the members of the unions concerned. The vast majority of these union members have enthusiastically registered their approval of cooperative banking at every convention of their respective organizations.

A Horrible Example

It is true that certain rogues have taken advantage of the popularity of labor cooperative banks to promote fake enterprises disguised as the real thing. But this, again, is no fault of cooperative banking. Such rogues have always existed, and have always devised schemes to separate ignorant workers from their savings. The genuine labor banks have been the first to detect and expose their schemes, and have saved untold millions of dollars for American workers by educating them to invest their savings in absolutely safe public securities.

A horrible example is made of the failure of the Producers & Consumers Bank of Philadelphia. But this never was a cooperative bank. Despite the repeated warnings of the All American Cooperative Commission and the Cooperative League of the United States, this bank was set up unsoundly, and the unions concerned refused to carry out the advice given them. They and not cooperative banking were to blame. It is still true that not one genuine cooperative bank has ever failed in the United States-a finer record than private-profit banks can show. Finally, we are told that the employes of cooperative banks are unorganized. I remember when the late Warren S. Stone invited the employes of the B. of L. E. Cooperative National Bank in Cleveland to organize. None of them were interested, because they were getting better pay and better treatment than were the employes of the other banks in the city. Since that time the employes in several of the largest labor banks have organized always with the full encouragement of the officers of the

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bank. Where else in the United States have bank officers encourage their employes to unionize?

The Backbone of a Cooperative Movement For eighty years the workers of Europe have been organizing cooperative labor banks. Instead of making labor "capitalistic" and contented, these banks have de veloped in the workers a consciousness of their tremendous united power, enabling them to build up their craft organizations, take over and operate their own industries, and raise their standard of living by founding all kinds of consumers' cooperative enterprises. The labor bank in Europe is, in fact, the founder and financer of thousands of cooperative societies. Two large labor banks are already encouraging a similar development of the cooperative movement in this country. Labor banking, in brief, not only aids the worker as a producer, but also helps him cut his cost of living as a consumer.

Alleged Evils are Superficial

But

The labor cooperative banks in this country are not perfect. For one thing they are human institutions, and they are also less than six years old. They have made some mistakes, and doubtless will make more. none of the abuses mentioned by Brother Anderson are essential to labor banking. The wrong kind of men will make the wrong kind of use of the best and holiest institutions. For instance, I have before me an employers' magazine that condemns labor unions because some union men and union leaders are crooked. I do not regard a trade union as a narrow, limited, moss-backed organization. The union has a right to undertake any. thing, that can increase the happiness, welfare, and prosperity of its members and their fellow-workers. Tested by this standard, labor cooperative banking has made good.

R. CHAIRMAN, I rise to a point of order. We are debating the question of labor banks as they are conducted here in the United States, along regular capitalist banking lines. Friend Coyle dwells upon cooperative banking, particularly as carried on in Europe-which is a different matter.

I do not condemn real cooperative banking, rightly conducted. But my point is, that our labor banks are not conducted along cooperative lines ,and have little of the spirit of cooperation in them. That is the chief reason why they are dangerous to the Movement.

Our labor banks accept the same depositors as do Capital's banks. Their promoters go after money for deposits like any other bank. In that way they tie up with anti-union concerns, in many instances. Let me cite the case of the labor bank in Pittsburg. The President of that institution, a supposed labor leader, was accused of being a labor spy and detective for labor crushing

agencies. He was tried, convicted and ousted from the Central Trades and Labor Union there. And yet, the directors of the labor bank protected him, because he had secured some of the biggest depositors-all non-union

concerns.

In the cooperative banks of Europe that could hardly have taken place. For non-union concerns would never be allowed to deposit money with these banks, in the first place. Only unions, friendly societies (i. e., fraternal organizations), and individuals connected with the cooperative movement could make such deposits.

The 65,000 banks referred to by my opponent are not like our banks. What are they like?

Real Cooperatives and Ours

They are mostly small institutions, close to the workers and reaching the workers directly. In the case of the large Cooperative Bank in England, which is run by the Cooperative Wholesale Society, little branch

banks are conducted in each of the stores of the cooperatives. There is no large institution miles away from the workers. It is right in their midst, a small affair-a window in the cooperative store. The bank in which the International Association of Machinists is interested, in Washington, can be of little aid or comfort to the machinist out in Kalamazoo or Winnipeg or Olympia. He may possibly point to it with pride, but that won't help him, either as an individual or as a union man.

The principles of the real cooperative banks are: 1. One shareholder, one vote-making it an intimate and democratic thing; 2. Depositors to share in profits; 3. Strict limitation of the amount of dividends. Banks in America cannot apply the first rule right now. Our laws won't let them. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers Bank in Cleveland has applied the last two and has made an effort to be cooperative. But its very size prevents it from being the help to the individual worker that a cooperative labor bank should be.

Few other labor banks make much effort at this ideal. Even if we could see signs of their going in a cooperative direction, there would be some hope in them. But they are moving in the other direction, it seems to me. Take the Federation Bank in New York City. It started out with only one of these principles in its by-laws: it restricted dividends to 10 per cent, which was pretty high at that. But recently it even threw over that restriction, when it re-organized as the Federation Bank and Trust Company. It is, therefore, moving toward becoming a regular capitalistic banking institution. "Profits, profits, profits" will be the cry in timeand not service to the workers.

Finance Control Illusory

About controlling the bulk of the nation's finance through labor banks: That is even more uncertain than controlling the industrial situation itself. We know what we could do if all the workers, or the great majority cf them, were organized in our unions. But no one is, as yet, succeeding in this work. We can't even get all the American workers to meet in our labor temples. Nor can we get all of them to put their money in Labor's Łasket.

Suppose, however, the workers did put all their money in labor banks. Is there any proof that we would be any better off than our brothers in Great Britain, who have to strike for their rights the same as we? Their cooperatives undoubtedly help them at such times;

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but let us not expect too much, even of cooperative banking.

Friend Coyle suggests that most private banks are hostile to the unions. That is true. But that is also true of most big depositors in our labor banks and big depositors have the same influence with banks that big advertisers have with newspapers. How many labor banks have even thought of unionism enough to run strictly union shops? They boast of directors who are members of Organized Labor, when most of the clerks in most of the banks are non-union. Even some of the banks would probably fight unionization, and only a boycott could bring them to time. So far have they gotten away from union principles.

The possession of money by a union will undoubtedly make some of them more likely to sanction strikes. But strikes are not won with money alone. They are won with union men and women. Records will show that most of the deserters from the union ranks are among members who were best able to remain on strike. My experience has been that it is more trouble to keep the property owner on strike than the non-owner. Neither are the heavy property owners the backbone of the unions. I am not arguing that the workers should be paupers. But I do say that their attention should not be distracted by banking from the real union fight. Neither should banking be so conducted as to hamper the unions in their services to the workers, by hamstringing them with anti-union connections and alliances. When labor banks go in for ordinary banking methods, they eventually do this very thing.

Make Our Enterprises Really Cooperative

We should not take the timid attitude that Labor has no right to go into business. It has the right to do that, as well as to do many other things. But let it be business that actually helps to give new spirit to the rank and file, that aids them to better their conditions through bettering them individually in time of difficulty and in bettering their unions. Friend Coyle has all the figures on banking; but I have the pulse of the workers. They want cooperative enterprises established. But they want them run along correct lines, that will actually be sound and at the same time helpful to them and the Movement. Our labor banks, started largely along profit-making lines, and becoming more and more profit-making institutions with one or two exceptions, are not meeting the need. They are rather making the workers less effective fighters for their own cause.

AND A CORRECTION

regard to Brother Anderson appearing in our June issue. We stated that he was a recent candidate for the presidency of the Machinists' Union on "an antiLabor Banking platform". This was not accurate. Candidate he was, but his view was and is that Labor Banking should be run on a "real cooperative basis". Brother Coyle and he have given us a treat-and we all ought now to have some definite opinions about the matter. Is Labor Banking a Promise or Menace to Our Movement? Now, You can have your say!

'HAT shall we let our children read?

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The subject was brought to my mind by a report of a lecture on Children's books, read to the National Society of Day Nurseries recently by Miss Alice Jackson, M.A. Most books came in for rough handling. Stories of the Bluebeard type, the lecturer said, were bad. So were those in which poor girls received extraordinary devotion and countless material gifts from admirers who expected nothing in return. "Lord Fauntleroy" was also turned down because it "revealed a mother-complex and the regressive idea of a child who was afraid to grow up." If I remember rightly it also revealed a very uncomfortable style of collar and a dangerous way of dressing the hair. The danger, however, may be turned to some account; for I know two men who have developed into two of the most useful middle-weights in Tottenham, and attribute their skill entirely to the fact that their mother insisted on sending them to school with their hair in "Fauntleroy" ringlets so that life was one long selfdefence. But no one wears them now and the book is nearly out of print, so let's get on with it.

Now it is imperative that children should only read books that do them good. All we have to settle is what is a good child and what books make it get like that.

It is a matter that presents some difficulties, for if you decide what a good child is, you are in danger of meeting one, in which case you would have to run round for the doctor. I feel, however, that the question can be settled if we apply our minds to it. But I don't think I'll do it now. The fact is that at the moment I am sitting in the sun looking at the Atlantic and find myself strangely indifferent to spots on the juvenile soul. We all have our moments of back-sliding, and although I started out this morning with the earnest intention of deciding what to allow children to read, I have surprised myself by an involuntary desire to let them read what they like. It is a pity; I hoped I was made of sterner stuff. I will try and take the matter up more seriously when the sun goes in.

Besides, there is nothing to complain of in this village. The only child who has consulted me about literature this morning showed a laudable desire to absorb useful information and was pleased when I was able to show him, on the authority of Messrs. W. D. and H. D. Wills, how a heron feeds her young.

Besides, my position is a little compromised at the moment by the book I have with me. For, purely in the interests of education I am reading "The Deadly Three", just to satisfy my mind that it is fit for children; and I feel that if a committee of Child Welfare or Educational experts were to approach me for advice at the moment, circumstantial evidence would weaken my authority. They would never believe that I brought the book in a

spirit of Scientific Enquiry. That, however, is not the only reason why I do not want any committee to ap proach me on this particular day.

Meantime, one cannot over-emphasize the far-reaching! effect of books upon a child at the period when the mind is receptive and sensitive to every influence.

Most great men can testify to the value of their early reading. I can, for one. I owe a great deal to the fact that in my infancy the authorities were careful to keep harmful books out of sight. Books like "Tom JonesTM and "Strangler Sam", for instance were locked in the attic; and the steadiness of nerve and suppleness of lim I gained at an early age by climbing day after day up the drain pipe into the attic window have been of great benefit to me ever since.

We shall all agree, of course, that the kind of literature mentioned by the lecturer are bad, notably that about girls who receive countless material gifts from admirers who expect nothing in return. The only dif ficulty is that we should have to do away with so many books, and most of the newspapers. For I observe that a section of nearly every daily paper is devoted to ac counts of how certain girls, generally termed society are continually having gifts, such as jewellery, furs and motor car bestowed upon them by admirers, usually called the Working Class, who appear to expect nothing in return. At least, nothing to speak of.

Then, too, we should have to abolish many of the old nursery rhymes. These is one, particularly, I recall

"Goldilocks, goldilocks, wilt thou be mine?

Thou shalt not wash dishes nor yet feed the swine." -which seems to be a mere incitement to young ladies to be social parasites, particularly when you refer to its revised version

"Goldilocks' father he owned a big mine

And large blocks of shares in a big railway line.
So she said, as she rang for a bottle of wine,
These miners and railmen are all lazy swine."

We have to be all the more careful in these days, when the modern child reacts so readily to the care which is being taken of his mind. I know a child who displays astonishing discernment in his reading. As I am a literary man, or, nobler still, a journalist, he always asks my advise as to what to read. I was therefore very much surprised to find him reading "Sexton Blake", because I thought I had the only copy in- I mean, because my advice was different from that. But he said, "Well, you see, I have been reading heavily of late and wish to give my mind a rest. This stuff" and be indicated "The Mystery of the Severed Thumb"- "requires no effort of imagination and engenders no excitement be cause the action and characterization being stereotyped

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STIFF collar is no more a sign of economic independence than a stiff hat is a sign of brains. The stiff collar is a heavy halter for most men in the technical trades. They are poorly paid. Frequently, they are severely exploited. And certain ones of themparticularly in the engineering business-are forced to resort to the cheapest form of prostitution. This applies to both employers and employees in engineering.

Railroad engineers are forced to report what their financial bosses want them to say, no matter what the facts may be. In valuations they are merely the slaves of the utility companies. As an example: Mr. James E. Allison of St. Louis is a leading member of his profession. He secured fame and paved his way to fortune by taking the public side in the local United Railways valuation years ago. Yet, afterwards, as an employee of the utilities themselves, he turned his back on all his previous work and made himself logically ridiculous. We could give many other names, dates and places on this score.

one always knows what is going to happen. The result is complete mental inactivity. Besides, its very crudity amuses me."

But you must remember that this strict censorship of your child's reading may lead to awkward situations. I know a child whose parents forbade it to read stories based on the aggrandisement of brute force or any other anti-social attributes. The result was that when, during a history lesson, the teacher was recounting the story of how our great Indian Empire was founded, the child walked out saying, "My parents would not wish me to hear how men of criminal tendencies indulged their proclivities at the expense of their weaker brethren."

On another occasion, when the Squire presented a field-gun to the school, and was telling the children about the glorious battle of the Somme, the child again walked out saying, "I have been taught to avoid stories in which virtue is made of revolting homicide."

The teacher, however, vented his embarrassment by chastising the child. Consequently the child's father called upon the teacher, and the interview was interesting in that the teacher, who had attained a certain skill, owing to practice upon his scholars, with his right hand, could do little with his left. This gave the father an advantage. Leading off with a half-hook to the body, which the teacher parried, he swung his- but you don't

If the bigger fish in the pool are caught thusly, it is much worse with the little suckers. They are not only prostituted, but they don't get anything for it. Recently, the magazine published by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers held up the wages paid in the University of Pennsylvania as a horrible example of this fact. In the utilities, the men are falling behind all the time, in comparison to the cost of living. On that basis, they fail to get what they got back in 1903. Compare that, with the rise in the organized building trades-from $2.75 a day in 1903 for composition roofers to $11.50 per day in 1926, and from $3.80 a day for certain carpenters to $12 per day (in New York)-and the moral

is self-evident.

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ET us go and do some of the things we can't do.

That advice, given by Michael Moon in one of Chesterton's books, is good advice. It is much better than much of the sighing and whining that issues forth from some of our intellectual Cassandras in their Ivory Towers, looking down on the workers from lofty hights, in pitying contempt that sweat and grime go with hard labor. Shaking their heads and wringing their hands, they bewail the "stupidity" of the workers, the "conservatism" of the workers, the "backwardness" of the workers —and yet, are never seen to go forth themselves to get their noodles smashed on the picket lines. It is much better than the exhibition given by some labor men, in returning thanks to the Chambers of Commerce, from whom all blessings flow, for having deigned to allow unionism to exist in this or that small instance.

A plague upon both such evidences of mental and moral paralysis! "To the Devil," we say, "with all your long-winded long-facedness. We want nothing of it. To the Devil with all your smirking before Chambers of Commerce and other rotten High-and-Mighties. We want nothing of that. What we want is hot action, not lukewarm wind."

The test of the Labor Movement is not in some quiet professorial retreat in a middle-class suburb. It is not in the smiles which some Hon. Bilius Billion may cast upon the workers, as he rushes to his favorite golf-links and hootch-cache. The test of the Labor Movement is at the factory gates, where the horde of workers come pell-mell from their unpleasant labors. The test of the Movement is back in the shop and mill, to be measured by the amount of organized discontent it has brewed up among the toilers.

CREDIT UNIONS AND COMPANY UNIONS

EN who dig pits for others may themselves fall into

M the pits thus dug. But sometimes it takes quite

a while for them to stumble around and do the tumbling.

The devious devices of the American Employing Class to set snares for their unwary employees can be met by our Labor Movement-and must be met. But wishing for it merely will not bring this much desired result to pass.

Among the numerous developments by which the employers hope to set up stones for their workers to fall

The test of the Movement is in doing the things "that can't be done."

When you get close to an "impossible" job, you find that it is quite possible of accomplishment. Close inspection of Company Unionism indicates that it is a House of Cards. A little more Fire and Fanaticism in union methods will burn its Fraud and Fakery to the ground. If a hand-full of "irresponsible agitators", as they have been called, can stir 12,000 workers to revolt at Passaic; if a mere lone labor editor, with a few bundles of his publication under his arm, can frighten the powerful oil companies into granting concessions to their men in Bayonne, then we are in for a merry time of it when others get out and face the waiting workers in like fashion.

President Green of the A. F. of L. has made a productive suggestion, that the organizers of that body should check up every day on what they have actually done. Not in mere efforts, we take it, but in results accomplished. Not in mere men seen or meetings attended, but in actual revolt stirred up in unorganized industries. Not in mere wages and hours preached, but in contempt for courts inculcated, and in indifference to cops taught. Or. ganization can only be won when the workers know that the courts are merely worn-out old men, or worn-out young men, with limited brains and a pimp-like devotion to Big Business. Organization can only be won when these same workers understand that the cops are largely the servants of the servants of Big Business-only too often usurping

power.

Fear is the bitter foe of freedom. For the men in the Movement who have no fears of the strumpets in high places, there is glorious fighting ahead. Events are shaping up in that direction.

over and break their necks is the company credit union It relieves the worker of the spectre of the loan shark. It makes him feel a bit more secure, in that he can get money without great security at almost any time and for almost any occasion. But the company credit union, run by the company, delivers the worker, to a degree at least, into the hands of the company itself. It ties him up on his wage demands. It takes out the sting of militancy, without which he will get nothing.

Employers realize this so much that they are pushing these credit unions in numerous places. In New Jerseyhome of the Standard Oil and of bleak conditions for the workers the big boys have gone so far as to have