NEWS WORTH REMEMBERING

News Worth Remembering ONE OP the first official acts of President Wilson was the announcement of the policy which he and Secretary of Slate Bryan will pursue with regard to our relations with...

...We shall be happier far when the temptation so to do shall have been removed and steadfastness shall replace cowardice, and capital shall deal with labor as an ally, not an antagonist" First Minimum Wage Law Washington is the first state to pass a law fixing a living or minimum wage for women workers...
...Only the more intelligent can earn the maximum on piece work...
...In a message to the legislature he proposes to replace the present legislative representation with two members from each congressional district who would devote their entire time to state business...
...There are in this bill items aggregating perhaps half a million dollars that ought not to be in it authorizing, the construction of public buildings in towns too small to justify them," said the President, "and on that ground, for the purpose of giving emphasis to my views on the subject, 1 should like to withhold signature from the bill...
...News Notes —A commission form of legislative government is urged by Governor George H. Hodges of Kansas...
...Sunday work was the rule and was not considered overtime...
...The provision to which Mr...
...Scattered attempts in this direction in the United States, because not scientifically made, have proved abortive...
...Frequently the hands are lacerated...
...Both experience and science demonstrate more clearly each year that those who enjoy genuine weekly rest days will have better health, clearer intellects, and hence can do more and better work each year, and hence retain for more years their ability to do efficient work than those who work seven days each week...
...OF ALL FORMS of current theatrical entertainment the motion picture show is the most significant...
...Steam and street railroads, hotels and restaurants, telegraphs and telephones, newspaper publishing and distributing, certain classes of retail store-keeping, and many other callings, at present require continuous labor from hundreds of thousands engaged in them...
...Because it would furnish Congress and the public with ready reference to reports and detailed records of account...
...That fund should be invested in 3 per cent government bonds, and in twenty years the $1,160,000,000 debt, the President says, would be retired...
...Redfield Urges Tariff Reduction Speaking on "The Tariff on its Human Side" at Montclair, New Jersey, recently, Secretary of Commerce William C. Redfield said in part: "Believing, as I do, in a real, though moderate and balanced reduction of the tariff, I believe in it chiefly because it means the birth of a new moral and mental life to our industries...
...No other form of entertainment so thoroughly secures the united patronage of the family as does the motion picture show...
...Through its force the total iufluence of public entertainment in society is probably larger than it, has ever been before...
...One thousand girls in the same department are expected to walk out tomorrow unless the wage scale is modified...
...The commission may give recognition to changing conditions and raise or lower the minimum scale of wages...
...What control the railroads have over docks, piers and terminals of steamship lines is a phase of the matter on which the commission is seeking light Twenty-four questions are submitted to the carriers...
...Sunday laws do not and can not deal adequately with the situation," says John Fitch...
...For this they are paid 5 cents a thousand...
...The moving picture show has drawn on the audiences of other forms of entertainment...
...In the nut and bolt department the Oliver mills employ 1200 girls...
...A standard One Day Rest in Seven bill has been prepared by a special committee of the American Association for Labor Legislation, New York City, for introduction in all states...
...7. Therefore, a law requiring one day of rest in seven, no matter how continuous the industry, is the real remedy...
...In the same year the Bureau of Labor in Minnesota reported 98,558 men working seven days each week...
...Some of the girls who walked out today showed bleeding hands...
...With hands bound up, the girls say, it is hard to work fast enough to make a decent wage...
...In addition it has created a new audience of its own...
...Most i of the appropriations would not take effect until July 1, however, and the new Congress will be able to prepare a new measure by that time...
...It has been understood for some time that the progressive Republicans would aid the Democratic President in affairs of Legislation which, according to their contention, do not call for the drawing of strict party lines...
...Those who earn this much are the faster and more enduring...
...Taft Urges National Budget A "budget" system of conducting the business of the United States government is again emphasized by President Taft...
...That President Wilson plans to call to the support of his program progressives irrespective of the party with which they affiliate is one of the main conclusions to be drawn from what has happened and is about to happen...
...Certain newspapers, particularly in the East, have interpreted this statement to mean a continuance of the "dollar diplomacy" of Taft and Knox...
...The Washington statute establishes a commission to fix minimum wages after an investigation of any industry in which...
...Because it would produce an adequate organization for assembling and classifying information to be used in telling the country what has been dona and of the government's future needs...
...In the Bethlehem Steel Works "out of 9,184 persons employed (in January, 1910) 2,628, or 29 per cent, worked regularly seven days a week...
...District Attorney Fredericks also wants it for the same reasons that inspired his activity in bringing Darrow into court in the two previous trials...
...There are to-day 15,000 theaters of this type in the country and this number may have increased to 20,000 before the end of another year...
...We must learn to appreciate that the man in the shop is the most valuable thing in it...
...There is no provision in the bill itself for a recommendation by the head of the new department as to the reorganization of bureaus that may itself lead to a general reorganization, which is so much to be desired...
...Sunday Laws Inadequate The Sunday laws, enacted in the first instance to protect the Sabbath from desecration, have not only in the turmoil and rush of modern conditions failed to do that but have also signally failed to protect men from the debasing effects of continuous seven-day toil...
...Stop all trains, all street cars, all heating and lighting plants, all delivery of milk, and all garbage removal, on Sundays, and the great cities will suffer as under a pestilence...
...These girls are employed at threading bolts...
...It was recalled that in a speech at Wilmington Governor Wilson made reference to the Wisconsin Senator as 'the little giant of the West' "When announcement of the forthcoming conference was made it Was reported that the purpose of it would be to consider patronage matters...
...We hold, as I am sure all thoughtful leaders of republican government everywhere hold, that just government rests always upon the consent of the governed and that there can be no freedom without order based upon law and upon the public conscience and approval...
...This girl said she would not dare to testify publicly of conditions created by low wages because, she said, her father, who is a foreman, would be discharged...
...To carry out the budget plan, to reduce the deficit and the fixed charges against the government, the President proposed: To create a sinking fund commission, to consist of the chairman of the finance committee of the Senate, the chairman of the House ways and means committee, the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury, with the comptroller of the treasury as annual auditor of the sinking fund account...
...Taft objected provided that no funds could: be spent in prosecution of organizations or individuals for "entering into any combination or agreement having in view the increasing of wages, shortening of hours or bettering the conditions of labor," or for the prosecution of "producers of farm products and associations of, farmers who...
...Meanwhile Fredericks is facing the recall...
...We hear about it yet fail to sense it...
...None of the girls make more than $8 a week...
...But the bill contains authorizations for improvements so important in the development—and I say the unduly delayed development—of the...
...In his Washington correspondence to the Chicago Record Herald, Sumner Curtis writes: "President Wilson has summoned Senator La Follette of Wisconsin to meet him at the White House tomorrow evening for a conference on legislative policy...
...The Building Trades Council, representing 20,000 wage earners, are supporting the recall...
...The striking girls asserted today that it is not possible for any girl to earn more than $8 a week...
...To the argument that relief would be hard on certain industries, the sufficient answer is that seven-day labor is too hard on men and women...
...of the 173,000 employees of blast furnaces, steel works and rolling mills covered by this report (all those in the United States except the Bethlehem Steel Works) customarily worked seven days per week...
...New Type of Law Needed We must and can have continuous industry, but we cannot have and we must not try to have continuous men and women...
...6. It is admitted by employers to be "reasonable and fair...
...Some of the advantages of the budget system as pointed out by the President were: A means of locating responsibility for estimates in keeping with revenues...
...They demand a living wage...
...such regulation is demanded...
...One striker called the names of eight of her companions who "went away" within a year...
...Now a third trial is promised...
...Because of many projects in it he held to be meritorious, be added, he bad decided to approve it...
...The moving picture show is not only a thing of the city...
...As a rule the performances at these shows would be technically elassed as unobjectionable...
...Although President Taft exercised the "pocket veto" in expressing disapproval of the seamen's servitude bill, he left with Congress a short memorandum giving his views of the measure, in which he said: "This bill is so important and conflicts in its operation with the treaty obligations of the United States and in its possible friction with the commerce of foreign countries, that in the short time that I have had since it has been presented to me I do not feel justified in assuming the responsibility of allowing it to become a law...
...He said: "I sign this bill with considerable hesitation, not because I dissent from the purpose of Congress to create a Department of Labor, but because I think that nine departments are enough for the proper administration of the government, and because I think that no new department ought, to be created without a reorganization of all departments in the government and a redistribution of the bureaus between them...
...The second attempt to convict Clarence Darrow on the charge of jury bribing in connection with the McNamara trials has failed...
...The bill was designed to improve conditions of labor and living in the American merchant marine and to abolish involuntary servitude of seamen...
...Taft declared, was "class legislation of the most vicious sort," and it would undoubtedly be held unconstitutional by the courts...
...The California State Legislature has adopted a resolution favoring Federal aid for industrial education and urging the establishment of a national university and a department of education at Washington with a secretary in the Cabinet —Miss Margaret Wilson is directing a movement to interest the women's clubs in urging social-center legislation in their respective States...
...From these principles may be read so much of the future policy of this Government as it is necessary now to forecast and in the spirit of these principles I may, 1 hope, be permitted with as much confidence as earnestness to extend to the Governments of all the republics of America the hand of genuine disinterested friendship and to pledge my own honor, and the honor of my colleagues to every enterprise of peace and amity that a fortunate future may disclose...
...that in order to be most productive the conditions which make for his best conservation must be produced and maintained...
...Some girls are paid no more than 28 cents a day...
...It is largely a family audience and is reeruted from the community...
...In Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and other foreign countries, this principle has been enacted into legislation...
...That is the maximum wage...
...The South Side police report that Notes on the Present State of the Theatre By THOMAS H. DICKINSON VI...
...The class of those who claim profits guaranteed by law, separating them from others by this privilege, may, indeed must, disappear...
...We shall lend our influence of every kind to the realization of these principles in fact and practice, knowing that disorder, personal intrigue and defiance of constitutional rights weaken and discredit government and injure none so much as the people who are unfortunate enough to have their common life and their common affairs so tainted and disturbed...
...Nothing since the Democratic administration was installed a little more than a week ago has so emphasized the change in the political atmosphere at the national capital as this prospective visit of the pioneer progressive upon the executive head of the government The last time Senator La Follette was invited to conference with a President he peremptorily declined in a formal letter...
...That was early in the history of the Taft administration, and from that day to this the Wisconsin fighter has not darkened the door or the White House...
...As a means of allowing Congress to see how much gross it will have to spend before it begins appropriating for each department or detail of government machinery...
...In sixteen groups of occupa-tions employing about 180,000 trade-union members in the State of New York one man in every five was reported to the State Department of Labor in 1910 as working regularly seven days a week...
...Public opinion will not tolerate maintaining them at the cost of those who toil...
...Many of us have no experience with seven-day labor...
...A new type of law is needed, based on a new principle—a law that will forbid an employer to work his men sevea days a week, and yet permit an industry necessarily or desirably continuous to operate seven days a week...
...The commission is operating under authority of congress as contained in the Panama Canal law, and is laying the basis to force the railroads to divest themselves of ownership or control of steamship lines which compete with railroad lines, and to prevent railroad owned steamship lines using the canal...
...The adoption of a definite theory is recommended for future proposals for internal improvements, so that such improvements would be in accord with a well thought-out plan...
...Our system," said the Governor in his message, "is fashioned after the English Parliament with its two houses based upon the distinction between the nobility and the common people...
...The Russell Sage Foundation is cooperating with Miss Wilson and the Federated Women's Clubs in the work...
...The prosperity of the nation does not depend upon the making of profits by any part of it...
...A statement more significant of the dangers of seven-day labor could hardly be found...
...To aid in working with a well-defined purpose in many bureaus hitherto organized, but directed under an inconsistent and ill-defined program...
...Seven-day Labor Inhuman and Wasteful Regular employment for eight hours or more a day on all seven days of the week tends to undermine the health, dwarf the minds, and debase the morals of those engaged in it...
...City of Washington that I cannot bring myself to defeat such worthy- projects...
...Girls Strike For Living Wage Two hundred girls employed in the Pittsburgh iron mills owned by United States Senator George T. Oliver of Pennsylvania, went on a strike last week...
...The Senator said the same thing when President Taft entered upon his office four years ago, but as is well known the parting of the ways came very soon in that case and the estrangement never was healed...
...That would be $15,000,000 a year less than the present amount required by law...
...A copy of this bill may be obtained upon application...
...He hopes to carry out literally the spirit of his inaugural address, in which he summoned to his aid all honest, forward-looking, patriotic men...
...Wilson and La Follette Confer A conference was held on the evening of March 4 at the White House between President Wilson and Senator La Follette...
...The subjects discussed were not made public at the White House, although the assurance was given to the newspaper men that it did not concern patronage in Wisconsin but was confined wholly to political matters...
...President Wilson's announcement follows: "One of the chief objects of my Administration will be to cultivate the friendship and deserve the confidence of our sister republics of Central and South America and to promote in every proper and honorable way the interests which arc common to the peoples of the two continents...
...Through legislation which would wipe out the national debt in twenty years after July 1, 1914, Congress should set aside $45,000,000 annually for that purpose...
...Darrow demands it for the vindication of his honor...
...Its patronage is now six times as large as the daily audiences of all other kinds of entertainment combined...
...It is purposely limited in scope to those industries where for the time being there is the greatest hope of effective enforcement of the law...
...But its terms are such as to carry warning to any "special group or interest" that seeks to gain financial or trade advantage by seizing the power of government...
...A great many of all the 1,200 who are employed at threading bolts wore bandages on their hands...
...States Bureau of Labor, "50,-000, or 29 per cent...
...The real significance of working day after day, month after month, year in and year out remains beyond our complete comprehension...
...In a Nutshell 1. Seven-day labor is bad for the worker, and it is a suicidal policy for the state...
...Steel is not the only industry upon which lies the blot of seven-day labor...
...If an applicant came to us for Insurance, and we knew he was working seven days a week, we would refuse the risk, unless such excessive work was only temporary"—is the declaration of John M. Pattison, President of the Union Central Life Insurance Company...
...One Day of Rest in Seven ONE of the striking features of the twentieth century is the growing number of industries that are kept in continuous operation and the growing number of wage-earners who are regularly employed every day of the week in such industries...
...Senator La Follette, in particular, has announced his purpose of throwing his hearty support to the Democratic President if the latter showed a determination to work for legislation that was thoroughly progressive...
...La Follette's record with great interest and that he is in agreement with him in various respects...
...The United States has nothing to seek in Central and South America except the lasting interests of the peo-ples of the two continents, the security of Governments intended for the people and for no special group or interest, and the development of personal and trade relationships between the two continents which shall redound to the profit and advantage of both, and interfere with the rights and liberties of neither...
...Some had festered fingers...
...Last session he submitted to Congress a message urging the adoption of a modern, scientific plan for relating proposed expenditures to expected revenues...
...This, Mr...
...As friends, therefore, we shall prefer those who act in the interest of peace and honor, who protect private rights and respect the restraints of constitutional provision...
...We can have no sympathy with those who seek to seize the power of government to advance their own personal interests or ambition...
...5. One day of rest in seven is the only effective method of preventing seven-day labor...
...His deter-nimination is to be a progressive President more than a Democratic President...
...The daily audience of the (notion picture show is now, throughout the country, at least 5.000.000 and some say 8,000,000...
...Threading bolts is heavy work for women...
...The girls striking today are the best paid in the Oliver mills...
...There is no general arbitrary standard laid down...
...Just before he went out of office President Taft reappointed Judge George Gray, of the United States Circuit Court of Delaware, a commissioner at The Hague, and appointed John Bassett Moore another commissioner to fill an existing vacancy...
...The 'bill in itself contains certain restrictions upon future appropriations of a similar kind that may tend to prevent the vicious 'pork barrel' feature of bills of this character...
...Taft Lets Seamen's Bill Die Two of the great annual appropriation bills necessary to the maintenance of the federal government failed of passage on the closing day of Congress, March 4. Senator Fall, of New Mexico, talked the Indian appropriation bill to death in the closing hours of the session, with its $12,000,000 for the support of the Indian service, while President Taft wrote his veto on the $115,000,000 bill to take care of the "sundry civil expenses" of the government...
...It was stated at the White House to-day that President Wilson has studied Mr...
...3. Other countries have legislated against it...
...It has invaded the village and hamlet and its patronage is growing weekly...
...Later it was declared that patronage would have nothing to do with it, that Senator La Follette is not regarded as a dispenser of Wisconsin offices, and the flat statement was made at the White House that a discussion of politics alone had prompted the President in seeking the interview...
...Stop the blast furnaces, smelters, and other industries which for technical reasons require continuous operation, and those industries will be paralyzed...
...I forbear, however, to veto this bill, because my motive in doing so would be misunderstood...
...2. Most seven day labor is unnecessary...
...Extent of Seven-day Labor "During May, 1910," states the United...
...Legislation apart from the tariff revision still lies some distance in the future, but it is_ probable that the President desires an initial understanding with the progressive leader, for whom he has a high regard...
...Very few are of a distinctly lowering type, yet a very small percentage appeal to any discriminating sense of the artistic many girls go from the mills to the immoral resorts...
...Their demand is for an additional two cents a thousand...
...The House repassed the sundry civil bill over the veto, but when it reached the Senate, Senator Poindexter objected to any appropriation for the Washington police force unless an investigation had been made of the riotous scenes attending the suffrage parade and the Senate did not get to a vote on the bill...
...It deprives them of the opportunity for reasonable rest, relaxation and enjoyment with family and friends, which is craved by every normal person...
...We are the friends of peace, but we know that there can be no lasting or stable peace in such circumstances...
...the girls assert...
...Despite the fact that he signed the public buildings bill today, President Taft sent to Congress with it a memorandum stating that he would like to have withheld his signature...
...During this time the motion picture show has practically displaced many of the old cheaper forms of entertainment, notably the melodrama, and has made precarious the situation of burlesque and the cheaper musical comedies...
...No such reason exists in this state for a dual legislative system...
...Moore had been advanced as a candidate for Assistant Secretary of State...
...This form of entertainment is the growth of the last ten years...
...The Interstate Commerce Commission has sent out blanks to all the railroads in the country for the purpose of seeking information as to the relations between the roads and steamship lines...
...News Worth Remembering ONE OP the first official acts of President Wilson was the announcement of the policy which he and Secretary of Slate Bryan will pursue with regard to our relations with Mexico and the other republics of Latin America...
...The jury disagreed...
...Mutual respect seems to us the indispensable foundation of friendship between States, as between individuals...
...4. Sunday laws do not and cannot deal adequately with the problem...
...We shall look to make these principles the basis of mutual intercourse, respect and helpfulness between our sister republics and ourselves...
...Darrow was acquitted at the first trial...
...co-operate and organize to obtain and maintain a fair and reasonable price for their products...
...To cancel the nation's debt, through a sinking fund, and to eliminate the deficit, which is slowly growing...
...The distribution of bureaus between the existing departments is far from being economical or logical, and if there is one thing that is needed in the present situation it is a reorganization of our government on business principles and with a view to economy in the administration of the regular governmental machinery...
...Cooperation is possible only when supported at every turn by the orderly processes of just government based upon law, not upon arbitrary or irregular force...
...In Massachusetts a joint legislative committee in 1907 estimated that 221,985 persons, or over 7 per cent, of the population, were engaged in seven-day labor...
...It will be no harm to the nation if abnormal profits are cut down...
...Some of them are of an educational value...
...President Wilson is not loath to profit from the situation...
...1 earnestly desire the most cordial understanding and cooperation between the peoples and leaders of America and therefore deem it my duty to make this brief statement...
...President Taft also signed the bill creating a Department of Labor, with a Cabinet portfolio, but he attached a memorandum expressing the conviction that nine departments were enough to conduct the government...
...Undoubtedly the conference to-morrow night will be merely preliminary to many which will take place as specific questions come to the front provided the friendly relations which the President seeks to cultivate are lasting...
...Referring to the farmers' clause President Taft said: "At a time when there is widespread complaint of the high cost of living it certainly would be an anomaly to put on the statute books of the United States an act in effect preventing the prosecution of combinations of producers of farm products for the purpose of artificially controlling prices...

Vol. 5 • March 1913 • No. 12


 
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