The iiKiiJieii atic ti of the wcilci-r.g
class must be the class- conscious work
J of the working class. -- KARL MARX
’ SOCIALIST
_ .... ■ . .. . . _ . ■
mi_FAIRBANKS, ALASKA, FEB. 28,1914.__
DID THE NEW GLASS
OWENS GURRENGY
BILL CHANGE THIS?
/ i
Congress’ Greatest Crime.
February 25, 1S63, was the infamous
day upon which Congress commited its
greatest crime against the American peo
ple. On that day, it authorized the nat
ional banking system, granted certain
banks the privilege of issaing their own
paper money, checks or national bank
notes. To get these, a bank must depos
it an equal amount of U. S. bonds with
the secretary of the treasury of the Un
ited States. A bank can take a million
dollars and buy U. S. bonds for it—take
the bonds to the Secretary of the Treas
ury. for deposits— and on the
strength of these have him print a mil
lion dollars iu bank notes, the bank gets
its million back and at the same' time
draws interest in the bonds, which re
main its property! Isn’t that a great
Aim flam game ?
Then instead of the government using
its credit to issue United States notes, it
uses this same credit to issue bonds, on
which it had to pay interest, and then
takes these same bonds back again as
security for notes it prints for the banks
free of charge. Put that in your bonnet
If the credit of the government is good
• enough on which to issue bank notes,
why isn’t it good enough to issue United
States notes, or real money ? That would
save millions of dollars every year,
which otherwise goes to the bankers.
If United States notes, or real money
had been issued and used to pay for the
Panama Canal, one-third the cost of
building the canal would have been
saved. But, no! The bankers wouldn’t
stand to lose all that. So this one-third
goes to them as interest on the bonds.
Do you see the skin game ? Oh, excuse
me!
DID YOU SAYGRAFI?
_BEG PARDON!
If a bank has bonds it does not want
to issue notes on, it may deposit them
in the United States Treasury and in re
turn, the treasurer deposits United States
money m the bank. For a million dol
lars of bonds the bank gets Sl,100,’000
on deposit. The government does not
get any interest o n its money, but the
banks keep drawing interest on the
bonds! Do you see the graft? Beg par
don!
COMING NATION.
One Sunday morning, in one of the
most famous churches i n this countrv,
Plymouth church, Brooklyn, Rev. New
ell Dwight Hillis, pastor of the society,
said in his morning sermon:
“The saddest words that have been
written in this generation were spoken
by a young man who is to inherit one of
the greatest fortunes in this country.
They were spoken in defense of the
trusts, hasten to them:
“The American Beauty rose ca:i be
produced in all its splendor only by sac
rificing the early buds that grow u p a
round it. The rose has 1,000 buds, and
in order to produce the American Beauty
the gardner goes around it with a knife
and snips S99, in order that all the
strength and beauty may b e forced into
one bloom. ”
“In his economic argument this young
man tells the working classes, brutally,
that 999 sma 11 business men must be
snuffed out of existence in order that
his American Beauty, the trust, may be
produced.
‘ ‘These words iii defense of the trusts
are the most heart-breaking things in
literature to those who know what is
going to come in the future. Can you
wonder that, after that, when a man
gives gifts w e have no gratitude to re
turn ?
These words, uttered bv young Mr.
Rockefeller, are profoundly significant,
not so much because of the standpoint
from which they are viewed by Dr Hillis
as that they indicate the trend in mod
ern industry. The concentration i n in
dustry which has been going on during
the last half century i s aptly illustrated
m this young man’s address. And this
same concentration, if it continue, must
I
inevitably result in the snuffing out pro
cess of which Dr. Hillis speaks. The 999
buds must be crushed in order that the
one bloom may develop into the perfect
ion and beauty. The 999 small business
men forced into competion with Mr.
Rockefeller’s American Beauty, the
trust, must inevitably be forced to the
wall.
Under the operation of the ruthless
law of competition this would be the in
dustrial outlook ahead were i t n o t that
on every hand tfyere are evidences that I
the masses are awakening t o the fact
that the conditions which young Mr.
Rockefeller so graphically portrayed
must result from following the present
trend. The cry, “back to the people,”
now to be heard on every hand, is in
dicative of the arrival of a time when
the 999 buds will no longer suffer and
die for the benefit of the one perfect
bloom. When the final struggle comes
between the people and t he trusts a n d
the contending forces will stand in the
relative proportion of 999 to 1, and who
can doubt the result F=—Ex.
r--——-j
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MISS NELLIE O'LEARY
BILLY GORHAM
GOLDSMITH
Watches Repaired
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Cushman Street
THE ADVENT OE THE RAILROAD
WILL PROBABLY USHER IN
THE MILLENNIUM. SURE THING!
Peace and Good Will and all That
Sort of thing Will Then be
upon the Earth.
Will a government owned railroad in
to Alaska benefit the working class ?
Most assuredly. The working class o f
Alaska can not be harmed. Already they
have been reduced to the level of the
rabbit eating Indians. Most of them
have neither homes nor wives. They
dwell in dark huts, live on regrets and
rabbit legs, and their wives are pictures
on the walls.
bet the railroads come. They cannot
hurt us. We have nothing to lose but
our rabbits.
But the bourgeoisie are radiant. The
railroad will furnish the means for their
complete destruction, but they are un
learned in economics and do not see
this. They fancy that cheaper freight
rates and lower wages will make a thriv
ing camp. They set a price on their
goods and would likewise venture to
regulate the working class wages.
This summer an attempt will undoubt
edly be made to cut wages down to four
dollars per day. Tstft:'workers should or
ganize and resist any such a move. Five
dollars a day and board is little enough
to crawl on one’s belly in the cold wet
earth.
Placer ground that won’t pay to work
on two cent freight rates and $5 wage
ought to lie fallow. For the claim that
a cut in wages will make mining profit
able, admits of but one conclusion: the
operators expect to make their money
out of the men who work for them and
not out of the ground.
A railroad means to the workers one
all-powerful master—the Guggenheim
syndicate. Across tlieir bent backs the
lash of want will fall, swung by this
lone brutal hand. They will be forced to
organize against this power, and Alaska
bids fair to become a mighty battle
ground between capital and labor. Here
will be reenacted all the bloody scenes
of Cripple Creek and Calumet. For one
of the first criminal acts o f the Guggen
heim agents will be to overrun the
North with workingmen through lying
circulars promising homesteads and big
wages.
The bourgeoisie have visions of suckers,
easy money and a fulfilment of their
hope to live off of other men’s labor.
They see as far as their own cupboards
and no farther. The Guggenheim syn
dicate will take care of them. It will
swallow them like minnows, and the or
ganized working class will -figuratively
swallow the Guggenheims.
Some day the producers will own the
Alaska railroads. In that time they will
be benefited by them. They have this
consolation as the lash of want falls a
cross their bent backs while they are
building them.
What Huxley Said
About the Matter,
Professor Huxley w a s sacrcelv a Soc
ialist, but he was a man of humanitarian
instincts, and was keenly alive to the
horrors of the existing social system. “If
I thought that civilization would not get
past' the present stage,” he said, “I
would hail the advent of some comet, to
sweep the whole away to oblivion.”
ARCADE
TAILORING
Sec. Avenue opps. The Pirate
Suits sponged & pressed
cr.Sy$L Fursjrepaired at
short notice, andlow prices
Crowned Heads have
big Blowout with an
Uncrowned one.
“All the crowned heads of Europe’’
attended the wedding of the deposed
King of Portugal. For the same reason
that “one swallow does not make a sum
mer,” “all the crowned of Europe” to
gether do not, at least no longer, remake
a King whom his own lis.tion unmade.
Merrily does Republican Portugal sail
along.
If you are a worker you need
THE ALASKA SOCIALIST
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and Labor wants to make it possible for j
people to assist themselves for all time. !
i
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The Live Jeweler
A LESSON IN TRUTH
By VERISSIMUS
Come, m y brother, let us reason to
gether: we will search for truth, and in
that search prepare^our minds to receive
the truth, even though creeds may per
ish, and tempels may fall, and the
strength of truth shall set us free.
One of our Christian scholars, a milit
ant champion of the doctrine of Divine
Revelation, has defied the students of
scientific Rationalism and Reason to pro
duce a better book than the Bible, and
he makes the bold claim that the teach
ings of this age-worn book have eman
ated from the mind of Almighty God
himself:
“That Jehovah of Mosaic legend,
thru his prophets, has revealed his will
the unchangeable truth to mankind, and
this revelation shall be our only guide
in the paths of virtue, mprality and jus
tice. ’ ’
Well, let us look into this matter. The
truth you know is beyond the reach o f
fear; investigation cannot damage truth;
were it possible, investigation would on
ly fashion the truth more true. Let u s
implore our brothers to bear with us
while we make sure that falsehood i s
not masquerading before us in the garb
of truth.
History informs us that the seven bib
les of the world are:
The Koran of the Mohammedans.
The Tri-Pitike of the Buddhists.
The Five Kings of the Chinese.
The Three Vedas of the Hindus
The Zenoe Avesta sf the Persians.
The Eddas of Scandinavia.
The Old a it'd N e w Testament o f the
Christians.
All these so-called sacred writings
contain many things that are poetically
beautifully and some things that are true
all of them forbid crime and recommend
the virtues; and this being the case the
question naturally arises in a thoughtful
mind: are they all equally worthy?
Christian scholars, who li a v e in the
past, and who still, devote much of their
time and talent to the silly work of split
ting hairs over sone useless theological
problem, seem to overlook the grave fact
that any book may be quite harmless so
long as it is regarded as a mere book t o.
be read and digested in the ordinary way
but when you approach any book in a
spirit of worship, when you clothe its
teachings in tlie mantle of inspiration,
when you dignify i t with the title: The
Holy Word of God, and endorse it as
THK BOOK, it is almost sure to become
a very dangerous book, and the danger
becomes all the more threatening when,
as is the ease with onr scriptures, its
moral precepts are more than, offset bv
teachings on numerous pages than can
only be regarded as tending toward im
morality of the rankest type.
Our hearts are thrilled with admiration
when we read: “Thou slialt overcome
evil with good’’ “Thou, shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself. ’ ’ But wlieu we turn
the page and find chapter after
chapter stained with persecution, with
unjust w'ar, with wholesale murder of
innocent men women and children,
when w e read o f cruel work b v barbar
ous men who have been called prophets,
of Jehovah and find the claim that all
their council however bloody, a 11 their
tyranny however fiendish, has been in
spired by a great and splendid God
pay, more, when they brazenly comm
and us to. believe that they have met.
this God face and received even the plan
(Continued on page 3).