”□ LOYAL STAR DEPARTMENT □

FROM ELBERTA LODGE No. 24.

Palestine, Tex., Oct. 10, 1914. Editor Journal:

I am taking the opportunity of writing to the Journal as a member of our new lodge of the Loyal Star, Elberta Lodge No. 24. We have only held one meeting, which was on the night the lodge was instituted. We commenced with a membership of 34 ladies and 14 men, and can have a lodge of at least 100 ladies. Our president has appointed a membership committee to solicit members and I hope by our next meeting that we will have quite a number to take in. I for one am well pleased with the start we have made, and trust we will build up a lodge that will be second to none. It has been the desire of the membership of the Brotherhood lodges in Palestine to have a Loyal Star ever since they were organized seven years ago, but every effort to organize failed, until now. I believe we can be of as much help to our husbands, brothers and fathers in organized labor as we can in the fraternal societies, and we have a greater opportunity, for as workingmen and women we understand the needs of each other so much better than we do in the other societies, which is composed of various classes. I hope that our lodge will only be one of the many that we will hear of being organized in the near future, and that when the convention meets in Fort Worth, Tex., that some definite plans will be adopted for the building of the Home for Disabled Carmen. Sisters, let us try our best to add something to the Home Building Fund. In my opinion we need the Home badly, for in the years to come we will see the need of it more than we do now. Now one word about the union label. There is where we can help organized labor in their struggle for justice. We do the most of the buying and spending the money for the things that we consume in our homes and the clothes that our children wear, so let us remember that when we buy anything with the label, we help the union labor that made the article, and also when we fail to buy the union label product we help the Manufacturers’ Association to fight the very thing for which we all stand. Also, let us remember that when we buy union label goods we help take the child out of the mills and the factories and place them in school, and help to shorten the hours of labor for the working woman and girls of our country. In my living room in our home we have the picture of the different labels framed and hung on the wall, and our children are taught that it is right to patronize the label.

I enjoy reading the Journal very much and would enjoying seeing letters from all of the lodges of the Loyal Star. With best wishes for success, I remain,

Yours fraternally,

MRS. ETTIE WARE.”

Reference Data:

Railway Carmen's Journal, Vol. 19, by Brotherhood Railway Caremen of US and Canada, 1914, page 731