"There is a river in France so narrow that you can talk across it. Birds can fly over with one sweep of their wings. Great armies are on either bank, but they are as far apart as the stars in the sky, as far as right and wrong.

"There is a great ocean. It is so wide that seagulls cannot fly across it without rest. Upon either shore there are great nations. They are so close that their hearts touch."-Written by a French girl, 16 years old.

THE UNION LABEL.

By KATE E. CARR, President. The union label originated in 1896 with the cigarmakers of San Francisco in their conflict with Chinese labor. Since that time its application has spread until all trade unions look to it as one of the most successful means of waging the struggle with combined capital and that class of workmen which embraces the strikebreaker, the scab, coolie labor, child labor, and employes of the open shop. During its brief history in national trade unionism, the scope of the label has extended from a single industry to more than fifty crafts in North America, whose products enter into almost every article of household and personal use.

Adopted by trade unions as a means for the peaceful solution of the boycott question, the union label has become powerful because it accomplishes by peaceful means with absolute certainty and with little cost that which the strike and boycott seek to accomplish, always at great cost and sacrifice. The silent strength of the label develops with every union-made purchase. It creates a demand for the union products. It beckons to the fair employer. It fosters the sanitary workshop. It shortens the work day.

It is a weapon for the obtaining of a more equitable distribution of the products of all union workmen. It promulgates the every demand of unionism.

The union label is an appeal to principle. Its presence on the household goods and personal apparel of a workman, assures his fellow workmen of his or her true blue spirit toward the ethics 'of their common cause. It advocates to the public that its possessor indorses those rules which will make it possible for cleanliness, morality, honesty, and true brotherly love to exist in all industrial life. Its presence signifies that the possessor is doing his part to take the children from the sweatshop and give them the opportunity of good citizenship which every child should have. The label on the hundreds of commodities, which you may purchase, is a record of the silent battle being waged to obtain a living wage for women.

The workers who strike in protest against their wrongs may be defeated, but the public protest registered in the demand for the label is invincible. The country-wide distribution of union-made goods makes it possible for every union man and woman to contribute in this campaign against the atrocities of capitalism and ignorance. Are you lending the purchasing power of your dollars in this fight? Take an inventory of the labels on your personal belongings and decide whether or not you are doing your bit in the struggle for justice in the cause of labor.

NOTES FROM THE GRAND SECRETARY AND TREASURER.

A very interesting article appeared in one of the dailies recently, relative to

the shortage of school teachers in the elementary schools of the country. It stated that the shortage of teachers, in taking more remunerative positions, was causing the department of education much concern, and that this shortage could not be overcome, unless better salaries were paid for this class of work.

At last the teachers' profession recognizes the benefits of organization, and if such a stand had been taken long ago, they would have received the salaries they are now asking for.

In a letter from our grand president, Sister Kate E. Carr, she states that she and Sister Elise A. Mielke, have been elected delegates to attend the annual convention of the Women's Legislative Council of the State of Washington, held in Tacoma from April 9th to 11th, inclusive.

We feel certain these sisters will represent our organization in such a manner that they will do credit to us.

Never before has the demand to organize been greater than at present, when our members are called upon to fill offices in councils and boards. Send for blanks by return mail, and join so that we can be ready at all times for whatever we are called upon to do.

MRS. FLORENCE P. PIERCE,
Halethorpe, Balto. Co., Md.

TACOMA LOCAL, No. 54.

The usual good time was enjoyed at our meeting, March 27th, at Sister Grovers, Nisqually, even though it rained from sunup to sundown. The following cities and towns were represented: Elma, Olympia, Kelso, Adna, Littell, Centralia, Sixth Ave. and Tacoma, also Nisqually. I'll say so, those who didn't attend will never know what they missed.

Sister Mielke visited Sister and Bro. Carr at Olympia, one day last week, for the purpose of discussing ways to organize the five remaining nons on this division. Let us hope they solved the problem.

Sister Long also made several trips to Olympia.

Bro. and Sister Long will soon leave us, going to the wilds of Fairfax, which Bro. Long received on bid.

Sister Melton was seen on her way to Tacoma.

Bro. and Sister Emerick are opening a lunch room at Nisqually. We hope it's a

success.

Sister Grover spent the month's end visiting out-of-town friends.

Sister Sherwood, of Tacoma, and Sister Carr, of Olympia, are delegates to the annual convention of the Women's Legislative Council of Washington, to be held in Tacoma, April 9th, 10th and 11th. The council represents the leading fraternal, educational, political, patriotic, industrial, welfare and legislative clubs and societies in our state.

The council is planning a broad scope of work for the coming year and everyone who can should be on hand at our next meeting to hear the interesting re ports of the delegate sisters..

At the last O. R. T. meeting held in Centralia, the entertainment and "eats" provided by the attending auxiliary sisters was so well received by the brothers that we are planning a surprise for their next meeting. Brothers, don't miss it.

Our president suggests that we devote much of our time at our April meeting in discussing the uses of the flour substitutes. Sisters will therefore come prepared to give in detail their experiences, in using these victory flour stuffs, and incidentally might bring samples featuring this line.

At the next meeting, sisters, we want you all to be there. Come early and stay late, and when each and everyone of you return stop at each sister's house you pass and tell them what a good time is had at these meetings.

The next meeting will be held in Kelso, April 24th, at the home of Sister Ina Dickinson. DIV. CORS.

Y. W. C. A. FOR EMPLOYED GIRLS.

Every Y. W. C. A. throughout the United States has received a card from

Miss Mary E. McDowell of the University of Chicago Settlement, requesting the following information: The number of women, foreign or native, taking men's places in industries where they have not been before; the kind of work they are doing; the organization that has been made to prepare them for men's work and facts regarding their wages, regarding night and overtime work and any additional facts.

This is the beginning of a nation-wide movement to start vigorous industrial work in the association.

Summer councils, summer conferences and other efforts will be pushed to turn out a hundred industrial leaders by fall for noon hour work in factories and places of business, recreational work among girl workers and for general investigation of situations throughout the great industrial centers.

The aim of all this effort is to keep industrial women at their best. As it is, they are being pushed into work which they have never done before, and it is important that they understand the situation themselves, and that they be made aware of the protection which the states offer to them.

"In gathering the girls together in clubs, the effort will be to support and steady the highest element among them in their work and play and so to permeate the whole and to establish a general morale which shall make for the highest standards of character and industry," says Miss Florence Simms, Secretary of the Industrial Department.

KEEP YOUR HEAD.

An irresponsible weather vane is no more uncertain guide in these war torn days than "Your patriotic duty" is as a slogan.

"Do your shopping between 10 a. m. and 4 p. m. and leave the early morning and late afternoon cars for war workers." This sign is posted among the "Safety First" and other bulletins. Why "war workers?" Is all the mass of hurrying, struggling, scrambling humanity

crowding the cars night and morning made up of "war workers?"

"We have just two minutes' to catch the train, son, we must run." But the boy like a flash was down the muddy street, stooping to pick up things in his flight. "It's coal," he shrieked, and he was back with smudgy mittens and three small black lumps. "Papa said we must save every bit of coal we can." Patriotic "conservation" missed the train.

"Hoover has got me queered about white I'll try rye bread. You can use the white bread up another way." The white bread appeared again, but several eggs had been used to make it acceptable to the masculine palate-not the first time that misdirected patriotism has proved a counter-irritant for the kitchen.

"No, it's not for the boys, of course," said a girl who was working away on a rose-colored scarf one balmy Sunday - on a Florida beach, "but if I finish this today I shall have time to work at the Red Cross tomorrow. I simply must have the scarf to wear with my pink organdie."

Through the Sunday evening sermon in a popular church, à member of the choir worked on a sweater before the great audience in front of the choir stall. "Our pastor encourages it and I am justified because of the terrible need of the boys," she explained later. Yet the girl had taken time during the week for two parties and a luncheon where knitting was out of the question.

"I know it seems funny to be sewing on Sunday, but I am working for French orphans. With my club and church and social affairs during the week I have got to work Sundays if I do my patriotic part. I don't let my neighbors see me, of course.

I sit back from the windows. The influence might not be good." Will the knitting needles and work basket return to their over-Sunday places when peace terms are signed?

WOMEN'S WORKS AND WAR,

NATIONAL WOMEN'S TRADE UNION

LEAGUE,

I

SECOND SEVENTY-SEVEN.

T is a bad grade yet.

But before the new work was done on the river division, Beverly Hill was a terror to trainmen.

On rainy Sundays old switchmen in the Zanesville yards still tell in their shanties of the nights the Blackwood bridge went out and Cameron's stock train got away on the hill, with the Denver flyer caught at the foot like a rat in a trap.

Ben Buckley was only a big boy then, braking on freights; I was dispatcher under Alex Campbell on the West End. Ben was a tall, loose-jointed fellow, but gentle as a kitten; legs as long as pinchbars, yet none too long, running for the Beverly switch that night. His great chum in those days was Andy Cameron. Andy was the youngest engineer on the line. The first time I ever saw them together Andy, short and chubby as a duck, was dancing around, half-dressed, on the roof of the bath-house, trying to get away from Ben, who had the fire-hose below, playing on him with a two-inch stream of ice-water. They were up to some sort of prank all the time.

June was usually a rush month with us. From the coast we caught the new crop of Japan teas and the fall importations of China silks. California still sent her fruits and Colorado was beginning cattle shipments. From Wyoming came sheep, and from Oregon, steers; and all these not merely in carloads, but in solid trains. At times we were swamped. The overland traffic alone was enough to keep us busy; on top of it came a great movement of grain from Nebraska that summer, and to crown our troubles a rate war sprang up. Every man, woman,

and child east of the Mississippi appeared to have but one object in lifethat was to get to California, and to go over our road. The passenger traffic burdened our resources to the last degree.

I was putting on a new man every day then. We start them at braking on freights; usually they work for years at that before they get a train. But when a train-dispatcher is short on crews, he must have them, and can only press the best material within reach. Ben Buckley had not been braking three months when I called him up one day and asked him if he wanted a train.

"Yes, sir, I'd like one first rate. But you know I haven't been braking very long, Mr. Reed," said he, frankly.

"How long have you been in the train service?"

I spoke brusquely, though I knew, without even looking at my service-card, just how long it was.

"Three months, Mr. Reed."

It was right to a day.

"I'll probably have to send you out on 77 this afternoon," I saw him stiffen like a ramrod. "You know we're pretty short," I continued.

"Yes, sir."

"But do you know enough to keep your head on your shoulders and your train on your orders?"

Ben laughed a little. "I think I do. Will there be two sections today?"

"They're loading eighteen cars of stock at Ogalalla; if we get any hogs off the Beaver, there will be two big sections. I shall mark you up for the first one, anyway, and send you out right behind the flyer. Get your badge and your punch from Carpenter-and whatever you do, Buckley, don't get rattled."

"No, sir; thank you, Mr. Reed."

But his "thank you" was so pleasant I could not altogether ignore it; I compromised with a cough. Perfect courtesy, even in the hands of the awkwardest boy that ever wore his trousers short, is a surprisingly handy thing to disarm gruff people with. Ben was undeniably awkward; his legs were too long, and his trousers decidedly out of touch with his feet; but I turned away with the conviction that in spite of his gawkiness, there was something to the boy. That night proved it.

When the flyer pulled in from the West in the afternoon, it carried two extra sleepers. In all, eight Pullmans, and every one of them loaded to the ventilators. While the train was changing engines and crews, the excursionists swarmed out of the hot cars to walk up and down the platform. They were from New York, and had a band with them-as jolly a crowd as we ever hauled-and I noticed many boys and girls sprinkled among the grown folks.

As the heavy train pulled slowly out, the band played, the women waved handkerchiefs, and the boys shouted themselves hoarse-it was like a holiday, everybody seemed so happy. All I hoped, as I saw the smoke of the engine turn to dust on the horizon, was that I could get them over my division and their lives safely off my hands. For a week we had had heavy rains, and the bridges and track gave us worry.

Half an hour after the flyer left, 77, the fast stock-freight, wound like a great snake around the bluff, after it. Ben Buckley, tall and straight as a pine, stood on the caboose. It was his first train, and he looked as if he felt it.

In the evening I got reports of heavy rains east of us, and after 77 reported "cut" of Turner Junction and pulled over the divide towards Beverly, it was storming hard all along the line. By the time they reached the hill, Ben had his men out setting brakes-tough work on that kind of a night; but when the big engine struck the bluff, the heavy train

was well in hand, and it rolled down the long grade as gently as a curtain.

But Ben was none too careful, for half-way down the hill they exploded torpedoes. Through the driving storm, the tail lights of the flyer were presently seen. As they pulled carefully ahead, Ben made his way through the mud and rain to the head end, and found the passenger train stalled. Just before them was Blackwood Creek, bank full, and the bridge swinging over the swollen stream like a grape-vine.

At the foot of Beverly Hill there is a siding a long siding, once used as a sort of cut-off to the upper Zanesville yards. This side track parallels the main track for half a mile, and on this siding, Ben, as soon as he saw the situation, drew in with his train so that it lay beside the passenger train and left the main line clear behind. It then became his duty to guard the track to the rear, where the second section of the stock train would soon be due.

It was pouring rain and as dark as a pocket. He started his hind-end brakeman back on the run with red lights and torpedoes to warn the second section well up the hill. Then walking across from his caboose, he got under the lee of the hind Pullman sleeper to watch for the expected headlight.

The storm increased in violence. It was not the rain driving in torrents, not the lightning blazing, nor the deafening crashes of thunder, that worried him, but the wind-it blew a gale. In the flare of the lightning he could see the oaks which crowned the bluffs whip like wil lows in a storm. It swept quartering down the Beverly cut as if it would tear the ties from under the steel. Suddenly he saw, far up in the black sky, a blazing star. It was the headlight of the Second SeventySeven.

A whistle cut the wind; then another. It was the signal for brakes; the second section was coming down the steep grade. He wondered how far back his man had got with the bombs. Even as he wondered, he saw a yellow flash below the headlight; it was the first torpedo. The