Hatty Nomr 3nbuatrial JHorkfr.
Published Daily except Sunday
*}>• Nome Mine Workers' Union, No. 240, International Union of Mine,
Mill and Sm elter Workers.
Subscription Price
Owe Tear___ _______ 110.08
Mx Months__—____ ___ _ *10.00
fiu Month .... _ _____* 1.00
Entered as second class matter March 1, 1111, a* the post o«cs at
Motne, > Alasaa, under the Act ot Mareh I, 117*.
-All changes In standing advertisements must reach this offloe at six
•'dock each evening to insure Insertion in the follovMng Issue.
Advertising rates made knows oa application.
"To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, or aa
aenily as possible, Is a worthy object of any good govermment.”—
Abraham Uncola
Address all Communications to Dally Nome Industrial Worker,
Box £10 Nome, Alaska. Phone, Black 114.
•SK< TION <>".
There was a law passed some
time ago that everyone heard about..
It was called and is known as the
Clayton Anti-Trust Act. Like the
Skwman anti-trust act it presumes
regulate combinations in re
straint of trade. Whether it does
or not any more than did the Sher
man Anti-Trust Act. is quite beside
the question. It is a law and must
be accepted accordingly.
It contains an equally famous
section six which says in plain
language "That the Labor of a
human being is not a commodity or
article of commerce”.
Oompers and a host of laborites
have since that time regarded with
particular fondness that particular
section and when an opportunity
arrives of making a speech on the
subject he is there with both feet.
Now suppose congress in the
course of its deliberations and in
the course of its legislation were to
declare that water was not a fluid,
iron ore not a mineral, oxygen not
an element, yellow not a color. Mars
not a planet of the solar system—
is il to be taken for granted that
that would make it so?
Similarly with Labor. To say that
fa.tor is not a commodity is to run
« (winter to tiie facts of political eco
ucioj and to ask what then is a
< tnrnoodity?
A commodity is esentially a thing
that is bought and sold. It is bought
and sold in open competition: its
value depends upon the amount of
labor power used in its production
•nr what it would cost to reproduce
a similar article. Its price is regu
lated by the law of supply and de
mand and it may be very cheap or
very dear as supply and demand
stand in a particular relation one
to the other.
from the point of view of politi
cal economy that is the test of a
commodity. And beyond peradven
ture labor obeys those tests and
proves beyond question that it is
Much a commodity.
Labor oscillates in vatue around
its cost of reproduction. That
valuq is expressed in the pre- paid
for it: its wages, if lanor is plenti
ful labor will often be sold for less
than it actually costs to reproduce
H ami the national labor producing
individuals degenerate. The manu
facturer who uses labor as he uses
raw material, as he uses his ma
chinery, goes into the labor market
for his labor power. He buys it as
cheaply as he can. He tries to
keep the price down. But he knows
Vha.’ given an expensive requirement
Jor the living standard of the work
tTs. that is given the cost of repro
duction of that labor power as high,
be .must pay wages in proportion.
UTm only thing that will prevent
lnira buying cheaply is other buyers
in f.be labor market also seeking
many workers, and when the supply
is inadequate wages (following the
law of suply and demand as for all
commodities, being the price of
labor i rise accordingly. When there
are insufficient workers, wages rise
-above the actual costs of production
•if l.lwt labor power, when supply and
demand are equal labor will be paid
approximately its value in terms of
the costs of reproduction, while if
labor is in excess o' the demand, la
bor will be paid below its value,
that it is lens than the cost of its
reproduction.
Thus acting precisely as any other
commodity.
Why is labor cheap in China and
expensive relatively in Australia?
!*.i<t because of any legislation, but
tattrause of the fact that China
literally teems with available labor
*nr.s. while in Australia it is relative
ly scarce. Why is a high grade
mechanic paid more than the shovel
.-stiff? Because the high grade me
chanic isi relatively rare, because
be has cos: a whole lot to educate
anti (rain, and because the shovel
stiff is plentiful enough and has to
sell liis labor power to the first
buyer that comes along or find that
the buyer has bought the other fel
low while asked for higher
wages.
I'resident \Vil30n agrees with
Gompers that labor is not a com
modity. But he does so because of
reasons more sentimental than prac
tical. In a recent speech he refer
red to what Mr. Gompers had said
on this subject and he added to it:
“Mr Gompers was referring just
now to the sixth section of the Clay
ton Anti-Trust Act, the section in
which the obvious is stated, namely
that a man's labor is not a commo
dity. but a part of his life, and that
therefor* the courts must not treat
it as if it were a commodity, but
must treat it as if it were a part
of his life. I am sorry that there
were any judges in the United
States who had to be told that. It
is so obvious that it seems to me
that that section of the Clayton
anti trust act were a return to the
primer of human liberty. But if
the judges wish to have the primer
open. I before them, I am willing to
open it. If any part of the I'nited
States, through habit, through anci
ent prejudice, through long addic
tion to technical ideas, insists upon
living in an age which every one
else knows has gone by. .vby then,
we have got to sound some great
note that will wake them up. hut
wake them up to the same things
with which we would thrill as well
as others; that it is take ho well as
give; that the other man has as
much right as we have; that we
are not to seek for an ad ’antage
but for an equality; that though we
have been put upon we do not le
sire any other man put upon or any
other class, but we should all have
our highest ideal merely to bask in
that only nourishing sun that has
ever shone upon the human neart,
j the sun of justice and of truth and
of humanity”.
N'ow that sounds very nice indeed,
hut we defy any person to begin to
think over it and sav that it means
anything at all; it is very eloquent
! no doubt but it conveys no idea to j
attv person other than that it is I
j very high sounding, very lofty and j
I very elevating such as one would
'expect from the illustriou? author
I of the New Freedom. But it would
I he hard to select a paragraph from
the utterances of any one which
more completely reveals the sound
truth of Sambo's proverb that fine
words butter no parsnips.
We dont know whether Mr. Gora
pers or President Wilson or Con
gress means us to believe that there
can he any such thing as an equality
in the relation of employer and
employed. That such should he in
tended to be understood, it is cer
tainly meant that a fallacy should
be believed. All the fine words on
liberty, truth, justice and humanity,
high sounding words of a truth, do
no' blink the fart that the man who
controls the job controls the ilves
of those who must have the job to
live. The law justifies the owner of
the taking for his own use all that
comes from the labor of the man he
employs, after the wages have been
paid. Once the man is hired his
personal interest in his labor power
ceases. It belongs to the boss. It
may be part of his life, but it is
part of the life in the sense that the
energy transmitted from the
engines of the boss’s plant, and
bought as commodites in the open
market belongs to the engine. And
when the engine is bought it is
bought as an energy producing com
modity. in pfeciselv the same sense
as when a laboring man is hired, he
is bought as a labor producing com
modity. How many would buy labor,
or hire it if you prefer the term, If
labor was not to deliver any more
goods in the form of labor than*
that which was paid for it in the
form of wages?
in point of fact truth, justice, hu
manity and the rest of the shibbo
leths that get us yapping and cheer
ing our fool heads off, do not
amount to a row of raw beans. They
are not even considered, except in
the degree to which they increase
the labor producing capacity of the
laborer. Just as the man who looks
after an engine is made by the boss
to tend it, oil it, clean it, and sec
that it runs smoothly so that every
ounce of energy it is capable of may
be abstracted for his use, so the
welfare workers are urged to their
tending of the workers that the lat
ter will produce larger profits for
the boss.
Why, there is not a labor expert
in the employ of companies, that
has not every employee pigeon
holed and cataloged and classified
as to his productive capacity. His
relation to the wages paid in the
matter of production is the work
of no idle speculation in the modern
well ordered indutry. It is some
thing definite and precise and
weighed to a nicety. The expert
knows the relation of every ounce
purchased to the purchasing price
j and to the total output, and in pre
cisely the same manner as he sums
up the loss of energy of the ma
chine, the friction, the belting
equipment, the driving force in the
plant, or the waste, excess or de
crease in the quantity of lubrica
lton, or the use, waste, excess in the
amount of raw material turned into
the finished product.
It may flatter the souls of some to
disregard these ‘‘technical ideas", '
these all important economic facts,
but that does not change them from
the facts they are. It will be cold
comfort to the unemployed laboring
man that he is not a commodity
when the man finds out that he
cannot deliver the labor power re- i
quired. It will be cold comfort to •
the workers when during periods
of depression there is no "demand” j
for labor to discover that Congress j
has declared it is not a commodity.
BATTLEFIELD JUNK
IS ALL RECOVERED
WIHT THE BRITISH ARMIES
IN THE FIELD. July 15. (By Mai’.)
—Did you ever stop to think what
becomes of all the worn-out equip
ment of an army ''omposed of mil
lions of men?
At the outset of the present war
much of this was pure loss. Now
in the British army there is an ‘‘old
clothes man" and the profits he re
ports back to his boss. John Bull,
might make Morgan. Rockefeller or
Carnegie envious.
The old clothes man “saves the
scraps. He makes new things out
of old. He cleans up the battlefields
and camps and very little is wasted
nowadays. His job is to collect
evervthiig from a horseshoe nail to
a disordered siege-gun and put it
back into commission.
Brass objects which have lost their
usefulness are melted into ingots:
cast-iron junk becomes pig-iron
again; bronze, tin. steel, nickel and
everything of the kind which lias
irretrievably lost its shape is put
into melting pots to be born again
in another guise keeping up an
eternal transmigration but serving
all the while.
I recently visited one of these
scrap-saving and repair shops. About
12.000 people are employed, mostly
j French women and girls
1 Here great howitzers are repaired
land government chronometers have
their hair-springs readjusted; tents
are patched and mended and (overs
are made for steel helmets; artille
ry wheels are repaired and micro
m-ters put true again. There is a
wood-working shop, a foundry for
running brass, bronze, zinc, tin and
iron; a boot repair department, a
great machine shop; a gas mask re
pair department and many others.
In one rotjpi there were hundreds
and hundreds of rifles.
“This is one day's arrivals,” the
commanding officer explained. "By
tonight the room must be cleared to
make room for tomorrow's arrivals.”
Many of the rifles were muddy
and rusty as though picked out of
the mud on the battlefield. Women
were cleaning these. In one corner
a soldier was rythmically swinging
the rifles up. one by one to a rest
and squinting through the barrels
at a light to see if they were bent
or if the rifling was damaged. The
officer explained this was obviously
the first bit of inspection because
it would be a waste of time to re
pair other parts of the rifle if the
barrel was damaged.
These rifles pass on down the
line. When they reach the end they
are as good as new and after being
oiled are packed in boxes and ship
ped back to the front.
SOMKTHIXG NEW.
Just arrived on the last boat over
500 of this season's latests styles and
patterns, the most beautiful line of
woolens ever arrived in Nome. We
invite you-- to see these samples
whether you buy or not. If you
wish to take advantage of this offer
order before the 14th of August, in
order to have order arrive on last
boat.
We also make alterations, and
wo do cleaning, pressing and repair
ing. We appreciate your patronage
Yours to please.
NOME TAILORING CO.
Next door to Segerstrom & Hagen.
**************************'
****S*S*S*!fi*K****!ra*!Rfi!«fa;S
WATER
I!()(JAN & \V KST K X HAVE It
Formerly A. I*. Poteet.
l'HONK KKI> 124.
WATER
**************************
+ *H* + 4* + ^*i* + + + + + +>t
D. E. Crow ley
•r v v "I* v '!* v v •v
•I* -I- *!'
■•I* *!* *!« *1* ■[< *'• *fr 4* "I* *!• 4* 4* 4* 4,4*
S. S. Standard
Sails every SIX DAYS to
DIME AND WAY POINTS
weather permitting
From Snake River.
CHAS WKCKMAN.
Why worry
About wash day
THAT’S OUR BUSINESS.
Satisfaction Guaranteed.
BOSTON
STEAM LAUNDRY
444 Front St. Phone Main 53
INDEPENDENT
MEAT MARKET
W. H. Webb prop. Phone M.15
BOARD OF TRADE
Restaurant
end
LUNCH ROOM
George Modini,
Proprietor
ALASKA STEAMSHIP CO.
S. S. VICTORIA
LEAVE SEATTLE: LEAVE NOME:
Via Seward, Valdez and Cordova
AUG. 1. AUG. 13.
SEPTEMBER 3 SEPTEMBER 14.
SAILING SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE.
R. A. Carroll, Agent, Nome
From Nome
August31th.
From Seattle
August 18th.
SEPTEMBER 28. SEPTEMBER 15.
OCTOBER 35. OCTOBER 13.
RIGHT RESERVED TO CHANGE THIS SCHEDULE.
PACIFIC STEAMSHIP CO.
ALASKA L. * C. CO. F. J. O’CONNOR,
AGENTS Commercial Agent.
At Dock. Front St. and Steadman Are.
Charles L. Ross
Milling, Lumber, Contractor
HAVING TAKEN OVER THE FREIGHTING & TRANSFER
BUSINESS OF W. STEIGEL MAIER AND OF LEO KENT,
FREIGHT ORDERS AND TRANSFER CONTRACTS WILL RE
CEIVE PROMPT ATTENTION.
3RD AND B STREET. PHONE BLACK 162.
The Rose Candy, Store And
Arctic Bakery
Agency for Augustine & Kyer Chocolates and Bonbons.
The Quality of our Home-Made Candies and Xome Dairy Ice
Cream speaks for itself. Bread, Pastry and good I.unrlies.
SUNDAYS AND WEDNESDAYS FRESH WHIPPED CREAM
PUFFS.
CHANCE IN COAU PRICES.
On Aug. loth, Wellington Coal will he $23.00 per ton in yard.
On and alter September 25th, Wellington Coal will be $25.00 pr
ton in yard. Briquets will continue at $IK.OO per ton in yard.
We are experiencing great difficulty in securing anthracite
coal for winter use and cannot guarantee having any quantity
on hand.
Alaska Lighterage Comercial Co.
THE NOME INDUSTRIAL WORKER
is prepared to handle
all kinds of
JOB PRINTING
Let us figure on your
work. Call up Black
134 or call at
THE INDUSTRIAL WORKER OFFICE