Dattg Nome Jn&oatrtal Worker.
Published Daily except Sunday
mi? Some Mine Workers’ Union. No. 840. Western Federation of Miners.
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"To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, or as
nearly as possible, Is a worthy object of any good government.”—
Abraham Lincoln
Address all Communications to Dally Nome Industrial Worker,
Box 210 Nome, Alaska. Phone, Black 134
AH changes in standing advertisements must reach this office at six
•’clock each evening to Insure Insertion in the following Issue.
Advertising rates made known on application.
Entered as second class matter March 1, 1911, at the post office at
Nome, • Alassa, under the Act of March 8, 1879.
Nome, Alaska, January 15, 1010.
The British Columbia Federation -
1st says that the workers have no
thing to gain from illiteracy. That's
true and that's self-evident. But
ability to read and write is of very
little benefit if it only enables a per
son to sign his name or read
without understanding. Reading
and writing are vitally necessary
hut as a means to an end. They
are not the end in themselveB, and
as between a worker who is clear
cut in his views on the class strug
gle and understands his position in
'lha economic field as one who is
exploited, although he may not bo
able to read and write, he is immen
sely educationally in advance of his
fellow worker who can read and
write in different lauguages; can
quote authors by the score and yet
does not understand his economic
position and the truth of the slo
gan that “an injury to one workai
is an injury to all". ,
No one expects consistency from
any of the partizans of the various
nations in thi3 war. Thu3 there is
nothing surprising in denouncing
the Americanism which subscribes
for the Allies loan, and advertising
the German loan, urging subscrip
tion thereto as good Americanism.
The trouble is in both cases they
have identified Americanism, with
or without a hyphen, with capital
ism.
Youngstown with its strike has
served to direct attention to con
ditions which prevail generally in
the United States steel Industry
Wages paid are not high but they
.arc paid to European workeg who
never earned near that amout be
fore.
The Russell Sage Foundation's re
port on the steel industry says of
the employees:
“Mentally they rank low. Educa
tion or training they have none.
But morally they can hardly be cal
led undesirable. They prove sub
missive, dependable, willing work*
ers who never dream of questioning
the desirability or dignity of the
^ask assigned them, and who are
rendered oblivious to danger by
their ignorance".
“To the English speaking people
these men with unpronounceable
names are just Hunkles—dull driv
en brutes, so utterly beneath con
tempt that competition with them
is out of the question. Wherever
the natives or northern European
workers find conditions too hard or
wages too low, the Hunkios apply
. eagerly for work. Everywhere they
have been keept at the bottom so fai.
The worst jobs and only these are
. for them.But steadily
they are pushing upward—steadily,
inevitably as fate itself”.
“It has been figurod out that for
every hundred workers employed in
the steel industry sixty make less
than two dollars a day of twelve
hours and only two make as high
as five dollars."
“The main thing asked of the
worker is speed. Or may be one
ought to say speed without waste.
To the achievement of this every
thing is adapted but above all the
wage schedules. The fundamental
idea Is to get more out of a man
by paying him less. Its fundamental
rule is that if the man drives the
machine, he is paid by the piece.
If the machine drives him, he is
paid by time. A trick constantly
resorted to is to urge the workers
Into exceeding their previous capa
city for the purpose of “earning
more", and thon to ad. pt the wage
rate to the new record in order that
they may work still harder to re
tain their old earnings. This has
proved one of the most effective
means of increasing the output”.
Thus are conditions in the steel
Industry. It would be hard to ima
gine more explosive material in the
industrial situation. Treated with
contempt as dumb, driven cattle,
these human beings have set beforo
them just one objective: work.
Their life’s routine is a round of
twelve hours work, a span of sleep
and a short time to eat. Absolute
fy nothing is done to lift them from
their surroundings, and to make
them become proud in the posses
sion of civic ideals no matter how
trumpery.
They are paid more highly than
steel workers in Europe—nominally.
But in actual fact relatively they
are paid less. Thus in Europe the
producitve capacity of the steel
worker bears a distinct relation to
the wages paid, and his lower wages
are low mainly because his produc
tive capacity is relatively low.
As quoted above the main thing
asked of the worker in this country
is speed without waste, so that his
productive capacity is increase!
out of all relative proportion to the
wages he receives. Indeed the ob
vious benefit to an employer of ef
ficiency and speeding up systems
would vanish immediately were the
rate of wages paid to keep step with
that increased output followed from
such efficiency. The underlying
idea of such a system being as al
ready also quoted, to get out of tni
worker more by paying him less.
Marx lucidly explains modern ma
chine production. A man’s wages,
generally speaking, amount to the
cost it takes to keep a person: the
cost of bare existence basically.
During the time of his employment
he produces a certain amount oi
commodity. That amount pays him
his wages and leaves a balance over
which is profit. Allowances are
made of course for wear and tear of
machinery, the cost of raw material
and other necessary incidentals.
Scientific efficiency men grasp this
situation. The costs of raw ma
terial is an item in their calculations
which is stationary. The cost of
the wear and tear of machinery also
is particularly uniform. Two items
are capable of increase, and that
is the productive capacity of the
worker and the wages paid him per
unit of time, per unit of piece work,
per unit of total output.
Speeding up and efficient opera
tions are the means whereby the
wages relatively are decreased am
the productive capacity increased.
It Is exceedingly simple.
The worker is operated upon by
the “expert” much as a machinist
adjusts a machine. Arm movements
are studied: leg movements graphi
cally charted, the forward, back
ward and upward motions in every
operation are considered in deta'I.
Where is any superfluous movement
that is promptly eliminated, and
the worker is reduced to a strict
position of an automatic machine
himself. He is handled as a me
chanism. He is treated as a me
chanism, and is considered cs a me
chanism which is efficient in propor
tion to its obedience in carrying out
orders, and prompt regard of in
structions in the most mechanical
manner possible. The Ideal being
always the achieveemnt of a human
labor producing machine that will
think no thoughts, perform no other
function absolutely, but that re
quired as a labor producing ma
chine, exactly as a motor drives other
machinery or an engine performs
the functions required of it.
Outside its working hours the ma
chine is released from supervision
to a certain extent that it will ac
cept sleep when sleep comes, eat
when the requirements of food are
imperative, and can in fact live an
animal life to be ready to devote
the same period of labor on the
morrow as a mechanism of the great
industrial concern.
In this concept of modern indus
try there is no sentiment; nothing
of humanity; no religion. It is
barren of ideals, of ethical con
cepts, of ennobling impulses as it
is completely possible.
Sometimes the machine makes a
mistake and the machine is smashed
up. In the inevitable disorganiza
tion that follows the irregularity
Perfection was too i;-.;ch to be ex
pected; sometimes the machine
under the gruelling process of a a
tomatic speeding up, the unhealthy
work required of an exceedingly de
licate living adjustment jto un
wholesome surroundings freaks
down, and has to be replaced. These
things are inevitable; but the same
gigantic system of production goes
on with the automatic insistency of
a collosal Frankenstein, that docile
is an object of intense admiration as
a human achievement, but other
wise a terror to those who have
chained a living entity in an ulti
mately impossible condition of ex
istence.
For all this time, these industrial
machines are living beings. They
appear dumb, driven thoughtless
cattle, fit subjects of contempt to
the thoughtless. But all the time
they are thinking thoughts; Blow
thoughts, immeasurable thoughts,
human thoughts; dynamic, revolting,
dangerous. Their masters ha\e
taken care that as far a3 possible no
stimulation shall be given their
minds. Labor organizers are barred.
They are carefully watched and
even spied upon le3t any such ea
ter into the careful industrial orga
nization that seems to shout with
every whir of machinery the dull
lesson of labor body and soul for
profits.
The managers are shrewd men
and judicious. They believe they
have taken a careful reckoning ol
their course. The labor they employ
is as free from insubordination as
the elemental slave.
But just as the Sage Foundation
report intimates by slow degree they
are pushing upward steadily, ine
vitably as fate itself, so also would
it be well to heed that as they rise
they are taking with them the re
sults of their machine environment:
the cold blooded inevitability of the
logic of cause and effect, the ir
restible judgment of necessity as the
only justification for conditions; the
elimination of the unnecessary, the
wasteful, the unproductive; thes<
are the mental attributes witli
which the experience of the ma
chine-man is filled. He is made a
machine; he is adjusted to his en
vironment as such; his mentality i.
ordered as such; and he judge,
everything in his experience as hi
would judge the machine. Utility ii
society, its necessity to human needi
is the only thing that will Justif'
the existence of men and condition;
of men. It’s as ruthless and as piti
less as the steel that is bored an<
bent and rolled and shaped; as
ruthless and pitiless but as purpose- ,
ful as the machine that does these i
things. That machine achieved its I
position only by reason of its lit- j
ness for the work; all unnecessary J
parts were eliminated; not an extra |
crank, a superflous eccentric, an I
unnecessary pinion or cog is tolerat- !
ed. No superfluous and unneces- [
sary motions under the most search- j
ing test of the mechanical devisers I
who constructed it are tolerated. It {
has work to do and that work It is j
constructed to do in the briefest I
time possible with efficiency.
And they have been subjected to g
the same fearful test. No stock
was taken of their human desirei
their human needs. Their little
hopes, their little ambitions, their
day-dreams of love and fear and joy
are eliminated as useless and t
dangerous and unnecessary adjuncts j
of the efficient steel worker. |
Well and good: so have they J
drilled and disciplined him that he
j insists upon serving upon them the j
same iron drill and discipline that
the machine serves upon his mind |
and body. The class that is useless j
and needless and wasteful, must dis- j
cover some justification before him j
The necessity of production for 5
profits, under the remorseless etlii- 1
cal theory of modern industry which 2
is mechanical, must prove itself. If !
steel is needed as a social necessity j
why should profit In the production j
of a sccia! necessity be also need'l? j
If a set of humanity requires what j
labor makes, why should some en- I
joy who do not labor? What use are j
the leisured classes and their j
systems of imposition upon society? j
Their schemes to maintain a parasit- I
ism and the elaborate machinery |
that they have built up for its main- j
tenance—wherein is the utility that 1
can alone justify the existence of
such?
Inevitably, steadily as fate itself,
man, the creature of environment in
turn also is the creator of his environ
ment. A God only creates like a
God—a machine is essentially utili
utilitarian in its concept of creation.
PROFESSIONAL CARD.
Dr. A. F. Heimlich
PHYSICIAN & StfRGEON.
Office & Residence:
Golden Gate Hotel.
Office Hours: 3—5 and 7—8 p. iu.
Phone: Day or Night Main 88.
NOTICE
We have been appointed agents
for the
Dodge Automobile
The popular, fully»equipped, j
pleasure car that satisfies all
UK UGH 8 GOM'L CO.
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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, T ARP ALINS. CANVAS, ALL SIZES.
HIPPERS, EURECA AND U. S. RUBBERS & SHOE PACKS.
WE CARRY THE SIWASH SOCKS. I
SEE CHEAP JOHNS STORE BEFORE BUYING. OUR
PRICES ARE ALWAYS THE LOWEST IN TOWN.
Kent Transfer Oo.
General Transfer 6t Freighting
C2SLA o\l
Phone Main 139.
FOB FELT SHOES, ARCTICS, MOCCASINS, GERMAN SOX,
SHEEP SKIN SOX, AND EVERYTHING IN WARM FOOTWHAR
MURPHY HAS THE GOODS
TARPAULINS AND SLED COVERS MADE TO ORDER.
PHIL MURPHY
tNHgwwgiwaEBfajgfgJMijBfafginjgroiaigfififi
ARTIC SPRING
WATER
Always at your Service.
Prompt delivery— Blizzard or
Sliiue at usual Rates 10
Buckets $1.00. 50c. a Barrel.
A. D. POTEET.
Phone Red 126.
INDEPENDENT
MEAT MARKET
Wholesale and Retail Dealer
in Beef, Pork, Mutton, Veal,
Ham, Bacon Poultry and Flak
Game in Season. All fresh
Stock. No eld or damaged.
W. H. Webb prop. Phone M.13
LEST YOU FORGET, WE SAY IT YET, ONCE MORE
Uneeda Bisquit
75 Cents per dozen Pkgs.
MOLLER’S GROCERY
PHONE MUS M tU FRONT MSB
T
UUE TOC SEEKING A PATENT?
If m It wlU pay you to Inyaottaato
rataa at tk« iariwtrial WnUr on
>ubUaatio> at appttoatm tktnfct.
Srias year torMtare matted ta tka
[at ■■ trial Warkar.
WE CAN M IT.