

The fact has given no pleasure to manufacturers in general and the foes of labor in particular. It is the death-knell to their antiquated ideas of open shop and keeping labor down.

The captains of industry are not easily amenable to conviction that the organized workers are playing one of the most important parts in the world war. Has not Premier Lloyd George of Great Britain said that many a victory in this war is won in the workshops?

President Wilson sees the same thing. All the acts of his administration in regard to labor have one aim in view: the government must live in peace with the workers because it needs their co-operation. The government must indorse the eight-hour day, time and one-half for over time and the most important thing-give the unions official recognition; in other words, consent to the workers, as far as possible, joining the respective unions of their trades, so that they may be dealt with through their organizations. The British government has done the same thing; it had no choice.

But, say the pessimists, after the war all these privileges will be curtailed.

It is very possible that the hostile employers will strain their utmost efforts in that direction. But will the powerful labor organizations, then also politically organized, permit them to go far in their attempt?

POLITICAL ORGANIZATION OF LABOR ASSURED

In this connect it is interesting to note that the convention has amended the constitution of the American Federation of Labor, changing the date of the annual conventions from November to June. James Duncan and John B. Lennon, vice-presidents of the Federation, have made no secret as to the reason for the change. Duncan said:

happening in Congress and in some of the By meeting in June we can know what is

legislatures, and our committees in the convention can lay down their plans for not only organizing campaigns during the month of the year when organizing can best be done, but they can also lay out plans whereby we can more concertedly help to support our friends and defeat our enemies on the political field.

We will have the summer and fall to know that we will not be drawn away just before election and denied opportunity of casting our vote on Election Day.

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