do more. To reach the "radicals" only is not sufficient. Lend your hand and reap the reward that springs from the consciousness of having "planted" for a "better day."

I

can hardly realize that MOTHER EARTH is celebrating its tenth anniversary. It certainly has been an awful task for its mother, E. G., and its friends, all owing to prejudice, superstition and ignorance. This has been one of the principal reasons why the milk of human kindness and moral support have been withheld. But in spite of all this, MOTHER EARTH is entering upon its tenth year, and I truly trust and hope that it will meet with all the encouragement imaginable, as it is a true friend of humanity. I remember the night of March 2, 1908, in Springfield, Missouri, at a Spiritual (?) Temple-the only place to be had at that time for a lecture that in my remarks introducing Emma Goldman I gave vent among other things to the following: "Emma Goldman has a baby to provide for. I have a sample of the baby with me it is called MOTHER EARTH. It is a lusty one and very young in years, but brimful of vim and vigor. I trust all of you will avail yourselves of the opportunity of helping to provide for it and thus encourage its mother to continue to give you nothing but the Truth which will make you free." So I simply reiterate this with all the vim and vigor capable in one at the age of 62-and that the next anniversary will be as full of truth and wholesomeness for humanity as the past has been and that its prosperity and subscription list will be second to none. The March number may be a souvenir, but I can't see that it will be any better than the ones I have. They are all souvenirs to me.

Springfield, Mo.

***

M

SCHMIDT AND CAPLAN

BY DR. BEN L. REITMAN

ATTHEW SCHMIDT and David Caplan have been caught. The last chapter in the famous Times explosion has begun. William J. Burns, who built his moving picture reputation on the capture of the MacNamara Brothers, has added to his collection of big game the two men wanted so much by bloodthirsty Los Angeles-Los Angeles, who promised upon her word as an honorable city that, if the MacNamaras pleaded "guilty," no more cases would come to trial, and the City and County authorities would shake hands with Labor and let bygones be bygones.

Relying on the word of the District Attorney, the Judge, the Chamber of Commerce and the Mayor, two "innocent" brave men pleaded guilty. Not to save their own necks, but to save their comrades, and the result is that the government of Los Angeles lied. The District Attorney, the Judge and the leading business men betrayed their fellow men. They proved that they were as contemptible and as inhuman as the rottenest kind of poorly paid stool pigeon. They taught Lincoln Steffens and Fremont Older not to try to help Labor with the Golden Rule.

Men, who have built up their fortunes and reputations by the rule of gold, are not fit to apply the Golden Rule. Los Angeles first broke its promise to Labor by trying Clarence Darrow. They slapped Labor in the face and said, "Damn you, we have you!" and tried thirty-three labor men, and twenty are in the Federal Penitentiary now. All because men talked of love and the Golden Rule, and "you first show me if your intentions are good." Labor has done this too often. It must now say, "No, no, our intentions are bad. We do not love you. We will not trust you. You masters and officials, you lied to us, you betrayed us. The fight is on. Go to it. Kill us! Jail us! Torture us! Give us no mercy! We are your enemy, and we mean to destroy you. We will tear down your government. We will take everything that you robbed us of, and we will not do it in a loving spirit."

After four long years, Schmidt and Caplan are in the hands of their betrayers. Strange to say the newspapers are not singing the praises of the famous detective agency. Burns himself is not boasting. Why?

What part, if any, these two had in the Times explosion we do not propose to discuss at this time. All we wish to say is that these men are our friends and comrades and in all their trials and troubles we shall love them and do all in our power to help them. We are confident that, for the first time in the Labor movement, the world will see what men do when they have an heroic sense of justice, a great sympathy for their fellow man, a holy love of their class, and a thorough understanding of the Labor Movement.

*

BUNDLE DAY AND THE POOR OF NEW

YORK

BY STELLA COMYN.

T was Bernard Shaw in his preface to "Major Barbara" who pointed out that the greatest crime of all

was the crime of being poor, that no other crime was so severely punished by society, nor held in such contempt. The truth of this was never brought home more clearly than this past month by "Bundle Day" and the many bread lines that were established all over this great and prosperous city.

A committee, composed of New York's richest and most respectable men and women, whose worldly goods are so ample as to preclude them from ever committing the crime of being poor, issued a widespread appeal asking everyone to send garments they wished to discard to various depots, such as the schoolhouses, churches, settlements etc. These were to be made up into bundles and distributed by the good and charitable ladies in charge to the unemployed at the Mark Cross Building, Fifth Avenue and 26th Street. Of course, the newspapers gave the widest possible publicity to the scheme,-the good and the great generously giving away the clothing they no longer needed to the unemployed and the poor that they might cover their thin, ugly, poorly nourished

bodies, perhaps might even find jobs, if they looked less poor and less criminal, in this best of all possible worlds. After many postponements and the usual amount of red tape, the day of distribution was announced, together with the conditions this well-groomed and wealthy committee were to impose on these unfortunates.

First of all, he who wanted one of the castoff overcoats, suits or other garments of the charitable had to be known to and favorably recommended by a priest, or minister, or school teacher, or some other respectable Pharisee. The question was not "does this man need. clothing for his miserable, starved and half frozen body?" but "is he respectable and lawbiding enough to deserve these garments we no longer want?" Secondly, it was announced that the delay in distribution had been partly caused by the decision of the committee that tags should be sewn on the clothing to show that they were "gifts" and to prevent, if possible, their pawning by those criminal enough to be so poor as to need bread. Last and not least, the good ladies in their Paris frocks, and the kind gentlemen in their well-cut English suits took a day or two longer to pick out the best bundles of clothes to sell to those not quite so criminal-those who could pay a little. What right they had to sell these bundles that were given to them free is of course one of the unexplained puzzles in the larger one of the poor ye shall always have with ye.

Distribution day arrived at last, and those fortunate enough to possess a suitable recommendation lined both sides of the street and gathered in Madison Square opposite. All sorts and conditions of men and women, old, young, white, black, clerks, stenographers, workingmen, scrubwomen, women with children in their arms, stood in line for hours, waiting for the bundles, that the kind committee could not sell, to be doled out to them. Some are said to have stood in line for twenty hours. I, myself, saw the same shivering wretches in the raw atmosphere of the first day stand in line for five hours. Our City Fathers provided police protection, of course, to see that order was maintained. And between these patient lines of ragged human beings, well-appointed motor cars rolled along the world's richest avenue.

Last year's unemployed demonstrations seem to have inspired not only the beneficent "Bundle Day," but various bread lines all over the city. The Knickerbocker Hotel had on the average two thousand hungry men and women waiting hours for a sandwich of bread and sausage, gazed on by curious "slumming parties" from their limousines. A few soup kitchens were established and were almost mobbed by hungry men, women and children. And yet out of our plenty, with these scenes before our eyes, we send shiploads of food and brand new clothing to far-away Belgians, Poles and Servians, to the accompaniment of columns of praise in our worthy press.

Then there is the Mayor's Committee on Unemployment. It is establishing shops for the manufacture of bandages and wearing apparel for the soldiers in Europe. In some of these shops the worthy poor are paid ten cents an hour. And some of them are so filthy and unsanitary that the bandages after they are made have to be thrown away. And others, with raw material on hand, and machinery installed, are idle because money was raised for the purchase of the material and for the payment, such as it is, of the workers, but with their usual foresight, the committee neglected to provide salaries for foremen, and are now asking for volunteers. Meanwhile, those who have committed the crime of being poor and unemployed must wait-and starve.

The strangest thing of all is that these paltry measures serve their purpose. The respectable and worthy folkthose who have-hold on to their possessions with added security; and the criminal poor-those who have notgrow more accustomed to their misery and become more cowed and abject. The day may come when they will awaken and refuse to commit the crime of poverty. Who knows?

TO OUR READERS

We are being swamped by requests for Margaret H. Sanger's pamphlet, "Limitation of Offspring." We regret that we can not satisfy our friends, as it is impossible for us to handle the brochure, owing to the antiquated and antediluvian postal laws upon the Statutes, but we do have "What Every Mother Should Know" and "What Every Girl Should Know," both by Margaret H. Sanger, which sell at 50 cents and 25 cents respectively. We recommend both as most important instructive reading for every household.