The Connecticut labor press., 1920-11-06
Ihr 0nlnnkrr . "Icock nay hat as please, I D [J : rsl lIl Indoors or out'-- Walf Whitman
 

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 Newspaper ad offers boys IA years of age and over 250 a day for mes senger service. And even at that rrice the manager of sthe telegraph office says, boys of the right sort are hard to get and keep. They filter about from one job to another, avoiding any, thing in the way of work that looks hard and if softer job turns up off they go. If 1t happens that boy sticks to a job, it won't be a month before he wants more wages"
 The managers story is not entirely new; other employers of boys have sim liar tales to tell. However, boys from IA 10 16 should be in school and "mes- senger boys" recruited from the ranks of middle aged or old men, or such as fail to fit in other occupations. Ger tain lines of work should be reserved for the aged and the has-beens. Boys ought to be given work where advance ment is possible and where their am- bitions are aroused to seek 1t and there by progress.
 In the old days boys were eager to become apprentices and looked forward to the time when they should be known as skilled tradesmen. Too many now adays are afraid of soiling their hands and even though they can see where the skilled tradesman has won out over the clerk, or others of the white collar profession, the boys fail to grasp the idea.
 xI- V of the U. s. Department of Labor, one child i'll every four in Connecticut leaves school and goes to work as soon as the. law permits. Three-fourths of the children go to factories and learn to run machines the boys going to metal industries ana the girls to textile and clothing factories. They lose their in dividua1ity and become like the machine they transformations.
 Employers of large numbers of work people and factory bosses prefer, when hiring boys and girls, the children of | foreign born parents. There are vari- l ous reasons why, the best one that has | come to my attention being that such children show more stability. They | are taught to stick to their jobs and
 contribute their wages to the family
 purse. They do it, too, and that's thrift i'll the making.
 | Boston hotel man accused of prof.
 teering admitted that the profit on pot l of tea was l 1,0O0 per cent. and on a ! cup of coffee 600 per cent. But he had good excuse handy-prohibitio
 The Vo1stead act, said the landlord, | drove people who patronized his hotel
 to drinking tea They swil1ed tea and
 coffee to such san alarming extent that
 he felt that for the good of human
 ity, and to keep his conscience clear, he would put check to the evil by l boosting the prices.
 l The campaign of education" through which we have just passed should cer- tainly have greatly enlightened the peo- l pie on all points respecting the League | of Nations as IS, or as wanted, so that all future wars shall be avoided. In the old world they had the campaign | of actual warfare, and i'll all its worst l features and most dreadful results, yet
 the war demon still has thought and
 being.
 Former service men have talked
 with, the men who saw actual service
 on the battlehelds of France, ali ex- bpxessed themselves as bitterly opposed to war They were, too, almost to a
 man, opposed to joining the Connecti- cut National Guard, now under process
 of reorganization under plans of the
 war department. An attempt to re- organize companies of infantry III ,I Hartford and New Haven have thus far failed becaase of the opposition of
 the service men. Even those who look | 1< cline to sign articles for three years, as the law directs, because they say,
 they might be called upon for service | at any time over seas, or i'll Mexico,
 and the very idea of any more warfare, except perhaps in defense of this coun-
 try, is abhorrent to them.
 | The cooperative store movement
 seems to have met with its greatest sue
 cess in the west. In the east there are
 signs that the movement Is about to
 take new life and being and successful
 results of cooperation .are reported
 particularly so in Hartford among the
 employees of the great insurance com
 panies. The most successful results
 1t seems, have come from operating un-
 der the famous Rochdale plan, which has been so successful in England Yet
 if I understand 1t right, the Rochda1e plan has met with some disastrous : failures i'll this country.
 So far as I have learned, the great
 est achievement along lines of co.
 operation in this country has been b. the Co-Operative Society of America : in Chicago. There membership o1 3o0OO wage earners is announced ane
 some 40 grocery stores operated under
 the Rochdale plan. The movemen } started some 20 months ago and iron e1 the time that the business got fairI s under way to the present, an averag of three new stores week were opened
 and membership gain of 1000 weel f noted. A recent report of the organ Q ization gives many interesting facts The president is quoted as~saying, il . part: =
 Prices in our stores average abou q 25 per cent. less than those in the gen
 eral run of grocery stores and in ad
 dition members get a special discoun | of five per cent. on all purchases, ex l cepting four staple articles. Member l also get their dividends semi-annually ;, seven per cent. was paid last Decem Der, 8 per cent. i'll June, and we ex