FIFTEEN PER CENT INCREASE. Through organization the Locomotive Firemen have secured an increase in wages during the past five years, averaging over fiften per cent.

Why have the Clerks not done likewise? Are their services not as essential to the operation of a railroad as those of the Firemen. Does it not require as much skill to perform their duties? Is the work not as arduous? Most certainly. We do not have to seek very far for the cause-the Firemen have had the foresight to perfect their organization and demand just compensation for their services, and the Clerks have not done so. The Clerks can accomplish just as much if they will only do it, but first it is essential that they build their organization up to an effective basis. Think what fifteen per cent. increase would mean for the average Clerk. It would mean $11.25 per month, or, $135.00 per year to the Clerk receiving seventy-five dollars per month. It would mean $7.50 per month, or, $90.00 per year to the Clerk receiving fifty dollars per month. Then with effective organization will come a reduction of hours, exemption from work on Sundays and holidays, pay for overtime, etc. Is the result not worth striving for.

How can effective organization be brought about? Simply through every Clerk individually doing his duty to himself and his fellow man. No organization of employes was ever a success, where the individual employe insisted upon "being shown" what it had accomplished before identifying himself with it. The organizations that have "shown" what they can accomplish are those that have the full support of the craft which it represents. Success cannot come to the organization if each individual member of the craft waits for some one else to "take the lead." The proper thing to do is to get into your Brotherhood-not wait for some one else; but aspire to be a leader in the movement, and do it now.

A COMPARISON.

A press dispatch from Washington, D. C., says: Secretary Moseley of the interstate commerce commission has been collecting statistics for years, showing the average earnings of roads and the average wages they pay their employes. These figures indicate that since 1900 the net earnings of roads have increased 82 per cent. The av

erage earnings of the men have not increased more than 17 per cent.

The figures further show the significant fact that those railroad men have obtained the largest increase in wages who are banded together in an aggressive organization. For instance, in five years the average wages of switchtenders, crossing tenders, and watchmen, who are not organized, have increased only 1.14 per cent., while the average wages of Conductors, who are organized, have increased 15.13 per cent.; those of Railroad Firemen, also organized,

14.66 per cent.; those of the Engineers who have an organization similar to the Conductors and Firemen, 12.33 per cent.

Where no organization exists the same treatment has been accorded to the men as in the case of Switch and Crossing Tenders. For instance, general office Clerks have had an increase of only 1.37 per cent., and other station men about 4 per cent. The railroad officials have not been niggardly with themselves, for their salaries have increased 28.86 per cent.

"All information I have collected," said Secretary Moseley, "demonstrates that

neither prosperity nor politics cuts any fig. ure in causing an increase of wages paid to railroad employes. The increase is forced by the organization of railroad men."

With the above figures coming from such a source it seems that self interest would prompt every Railroad Clerk in the land to get into his craft organization and thereby make it possible to attain the same benefits in the way of increased compensation that the effectively organized classes have gained. The services of the Clerk are just as essential to the operation of a railway system as are those of the Engineer, the Fireman, or the Conductor and the reason that his compensation has not been increased in same ratio with those employes is simply because he has not perfected his organization and gotten in a position to command the same consideration as is accorded them. Let him do so and claim the reward awaiting such action.

ECONOMIC DEMANDS OF THE AMERI

CAN FEDERATION OF LABOR. The twenty-sixth annual convention of the American Federation of Labor was held at Minneapolis, November 12th to 24th, inclusive. It was a great gathering and a notable event in the Labor World. Measures were formulated looking toward the organization of the yet unorganized workers, the cementing of the bonds of Brotherhood more fully and ways and means devised for carrying on a still more intense campaign for the material, moral, social and political welfare of the toilers.

The following are the economic demands of the A. F. of L. as adopted at that convention:

1st. The abolition of all forms of involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime.

2nd. Free schools, free text books and compulsory education.

3rd. Unrelenting protest against the is. suance and abuse of injunction process in labor disputes.

4th. A workday of not more than eight hours in the twenty-four.

5th. A strict recognition of not over eight hours per day on all Federal, State or Municipal work and at not less than the prevailing per diem wage rate of the class of employment in the vicinity where the work is performed.

6th. Release from employment one day in seven.

7th.

The abolition of contract system on public work.

8th. The municipal ownership of public utilities.

9th. The abolition of the sweat shop system.

10th. Sanitary inspection of factory, workshop, mine and home.

11th. Liability of employers, for injury to body or loss of life.

12th. The nationalization of telegraph and telephones. 13th.

The passage of anti-child labor laws in states where they do not exist and rigid defense of them where they have been enacted into law.

14th. Woman suffrage co-equal with man suffrage.

15th. The initiative and referendum and the imperative mandate and right of recall. 16th. Suitable and plentiful playgrounds for children in all cities.

17th. Continued agitation for the public bath system in all cities.

18th. Qualifications in permits to build, of all cities and towns, that there shall be bathrooms and bathroom attachments in all houses or compartments used for habitation.

19th. We favor a system of finance whereby money shall be issued exclusively by the government with such regulations and restrictions as will protect it from manipulation by the banking interests for their own private gain.

The convention emphatically reiterated the position of labor against any effort at wage reductions, and outlined a more aggressive campaign for the universal eight hour law.

THE EIGHT HOUR DAY.

The President has listened to the demands of the American Federation of Labor and ordered all Government work to be carried on in the future on that work day basis.

Until this order was issued the eight hour work day was a joke, to be ignored by contractors and overlooked by Government officials. The departments having Government work under supervision have been ordered to hold the contractors strictly to the letter of the law. It is good to know that now and then there is something done in the way it was intended to be done.-Railroad Trainmens Journal.

THE A. F. OF L.

Cleveland, O., Jan. 1, 1907.

Editor of the Journal.

Dear Sir and Brother:-Having read with considerable interest the arguments advanced through the Journal, by individual members of our order, for and against affiliation with the A. F. of L., desire to give my views on the subject. The Brotherhood of Railway Clerks have been striving for the last five years to strengthen their lives by extending the order and perfecting same in localities where they are established.

The friends of the A. F. of L. have been very active during that time to bring about affiliation. It has been my pleasure to represent my lodge at three annual conventions, during the past five years. At Toledo, in 1903, St. Louis, in 1904, and Kansas City, in 1905. At each of these conventions the friends of the A. F. of L. presented the same argument in favor of affiliation.

The reasons most prominently put forward are the moral and material support to be derived by affiliation.

The Constitution of the American Federation of Labor, gives to each affiliated organization the right to regulate its own af fairs. In other words: Each craft shall have strict autonomy. That being the fact, how can the various trades unions affiliated with the A. F. of L. be of any benefit to the Railway Clerks?

Bro. Holman in the November Journal makes the point that an organization affiliated with the A. F. of L. receives the same benefits from the Federation that is secured by an individual joining his trade union. This was not proven in the case of the I. A. of R. C. organization which was affiliated with the A. F. of L. and should according to the claims put forward by the A. F. of L. receive the moral and financial support of its membership. The I. A. of R. C. was allowed to die a natural death, while the much-boasted and over-estimated A. F. of L. looked on.

Bro. Shurtleff pointed out and named ser eral organizations who were affiliated with the A. F. of L., when in trouble were beaten and compelled to surrender unconditionally, with the supposed two million of A. F. of L members at their back. In fact I do not know of one case where a strike was won through the efforts of the A. F. L. I can cite many cases where strikes were brought on by organizations affiliated with the A. F. of L. but I have yet to learn where one was successful. Had the friends of the A. F. of L. who were members of the I. A. of R. C. worked as hard to bring their association into the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks as they did to influence our order to affiliate, I firmly believe that ninety per cent. of the members who made up the I. A. of R. C. and who are now in the ranks of the unorganized, would be active and interested members of the B. of R. C.

Bro. Holman claims that if the question was left to a referendum vote, the older Railway Brotherhoods would be affiliated with the A. F. of L. I infer from that the officers of the respective Brotherhoods prevented the rank and file from the privilege of voting on the question. If such be the case, the members of the old Railway or ders have reason to congratulate themselves, for I am sure there is not an organization of wage-earners in the country, including the affiliated orders of the A. F. of L., who has made the same progress in adjusting differences and increasing wages during the past fifteen years with the old Railway orders.

This result, in my opinion, goes to prove the efficiency of a distinct class organization. Had the old Railway orders been affiliated with the A. F. of L., it is a question in my mind whether or not they would have been successful. The same condition can be brought about by the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, by pursuing the same course followed by the B. of L. E., and the B. of R. T.