McLaughlin Glass Company, Los Angeles, CA

LOS ANGELES, CALIF.

By J. M. Price

By the time you are reading this you will be in the second month of the year 1936. Let us hope this year will bring back the smiles that used to be on our faces. Maybe we might laugh out loud again. Things are a little slack out here at this writing. Since the holidays all the factories have been on short time, getting ready for a big year, we hope.

Just received my January magazine today and in looking through it found some very interesting reading. The one by Tom McCreary was fine. I used to know Tom when he lived in Rochester quite a few years ago. About the first piece of glass I ever gathered was for Tom's father when he was the caser at the Phoenix in Monaca. I also re-call when the Phoenix Glass Co. brought some off hand bulb blowers from Corning, N. Y., to make bulbs. I cannot recall all of them, but remember Martin Harvey, Husky Huelett and Bump Kavenaugh. I had better quit going back or some of you readers will think I am an old man. In the January Magazine I noticed there are about 32 letters from local unions. That is a pretty fair average of the interest the rank and file take in our union. The average attendance at meetings will be about the same. I only I wish I could find some way to make our membership realize that they belong to one of the greatest organizations that has ever been created by man. All you have to do is read its history since 1878, compare that with other trade movements, then look the world in the eye and say: "I am a member of the good old American Flint Glass Workers' Union and I am always ready to do my bit, even to the extent of taking some of my time once each month to attend the local meeting. While this may mean that once a month I will have to forego some little pleasure, I owe it to myself and family and my brothers and also the American Flint Glass Workers' Union to give my moral support by being present on meeting day. Amen."

Now for a little news of where they are and where they are going. Ab Barcus and Tom Kernan left to work in a factory in Santa Anna, Tex. Don't think I got this wrong and mix it up with another town by that name in this state. Harry McMorris, better known as "Shorty," was a visitor a tour last meeting. Some of you old timers around Lancaster may recall him as he used to work at the "Black Cat." Speaking of the "Black Cat" brings back lots of memories to the writer when Ike J. Collins, Chris Denny and yours truly used to have many a good scrap. By the way, Ike (maybe I should say Mr. Collins), if you read our magazine and see this, consider it an invitation to visit me if you ever get to the Golden State. Leslie (Jacker) Brannon has been here on a visit from Bakersfield, where he is located.

Everybody, I guess, is in good health as I have no reports of sickness. As far as marriages are concerned, I guess they are out. The single fellows see what a hard time the married guys have, so I guess they have decided to play a lone hand.

Hoping that my next letter will contain better news on working conditions and that the Supreme Court does not have to pass on this letter before it reaches the public, and from now on we will hear lots of what the outs will do for us if they get in, but just remember they did not do a helluva lot when they were in.