Fale Name Industrial Markt-us
Published Daily except Sunday
fW Nome Mine Worker*’ Union, No. *40. Western Federation of Miner*. J
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Entered xs second class matter March 1, 1811, a* tho post office at
Jiome,'AlasKa, under the Act o£ March S, 1879.
All changes In standing advertisements must reach this office at sit
• clock each evening to Insure insertion in the following Issue.
Advertising rates made known on application.
"To secure to each laborer the whole product of hie labor, or as
•early as possible. Is a worthy object of any good government."—
anraham Lincoln
Address all Communications to Daily Nome Industrial Worker,
Box 210 Nome, Alaska. Phone, Black 124.
Nome, .Alaska, .lime I, 1917.
THK TAM. OF A I’l l’.
Here is a fable occurs in Satur
day's Nugget which gives one a
chance for an article on quite an
important subject.
•‘THE TAIL OF THE PUP. . .
Once upon a time an Ignorant!
and Immature Pup met an Intelli- j
gent and Rational Human Being. !
“Wait a minute,” said the Ignor-1
ant and Immature Pup. “I want to
show you something.” Thereupon!
in- set to whir ing rapidly in a vain
effort to catch his tail.
"I don't see that you're getting
anywhere,” observed the Intelligent
and Rational Human Being with an
air of ponderous wisdom.
“Nor I,” agreed the Ignorant and
Immature Pup. “That’s Just the
point I wanted to bring out. Now,
having established the fact that it
is desirable to get somewhere. 1
want you to observe how similar to
this performance of mine is the way
you Human Beings act about your
wages and prices. You raise the
wages of workmen so that they
may buy more and then you raise
prices so that they* can buy less and
then raise wages to reach the prices
and then you raise prices in order
to offset the wages and—” .
“Come, come, enough of this
nonsense!” expostulated the Intelli
g.ut and Rational Human Being.
“Do you think I'm a fool to stand
her talking to an Ignorant and Im
mature Pup?”—Ex.”
The American Aesop that devised
that fable doubtless felt that he was
tearing off quite a chunk of wisdom
when he threw this economic bomb
into the ranks of the wage workers.
The idea that increased wages cau
sed the increased price is very gen
eral among employers, and has been
been faithfully taught by a numbei
of economists who have the canine
sagacity at least to know upon
which side their bread is buttered
It possesses the unfortunate disad
vantage as au economic theory oi
being so self evidently untrue thai
it can be disproved without any
great exercise of gray matter, 01
much mental effort upon the part ol
any person.
The fact is that even original!}
high prices were not caused b;
wages; that they have no relatioi
to wages paid is simply correct, ant
when labor is demanding highei
wages, labor is simply making ai
effort to keep some sort of a grii
upon the original standards of liv
ing that was its own, before price!
started on this extreme ascensioi
scale.
Obviously if wages caused tin
high prices which prevail then then
should be a definite relation be
tween the per centage of increasi
in prices and per centage of in
crease in wages. If wages be re
presented by ten and prices be re
presented by twenty, if wages an
increased by ten per cent ten pe
cent will have to be added on tli
prices. The per centage of in
crease would he the same in liotl
instances.
Now nothing of the kind ha
laker, place. On the contrary whii
wages have been increasing 28 pe
cent within a given time, accordlm
to carefully collated figures, price
of various necessaries have hoc
increasing 68 per cent, it wage
had been the cause of the increas
prices should have increased hut 2
per cent and no more. But wha
has become of that 40 per cent difl
crence? Who gets it? It is no
shown in labor’s pay envelope. 1
is not thete that it is dropped. Wha
then is actually happening? An
the answer to these questions, ver
quickly and satisfactorily and com
pletely explains why fables ot ini
mature pups and the like appear t
bolster up the employer’s positior
stud to help to keep labor in it
place as Gcd has ordained, etc.
First of all we said that labor'
wages had nothing to do with price
/
and we repeat it. It has not got a
thing in the world directly to do
with it. That is a hard thing to
get into the nut, or whatever may
be the skull of many human beings.
Prices are simply regulated by the
law of supply and demand, and
their expression is in terms of a
medium of exchange.
It is (|uite true that labor and
labor's wages have everything to do
with the ultimate values of'*hn ar
ticle. But the value of an article
and its price are two different things
altogether.
The price of a commodity de
pends purely upon our old friend
the law of supply and demand. If
the supply is very great and the de
mand very small, our old friend the
same law says that the price that
will be paid will be very small, and
vice versa.
Take this homely illustration.
Here is the fur market all shot to
pieces as any man will tell you.
Many fur dealers are holding great
stocks for which they paid good
money in wages for getting and
handling, wages that have hardly
varied an iota since or before the
fur slump began. But there is not
the demand for these stocks, and
quite regardless of the labor values
of those furs, or their cost of pro
duction, the price is all shot tc
pieces.
Or again, take the wheat market
The wheat was sold last fall for ont
dollar and hajf a bushel to some
although most got it for a lessei
price. That, wheat sold in May las
for three dollars and a half i
bushel. The labor that went int<
the wheat was the same in both in
stances. But in the interim stock
had decreased, and stocks were mo
nopolized and the supply, the nor
mal supply which held a normal re
lation to a normal consumption, wa
interfered with either by gambler
! or tlie European buyers, anil tli
demand was greater than could b
met. But labor hadn’t a dami
thing to do with it, and that ough
to be clear to any one except a;
ignorant and immature bull pup.
What is the price of an articl
anyhow? The price of an articl
is the amount of money given in es
change therefor. It is regulated b
the supply of. and demand for th
article. It oscillates anove and beloi
the actual labor values in the ai
tide. Sometimes it is above, a
1 when the demand overtakes th
supply, anil sometimes it is belo'
■ and that is whan the supply over
takes the demand. If the deman
is just equal to the supply, the ai
! tual value of the article is realize!
These are elementary econml
facts that every workingman know
' but which every employer and ever
employer’s lackey in the unlversitic
■ and the schools, pretends not t
■ know.
' How then are we to account t'c
' the -Treat increase in rir'ce, tin stet
1 dy ascension of practically all m
■ tides in the market?
1 Turn back to our definition c
price. Therein we find it tli
' amount of money given in exchang
1 for another comodity. That is th
r equivalent in gold, for gold is tl)
’ i standard here.
t When gold was scarce and liar
1 to get. just as when silver we
* scarce anil hard to get, prices wet
• relatively very low. But within tli
5 past twenty years gold productio
1 has been greatly increasing. Ii
" ease of production has been greatl
t forwarded. Comical and technici
1 inventions have wonderfully li
1 creased the supply of the yellow nn
i tal. Month by month the Band 1
f South Africa ha3 been producing i
• the neighborhood eighteen millioi
* for over twenty years. Alash
1 mines are ha’iitll'iig ores of so sma
■ per eentuge that vast quantities ai
b being produced from low grar
rock. Refining and especially ele
a trolytic refining has increased tl
s gold production enormously whi
decreasing the cost. The discovery 1
of rich fields in Australia, in Africa, <
in the United States and in Alaska, i
has added to the wonderful supply i
until now it is enormous. Why in '
ISr.O the, gold and silver production :
in the United States was only about <
fifty million, and the United States :
was the great silver producing coun- i
try even then, yet today the gold I
production alone is somewhere in ]
the neighborhood of ninety million
dollars every year, while the Afri
can annual production for 191a
and previous years has been seldom
less than $250,000,000.
In consequence the value of gold
lias been falling. It costs less to
produce an ounce and its supply is
greater than it was, greater than it
was especially in regard to its func
tion as a medium of exchange, its
price function.
Before the discovery of America
silver was far more valuable than
gold is today, and a silver sixpence
in England would buy as much and
more than a gold sovereign would
today. The discovery of America
unfolded enormous quantities of
silver bullion, easily worked silver
mines and so forth thus causing
the slump that was so general that
the differences in prices today as
expressed in silver coins, and those
of the fifteenth century are little
short of amazing. ,
Now that very thing lias been
taking place towards the close of
the nineteenth as well as slowlj
and gradually throughout the whole
nineteenth century. But it became
intensified at its closing years, and
has occurred now with re-doubled
force these past years of this
twentieth century.
There is such an actual decrease
in the exchange value of gold, the
norm about which the price
of gold as expressed in the
terms of the commodities
for which it is exchanged, that
prices of other articles in relation
to gold are all gone away up, and
before a manufacturer who sells his
goods for gold will part with them,
he wants daily and annually a
greater quantity of money than ever
before. He wants sufficient increase
to cover the decrease in actual gold
values which form the medium of
exchange.
And this brings us back to the
question who gets the difference be
tween the increase in wages and the
increase in prices, since wages have
only risen 28 per cent while prices
of necessary commodities have risen
on an average 6 8 per cent. Here
ve have the answer. The employer
ind the middleman all demand ex
hange at the actual gold values
here and then and here and now.
1'he worker sells his labor at a price
n gold which represents a de
■reased purchasing power and hence
m actually decreased value. The
employer paying less actual al
hough the same nominal wages,
)ockets the difference.
He does more. He enlists the
superficial brains of the parasitic
lasses in schools, universities, press
aid pulpits, to preach the workers
'ontentuient, to point out to then’
llie fact, which is not a fact, that
the high prices are high because la
bor wants so much, and if it gets
any more the prices will go away
out of sight. Moreover we have nice
little fables invented by ignorant
and immature pups to continue this
general perversion of fact, for it is
confidently hoped, and trustingly
believed that the workers ears will
be large and long enough to take
it in, and their heads mushy enough
to believe it.
But you can’t fool the workers
this time. Their table tells the
tale and when the wages they g%t
are insufficient to buy them the
meat and the flour and the vege
tables. the clothing and the shoes,
the rents and the other costs of liv
ing. the blue molded bunk that
their wages cause the high costs ot
living fail3 and fails badly. It is
easy to get away with any sort of
guff but when the murmuring belly
calls the guff in question the brain
has to go some to prove differently.
CITV BATH HOUSE
has the largest
and only 0 feet
Bath Tubs In Nome.
'4*4*4*4*4‘4*4*4*4*4,4*4*|£
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EGGS!!
4 doz. for 50. Every one
guarnteed
ARMOUUS EVAPORATED
1 lbs. tins. Use them in cook
ing. just as satisfactory as
fresh eggs. Try a can.
4*
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Kent Transfer Co.
General Transfer & Freighting
C°*LA O'l
Phone Main 139.
Dont Waste Money!
WHEN YOU PAY GOOD MONEY FOR RUBBER GOODS
BE SURE YOU GET THEM THAT HAVE BEEN PROPERLY
CARED FOR. OUR LINE OF
RUBBER BOOTS AND PACS
IS THE MOST COMPLETE IN NOME AND WE GUARANTEE
1%EM TO BE IN PERFECT CONDITION.
P. A. PETERSON SHOE GO.
The Rose Candy Store And
Arctic Bakery
THE HOME OF FRESH CANDIES, SALTED PEANUTS, PEA
NUT CANDIES, GOOD BREAD AND COOKIES AND GOOD
LB NCHES.
WHEN BUYING HARDWARE, let quality be your first considera
tion. Then look into the matter of price. Price without quality
results in the accumulation of a lot of useless junk.. But qua
lity at a reasonable price gives you lasting service.. We handle
quality hurdwnre, and the price is as low as consistant, or poss
ible.
CARLETON HARDWARE CO.
IM Front It.
Phone Main 11.
Anything In the Doe of Job work
at the Industrial Worker Office.
Satisfaction assured.
Prepare for the winter by patron
izing the advertisers of your paper,
Mr. Miner!
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INDEPENDENT
MEAT MARKET
\V. H. Webb prop. Phone M.1B
BOARD OF TRADE
Restaurant
end
LUNCH ROOM
George Modini,
Proprietor
NOME BAKERY
Butler-Nut
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Ere a d
NOME BAKERY
Bran-Raisin
Bread
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Big Dandy
B re ad
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PanDandy
Bread
HILL’S DRUG STORE
NOMEBAKERY
NEXT DOOR
HILL’S DRUGSTORE