SOME LAWS THAT LABOR IS DEMAMDING
The wage earners of Nebraska are demanding-, and are entitled Labor be adequately equipped with money and help so as to be of
to, a number of laws in their interests. These demands will be made some service to the wage earners of the state.
through dulv selected representatives who will attend upon the legis- , , Summarized, the following will be demanded by the hosts of
, . , " .- . .1.1.- i 11 mi ii i labor in Nebraska:
lature. and alter securing the mtroduction ot bills will use all legiti- An adequate employers' liability law.
mate means of pushing them through to enactment. The railroad a sixteen-hour law for railroad men.
brotherhoods have accredited representatives upon the ground, and A law branding convict made goods.
the State Federation of Labor will be represented at all times by one A law providing for safety on public building operations,
or more more members of its legislative committee. law providing forproper safeguards on machinery.
Several bills in the interests of labor have already been intro- . il!1- aWf ,i r c r t
, , . , . ,,,,--t- Adequate appropriation for the Bureau of Labor,
duced.. It is only natural that organized labor should be active in this A Iaw regulating employment bureaus and providing for the li
matter, for the unorganized workers, in the very nature of things, are censing of the same. -helpless.
Rut whatever is done for the benefit of organized labor will A workingmen's compensation act.
benefit unorganized labor equally. As matters now stand the wage earners are utterly unprotected
One of the first bills introduced is one prepared by the railroad and receive no consideration from the state other than the law pro
brotherhoods and puts upon the Nebraska statute books the LaFol- viding- for labor leins. The state appropriates annually thousands of
lette federal statute providing a sixteen hour day for railroad men, dollars for farmers' institutes, jet refuses to appropriate a dollar to
and ten hours' rest between sixteen hour periods. educate the larger number of wage earners along similar lines. It
Representative Grossman has introduced a bill repealing the appropriates thousands so that chicken raisers may get together and
present garnishment law, and returning to the condition that existed talk about methods of raising chickens, but not a dollar to teach wage
prior to four years ago. This bill will be advocated by the represent- earners how best to rear children under present industrial conditions,
olives of organized lalxur. " Thousands to protect hogs from cholera, but not a dollar to eradicate
The officials of the State Federation of Labor are in session as tuberculosis in the ranks of those who toil in shop and factory and
The Wageworker goes to press, and in a few days the legislative com- mill and are constant victims of this dread disease because of the un
mittee will have drafts of the bills that it hopes to have enacted into sanitary conditions under which they must work. Not a single safety
law. The one around which chief interest will revolve will be the em- appliance law for the protection of life and limb in mill and factory,
plovers liability law. The Gibson law, now upon the statute books, but all kinds of laws protecting milch cows and swine. No provision
relates only to men employed by common carriers, and even at that is for the inspection of factories, but plenty of provision for the inspec
not worth the paper it is printed on. The workers will demand a lia- ton of herds and flocks.
bility law that will take in all occupations wherein hazard is attached, The 200,000 wage earners of the state men, women and children
'ami that will provide for graduated compensation for injuries. An are demanding that some attention be paid to their needs. The men
other law that will be demanded is one providing that all articles man- and women forced to toil under unsanitary conditions demand that
ufactured in the state prison shall be branded "Prison Made," and if quite as much attention be given to their health and the health of
possible the repeal of the present convict contract system will be their little ones as is given to the hogs and steers and dairy cows,
brought about. Women who work in garment factories are docked if they spoil
A bill already introduced has to do with the safeguarding of goods or break machinery, but if they are injured by machinery un
building viaducts and bridges while under construction. It has the guarded because it would cost the employer a few dollars to guard it,
sanction of the State Federation of Labor. then the poor woman has to foot the bills. Provision is made for de-
An amendment to the law creating the state board of printing terioration in machinery, but none at all for deterioration in men and
will be presented. This amendmentou would have gone through last women. The employer secures industrial insurance against accident
year and been of some practical benefit had not a member of the leg- in blanket form. If an empkryer is hurt he has to fight an insurance
islature had a bill of his own which he hoped to get through and then combine, and e-en if at last successful in securing damages must give
land a job for himself. He got the bill through, but it was not worth an average of 60 per cent of the award to lawyers,
anything, and even at that he failed to land the job. The wage earners of Nebraska have been petitioning for reforms
Organized labor is a unit also in demanding that the Bureau of for a number of years, but now they are going to demand their rights.
REV. CHARLES STELZLE'S CURE FOR WORRY
How may worry be cured ? First, by realizing the utter, abso- idea : it isn't one's outward circumstances nor one's accomplishments
lute uselessness of worry. If you were to spend a dozen eternities in that drive away worry. It's what one is.
worry, you could not change a single fact. The only way that you . And here's a commonplace cure for worry trite,, but neverthe-
can change a circumstance is by hard work and you can't work hard lses suggestive : You may cure worry by not crossing bridges until
with a clear head and a steady hand if you worry. A party of friends you come to them. , "Children," said a good man to the family gath-
were looking at the inmates of a lunatic asvlum. One of them re- ered about his deathbed, "during my long life I have had a great
marked: "I suppose that a large proportion of these people were" many troubles most of which never happened." You have some-.
, , , f T , . , P times wondered how you were to pay the doctor s bills and where
brought here on account of unnecessary worrv. Is any kind of ,i , ijri r a u t uu
1 j j va tjie rent an(j CQaj an(j uej were to come from, and how Johhny was
worry necessary ? asked another. to get a pajr Q shoes and Annie a necessary dress. Somehow, the
You may cure worry by taking a larger view of life. We are so bills have all been paid. "But," you say, "I had a pretty tough time
taken up with our own little affairs that we sometimes forget that getting through." Yes. but the hard time consisted of nine parts
there is a big world bevond us. And when things go wrong with- worry and one part work; and that, for the average workingman,
out looking out upon it we imagine that the world is just a great, means that he has worried pretty hard.
, . , , , , , , , The other day I was climbing a circular stairway in a small
black, sunless, heartless sphere. A broken toy covers the whole hon- tower T could see only one step at a time but when I took that step
zon of a child's life. How pitifully you have smiled at the youngster j saw the next. Life is just like that, and I'm very glad of it. If we
whose heart was almost broken because of what you considered a Were compelled to view the whole vista of future happenings it would
ery trivial matter. And you have learned to smile now atwhat you unnerve most of us. It's just one step at a time,
once thought were great sorrows and anxieties, because, since then, ,
you have had a larger experience. ,
It's a great thing sometimes to forget yourself and to try to re- BUMP FOR PRESIDENT TAFT.
member that your work and your life are just a part of God's great
plan for the betterment of the" world; but don't forget that they are a The decision of the United States supreme court upholding the
part and then tackle the job, bravely doing your best. That's all that constitutionality of the bank guaranty act is something of a jolt for
God asks of any man. No one can do more. the gentlemen who succeeded to the presidency by virtue of the ac-
Worry may be cured by appreciating that it isn't what one has tivity of Theodore Roosevelt. During the campaign of 1908 the dem-
oi what one dees but what one is that brings peace of mind. King ocrats made much of the proposed guaranty law, but Mr. Taft
Solomon had riches, culture and power. These are most sought after couldn't see anything in it save a conflict with the constitution. He
today. Each one is legitimate if properly used but. after .having ex- was quite sure that it would be unconstitutional to enact a law, and
Pcrienced them all, what did this'wise man say? "Vanity of vanities being something of a constitutional lawyer himself he carried consid-
all is vanity." And will you note Christ's comment upon Solo,- arable weight in more waj-s than one. Now comes along the supreme
rnon's glory: "Consider the lilies of the field, how they "grow"; they court of the nation with the information that Mr. Taft's views' on the
toil not neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you that even Solo-"bank guaranty law were about as vague and as misty as his views on
mon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." Here's the tariff reduction.
