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March 34em Cost

Enforcement of the Volsted Act cost the nation $15,450,400 in the past fiscal year. Estimates show that 44% of the work of United District Attorneys is confined to prohibition cases.

New York Protests

Both branches of the New York State Legislature passed a resolution asking Congress to modify the Volstead Act. Governor Smith says he will sign the resolution, which will be sent to every member of Congress as well as to the President and the Vice President.

The Democrats, with a wet plank in their platform, carried all the state offices last November. Several Republicans, with that election in mind, joined with the Democrats in passing the resolution. Both Republicans and Democrats know well that there is small chance of Congress taking their advice.

The Mexican Border

Two plans for drying up the Mexican border have found their way to Washington. One is a request by the Federated Clubwomen of the Imperial Valley, Cal., that Secretary Hughes "close" the border at sundown to persons under 21 years of age, in order to protect their children. The other is a rumor from Mexico City, to the effect that the government is considering establishment of a dry belt 50 miles wide, along the border. So far it is only a rumor.

"The Marriage at Cana"

At an exhibit of the Society of Independent Artists in Manhattan, appeared a canvas entitled, "The Marriage of Cana at Galilee". It represented the biblical incident of the changing of water into wine, but with the introduction of unmistakable likenesses of Mr. Volstead, Mr. Bryan and Mr. Anderson. Mr. Bryan poured the miraculously made wine onto the floor, and under the painting was the inscription: "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."

Light Wines and Beer

Arthur Brisbane (Hearst editor) made the following comment on George Washington: "In three months his beer bill was $170, French red wine $105, porter $45. He spent only five shillings for his liquors—wise Father of His Country. If everybody had done the same ever since, there would be no drink problem in the United States."

A School for Strikers

Three years ago William Z. Foster, notorious radical leader and chief organizer of the steel strike in 1919, predicted that in the near future strikes would be organized with all the scientific preparation of a military campaign, with a trained commissary department, shock troops, labor liberty loans, conscription of strikers' families, and all the material, financial equipment, and propaganda necessary to wage a modern industrial class war. His prediction has had a partial fulfilment in the school for strikers which operated three months prior to the dress and waist makers' strike in New York.

In this school 300 pupils were instructed in the art of lawful picketing, in labor investigation, the conduct of strike meetings, adjustment of disputes with employers, and all matters pertaining to the behavior of idle workers during a strike. In consequence of this training the garment strike was conducted with the specialization and division of labor of a capitalist business enterprise. The picketing corps alone cost over $1,500 a day to maintain.

"Don't attract attention," "Don't block traffic," "Don't argue," "Always obey the police," were the main instructions to pickets. These tactics, in regular use in the garment unions, are in marked contrast to the provocative and often violent methods employed by less educated and intelligently led unions.

The Painters' Union organized a health department which examines its members for occupational disease. Some 4,000 painters have been found to be suffering from incipient lead poisoning.

Profiteering?

The actual cost of producing anthracite coal does not warrant the excessively high prices which the public are paying, according to a report made by a committee representing the United Mine Workers of America, and brought to the attention of the United States Coal Commission.

In the report the miners make the following main contentions:

1) The earnings of miners average from $1,142 to $1,496, annually, which is below the level of minimum subsistence.

2) Some companies make many of their own supplies or are intimately connected with supply companies. This enables them to charge three or four times the actual cost of supplies in their accounting.

3) Companies claim the amount necessary for miners' insurance is 10 cents a ton, while in 1921 only 4 cents a ton was paid out to the miners, thus reducing the coal companies' cost figures by $4,200,000 annually.

4) Electrification of the mines has resulted in economics which have not been shown in the claimed costs.

5) Many collieries have doubled their managerial force without achieving a corresponding increase in production.

"The cost of anthracite coal can never be figured in dollars and cents alone," concludes the report, "there must be added to the labor cost an annual toll of over 500 lives, of over 20,000 workers who suffer accidents, of men and boys who do work as dirty and dangerous as soldiers in war, that coal may be produced to warm the homes of our people."

Another Congress

As one Congress finishes its work in Washington and disintegrates, another begins. The 25th annual convention of the Negro National Educational Congress will meet March 5 at the Capitol. So many representatives will attend that special trains will bring them from all parts of the country.