Robert G. Ingersoll says: "The laboring men should redress all their grievances by ballot. The poorest man can vote just as often as the rich one, and his vote counts just as much. As long as the laboring man follows the drum and fife of a political party, just so long he will have plenty of grievances.

Let labor organize not to boycott, not to strike, but to vote. The ballot is the weapon to be used. By legislation all mines can be made safe; hours of labor can be shortened; children can be protected from the deformities of toil; the truck system can be abolished; liens can be given on furnaces, mines, railways, etc., for the wages of workmen. The workingman will find that without revenge and without riot the world can be made better and the capitalist will, and that starvation prices for his laborer will finally starve him. He will find that property gets its value from the colonization of the people, from general prosperity; that he cannot injure others without injuring himself. I believe that in a few years public opinion will become so enlightened and humane that only those who give good wages for the reasonable hours will be considered as honest men. My sympathies are with the workers. The millionaires can take care of themselves."

MR. POWDERLY IN POLITICS. In his recent speech before the letter carriers of this city, G. M. W. Powderly spoke thus: "You say the Knights of Labor do not meddle in politics. We are not in the habit of standing at a rum-hole door asking for votes, or for voting for this or that man because he is a good fellow. But in the sense of demanding good government by good men, irrespective of party, you may count on the Knights of Labor being in politics first, last and all the time. We mean to mark statesmen. That one who thinks vested

rights of property stand above the natural rights of man must go. There are others who fail to come up to the demands of advanced statesmanship, and they will feel that we are American citizens, and that while we are not party men we are politicians in the new sense of that word."—John Swinton.

SOLUTION OF THE LABOR PROBLEM.

The present labor movement unquestionably does not want for impulse. We have considerable steam on, and now let us have good engineering. If strikes are expected to solve the labor problem, we might as well stop working altogether; but it is dawning throughout the intellectual atmosphere of the reform. element that we must remove the cause which makes strikes, boycotts and lockouts possible. The cause is simply the present competitive wage-system. What will abolish it? The Boston painters and tailors can tell. Go to Boston and look at their union co-operative shops. word of talk is needed. They stopped talking and took practical action. So it is elsewhere. Good bye, Mrs. Strike; come in, Mrs. Co-operation. Long strings of wordiness are not needed; let us co-operate and talk less, and the whole problem will be solved.-American Labor Budget.

Not a

T. V. POWDERLY'S Picture will be sent free by the publishers of the American Labor Budget, Hillsborough, N. H., a leading champion of the labor cause. By sending $1,00 for receive a large eight-page, forty-eight a year's subscription you will not only column weekly paper, furnishing you with the news of the day, some of the best selected reading with good illustrations, keeping up with the times, but in addition to this you will receive, postage paid, one of the best crayon lithograph portraits, size. 14x18 inches, ready for framing, there is to be had. They also offer the same picture free to any Local Assembly that will agree to frame it and hang it up in their sanctuary, provided and R. S., and attested by the seal, to the application is signed by the M. W. avoid imposition.

PEN AND SCISSORS.

If twenty-five years of protec

be generous.

In the hands of men entirely mouth, the gun is harmless as the sword."-T. V. Powderly.

Failure in any good cause is honorable, while success in any bad cause is merely infamous.

Looking into the future is like giving a blind man a pair of spectacles to see through a mill-stone.Chinese Proverb.

A deaf and dumb person being asked to give his idea of forgiveness, took a pencil and wrote, "It is the sweetness which flowers yield when trampled upon."

The narrow-minded ask, "Is this one of our tribe, or is he a stranger?" But to those who are of a noble disposition, the world is but one family.

The greatest triumph is, to obtain the mastery of ourselves; and supreme virtue consists in being as fair in our actions as in our profes

sions.-Heraclitus.

Patience and strength are what we need, an earnest use of what we have now, and all the time an earnest discontent, until we come to what we ought to be.

Let a man have a fervent love for what is pure and just and honorable; let him have a cordial abhorrence of what is sensual, mean, tricky, and ungenerous, and he will not go far wrong.

Five hundred Knights of Labor are employed in the New York postoffice. There is no talk of strikes there. The postoffice is run by the government in the interest of the people.-Puget Sound Co-oper

ator.

land with a few years more of it?Philadelphia Record.

An educated man stands, as it were, in the midst of a boundless arsenal and magazine, filled with all the weapons which man's skill has been able to device from the earliest time; and he works accorfrom all past ages. dingly, with a strength borrowed

"Do you allow drunken people upon the train?" asked a fussy clergyman, at a station the other day. "Sometimes, but not when they are too drunk," replied the guard. "Just take a seat near the middle and keep quiet, and you'll be all right.”

Many a child goes astray, not because there is want at home, but simply because home lacks sunshine. A child needs smiles as much as the flowers need sunbeams. Children look little beyond the present moment. If a thing pleases, they are apt to seek it; if it displeases, they are apt to avoid it. If home is a place where faces and are sour and words harsh, fault-finding is ever in the ascendant, they will spend as many hours as possible elsewhere.

The Chicago Tribune, referring to the recent marriage of Mr. Edison and his prolific inventions, concludes that his genius will now be directed to electric candles, electric nursing bottles, electric safety pins, electric machines to get up and walk the baby in the middle of the night, electric devices for cutting teeth, and scaring off whooping cough, croup, and measles, and will contrive other articles for mitigating troubles, trials, and petty annoyances usual in domestic life.

PAST AND PRESENT MANAGEMENT. Editor Magazine:

Tom's cause for suddenly leaving his place at - is one that at that time was very common. The foreman under whom he was employed was perhaps as good as the average, but like others in his position he felt that his elevation to authority over men had come solely through his superior skill and knowledge, coupled with a feeling that he had been born to rule; this made him assume a different feeling toward his fellow employes than he had when working beside them at the bench. He wished it dis

tinctly understood that he was foreman. This big "he" feeling created a great dislike to him among many of the men. Much of it exaggerated by imagination to be sure, but still true, for there is no smoke without some cause for it.

Now, Tom not having been acquainted with the foreman before his elevation (?) was not affected by such prejudices, and he had not been taught in his student days to regard a foreman as an autocrat, but rather as a man paid to direct the work, to see that it was under way and properly done.

Tom also considered that he was himself paid for his skill as a mechanic, and to take hold of work and go on with it properly, to do it well and expeditiously, as if no foreman existed. Hence he always tried to improve on his mode of doing it, as circumstances and the facilities at hand would allow.

The foreman had noticed this and saw the mechanical ability that he displayed, and not with any good feeling for Tom either; he regarded him as a dangerous man; in fact was jealous of him; he thought if the officials saw this his position would be in danger, so concluded he must work Tom out; and he starts in to make the place disagreeable for Tom by finding fault with his work and giving him more than his share of disagreeable work to do. Tom notices this, but could see no cause for it, so goes along and

But

he sees that it is evident he will not last long there.

One evening, away from the shop, while having some talk with one of the shop men, Tom took exception to some of his remarks, and this led to hot words all around, until it came to blows, and thus it ended. But the foreman hears of this and sees his opportunity. Tom had hardly got his overalls on in the morning before the foreman is after him, and says:

"I hear you had a fight last evening." Tom-"Well, I did have a little racket with a man."

Foreman "We don't allow such

things to go on here."

Tom-"I don't know what business that is to you or the company. It did not interfere with any of the company's

business."

Foreman (getting hot)- "I won't allow any man to be 'sassy' to me. I will lay you off for thirty days."

Tom-"No, you don't lay me off at all. You can give me my time. I won't allow any foreman or company to dictate to me, what I shall do away from the shop so long as what I do does not interfere with my work for them."

So Tom took his time and left, and that was what the foreman wanted.

How many men, Mr. Editor, have had similar experience, not only in railroad but in other shops and manufactories? How many men whose family circumstances would not allow them to be as independent as Tom, have been forced to put up with the domineering abuse of his mighty nibs, the foreman or superintendent? Can you blame men, under such circumstances, for having a very unfavorable opinion of the management, a dogged feeling for revenge to grow up against them? for men must necessarily judge a management by the acts of its legal representatives, the superintendents and foremen.

I don't want it understood that I use the illustration of Tom's quarrel because I think it the best example of arbitrary action of foreman, but because I know

some will from a moral point of view uphold the foreman, and I hope to see some of that kind do so through these columns.

I might have had Tom on a drunk if he had been a drinker, or he might have had the fight with the foreman himself, and got the same results. So could I have shown other causes for the foreman's disliking Tom. It might have been because he did not board or room at a certain place or buy his goods at a certain store, or refused the foreman a loan of money or refused to turn over to the foreman a bargain Tom had made in certain property, or because Tom had cut him out of his best girl, and numerous other examples, all of which have occured under both "past and present management," but I believe are on the decrease at present and will ultimately be done away with.

Tom in continuing his travels went to work for other companies, and he found various kinds of foremen and various managed shops. Shops where a strict system was kept up and shops where there was no system. The one he liked best was the one with a good economic system This was on the G. P. Ry. (Good Pay.) Here he found he was paid for his mechanical ability, and when given certain work to do was allowed to stay with it; did not have to spend his time looking for tools; good ones were handy by and there were plenty of them. The foreman was after results, and the man who made the best results was the best man for him, and he judged a man's method by the result. Strictly believing that everything is open to improvement, from a religious dogma to a monkey wrench, and knowing that he did not monopolize that ability to improve, he would not criticize a method new to him until he saw the results of it.

Another good feature Tom saw here was the apprentice system. Boys were not taken as apprentices until sixteen or seventeen years old, and not then until they had been employed several months to judge if it was possible to make mechanics of them, and then if they were

considered worth shop room, they were regularly entered as apprentices, with a specified agreement as to length of time to serve (four years) and the pay for each year; and they did not try to run the shop with boys either. Nor were the boys kept sweeping shop or running bolt cutters for the first two years of their time Boys were given work as the interest they displayed and their desire to learn pushed them ahead, and when the length of time specified in the agreement with the company was up, he was not considered an employe any longer, and if he remained he must make a new agreement with the company as to wages. They had a foreman at this place who prided himself over the number of first-class mechanics that had served their apprenticeship under him, and a young journeyman with a certiflcate showing he served his apprenticeship under him, was all the recommendation he needed. Still some of them, on completing their apprenticeship, lacked the courage to test their ability. Tom overheard a conversation between one of these young men and the foreman :

Young Man, timidly-"I have finished my apprenticeship. I think I should have first-class pay now."

Foreman "Why?"

Y. M.-"Well, I am doing just the same class of work on this lathe as Bill is on the lathe he runs."

Foreman "Yes, under the present conditions and circumstances you are; but they change at times; then Bill's experience is worth much more than yours. If you insist on remaining here it must be at less rate than Bill. But let me advise you to go and test your worth in other shops. If you are worth as much as Bill you will have no trouble in getting the same pay he would receive in the same shop."

The young man took the advice, and Tom, a few years afterwards had the pleasure of meeting him, and found him in a responsible position and drawing more pay than Bill ever got. But space will not allow me to go into further de

tails.

On

Tom, in the course of time, finds himself again on a division of the road his experience began on, and he found many changes had taken place in the management, etc. He met a former acquaintance who spoke very highly of the improvements made, especially in the generally better treatment of the men. applying for work he is told to come in in the morning, but in the morning is told by the foreman that he is blackballed for leaving without giving proper notice, and he can't put him to work, and that settles Tom's chances here for the present. He learns that the foreman who caused his name to be on the blacklist has been discharged, and that there is a new superintendent on that division. He sees no way out of this difficulty, if he wishes to work on the road, except to change his name, and that is a step toward giving up his manhood. But what a shame for a company to keep on record the spite of one employe against another. One management recognizes the despicable work of its predecessors and keeps up its record, and who is the worst, the one who commits a crime or the one who applauds it by allowing it to remain when they must see the injustice of it? Tom, after long vexatious delays, and the assistance of friends, succeeds in having the objections" removed, not because it prevented him from getting work so much as it was to remove an unjust record that would handicap his future movements.

But how many names still remain where Tom's was, with the revengeful record of a despicable-minded superintendent or foreman against them. They should be wiped out with one stroke of the pen. Let a wise management have a record that it need not be ashamed of.

**

*

FINE FEED AND QUICK SPEED VERSUS COARSE FEED AND SLOW SPEED.

Editor Magazine:

Different jobs require different tactics. A writer in an old number of the American Machinist writing on this subject, stated that he had been down among the Yankees in a Connecticut village in

a tool shop, and quoth he: "These men seemed to have solved the problem of life, if not all mechanical problems. Apparently nine points of the law with both foremen and men was to make life agreeable They had put on traps to gear down the feed on lathes whose feed was already imperceptible, and the belt was always on the finest feed. Light shafting were being turned at a speed fit for brass, with a needle-pointed side tool with a feed of 100 to the inch!" One hundred times round to go an inch! Fine and coarse feeding comprise two distinct schools of working, and with radically different cutting tools. The professor of one is rather helpless in the shops of the other. Each views the others' tools with contempt. This writer's letter brought out an angry rejoinder in next week's issue from an enraged fine feed "down east man," defending the Yankee lathe with the weighted and tilting carriage; he declared that that style of a lathe would never be beaten and that the feed on the majority of lathes was outrageously coarse. Where a coarse feed can be applied it tells on the time spent on the work, but the speed must be made slow enough so that the tools will preserve their edge. For instance if a man is turning an eight-inch steel driving axle with a feed of 16 per inch, he can take a heavy cut across the whole length without grinding, provided the lathe runs slow enough. If the lathe is speeded too quick the feed would have to be reduced until the tool would stand-better to reduce the speed. The Pond shafting lathe for lines of shafting is made so that three tools are used at the same time and the shaft is finished at one cut; the stay or steady rest follow the cut, one tool on the front, one on the back upside down and one behind that sizes, finishes and puts on the water polish. I have seen shafting beautifully finished and accurately turned that way and never touched with a file. The three tools admit of a coarse feed being used. Shanks stated that their shafting lathe could turn 135 feet of two-inch shafting in ten hours, truly and perfectly turned to standard