-r—
#
The emancipation of the working
_
class must be the class-conscious work
of the working class. — KARL MARX
THE ALASKA SOI IAUST
*s- FAIRBANKS, ALASKA, DECEMBERS, 1913. ~~
■ ——--—_
G. W. PENNINGTON
GIVES AN ADDRESS
On Sunday, JJov. 30th, at Harmonic
Hall, 3 p. m., George W. Pennington
spoke to a crowded house, consisting of
Christians, Jews, Socialists, Freethinkers
and Atheists, giving an address that was
well worth listening to. H e arraigned
capitalist society, payed his respects to
the leaders i n superstition, and hung
Christianity up to dry.
Mr. Pennington is a fine speaker and
a follower of the great Agnostic, Robert
Ingersoll who expected to banish care
misery, sorrow, poverty, and all the ills
that confront the human race from the
world by appealing to sentiment.
Mr. Pennington made no pretense to
being familiar with the Socialist position
that the ills which he enumerated have
their roots in the economic question, be
fore man becomes free he must own the
tools of production. And when man owns
*
collectively the tools of production there
will be uo need for vices of any kind.
Mr. Penningotn quoted Arsstotle. We
have not the works of Aristotle at hand
but we have the famous passage from
that great philosopher which Marx citew
and which Aristotle imagine*! if it could
someway or other be done would free
the human family from toil. The passage
is: “If every tool, when summoned, or
even of its own accord, could do the
work that befits it, just as the creations
of Daedalus moved of themselves, or the
tripods of Hephaestos went of their own
accord to their sacred work, if the weav
er's shuttles were to weave of themselves
then there would be no need either of j
apprentices for the master workers, or
of slaves for the lords.”
A writer comments on the above pass
age as follows : “The Aristotle school
grasped the sociologic law that decreed
intellectual progress. Pardonably unable
to project itself into the future so far a
liead as the time when mechanical con
ditions would be so radically revolutipn
ized that the “weavers’ shuttles would
weave of themselves, ” this school con
sidered slavery, which mennt labor and
. v, V *
poverty, to be unavoidable. By so doing
the Aristotle school planted itself upon
material conditions as the prime factor
to determine social institutions and mor
ality. The fruitfulness of their posture is
inestimable.”
The abolition of poverty, prostitution,
and all the other vices that afllict cap
italist society is an economic question
and not a sentimental one. When the
Socialists were elected to the government
of the city of Paris, under election laws
that the capitalist class themselves had
made, did the capitalist class abide by
the will of the majorily as expresssd
at the ballot box ? Not by any means
they didn’t. They at once prepared to
capture the government, not with the
ballot but, with armed force. Here was
a chance for the capitalist class to show
its law-adiding spirit and all the good
that is in man spoken so much of by
sentimental reformers. The history of
b ■
the Paris Commune is the best lesson in
all history, ancient or modern, for the
Socialist to study, and it shows the law
less character of the capitalist class.
WICKERSHAM HANDS THE
POLITICIANS A GOLD BRICK
Many of the Old Line Politicians Who
Expected to Feast at the Pie Counter
Are Sadly Disappointed. Declare they
Will Vote no more for Jim
From the discussions heard lately in
certain quarters it is now beginning to
be recognized by many of the old retain
ers who were very skepticl regarding the
beneficial results of home rule, that the
Wickersham Home Rule Bill is not what
it was supposed to be. Many of the old
guard who expected sinecures under
the Home Rule (which we enjoy) are
expressing themselves as being sadly dis
appointed. Under home rule,they were
led to believe, just as the people of Ire
land are led to believe, that home rule
will give everybody a soft job and no
bod y will have to work. The
Wickersham Home Rule Bill prohibits
the Legislature lrom doing almost any
thing and everything. T he ruling of
Judge Fuller in the Wigger case is the
first exception in this district to the
laws passed by the Legislature, but
others are expected to follow.
It is supposed that many of the legis
lators knew not what they did. Here is
one: August 24, 1912. An Act to Pro
vide a Legislative Assembly for Alaska.
Sec. 418 in the Compiled Laws of Al
aska. That no member of the legislature
shall hold or be appointed to any office
which has been created, or the salary or
emoluments of which have been increas
ed, while he was a member, during the
term for which he was elected and for
one year after the expiration of such
term ; and no person holding a comm
ission or appointment under the United
States shall be a member of the legis
•
lature or shall hold any office under the
government of said Territory.” Did the
bright intellects who passed the law
making the U. S. Commissioners, who
are holding appointments under the
United States, Territorial tax collectors,
in direct violation of the organic law of
the Territory, understand ?
There were a few lawyers in the first
legislature a rrd they probably reasoned
as follows : ‘ ‘Perchance some poor fellow
who is unacquainted with our bar assass
inations and the ethics of our noble pro
fession will refuse to pay the tax and as
we have a closed shop our fees are of the
union scale and besides we need to make
business for our profession.”
Here is another reputed law, passed
by the Legislature and effective July 27,
An Act to provide punishment for
Pimps and Macques,
Be it enacted by the Tegialature of the
Territory of Alaska:
Sec. 1. That any male person who
may be found loitering around houses of
ill fame ; or who solicits, induces, en
courages, persuades, or prevails upon
any other male person to patronize any
house of ill fame, or any woman comm
only reputed to be a prostitute ; or who
shall be an inmate of any house of ill
fame; or who is commonly known to
consort with any prostitute ; or who wil
fully permits a woman to whom he is
married to practice prostitution; cr who
wilfully permits a woman to whom heis
arried to practice prostition; or who
lives upon or receives the earnings of
any prostitute, shall be deemed a pimp
or macque, and upon conviction shall be
imprisoned in the federal jail not less
than 30 days nor more than one year.
Sec. 2. In all prosecution under this
act common fame or reputation shall be
competent evidence in support of any
indictment, complaint o r information.;
and in prosecutions of this act the wife
shall be a competent witness against her
husband, and may be compelled to test
ify on behalf of the government against
her husband in any proceeding wherein
he may be a party defendant under this
act.
Sec. 3. All acts and parts of acts in
conflict herewith are hereby repealed to
the extent of such conflicts.
This last one, we are informed, is a
useless measure as there are no macques
here. When John Corson was here he
told us that we were the smartest, most
intelligent people of any, and a smart
intelligent people would not become
macques or have them in their' midst, so
there can’t be any macques or pimps in
Fairbanks. i
It makes no difference to the Socialist
how much lawyers and capitalist legis
lators wrangle amongst themselves as to
the meaning of this that or the next
clause,—he knows that home rule bills
passed by capitalist congresses are, as
far as the working class is concerned,
nothing less than gold bricks.
-i
THE INDUSTRIAL
WORKERS OF
THE WORLD
(Continued from last issue)
After nearly three years of successful
organizing on the industrial field el
ements that were anarchistic, and oppos
ed to political action, succeeded in cap
turing the I. W. W. at the convention
in 1908. They immediately cut out the
political clause from the constitution and
“hit the ballot box with an axe’’ as
their slogan, they started in bands
through the country singing at the top
of their voice “Hallelujah on the Bum,”
(Continued on Page 4.)
i
Last week before Judge Fnller Frank
Eckert received sixty days in the Feder
al jail for using direct action on John
Patton. It seems that^tliere was some
misunderstanding about wages due Eck
ert, and as lie was hungry, and a hungry
man is an angry man, he went out to
Patton’s farm and brought him to town
with a shotgun. The ligut sentence ini
posed, as compared with the sentence of
others, was, it is supposed, on account
of extenuating ci. cumstances and the
great provocation which he underwent.
There are those who will probably in
sist that he should have gone to law, but
we haven’t got the name of the lawyer
who can collect a matter of twenty bucks
for nothing and that is the amocnj that
Eckert had. Eckert is not crazy. He
will be good material for the Socialist
propagandist to work on, and teach him
the use of the ballot. Eckert with a
ballot will be far more dangerous to the
labor skiners of Alaska than Eckert with
shotgun.
Subscribe for The Alaska Socialist
i
Mr. Editor:— In the second issue of the
Alaska Socialist you propounded a very
simple but pertinent question for your
readers that so far none have attempted
to answer. It seems staange that you
have not received many replies. 11
appears to me, judging of the condition
of the workers since that Legislature ad
journed, the query might be answered
with one word, and that word should be
nothing, and it capitalized. The Skag
way Alaskan tells us that it costs “ ’steen’
dollars to find out just what they did do.
Their enactments are now published in
a beautiful volume that costs “ ’steen”
dollars, and that price will keep many
of the Alaska workingmen from finding
out the full particulars.
However the same old conditions pre
vail, the usual amount of laborers beat
out of their wages. The usual amount of
litigation and the usual amount of bunco,
handed out by the capitalist press, pros
perity enveloped in hope. That Legis
lature did just w'hat it was elected to do
and what the Socialists said it would do,
and that was that they would run the
legislature in the interest of their mas
ters. It was not the Alaska workers that
engineered the fusion deal in the Fourth
Division or pulled the political strings
during the campaign, it was the bosses.
That Alaska legislature was in no way
answerable to the Alaska workingmen.
It is true that a considerable number of
* • ' w
benighted dupes joined hands with the
gang, the pimps and the gamblers, to
elect the gang’s lackies. But if they ex
pected to have any laws passed that im
proved their condition they were doomed
to disappointment. No man or set of men
can serve two masters. But in that case
there were no twro masters. Only the
master and his dupe. Therefore Mr. Ed
itor you will ask in vain for an answer
to your question other than the one
given above.
Such laws as we have got in Alaska
are those that have been handed out to
us by Congress, a body of men un
acquainted with everything except the
interests of the capitalist class. “What
did the Alsska Legislature do for the
workers?” They did all that any eapital
st legislature eould do and that is noth
ing. In their estimation the worker is
equal to the cube root of nothing.
The working class must know that re
presentatives that are acceptable to the
master class are poor ones for the work
ers to have anything to do with. No
matter under what mask he may appear.
There is no affection between master and
slave. The opulence of the former breeds
the misery of the latter.
The riddles and conundrums that the
first legislature did enact at Juneau, we
are told, provides no funds for their en
forcement. The federal government dis
owns them. Have those iaws yet receiv
ed the royal sanction at Washington in
compliance with Sec. 20 of the Wicker
sham Home Rule Bill that reads .as fol
lows: ’’All laws passed by the legislature
of the Territory of Alaska shall be sub
( Continued on Page 4.)