Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 July 1886 — A REMARKABLE ORDER. [ARTICLE]

A REMARKABLE ORDER.

The Brotherhood of Railway Postal Clerks---How It Was Made Up. The Order Practically Ruled by a “Grievance Committee”—How It Was Broken Up. [Chicago telegram.) The secret constitution and work of the Brotherhood of Railway Postal Clerks show it to be in many respects a most remarkable organization. From the first page to the last there are traces of a vast scheme >f boycotting the Government. The brotherhood seems formed solely to find a place for a Grievance Committee, which, so far as the Government is concerned, becomes the brotherhood, and has full and arbitrary power to speak and act for every clerk on its rolls. The objects of the order are stated to be for “mutual aid and protection, and for a more perfect union, that we as a body may be the better enabled to resist encroachments made upon our rights as citizens and our manhood as officials by indiscriminate removals from office of any of our members vvithout sufficient cause and upon charges filed and faiilyamf fully investigated, and that we may also be the better enabled to administer to the wants and necessities of sick and indigent brothers, and in other respects to cultivate a more fraternal feeling among our members." The first annual meeting of the Grand Lodge is fixed at Indianapolis, July 13, and its composition is entered upon in painful details. But its presiding officer, known as the Grand Chief Clerk, is shorn of all executive functions, which all.appear lodged in the Grievance Committee. There is a per capita tax of $1 upon all members of the brotherhood, which, together with the usual fees for lodge charters and the sale of rituals, will bring in a fair income if the membership is reasonably large. The by-laws define the regulations of membership, and state that no person shall be admitted to membership in this brotherhood whose reputation for honesty, sobriety, aud industry can be seriously assailed, and all applicants must be recommended by two members of the lodge as in every way worthy of membership. The initiation fee is $2. It is provided that a member who shall die in the service, or who shall be discharged from his position for alleged causes upon which there has been no conviction, shall be entitled to a sum from the benevolent fund of the Grand Lodge equal to an amount to be raised by an assessment of $1 each upon all the members of the biotherhood, said amount to be paid to his widow or heirs (if a married man) or if an unmarried man the same may bo disposed of by will or be paid to those dependent on him fpr support. The following language is used: “To all the by-laws, rules and regulations we bind ourselves by the most solemn pledges of honor, uniting ourselves in the fraternal bands of brotherly love. We pledge to each other our lives, our honor, and our lasting fidelity aud fealty, admonishing our brethren to be true to the principles that characterize true manhood. Continue to give the work your most faithful and honest' efforts, and this important branch of the Government service, which your skill and genius aided so largely in . consummating, will go down the ages as an imperishable monument to your memories.” The officers of tile lodge are ratffer peculiarly named. They are the Chief Clerk, the Second Clerk, the Third Clerk, the Transfer Clerk, and the Short Stop. The Chief Clerk is the presiding officer, the Second Clerk is the secretary, the Third Clerk is the treasurer, the Transfer Clerk is a sort of general utility man, while the Short Stop is supposed to stop interlopers at the door. The power of the presiding officer, following the lead of smaller societies, is practically unlimited between the meetings of the lodge, and he can do about as he pleases. To become a member it is necessary to have received a permanent appointment as a postal clerk, a commission from the Postmaster General being evidence of that fact, and also to be in active service at the time of application. The usual procedure is earned out in the way of initiation until the candidate has taken the oath, then he, “by further attesting his allegiance, will surrender to the lodge, through the Chief Clerk, his resignation as a postal clerk, which will be placed in the hands of the Grievance Committee, to be used by said committee under the orders of the lodge onlv in case of extreme emergency and in concert and conjunction with all the members of the same.” This Grievance Committee, while it is but one of the three standing committees in the lodge, thus becomes the most important one of the lot, being closely modeled after the Executive Boards of the Knights of Labor. Their duty, as laid down in the constitution, is to take charge of all matters relating to the official relations of the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks with the Postmaster General and other officials in the Railway Mail Service; and when in the opinion of the committee an exigency shall exist for the exercise of arbitrary action they shall at once take the necessary steps to prosecute any plan or scheme that may, in their judgment, be the means of consummating a desired object. They shall not, however, resort to extreme measures until an amicable adjustment of all difficulties may be deemed impracticable, and without the knowledge or consent of the lodge. This goes further than any trades union ever thought of going, and makes one committee, armed with the resignations from the service of every member of the lodge, the autocrat of its affairs. It is, perhaps, as dangerous an arrangement for the clerks under any regime as can well be imagined. The whole scheme of the brotherhood seems built up around the central id;-a of this irresponsible Grievance Committee. The leaders who contrived the machinery of (he brotherhood were solely planning a huge strike to coerce the Postmaster General into the agreement, for it seems scarcely possible that a body of men who intended founding a permanent society would have placdeT such unlimited power in the hands of one committee and effectually gaged a minority by holding over the heads of its members their forced resignations ready to be turned over to the Postoffice Department the moment the committee determined to strike. The entire plan shows the hands of good organizers and bears the marks of months of study, which it doubtless received.