workingmen had lost faith in politicians, cannot but congratulate our French comrades on the progress they have made. Their party stands today united for revolutionary socialism.

Most significant of all is the effect of the convention on labor leaders and others who have heretofore held aloof from the movement. It will be remembered that the convention gave full recognition to non-parliamentary forms of activity. In fact it stated explicitly that the chief purpose of the political conflict is to aid in, and register the effect of, the hand-to-hand conflict of labor and capital. An editorial writer in L'Humanite hails this as "a new appeal to the proletariat, a new invitation to the workers to act directly, not through their representatives, but in their own persons," and goes on to say that the new program is broad enough to include all the temperaments and views of the working class. Already this appeal is strengthening the position of the revolutionists who have heretofore stood aloof. It is doing something toward bridging the gulf between socialism and syndicalism, to which Comrade Langerock drew attention in last month's Review.

As to the radical motion on international war adopted at Marseilles opinion is naturally divided. The discussion of the convention is simply prolonged in the press and on the platform. On the one hand it is maintained that, having now become thoroughly antimilitarist, the Confederation may be expected to go on to be "anti-religious, anti-patriotic, anti-parliamentary and anti-legalist."

That is to say, the Confederation has gone outside the economic field; it has dealt with war and such like matters which belong entirely to the realm of the political party. This, it is said, will drive away the workers, will hinder the growth of the organization. It is answered that war is an economic matter; that a labor organization can never conquer so long as it fails to see beyond its immediate ends. And it is pointed out that the Confederation has gained 91,000 members since its former convention.

There can be no doubt of the fact that the French labor movement needs more than ever to present a united front. There is a multiplicity of strikes all over the land. Just recently 4,000 men working on a new line of the Paris subway have been called out. The government continues its persecutions. Paul Hervé has served his sentence in prison, but has not been set at liberty. Eight of those taken prisoner after the massacre of Draveil are still held for trial. The police and army are being trained to serve as strike-breakers in a number of trades. More than this, radical reform measures make progress even more slowly than in England. For months the senate has had before it a workingmen's pension law. After numberless investigations and debates a make-shift substitute has been introduced, and the whole weary business will have to be gone through with again. As the program of the Socialists has become more clean-cut the radicals have lost the fine edge of their reformatory zeal. The proletariat is being taught that it must stand alone.

The affiliated railway organizations having formed a distinct department of the American Federation of Labor, another nail has been driven in the coffin of the old-fashioned idea of trades autonomy. The printers made the first move in centralizing when they organized the Allied Printing Trades Council; then came the builders with their Building Trades Department, followed by the formation of the Metal Trades Department, now the Railroad Department, and perhaps in the near future the marine trades will form an alliance, and later on the clothing trades. The journeymen tailors have also taken a step in advance in voting by referendum on the question of affiliating with their fellowcraftsmen of Europe.

The present movement in the A. F. of L. differs somewhat from the ambitious program mapped out by the ill-starred Industrial Workers of the World in that the component organizations in the departments will have complete jurisdiction over their own affairs, an important essential, but there is no predicting what will develop when the memberships begin to get accustomed to each other. However, the centralization trend is on despite the fulminations of extremists who would adhere either to the autonomy of anarchism or to zodiacal departmentalism.

Instead of anticipated trouble in the anthracite region only, next spring, the indications are that a desperate struggle

will be precipitated on the Great Lakes as well. Nothing has developed during the past month that would tend to prevent a clash between the miners and the hard coal monopolists of Pennsylvania. As has been mentioned in the Review, the miners demand an eight-hour day, a minimum rate of wages, recognition of the union, collection of members' dues by the companies and lesser reforms, and they advance good reasons why their propositions should be accepted. But the operators fold their hands and announce that they will not grant the slightest concession. No conference between representatives of the opposing forces has been held as yet, and it is not certain whether the operators will agree to meet the miners officially. Meanwhile the men are organizing and are also piling up a big surplus for their masters, which the latter will depend upon to tide them over the period of national suspension, adding to their riches meanwhile through increased prices.

During the past season, as was pointed out in this department, the marine trades were engaged in a sort of guerrilla warfare with the ship and dock owners to preserve their organizations. They have been fairly successful despite the open shop system that was forced upon them by the master class. Now the latter intend not only to maintain their position of refusing to treat with the unions, but they are planning to inaugurate features that will draw the men from their organizations. In other words, the vessel owners intend to introduce benefits

similar to those that usually obtain in trade unions. Assembly or club rooms are to be established at all large ports, which will be equipped with books, papers, games, etc. An insurance plan is to be adopted, whereby $30 to $50 will be paid seamen and officers in case of shipwreck, and in case of death or total disability $75 to $500, according to grade of workman, can be drawn by relatives or beneficiaries. The total cost to ordinary seamen will amount to but 8 1-3 cents per month, officers proportionately higher. As an additional attraction to the unionists the vessel owners promise that wages will not be reduced. The masters are adopting this scheme because their open shop declaration last season did not have very much effect. Not only did but few seamen actually withdraw from the union, but they went on board ship "under cover" and forced the incompetent scabs out of their jobs.

Whether or not the masters' latest bait will land suckers is problematical.

At least two sides can play the game of "reward your friends and punish your enemies." For at least four years Sam Gompers will be persona non grata in administration circles at Washington. Both Roosevelt and Taft have told him in so many words that he needn't come around. While Sam'l is out in the cold world, sad and forlorn, wondering what will become of "our men of labor," Dan Keefe will be feasting at Uncle Sam's pie-counter as commissioner of immigration, that being his reward for aiding Taft to punish his enemies. Samuel B. Donnelly, formerly president of the International Typographical Union, has also been rewarded by being appointed head of the government printing office. Donnelly has taken no active part in union affairs during the past few years, serving as trouble adjuster for the New York building contractors. John D. Pringle, editor of the Pittsburg Labor

World, is still another good and faithful servant who has been blessed with an easy job, that of appraiser of merchandise. Pringle's claim to fame dates from the issuance of Roosevelt's "undesirable citizens" letter, which the Pittsburg editor warmly applauded. During the recent campaign it was Pringle's chief duty to show that Taft was slowly becoming a skeleton because of his consuming love for the workingman, and to garble and distort every criticism of Bryan or Gompers as an indorsement of the father of injunctions.

Of course, Dan Keefe, because of his position in the labor world, is being denounced in picturesque language by that section of the labor press that supported Mr. Bryan. Mr. Keefe is held up to scorn as a Judas Iscariot, a Benedict Arnold, a traitor, double-dyed scoundrel and boodler all rolled into one, and by newspapers, too, that are forever whining about the "abusive and slandering socialists" whenever a fair criticism is aimed at their methods or alleged principles. What makes the situation all the funnier is that a good many of these same organs that are now throwing the harpoon into Keefe printed columns upon columns of the junk that was prepared by Pringle for the Republican literary bureau, and they took the boodle handed out by Republican politicians quite as freely as the boodle that came from Democratic sources to pay for “valuable” space. They printed Republican and Democratic dope in previous campaigns and will probably pursue the same "independent" policy in the future. These harpies are usually Democrats in one column and Republicans in the next column-depending upon which "friend of labor" sees them first, or last-and antisocialists all the time. Under the guise of picking out the "lesser evil" or the "best man" these chartalans who pose as leaders and educators have not only befouled their own nests, but have discredited and disgraced the labor move

ment, and have played their part in confusing and beclouding the real issues that divide the wealth producers from the wealth grabbers.

In all this turmoil there is nevertheless supreme satisfaction to that element in the trade union movement that stands for working class political action. The great leaders and the so-called labor papers can no longer masquerade under the cloak of pure and simpledom. They are Republicans and Democrats, and no amount of cowardly denial will longer mislead the rank and file. They are in politics up to their necks and will be required to defend their parties, policies and principles. They can evade the issue no longer, and during the next few years there will be some interesting developments.

It's a safe bet that no reader of the Review will shed more than a bucketful of tears to learn that ex-Governor Peabody, of Colorado, is reported bankrupt. Not only is he said to be down and out financially, but he has been discarded by the mine owners, and was even unable to obtain a political spittoon-cleaning job paying a hundred dollars a month for which he applied to his former friends. Retributive justice is usually slow, but the petty Colorado czar slid into the depths of infamy reserved for ingrates more rapidly than is ordinarily the case. It should not be overlooked that Peabody was originally elected governor of Colorado as a "workingman's friend," and sold out body and soul to the union-hating mine owners before he got his gubernatorial seat warm. It was Peabody who inaugurated a reign of terror in Telluride, Cripple Creek and other places that the average American would hardly know were on the map but for the brutalities practiced by this political prostitute and his hirelings. Because of the stirring scenes enacted in those little mining towns, the names of Cripple Creek and

Telluride are now notorious throughout the civilized world and are associated with such names as Kishinev and from the odium of which it will require years to recover.

Nor is Peabody the only one who is meeting his reward. The little parasite business men of Cripple Creek, who did the bidding of the mine operators by or'ganizing a Citizens' Alliance to drive the union miners from the district and welcome the strike-breakers and thugs to their midst, are also being paid in full. I was informed by one of the few small capitalists in the Cripple Creek district, who sympathized with the miners and who had been driven out, that a mass meeting was recently held by the business men still remaining in that region for the purpose of outlining plans to "restore prosperity." A professional gent who had been very conspicuous in persecuting the miners was the chief speaker. He bemoaned the discouraging business conditions that prevailed in the district, and he hoped that the mine operators would co-operate with them in establishing a "live and let live" policy. "Now that we have won a victory by enforcing the card system of the mine operators and wiping out the tyranny of trade unions," he declared, "the operators ought to withdraw their card system and invite all classes of workmen, union or non-union, to come into the district to secure employment." His remarks were unanimously approved.

The small capitalist referred to above, who had returned to Cripple Creek a few days previously, was invited to make a few remarks. He did. He congratulated them on the splendid "victory" they had won in establishing the scab card system that they were now crying to have revoked. "It's a great 'victory' that you have won," said the speaker, "and for proof all you have to do is to look out of the windw and see a dozen empty store rooms across the street. It's a magnificent 'victory' indeed when you

are tearing down dwelling houses for the purpose of utilizing the lumber in them and to save purchasing new materials. It's a marvelous 'victory' to learn that your population is decreasing and that scores of business men engaged in pulling chestnuts from the fire for the mine owners have been bankrupted." Nobody essayed to reply to the biting sarcasm of the speaker. Everybody knew that he was telling the gospel truth. Two years ago the petty plutes would have mobbed him for daring to utter such sentiments. Now they silently acquiesced in his indictments.

"The reason that the business men of Cripple Creek who did the bidding of the operators have been or are being ruined is that under the card system of the mine barons no employe is certain of holding his job from one week to another," my informant explained further.

"The consequence is that the non-union miners do not spend one penny more than is actually necessary. They do not invest in homes, furnishings, clothing, food, etc., in the same liberal manner that the union miners did, but hoard their money and are ready to jump out of the district at a moment's notice, for if they lose their jobs in one mine they cannot secure employment in another. The result is that the contemptuous little business tools of the operators are worrying their lives out as they observe the cowed and penurious scabs pass their doors."

While it may not conform strictly to Christian doctrine to wish anybody harm, still it is rather soothing and satisfactory to know that the whole caboodle, from Peabody to the dirty little pack of profit-mongers in Cripple Creek, having sowed the wind, are now reaping the whirlwind. God-bless 'em!