THE LABOR PRESS.

The labor press gives constant evidence of its improving service to the cause of labor's interests, and a clearer perception of the attitude and position it occupies to the trade union movement. There is perceptible improvement and efficiency as time goes on. There are published now 185 official journals issued monthly or oftener by American international unions, and 179 weekly labor papers, all devoted to the defense and advocacy of labor's interests, nearly all of which are stoutly espousing the trade union movement and the American Federation of Labor. Though better support is now given to the labor press than heretofore, it is still of an unsatisfactory character. The service which the labor press renders our fellow-workers is incalculable in dollars and cents. In saying the right word at the right time to place labor's side before the world upon any given controversy or point at issue, many advantages are gained as well as the best possible showing made for the cause and the movement which, despite their nobility and grandeur yet, have too few friends and advocates. We can not too strongly urge our fellowworkers and friends to give the labor press loyal and tangible support.

AMERICAN FEDERATIONIST-ITS POLICY.

With the December issue of the AMERICAN FEDERATIONIST the twelfth annual volume of its issuance will have been completed. As its editor, it has always been my endeavor to make its appearance and contents a source of gratification to our entire membership. In no year of its previous existence, I firmly believe, have we had more cause for gratification, because of these, than in the now closing year.

The contributed articles, the correspondence, the organizers' and officers' reports, are continually developing into a higher order and a better character. When it is borne in mind that nearly all the contributed articles, whether of symposiums, correspondence, or otherwise, are given without compensation or honorarium, the beneficent influence the AMERICAN FEDERATIONIST wields, and the confidence and respect entertained for it, must at once be realized.

In the whole field of economic literature the AMERICAN FEDERATIONIST is conceded to occupy the highest plane. Students and thinkers the world over consult it, refer to it, and quote it as the authoritative expression of the American trade union movement, its struggles, its methods, its work, its hopes, and its aspirations.

A few months ago, through no fault of mine, it was impossible to obtain the figures upon which the chart giving the state of employment and unemployment is based, and it was omitted in one issue. Within a few days thereafter inquiries were received from numbers of people, as well as from one of the great institutions of the country, which reviews and predicts industrial conditions, solicitously asking the cause of the omission, and desiring to know whether the actual facts and figures could be communicated in another way. This will indicate that what may be sometimes regarded as an almost insignificant feature in the AMERICAN FEDERATIONIST is by competent authority looked upon as most important.

The publication of the monthly financial statement, giving in detail the source from which every penny is received and the purpose for which every penny is expended, while giving the opportunity to carping critics to misstate facts, yet it instils confidence among our fellow workers and commands the respect of friends and fair opponents as to the honesty of our purpose and the administration of our affairs.

Educationally, the AMERICAN FEDERATIONIST has been of vast value. The editorials and contributed matter are generally republished by the labor press and, to a considerable extent, by the general press here and elsewhere. It is on file and in the archives in nearly every library, university, and college of America.

To record and review the real struggles of labor, particularly the achievements of organized labor and what it has accomplished in the interests of the working people and of all the people; to keep in touch with the real feelings and thoughts of the wage-earners; to reflect, defend, and advocate their hopes and their aspirations, I have endeavored to give the best thought of which I am capable. Nor have I failed to prick the baubles and bubbles or fad and fancies of spectacular theorists who, under the pretense of friendship, undertake to do our movement its greatest injury. And as for our open antagonists of the capitalist class and their spokesmen, I have allowed no opportunity to pass by to show how utterly out of harmony are they with the progress and success of economic, civilized life.

With a vast army of men engaged in a real struggle to enthrone justice and right, a set-back, even of the slightest significance, is sometimes encountered. While it is well to know these and to have them in mind, yet it is the height of unwisdom to exaggerate them. I conceive it to be the duty of men holding influential positions in such a great movement as ours, to encourage the great rank and file in their work and in the performance of their duty.

The masses of men can not do valiant battle in a cause in which they have no faith or confidence of victory. As there is in every great cause or battle a rallying cry to stand together and courageously fight for the right, so in the labor movement I deem it our duty to call the yet unorganized workers to the ranks of labor and unitedly and in federation, with the principles of fraternity, solidarity, and cooperation as our rallying cry, to gather the hosts of labor under the beneficent fold of the American Federation of Labor, and though gradually, yet surely, march onward and upward day by day to the highest ideals of human justice, liberty, and right. This has been the policy and the purpose I have had constantly before me as editor of the AMERICAN FEDERATIONIST, as president of the American Federation of Labor, as a union man, as a citizen, and as a man.

The AMERICAN FEDERATIONIST having been of such educational advantage to our movement, will additionally commend itself to you when you will observe in the secretary's report that it has been issued without financial cost to our Federation, and that there is for the year a balance in its favor.

CONCLUSION.

In concluding this report, I desire to take occasion to express my sincere appreciation and keen obligation to my colleagues of the Executive Council, to the officers and members, and the great rank and file of our movement, for their kindly support and fraternal, intelligent, sympathetic assistance and co-operation, without which, no matter who the man, no one could perform the duties or carry on the work with any degree of success.

So far as concerns my own efforts and activities in defense and advocacy of our great cause, the cause of our fellow human beings, I can merely say that it has been my aim, unsparingly, to give the best that was in me day after day and year after year so that you would have no cause for complaint, and particularly that I might always have the gratifying consciousness of having tried to perform the duties of my office to the best of my ability, to speak the word you would have me speak in the defense and advocacy of the cause of right, justice, and humanity. To that work, to espouse that cause to which I have devoted my entire life, I trust that I may be enabled to continue, whether as an officer, or as a man in the ranks.

T

RESULT OF A STRIKE IN RUSSIA.

HE following imperial manifesto was issued from St. Petersburg October 30:

We, Nicholas the Second, by the grace of God Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias, Grand Duke of Finland, etc., declare to all our faithful subjects that the troubles and agitation in our capitals and in numerous other places fill our heart with excessive pain and sorrow.

The happiness of the Russian sovereign is indissolubly bound up with the happiness of our people, and the sorrow of our people is the sorrow of the sovereign.

From the present disorders may arise great national disruption. They menace the integrity and unity of our empire.

The supreme duty imposed upon us by our sovereign office requires us to efface ourself and to use all the force and reason at our command to hasten in securing the unity and coordination of the power of the central government and to assure the success of measures for pacification in all circles of public life which are essential to the well-being of our people.

We, therefore, direct our government to carry out our inflexible will in the following manner:

FIRST, TO EXTEND TO THE POPULATION THE IMMUTABLE FOUNDATIONS OF CIVIC LIBERTY, BASED ON THE REAL INVIOLABILITY OF PERSON, FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE, SPEECH, UNION, AND ASSOCIATION.

Second, without suspending the already ordered elections to the state douma, to invite the participation in the douma, so far as the limited time before the convocation of the douma will permit, of those classes of the population now completely deprived of electoral rights, leaving the ultimate development of the principle of the electoral right in general to the newly established legislative order of things.

Third, to establish as an unchangeable rule that no law shall be enforced without the approval of the state duoma, and that it shall be possible for the elected of the people to exercise real participation in the supervision of the legality of the acts of the authorities appointed by us.

We appeal to all faithful sons of Russia to remember their duty toward the fatherland, to aid in terminating these unprecedented troubles, and to apply their force, in co-operation with us, to the restoration of calm and peace upon our natal soil. Given at Peterhof, October 30, in the eleventh year of our reign.

Witte's Report to Czar.

NICHOLAS.

Count Witte's report to the Emperor, who inscribed thereon "To be taken for guide," is as follows:

Your majesty has deigned to indicate to me di. rections for a government in consideration of the actual state of Russia.

The agitation of human society is not the outcome of partial imperfections in the social and governmental regime or of actions organized by

the extreme elements. Its roots are much deeper. It took birth in the violation of the balance between the moral aspirations and the exterior forms of Russian society.

Believing that Russia aspired to laws based on civil liberty, the chief problem of the government consists in making effective, even before approval by the state douma, all elements of civil liberty in the elaboration of normal legislative measures, giving equality before the laws to all Russians, without distinction of race or religion.

The problem ensuing consists in the establishment of legislative forms seeming to guarantee the benefits of civil, political, and economic liberty. These benefits should be extended to the mass of the people under the reserves safeguarding the laws in all civilized countries.

It must be realized, then, that these objects cannot be maintained immediately, as no government could suddenly prepare 135,000,000 men, with a vast administration, for new liberties. It is, therefore, necessary to have the powers of a homogeneous government united in its aims, taking care to put in practice the stimulating principles of liberty, and to display sincerity and uprightness in its intentions.

The government should abstain from any interference with elections to the douma and keep in view my sincere desire for the realization of the ukase of December 25, 1904. It must maintain the prestige of the douma and have confidence in its labors, and in no way resist its decisions so long as they are not inconsistent with Russia's historic greatness.

It is necessary to respect the ideals of the great majority of society, and not the echoes of noisy groups and factions, too often unstable. It is especially important to secure the reform of the council of the empire on an electoral principle.

I believe that in the exercise of the executive power the following principles should be embodied:

First. Straightforwardness and sincerity in the confirmation of civil liberty, and in privilege guarantees for its maintenance.

Second. A tendency in the direction of the abolition of exclusive laws.

Third. The co-ordination of the activity of all organs of government.

Fourth. Avoidance of repressive measures in respect of proceedings which do not openly menace society or the state.

Fifth. Resistance to acts which manifestly threaten society or the state, such resistance being based upon law and moral unity. Confidence must be placed in the political tact of Russian society. It is impossible that society should desire a condition of anarchy which would threaten, in addition to all the horrors of civil strife, the dismember. ment of the empire.

Witte's Message to Americans.

I am sure the American people, who understand what freedom is, and the American press,