0atig Mom? Jitimatrial Worker.
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Nome Mine Workers’ Union. No. *40. Western Federation of Miner*.
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The other day . Burns the poet
was honored by the Calidcnans.
That’s because of course ho was the
Scotch poet whose songs arc house
hold words with almost all Scots
men. That there was a greater
Burns, the Burns who was the poet
for all humanity is itself merely in
cidental. It io a fine thing to see
a poet honored in this very material
age when the sweetest music to the
majority is the jingle or dollars
and cents.
We can ill spare the poets from
our civiliaztion. But there are
fewer who reccivo honor and none
at all who are less adequately re
quited for the servcie they render
during their lives.
Burns was no exception and the
poets who liker him are of real
service in unholdiug tho actualities
of liberty and truth, and not the»
shams and hypocrisies that pass
muster as such, usually will be re
warded with stone when they ask
for bread.
The poet who strings his rhyme
to suit tho interests, who deifies
convention and conforms to the mo3<.
outrageous perversion of moral con
ception is usually the one that is
highly honored. lie is respectable,
and his poetry is quoted by the
politicians and finds a smug resting
place no matter what the doggerel
may be like, in the reading book at
school.
But let there arise one with a
tongue of fire and eyes with fine
frenzy rolling as the Greek de
scribed him, to tear the mask from
the hypocrisy of our lives to reveal
the fact that liberty, disciplined by
self-assumed authority is not liber
ty at all, and behold he is avoided
as a plague and ignored as a nonen
tity. The interests that control our
lives and our destinies insist that
our mind! must conform to the
principles of existence that they
lay down. There must bo no at
tempt to soar to the greater
heights and weave for mankind
visions of an untramelled human
ity. There must be no lifting of
the rags from the fostering ulcers
of the body politic, no exposure of
the filth that passes muster as mo
rality, no straying from the unvary
ing conventions which conceal the
hypocrisy of it all.
Some poets have deno so. And
they have later earned their right
to be acclaimed as the great work
ers for human freedom. Burns was
such a one, but Burns is honorel
Woc&use tho conventions which he
despised and tho cant that he out
raged have been banished from
society or modified as to be unre
cognizable today.
rn«*r1r«v it iss PJlflV
to fiaht the
wretched doctrines of Calvinism
with its blistering terrors of pre
destination and foreordained righte
ousness. Hut In Burns’s time it was
a real power. It ruled over th?
minds and the lives of men and anj
assault upon its firm citadel wa;
dared at one's peril.
There is no danger in honoring
the libertarians of the past because
the aims which they strove foi
have boen already accomplished.
But it is the liberatarlan of th
present who (louts wljat we have
been taught to uphold, whoso ero
sive genius oats away the sham'
which we havo always respected
who blast away the accepted strip
ping cf falsehood from the golde:
truth on the bed rock of facts—
these are thoy that are honorei
only with as great danger to thos'
who do so as to themselves.
The men who have pointed ou
false gods and rotten institution
and turned away the masses fror
their worshipping in the past wer
daring men who, today are easll
honored. But those who would d
the same thing today and ponotrat
tor the multitude the vll'lalny o
earefully nurtured respectability
the falsehood of an alleged trutt
the dishono»ah)enoss oj .highly he
nored conventions, Institutions an
systems—these are threatened wit
the punishment by those in power,
who find their power bolstered by
the falsehood that is condemned,
and such as the latter would cer
tainly inflict the severest punish
ment on all who questioned what
they called good, what they taught
to be moral, and what they upheld
as virtuous and noble.
The struggle of mankind for li
berty and for truth has been hast
ened and aided by such men aa
Burns. The cant that defied attack
fell before the dynamic power of his
explosive verse. The hypocrisy tha.
battened upon a betrayal of human
liberty collapsed before the sound
of his Indomitable trumpet.
It is a wonderful thing that the
greatest lyrist of the language
should have been such a rebel
against the shams of false creed
and the abused exercise of usurped
power. It is a great thing that this
matchless singer of deathless song
should have been also one who rea
lized with greater penetration than
the rest the falsehood that shackled
society. Society loved him said
one critic because society is too
stupid to fear its deadliest enemy
the poet.
But society is wise in its’’genera
tion. It is content to applaud the
dead for it believes that the dead
l>ast is buried by the dead alone.
It is with the present that those
who control society and who direc!
its fashions in industry, in politics
in art, in song, in ethics, in con
ventiors concern themselves. Foi
those poets in revolt in the presen:
they have no mercy. Those whom
they cannot silence, they ignore
They pile laurel wreathes upon th'
singer of convention; the poet of re
volt against the shackles of indus
trial or social tyranny is either t;
be utterly crushed or the sound o
his voice silenced with the shriekin'
of an army of hired retainers.
The past is safe; it takes care o
itself. Banquets to recall the me
mory of a man who fought witi
fearless heart in his own da;
against the trammels of distortei
religion and a hypocritical creec
are in order; the prison and thi
chain gang for him who sings th<
, roclal revolution of today.
Henry Hall had a interview witl
John D. Rockefeller junior. It 1
published in the New York World
It is worth reading. The Milwauke
Leader says that "the head of th
younger Rockefeller has not beei
stuffed with any democratic nor
sense. He knows that the sovet
eign citizen who is exercising powe
is not the citizen with a pick in hi
hand and a clay pipe in his moutt
The sovereign citizen is the man wh<
has a stake in the community”. T
justify this comment it quotes on
particulaily important paragrap
from the Hall interview wit:
John D. II. He says:
“His trip out west has been
great thing in the life of this m 1
in whose hands so much and s
great power will some day b
placed. It has brought to him a r<
alization of his maturity. All hi
life he has been brought up educa
ed and trained with the object <
fitting himself to take over the bui
den of great wealth, the responslbi
i ity of untold power, just as in Ei
, rope the sons of kings and emperoi
■ are brought up educatod and trail
i ed with the object of fitting the:
■ to wear a crown and face tl
l weighty problems that aro tho 1(
! of royalty.”
The Leader succinctly remarl
r. that "there is no need for any An
i erican.to lament that our democr«<
> has brought us all down to the san
i level. Men are still born to rule tl
r free.”
> One of the most difficult thlm
3 for Americans to understand is wl
f the old world peoples t lerate roys
, ty. % is said that John Burns, wl
, was a cabinet minister before tl
• war, and resigned in protest again
I it in London,'on one occasion w
l a delegate to an Amortcan lab
convention. Burns was talking to
a leading American labor official
who remarked that for the life Ox
him he couldn’t understand why the
European nations tolerated royalty.
Burns said that it was a tough pro
blem. It was beyond him “But do
you know”, he said "sometimes I
think I’d rather have an Albert
Edward with limited power, than
a John D. Rockefeller with unli
mited power”.
There is no nosense about the
remark of Henry N. Hall in this in
terview with Rockefeller. It’s real
as iron and true as steel. The
Rockefeller power is no myth. It’s
great enough to rend the entire in
dustrial and financial system to
morrow. It can close down mills
and mines and railroads tomorrow
if it so listed. It is in his legal
power to do so. It is part of his
property rights, and it is this collo
sal might that he is taught to
handle.
Yes, it may be urged, but if he
dared do this thing tomorrow the
people would take ihe rights away
from him. Well, one cannot be too
sure. He certainly would be upheld
by the courts and the law of tin
land. And the forces of the land |
would uphold the law. Even hing3
and emperors know that although
they exercise unlimited power,
there are lengths to which they dare
not stretch it. May be this indus
trial King is so minded.
The point is, is this too much
power for any one man to have.’
Is it too much responsibility and
power for one man to wield yet for
the land wherein it is still wielded,
to consider itself a democracy.
For that's the toughest of pro
blems. Because it must be recollect
ed that John D.’s methods differ
only in degree and not in quality
from that of other men. Ho is the
product of the system. Thohand3
of others are like him. He has ths
power to control those subordinate
industrially to him just as really
and far more sensationally than can
any monarch. His power is the
power to say to this worker “You
can live by getting wages from me’ ,
and to say to the politician “My
extraordinary influence will be ex
erted in your favor if you serve
me”.
No man who has served Standard
Oil faithfully but has risen from
the lowest to the highest in private
and in public life. It made men
senators who betrayed the populai
trust for it, and brought riches to
the unfaithful public servant. I;
put down the mighty from their
I seat who sought to insist upon hu
i man freedom in the national life,
a.nd exalted mem oi low degree wno
wo ill cl make of political liberty a
strumpet.
This may not be denied in the
light of public revelations. It Is
true as truth itself. • The power of
Standard Oil, of Rockefeller Is as
real as a Tzar’s, and is basically the
Bame if differently applied to suit
the genius of the popular institu
tions. It's an hereditary power too,
as rigid in Its actuality as the law
of primogeniture under feudalism.
It has established it^lf so firm
ly today in this land of democracy
that those who point out conditions
are shouted down as anarchists and
agitators. These are ugly facts, but
they are facts that cannot be slda
stepped or evaded.
And in these days of tremendous
demands upon the people to should
er the responsibility for prepared
ness to protect this great
power and this great indus
trial responsibility that their power
involves upon the part of the
industrial chiefs, it is time a revi
sion of conditions occasioned some
thought. There is talk of compul
sory service to maintain conditions
which produce unlimited power for
the Rockefellers—why shoulo
not that power be held and the
the responsibility enjoyed solely by
the people?
It is eternally true that the man
who controls the means whereby an
other lives controls that other s life.
That’s too much power for any man.
It’s too much power ■ k> be conso
nant and co-existent with human 11*
berty. It is impossible that liberty
can exist where the monarchical
power Is exerted: ’ Is the' power of
Rockefeller o» Morgan any lee3 real
than that of Kaiser or King or
Tzar? Ask the workers of Bay
onne.
I
i
I
Anyth Inf in the line of job work
at Industrial Worker Office.
Satisfaction assured.
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Dr. A. F. Heimlich
PHYSICIAN & SURGEON.
Office & Residence:
OVER HILL’S PHARMACY.
Office Hours: 2—5 and 7—8 p. id. ,
Phone—Night or day, Main 26.
jj The Talk of the Smoking j
Public
CENTROPOLIS
VEQA DEL RAY
Cigars.
YORKEY’S smokejhop
8
• ftjefa&aaaatsagraaJEJanus/i^^ imt/g/ariaeCTassBMygJHjaftri!^^
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i
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work. Cali up Black
134 or call at
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i' 1
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We have been appointed agents
for the
Dodge Automobile
i ’■ -
The popular, fully-equipped,
pleasure car that satisfies all
ALASKA LIGHTERAGE A GDM L It
Cheap John Store
FOR GENT’S FURNISHINGS
FLANNEL SHIRTS WE HAVE A LARGE VARIETY TO
SELECT FROM.. A COMPLETE STOCK OF GENERAL MER
CHANDISE, TENTS, TARP ALINS. CANVAS, ALL SIZES.
HIPPERS, EC EEC A AND V. S. RUBBERS A SHOE PACKS.
WE CARRY THE SIWASH SOCKS. -
SEE CHEAP JOHNS STORE BEFORE BUYING. OUR
PRICES ARE ALWAYS THE LOWEST IN TOWN.
Kent Transfer Oo.
General Transfer & Freighting
CuLA OIL
Phone Main 139.
FOR FELT SHOES, ARCTIC’S, MOCCASINS, GERMAN SOX,
SHEEP SKIN SOX, AND EVERYTHING IN WARM FOOTWEAR
MURPHY HAS THE HOODS
TARPAULINS AND SLED COVERS MADE TO ORDER.
PHIL MURPHY
I
ARTIC SPRING
WATER
Always at your Service.
Prompt delivery— Blizzard or
Shine at usual Rates IS
Buckets $1.00. 50c. a Barrel.
A. D. POTHET.
Phone Red 18«.
i
INDEPENDENT
MEAT MARKET
Wholesale and Retail Dealer
in Beef, Pork, Mutton, Veal,
Ham, Bacon Poultry and Fish
Game in Season. All fresh
Stock. No old or damaged.
W. H. Webb prop. Phone M.15
—— '■ — ..
A FEW SPECIALS
ON OUR BARGAIN COUNTER THIS WEEK.
PEERLESS BORAX COAP, jbars for.25e.
TEA GARDEN DRIPS, per can.. 50c.
YAKIMA DRIED PEACHES, pee pkgs.10c,
CAULIFLOWER, per can.25c.
UNEEDA BISCUITS, 4 pkRo. for.25c.
SODA CRACKERS, family size per pkgs.35c.
MOLLER’S GROCERY
PHONE MAIN M Ml IWB IBWif
WE CAN DO m
ABB YOU SEEKING A PATENT?
11 m U *111 BW you to lnvaottgete
rate* of tko bduttol Worker an
pukUaetton el appUoattoa tkereto*.
Brine year CoiMtnre nettoee to toe
I*4ootri*l Worker.
Ear Beet otooe w eft and peon j*
«eHoery pkone Dtoto Wtoto
People's Steam lone toy. «!U eril
and- get your laundry.
It. Jf. WMUMMR Prop.