"Do good for the devil, and he will reward you with hell." About the truth of this old saying, Mr. V. Balvin, who until recently was the president of the Clothing Workers' Union, can meditate today. The name of Mr. Balvin appeared before the public during the recent tailor's strike. He is a Socialist, and his comrades who brought about the strike, saw to it that they had their own people at the head of the union. Therefore, Mr. Balvin was elected president.

At this time, we do not wish to discuss how Mr. Balvin conducted the strike or whether he showed himself to be a good or bad leader, but we wish to show that Mr. Balvin was not only president of the Clothing Workers' Union, but that he was a Socialist, and an agitator for Spravedlnost. In that position he occupied first place. There was not a single meeting at which he appeared and spoke that he did not recommend Spravedlnost, that he did not attack Hlasatel, that he did not call the subscription to the local Socialist paper 2the only salvation of Bohemian workers. Spravedlnost, at that time, recognized Mr. Balvin as one of the finest of men, as a labor leader unequalled. But, when the strike was over, when Mr. Balvin delivered no more recruits to the cause, nor no more subscribers for Spravedlnost, a coolness developed toward Mr. Balvin, which recently turned into fierce antagonism.

An article was published in Spravedlnost one Sunday in April in which Balvin was trampled into the dust, and in which it was said that he didn't deserve anything else other than to be shot like some predatory animal. The article was signed with a pseudonym, but people who are familiar with the secrets of the newspaper shop on Loomis Street, affirm that the perpetrator was none other than a certain Mr. Novotny, who during the tailors' strike, boasted that he quit his work in a bakery in order to be able to help the strikers. Incidently, however, he worked for the interests of Spravedlnost with even more enthusiasm and thoroughness than Mr. Balvin. When he fell out with Mr. Balvin, the paper was placed at his disposition for such ruffianly attacks 3as are possible only among the comrades of Spravedlnost. We know not why Mr. Balvin considered these attacks as reason to resign From the presidency of the Clothing Workers' Union.

We received the following report concerning Mr. Balvin's resignation from within the circles of the clothing workers: "President Balvin of the Clothing Workers' Union gave the members of the union a big surprise when he announced in the meeting on May 3 that he resigned as a result of the attacks against him by Anton Novotny, published in the Sunday supplement of Spravedlnost, and that he would not take an active part in the clothing workers' movement. A storm of protest was the answer to his announcement. A committee, consisting of A. Kostka, Vondrusky, Rehore, and Kosina, was immediately appointed to visit the Spravedlnost before May 10, and request an explanation. Strangely indeed, did the comrades reward the man who, not mentioning his merits in the clothing workers' movement, did such a large amount of work for the very newspaper from which his defamers live and profit. Is it such a small matter to secure one thousand 4subscribers in the course of a few weeks, or printing jobs to the amount of $1300, which another shop would have done better and cheaper? For all this, he should have been shot."

That is the way a union tailor, who informed us about Mr. Balvin's case looks upon the matter. We are indeed curious to know the result of the meeting between the committee and the publishers of Spravedlnost, but we doubt that they were able to change the "curse" placed upon Mr. Balvin by the editor and Mr. Novotny.

The case of Mr. Balvin is very instructive, not only for clothing workers, but for all working men, who did not size up what sort of people gather around Spravedlnost; and who think that from the office on Loomis Street and 18th Place, the interests of some others besides those who have a mortgage on the establishment of Spravedlnost, are defended, and who want to use the shoulders of the working men as a stepping stone to power and office.