United labor bulletin., 1913-09-27
THE OPTIMISTIC
PHILOSOPHER
I'd rather roam a friendless tramp

| 1 1
I'd rather roam friendless tramp
And beg my daily crust,
Than draw my ease from labor's sweat
| And stamp it in the dust;
I'd rather night should make my bed
Upon the earths chill soil,
Than l should know my sleep was
| brought
By others wakeful toll.
I'd rather starve for love and fame
| The fame that might have been,
! If I had travelled fortunes path
| That bears the blood of mem
I'd rather feel the lash and die
A fettered. driven slave
Than reap the wealth that wrung a
heart
! Or dug a child its grave;
Oh, this the systems blood-drenched
stain
In which contentment thrives
And this the toll you give to greed
A toll OF precious lives.
So build your churches broad and
grand
And rear their steeples. high:
Their shadows may shut out the
wrong.
Their music drown its cry.
Over across the Kansas prairies,
through the Mississippi valley and
then on to where the Allegheny and
Monongahela come together and
/ form the confluence of the Ohio river
stands the much touted metropolis of
Pittsburg. Just now the good and bad
people who register for elections there
are having mighty contest as to
who will be mayor. According to ,the
Iron City Trades Journal Joe Arm
strong is the unanimous choice of or
ganized labor and will be elected. Joe
is all right. Years ago when the o.
P. worked in Pittsburg on the Dis
patch. Armstrong was a recognized
friend of the working people. If Joe
is elected mayor he promises to em-
ploy only union men in all the trade
and mechanical departments of the
city.
]. ]. Sullivan. representing the
United States Bureau of Labor. was in
1
smiling Irish countenance in The
United Labor Bulletin office. Was on
his way to Salt Lake City to do spe-
cial duty. J. j. has just completed
batch of statistics on union wages
and hours of labor that has been
printed by the big print shop in Wash.
ington. 1t devotes two or three pages
TO Denver and is well worth perusai.
o o o
\ bunch of stray Elks met at the
iIlks Home last Saturday night aud
organized, for the purpose of assist
ing in entertaining the national re-
union in Denver next Year. Thirty
five were present and it is expected
that at least 200 will be in the corral
before the big meet assemblies. a
number of union labor men We're
noticed in the crowd.
At present writing the busiest man
in Colorado is John McLennan. presi-
dent of the State Federation OF Labor
and likewise of District No. Is. United
Mine Workers of America. He sleeps
in Pullman every night and travels
between Trinidad and Denver. John
is live scout and is doing his best to
see the miners get square deal.
O O O
Mayor Hunt of Cincinnati, has Just
handed to j. NJ. Hutton. stock brok-
er, who demanded that the power of
the mayor and police department be
Exercised to drive out of that city all
labor union agitators and organizers,
the following sharp reply to the re-
quest made: 81 have just read with
no little surprise your interview ap-
pearing in one of the city papers, In
which you urge me to commit an un-
lawful act. to-wit, by arbitrary forces.
to eject labor organizers from this
city You are making yourself one
with other agitators who urge their
followers on to commit acts of vio-
lence. Violation on my part of the
right of all citizens of the United
States to freely visit this city would
be so much disobedience to law as If
| should come to your office with a
battalion of policemen at my back,
break into your safe, take its contents
and distribute them among the char
liable organizations of the city My
intention would be good in either
case, but to so act would be to affront
constitutional rights which are among
our most precious but least consid-
cred possessions"