In the next few years locomotive engineers will become motormen and firemen will disappear. It is safe to say that in another twenty years locomotive firemen will be practically of the past. They can then cling to their last straw—their insurance policy—and that is the main thing that holds them together today. But for that they would soon cave in, and that is true of them all. They are then, primarily, coffin clubs and not labor unions. They care for the sick and bury the dead—a good thing, incidentally, for the corporations. To get the full benefits, it is necessary to be maimed or killed. * * * * * It is well to bury the dead, but the living are infinitely more important. One effective blow to break the chains of wage slavery is better than a century of attention to dead bodies. Class-consciousness is better than corpse-consciousness. * * * * * A good deal more that should be said must be omitted for the want of time and space. It is my hope that the facts here presented may lead the railroad workers to study the real labor question. A few of them only know what Socialism is, and they are Socialists. The rest are opposed to it because the little they know about it is not true. * * * * * No honest workingman understands Socialism without embracing it. * * * * * The railroad workers, if they want their eyes opened, must read class struggle literature. The Appeal to Reason, with a circulation of over three hundred thousand copies, can be obtained for a trifle—fifty cents for a whole year—and if they can’t afford that, they can send ten cents for a trial subscription. They cannot afford to remain in ignorance of the class struggle, or of what Socialism really means. * * * * * A mighty social revolution is impending—it is shaking the earth from center to circumference, and only the dead may be deaf to its rumblings. Revolutionary education and organization is the vital need of the working class. Let every railroad employe who is alive enough to want to know how the working class can emancipate the working class and walk the earth free, and enjoy all its manifold blessings, subscribe for a revolutionary paper and read it for a year; and he will then find himself with the rest of us, in class-conscious array, in the struggle for freedom. The Appeal to Reason, already suggested, will make an excellent beginning. There is a long list of other papers and magazines that can be read with profit. Drop a card to J. Mahlon Barnes, National Secretary Socialist party, 180 E. Washington street, Chicago, asking him to send you printed matter in regard to this working class party, and also to send you a list of Socialist papers and magazines, and a catalog of working class books and pamphlets.