When our Convention convened at Atlanta, the situation of the Brotherhood was not of an encouraging nature; we were incumbered with debt; we knew that we could not as a body, take any action in the matter of the strike, except to provide means for the maintenance of the men engaged therein, until such time as the Convention of your honorable body had convened and decided upon what they believed to be the best course to pursue. We provided means for the further sustenance of our men and awaited the action of your body. Being honored with an invitation to be present in Richmond as a guest of your Brotherhood, I was able to meet with many of the prominent members, together with the Grand Officers, and I presented, when the opportunity offered, my exact position as an Executive Official, stating, that we, as an organization, were willing, at all times to do anything that was honorable toward bringing about a satisfactory settlement of the difficulty. I was assured that some action would be taken whereby some means would be devised which would lead to the ending of the strike. I returned home, and shortly after the termination of your Convention, I received an official communication from Grand Chief Arthur, in which he informed me that a Committee of nine had been appointed with Bro. Alex. R. Cavener as Chairman, to determine when the strike should end on the C., B. & Q.; that Bro. Cavener should first go over the system and see what the situation was, and address the men at different places along the line in view of a settlement; after which he would convene the Committee, and they were to decide when the trouble should end, and no one but themselves was to know the result until after reporting to the Grand Office. I immediately wrote a letter to Grand Chief Arthur, in which I expressed a feeling of dissatisfaction on account of the firemen not being requested to appoint members of the organization to represent them; I believed that if there was a representative of the engineers organization going over the system that there should also be a representative of the firemen accompanying him. I may have been wrong in my view, still I have seen nothing yet to change my opinion. In reply to my letter to Grand Chief Arthur, he stated that it was not the intention to ignore us in any manner, but as I had expressed the hope that his Convention would devise the means of ending the strike, it was deemed wise to take steps and fix a time to end it without giving any aid or comfort to the company. He further stated that the firemen and their welfare were kept in view, and that when the Committee made its report that I would be fully informed of the course decided upon, no intimation being