The steady growth in membership, the amounts of benefits paid and funds accumulated from the inception of the Society to the close of the year 1915 is best illustrated by the following table:

Table showing status of the Society at the end of years stated in 5 year periods.

Even though it was founded by Socialists, the Workmen's Sick and Death Benefit Fund can not rightly be called a socialist organization. Still it is of a strong socialist bent of mind and almost all of its individual branches are connected with the labor movement. Their meetings are open for the Socialist propaganda, they contribute liberally towards the strike funds of the big national strikes. Many thousands of dollars have been donated for the assistance of the Socialist press and the socialist propaganda out of their local funds. Many a socialist has been recruited in the meetings of the Branches of the Workmen's Sick and Death Benefit Fund and almost all over, the socialist element is dominating in the administration of this Society.

THE LABOR SECRETARIAT.

By S. JOHN BLOCK.

The Labor Secretariat of New York City is a federation of labor unions, organized to protect the legal rights of the unions and of their members and the wives and minor children of the members. For this purpose it employs a lawyer whose services are at the command of the unions and their members and families. The organization is managed by the unions through a board of delegates and a board of directors.

The Labor Secretariat was organized in March, 1901, and it has rendered great and useful service for many labor unions and their members. It was founded upon the principle of co-operation and only through co-operation is it possible for the unions to secure continuous legal protection for themselves and their members.

Cost of membership in the Labor Secretariat is five cents per month or sixty cents per year for every member of each affiliated union. A part of the membership dues is paid to the attorney for his services and the remainder is used to defray disbursements and other necessary expenses, no charge whatsoever being made to the individual who requires the services of the attorney for the Labor Secretariat The important matters in which labor unions and their members constantly require a lawyer's sevices include the following: Matters pertaining to union organization and agitation; collection of wages and law suits to recover same; defending actions for rent wrongfully claimed by landlords; preparing and enforcing agreements made with employers; defending injunction suits; defending men charged with criminal acts during strikes, such as assault, boycotting, picketing, etc.; registering union labels and prosecuting those who counterfeit such labels; preparing labor bills to be submitted to the legislature; accident cases; preparing notices and other papers in connection with claims under Workmen's Compensation Law, and appearing before State Industrial Commission on behalf of claimants and prosecuting or defending appeals from decisions of said Commission; and general matters requiring legal service.

It is especially important that the unions protect their members in connection with claims under the Workmen's Compensation Law. In view of the recent amendments to the law, permitting direct settlements of claims by employers and their insurance companies, the unions need an experienced lawyer, in sympathy with labor, to safeguard the interests of their members.

In all cases in which money is collected for members on claims for wages or for personal injuries under the Workmen's Compensation Law, the member receives the full amount collected, no deduction being made for lawyer's fees or disbursements. In such accident cases as are not covered by the Workmen's Compensation Law the attorney may retain twenty per cent. of the amount recovered, the usual charge of attorneys for such services being from one-third to one-half of the amount recovered.

The Labor Secretariat has, through its attorney, gained many important legal victories for the unions and their members in a variety of cases in which the unions and their members were vitally interested.

The present membership of the Labor Secretariat consists of about forty local unions in the following trades: Carpenters, bricklayers, stationary engineers, butchers, fur workers, diamond workers, bakers, janitors and superintendents of buildings, brewers, beer-wagon drivers, beer bottlers, carriage, wagon and automobile workers, painters, stationary firemen, and others.

LABOR TRIALS.

THE WOMEN'S GARMENT WORKERS' CASE.

One of the most unique and far-reaching criminal prosecutions against organized labor in this country was that undertaken against the leaders of the Intenational Ladies' Garment Workers' Union in 1915.

The prosecution was engineered by a notorious gang of professional strike and law breakers, who had been brought into the industry by a group of unscrupulous employers during a strike in 1913, and who had infested it ever since. Failing to destroy the Union by the usual methods of strike breaking, the resourceful heads of the strike breaking agency devised the expedient of organizing an alleged rival "union." They had the audacity of calling their outfit "International Ladies Garment Workers Union of the World," thus appropriating the name of the regular organization of workers in the women's garment trade. An injunction was immediately obtained against the use of the misleading name. Checked in this move the leaders of the gang hit upon another and even more desperate plan to destroy the Union. By the unlimited use of perjured testimony they fabricated a series of criminal cases against some of the most active officers and members of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. The blow was planned with diabolical cunning. Wholesale charges of heinous crimes against the most responsible leaders of the International would naturally tend to discredit the entire organization; a possible conviction would demoralize its ranks, and a costly defense would drain its treasury.

Accepting the clumsy fabrication of the notorious scab agents and supplementing them with the alleged confessions of one of New York's most notorious gang leaders, the district attorney secured indictments against twenty-four officers and members of the Union, charging them with a variety of serious crimes, from extortion and riot to murder in the first degree.

The charge of murder involved eight defendants: Morris Sigman, then the General Secretary-Treasurer of the International; Saul Metz, Vice-President; Julius Woolf, one of the most active officials of the Cloakmakers' Union; Morris Stupnicker, Abraham Weidiger, Max D. Singer, Isidore Ashpitz and Louis Holzer. It was based upon what was probably an accidental death of a repentant strike breaker back in 1910. The "evidence" was wholly furnished by the ring above referred to, and was so fantastic and contradictory, that it seemed almost incredible that a prosecuting officer would place eight men of unblemished records on trial for their lives on the strength of it. But the District Attorney

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of the County of New York resorted to every known device to secure a conviction.

The attorneys for the accused labor leaders, Morris Hillquit, Judge William Olcott, Abraham Levy and Judge Henry W. Unger, demolished the case of the prosecution with heavy blows, clearly established the innocence of the defendants and brilliantly vindicated the principles and methods of trade unionism. The opening address of Morris Hillquit was a classic defense of the principles, methods and achievements of organized labor. One of the defendants, Louis Holzer, was discharged for lack of evidence even before trial, two others, Vice-President Saul Metz and Brother Julius Woolf, were acquitted on motion of the District Attorney immediately at the close of the case. The jury was out less than two hours and returned a verdict of "not guilty" as to the remaining five defendants. The prosecution aroused tremendous public interest, and stirred the entire labor and Socialist movement all over the country. The victory of the labor leaders was hailed as a triumph for the labor movement and served largely to repair the damage done by the McNamara case.

CAPLAN AND SCHMIDT CASE.

The prosecution of Caplan and Schmidt for complicity in the destruction of the Los Angeles Times' Building came as an aftermath of the confession of the McNamara Brothers. Mathew Schmidt was tried in 1915 and convicted to life imprisonment. An appeal has been taken to a higher court."` The Jury failed to agree in the case of Caplan and a second trial was set for October 16, 1916.

THE LAWSON CASE.

On Oct. 25, 1913, John Nimmo, a mine guard was killed in an attack upon the tent-colony at Ludlow, Colorado. John Lawson, a Board Member of the United Mine Workers was accused of the alleged murder of Nimmo.

Upon return of the indictment Lawson's attorney filed a plea of abatement claiming that the grand jury had been packed with Coal Company partisans. To this plea, Jesse G. Northcutt, chief attorney for the allied coal companies, who had no standing as a public official, filed a demurrer, setting up that even admitting all the allegations in the plea to be true, they furnished no ground for quashing the indictment, Attorney General Farrar also signed the demurrer. Judge

Butler of Denver held that the plea of abatement was good, and directed the prosecution to answer the charges. This the companies did not care to do. They dismissed the indictment, and filed an “information" again charging Lawson with murder.

Before the case came to trial Granby Hillyer, an attorney for the coal companies who had himself acted against strikers, was appointed judge. Lawson came before him for trial. In a previous case, that of Louis Zancanelli, the right of Judge Hillyer to sit in such cases was challenged. Under the Colorado law, when this is done the judge loses jurisdiction until his rights are investigated, but Hillyer ignored this, and sat in both the Zancanelli and Lawson cases.

Lawson's attorneys filed a motion asking for a bill of particulars stating whether Lawson was charged with having killed Nimmo, or with being an accessory, or a member of a conspiracy. This motion was denied.

A motion was filed to set aside the panel of jurymen on the ground of prejudice. This motion was also denied. The jury was drawn by the sheriff, contrary to the usual procedure.

The evidence against Lawson came entirely from two mine guards, one an ex-forger, and one a blackmailer. They testified to having seen Lawson on the firing line. Both admitted grudges against Lawson. The charge of the judge to the jury was unfair. While the jury was out Judge Hillyer sent a bailiff to the jurymen with the threat that they would secure no food till an agreement was reached. Juror Hall, holding out for Lawson was also told, falsely, that his wife was dying. Under these circumstances the jury found Lawson guilty.

While the Supreme Court was still considering Hillyer's right of jurisdiction, Hillyer sentenced Lawson to life imprisonment at hard labor.

Later Hillyer was debarred from sitting in any more cases growing out of the strike. Lawson was freed on bail pending the adjustment of his case by the Supreme Court of Colorado.

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The whole case shows a deplorable collusion between the coal companies and the officials of the State of Colorado. more flagrant miscarriage of justice can scarcely be quoted.

THE QUINLAN CASE.

In 1914, Patrick Quinlan was convicted in Paterson, N. J., of having incited a riot, during the silk-workers' strike of 1913, although the prepondering weight of evidence taken at the trial showed that he had not even spoken at the meeting