AN IDEAL LABOR ORGANIZATION.
THE most honorable and the most successful labor organization in the United States is the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. And the reason for this enviable position is that the order recognizes that non-union engineers have the same right to live and to work that the brotherhood men have. The order recognizes the fact that men do not get their natural rights from membership in an organization. The following item from the Headlight gives a clear idea of the brotherhood's position, from first hands: Grand Chief Stone, of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, in an address at a great gathering of labor organizations in Fort Worth recently, spoke strongly for the "open shop." Standing as a "firm believer in union labor and the right of laboring men to organize," he declared that when an organization compels a man to join it against his will, it interferes with the personal liberty guaranteed him by the Constitution of the United States. "The railway orders," he said, "stand head and shoulders above all labor organizations, for they have the 'open shop.' On almost every road in the country we work side by side with men who do not belong to our orders. No man is forced to join us. We try to show him how he would be benefited by belonging to us, and where his interests are, but we never say to him to join us or you can not earn an honest living by working here. I do not believe any man ever made a good member of any organization who was forced to join it against his will; for the chances are that, when opportunity offers, he will prove a traitor, and betray you." This is a much higher plane of unionism than the Federation of Labor, which declares that no non-union man shall work, if the union can prevent him; and which tacitly sanctions violence in carrying out this principle.