Eaily Name Ilndiugtriul Matle1
Published Daily except Sunday
By Xome Mine Workers’ Union, No. 240, International Union of Mine,
Mill and Sm elter Workers.
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Entered as second class matter March 1, 1111, at the post oBce at
Home, • Alassa, under the Act of March I, 1871.
"To secure to each laborer the whole product of hla labor, or aa
nearly as possible, la a worthy object of any good goverameat.”—
Abraham Lincoln
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Address all Communications to Daily Nome Industrial Worker,
Boi 210 Nome, Alaska. Phone, Black 114.
Nome, Alaska, OHoler 1!*17.
T \ l\I \(i SH \im:.
There is more and more publicity
being given certain plans long since
hinted us practicable in war for
overcoming all labor difficulties.
These plans have been known a*
industrial conscription.
It is proposed to bring the work
ers under the military regimen, and
as such to be directly under the
command of its officers.
To command is to he obeyed. A
scarcity of one section of workers
in one industry is relieved by the
excess in another. The whole force
of toilers is registered and directed
by governmental supervision. Kail
ure to work as ordered is equival
ent to desertion and a military dis
cipline with all it entails is the
condition that is to be insisted
upon.
In this way inJus‘rial pursuits
are brought under the immediate
supervision of tile government
Labor is rationed and recompensed
as government may determine. La
bor is apportioned among employ
ers as war needs or industrial ne
cessity may direct. Strikes become
a thing of the past: loafing is a
• rime punishable by court martial
and leave of absence is permittee
only after due allowance is made
for the worker's arguments there
for.
The great benefit, that will follow
from this condition are so obvious
according to its supporters. that
they will not admit that any argu
mout can be urged against it.
They point out the disturb
ances have that have of late inter
fared with productivity: in the cop
per. in the lumber, in the iron and
steel and in the ship build'ng in
dustries. And they say that indus
trial conscription is the only re
merl y.
Of course men are easi'v aston
ished at such a proposal. But it is
not so far-fetched as some ima
gine.
Industrial conscription has exist
od from time immemorial and if il
did not take on the militarist aspect
it:; open advocates now demand for
it. at least it h. s be*-: a po.v-riul
factor in industry
Kvery workingman who soils h's
labor power, even though he is per
suaded that liis labor is •'free’'. Is
subject to conscription. He ha; to
find work and he must work to live.
For the man who has neither
money nor property, there arc onh
three ways of making a living. He
must beg. work or steal.
If lit* does not choose to bog his
steal for it. It' he will not stem
or beg. then to avert starvation
for him and his he must work.
Hence industrial conditions under
capitalism impose the iron neeetsity
upon every propertiless and penni
less man of working for some era
poycr. He is conscripted, so to say.
by a draft law called starvation,
that is just as imperious and just at
rigorous as any legislative statute
might be.
He has however the privilege of
hanging employers of quitting
when he feels like it, of making de
mands. of joining in strikes, of or
ganizing for better conditions.
It is not so long ago when he
could do none of these things, but |
by patient and persevc ring struggle
be has fought and won thost fights
small as they may appear to be
Mow Indus,rial conscription it
merely a proposal to destroy those
rights which labor has so hardly
struggled to attain, and it is be
cause there rights run counter to
the wishes of the employing classes
that the war is to he the means ol
■curtailing them once and *'or all
Frankly for an employer indus
trial conscription cannot he too
much praised. If there is anything
would fill a long felt want, it is just
such a system. Then and there the
agitating and the economic discon
Lent is turned*into a blind alley
from ivliome there is no exit and it:
| which :t may be cribbed cabinned
and permanently confined.
The weaker, under indutrial ne
cessity, ran be made to work as
long as hie emplover who will he
hit sup-ricr officer may determine,
and as we know that the surplus
profits from labor are as the inten
sity of the working day plus the
length of that working day, there is
no reason why there should he any
limits beyond that which will be
sufficient to endure human life.
The work of organizing society
so that its productive capacity will
he kept up to the limits of society's,
energy, is only limited by just one
thing the disinclination of labor to
subject itself to flic grinding discip
line of machine industry.
Labor today is lacking in the
prime requisite of attractiveness:
the instinct of the craftsman can
find no opportunity for gratification
Most work today is plain drudgery
especially in lactories. foundries
and manufacturing plants of all
kinds Labor has become like the
parts which it handles in the pro
cess of manufacture: standardized.
The workman has become more or
less an automaton.
Only the instinct to live compels
hint to stay by his task and the
tear of th>* consequences that may
result front his idleness is what
I keeps him to his job. Hence the
! hunger and suffering that he and
his family will suffer if he stops his
work is the driving force that keeps
him working. Kor all that labor
lias acquired an almost instinctive
knowledge that by organization of
workers a betterment in his position
can lie effected. And he sees that
the more men are employed, the
fon .»*• nion 'iro Imil'incr far liic ini)
to put it that way, the greater will
be the likelihood of bin success in
making demands and enforcing
them with a strike.
We have reached a stage in the
industrial condition of the nation
when opportunity knocks at ths
doer of labor through the decrease |
in the number of jobless who be ]
tore had bid against one another I
for the job. To this extent the eco- 1
notnic urge, in the instance of the g
workers fear of hunger and pover- a
ty, is less insistent and the workers J
acquire a novel independi nee of ac- j
tion.
To prevent the workers taking 1
advantage of this condition of j
things, the employing clarsen. to j
protect their profits, make use. of I
the intellectuals to promote the Idea I
that such would be wrong, sedit
ious, highly unpatriotic and (n a
degree of things objectionably
treasonable.
Thence in paper, even in pulpit,
in mnganizes, in platform an efi’ort
is made to induce labor to let the
opportunity slip by and to be con
tent with what has been paid be
fore when conditions were elite
different.
The success of these arguments
and these urgings are vitiated how
ever by the fact that throughout
the country employers are devoting
their own attention to the ereat'on
of enormous profits for themsnh's
and hence because of the high
prices those profits are reaching fi
gures great enough to Impress
even the most dense wage worker.
Unanswerable is the argument
of instinct: if the employer makes
this war the occasion for greater
profits, why should not the worker
who will never get such a chance
again not. only make it an oppvr
tunity for increasing his wages, but
also for making his organization a
valuable weapon for effecting 1.1s
ultimate industrial emancipation.
Ah. but that is unpatriotic cays the
employer or the parasite of the em
ploying classes. These are days
when the notion must give am!
take among ihe people themselves,
and all must pull together for flea'
victory.
But the worker turns to cor •
shut tno situation amt ne nnus mat
instead of performance equalling
the fine promises and finer words
of the employers, they are making
haste to make all the profit hay
they can while the sun of war is
shining. What the employing class
urge is not to do as they do. but
to do as they say.
Every eftort has been directed,
ami with wonderful energy and
with unabated determination, to
eradicate the notion the workers
might have that there was one.
single, solitary iota of justification
I for attempting to better their eon
| dition by striking and w hen
! ultimately these availed no
i thing, and economic condt
j tions. the high costs of living,
| tlm increase in rc*nts, the ever
soaring prices ot necessities, drove
j the workers to strike, the slander
was preferred with wonderful un
animity that this was privily the
work of pro-Germans, or others in
terested in obstructing the sucres'
of the I'nited States in the war.
Now employers and their intel
lectual tools are observing that the
time has passed for compromisr
, with facts. They see that sterner
measures are necessary if the work
of the nation and the profit making
that comes from the employment
of the workers is not to be hamp
ered in any way.
And it is this notion that is the
direct inspiration of those articles
■v—
we are now perceiving receive in
creased publicity on industrial con
scription. Industrial conscription
whereby labor is placed on a mili
tary footing with a military discip
line affecting and controlling and
dominating the man on the job is
now urged with increasing fre
quency. Its value to the employing
classes is not to be guaged in
words. It is all that is required to
assure that class which owns the
machinery of production a pertra
lienee in economic control and,
what makes that economic control
worth while, a permanence in the
profits which will be forthcoming
from industry.
Possibly, it may also well be,
material improvements may be
made in labor conditions. The
standard may become fixed at a
high scale. The housing of the <
workers may be made sanitary and .
comfortable. Schools, suitable to
the social status of the man who ]
toils, provided for his children, j
Clothing furnished in proportion tc j
human needs. The effects of fati- j
gue upon the workers in each in- ]
dustry the matter of sedulous con- j
corn and on the whole, a fine array j
of industrial bondsmen result in a j
general improvement all round.
Frankly for the employing clas- j
ses, who are also the owning j
classes, this condition is very desir- i
able indeed. It removes the me- j
nace of labor's growing iadepend- j
ence. It removes the hopes for J
such material betterment as revo- j
lutionary organizations have held j
before so many of the workers as j
the ultimate aim of organization. |
To the vested interests, who clip j
their coupons with becoming regu- j
larity, it provides a permanent I
career of ease with dignity, peace j
and complacency that otherwise is I
not very obviously obtainable.
And in only one way can this
scheme of industrial conscription be
put over and that is by waving
flags, upholding it as patriotic and
pointing out that if it is worthy and
fine to die for one's country, so also
ought it be fine and wortiiy to wott
for one’s country. The little fact
that this does not mean that it is
fine, and worthy to work for an era
ployei who is not necessarily the
country, will be kept in the ba-k
ground when this little argument
is put forward with much patriotic
eloquence, as indeed it is jus' now
In many magazines.
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One 10 H. P. Boiler.
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