We received telegraphic news yesterday that our co-worker and well-known agitator Gus Belz died of consumption in Bockenheim, near Frankfurt-on-the-Main, Germany.

He was 31 years old and lived for seven years in the United States, having left about four weeks ago. He lived first for two years in New York where his name became associated with the working class. With letters of recommendation to August Spies and others he moved to Chicago, five years ago, where he worked in the McCormick plant and where he played a prominent role in the great McCormick strike of 1885.

It was principally to his merit that this strike was finally won so excellently. During the second McCormick strike he was working for a contractor and had to travel around a lot. He founded the Metal Workers union in Milwaukee from where he returned to Chicago, the latter part of April, to join the eight-hour movement.

Belz was one of the few who helped to rebuild this paper after the stormy May days and thereby became a journalist.

He succeeded in every respect in this his new line of work and was on the job day and night, partly in the editorial room, partly as a reporter and later as an agitator. He overestimated his strength and after a year was found to have developed tuberculosis. With the aid of friends he was sent west as the doctors advised but did not show any improvement, but on the contrary, came back in even worse condition in spring.

Within a short time friends of Belz again had enough money collected to send him back to Germany and take care of him for the rest of his life. He died, however, in the arms of his mother soon after he arrived at his old home. Honor to his memory!