JBailtj $DtttP 3nb«atrial Worker.
Published Daily except Sunday
**T Nome Mine Workers’ Union. No. 240. Western Federation of Miners.
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"To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, or as
•early as possible, Is a worthy object of any good government. —
• braham Lincoln
Address all Communications to Dally Nome Industrial Worker,
Box 210 Nome, Alaska. Phone, Black 134
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Entered as second class matter March 1, 1911, at the post office at
Nome, • Alaska, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Nome, Alaska, January 17, 1016.
The attitude of the Miners Fede
ration and the Railway Workers
Union in Great firitaln with regard
to the conscription which is propo
sed by the government, will prot>
ably not give rise to any very ser
ious upheaval just now, mainly be
cause all the strength is with the
class that will enforce the conscrip
' lion law, and while passive resist'
ance may be indulged in which
would seriously affect the situati >r.
temporarily, it is improbable that it
will do so to any prolonged and thus
critical extent.
Of the social units which comprise
Great Britain as a nation, the min
ers federation and the railroad
workers form a very small part.
They form an essential part may be
of society, but they have none of
those reins of power in their hands
whereby they can enforce their de
clkions. The others have.
Yet they raise a mighty important
issue for the first time. They raise
an issue in war which will throw a
whole lot of cold water upon the
ardor of the militarists, not only in
Great Britain but el|pwhore. For
there is no way in which their alter
native can bo argued against.
By resolution, they say in effect
let conscription bo adopted, but call
it by its proper name. Confiscation
of the person for the benefit of the
state in tlie successful prosecution
of this war is what this conscription
means.
Wherefore they say why not gen
eral confiscation? Men are making
millions out of the war; why not
seize those millions for its successful
advancement?
The labor of the land accumulated
wealth for many of the ruling clas
ses. They have something to fight
for, but the man who sells his labor
power has nothing to amount to
anything. His job? Yes, such as it
is, an existence.
Moreover unless property is more
important than the person, this pro
position of the workers is fair and
square and unanswerable. Unless
property is not made for man, bm
'anan is made for property, there is
no reason why the state should not
confiscate it as it confiscates tha
person to fight better, more effec
tively the war to a finish.
It’s all very well to have been
calling upon men to give up ilieii
tives for the war. “Your king and
country needs you” were the words
of the placards. But when these
men have nothing but the’r lives,
why should they surrender it to pro
tect another person’s treasure which
is immune from a confiscation that
is applied only to tho person?
And that’s about the size of it.
They are getting down to brass
tacks in this war without any high
flown patriotic phrases to obscure
the issue. There is no reason, for u
workingman, why a workingman
should be drafted to fight and the
people who profit by the war should
have their treasure immune. The
blood of a human being is beyond
price. Why should it be shed and
•-the miserly avaricious hold back
their treasure which is not price
less. And it’s the same way with
all their militarism. Men must
have something to fight for. The
munition makers and tho rest ot
of the contractors have their profits.
The maufaeturers and financiers
have theirs, But where do the
workers come in if the former are
not to surrender in a war to a finish
(the last of their money and property
just as the workers who have none,
are to be called upon to surrender
their lives for victory?
Unless, therefore property and
money which is its equivalent, is in
finitely more valuable than human
life, a general conscription of all is
the only equitable means whfcreby
the state can treat all equally.
The fact is that that nothing Is
farther from the thoughts of tho
i privileged class, the propertied clas
ses, than looking at things from the
stand point ot tho worker. To the
privileged classes the workers are
las nothing: they are persons who
are available for hire during peac?
and war for the benefit of the rest
As far as their personal importance
fr concerned in society they are
negligible as the personalty of an
Athenian slave in tire democracy ot
Athens. Aristotle questioned wheth
er or not a slave had a soul, and
certainly held that he had no right
to citizenship. All nations begrudge
the right of citizenship to
the propertiless, and when
even this is impossible, pre
vent the exercise of that
right in voting by demanding a pro
perty qualification. Electoral re
forms in Great Britain have marked
the reluctance with which the suff
rage has been conferred upon the
propertiless workers, and in the
main it has not yet been achieved.
But this war, as has been often
pointed out, is turning things upside
down. It is testing human institn
tutlons and human ideas a3 they
have never been tested before. It is
giving rise to anxious questions
which cannot bo answered, and it is
starting new concepts as to proper
ty and its relation to the person
and as well as to the person, to the
state.
Now conscription, bereft of its
theories and facing the public as the
fact of confiscation of the person,
also gives rise to the question ot
the justification for the confiscation
of the property by the state.
It's no end of a muddle tha.war
fevered statesmen have brought the
world to, and it is one that has ove
reached the designs of the most am
bitious among them.
We venture to say that there is,
not one, junker or Kaiser, cabinet
minister or King, bureaucrat or
Tzar who would not willingly and
longingly revert to those conditions
which were before the war if they
only could. But they cannot. They
have loosened forces they do not
even apprpximately estimate. In
some of them thfty have managed
to suppress them by strongest ac
tion, thus giving rise to still strong
er forces which they cannot ultima
tely suppress. It is so in Germany;
it is so in Russia.
I That the countries of the world
which seem to be putting the very
boldest face upon the war time con
ditions succeed in only doing so by
a ruthless suppression of facts as to
the people and as to the war, is well
known. ,
Some time ago the Milwaukee
Leader had an article on “The Ma
chinists’ Opportunity”. It pointed
out how employers had seized every
industrial depression as a pretext
i for reducing wages, and recited the
conditions which made organiza
tion almost impossible.
‘"The operation of automatic ma
chines had tended to make all
tenders of machinery “money
wrench machinists” thus destroying
the basis of that skill which is the
basis of organization”.
The war according to the Leader
had however to bo fought with tha
machinists' art. “The one craftsman
essential to the preparation for war
is the machinist. Without his ser
vices there would be no profit for
the munition makers. Everything
else will be capitalist lose if he can
save his profits”. “Yet the battle
should not bo sirrfply made for in
creased wages. The one Important
thing is to organize an unconquer
able army for future fighting. A
100 per cent organization among
machinists would mean more than u
million members. It would be the
most powerful union in the worid.
It could protect its members from
exploitation to a greater degree than
any existing union. Such a union
in the United States would prove the
backbone of an invincible trade union
movement. It would^ be a verltabW
Gibraltar against which the assaults
of the employers would break in
vain”.
Now there is a whole lot of In
telligence in that article. But It is
very misleading. In th<9 first plaie
we see running through the idea
that the organization f skilled la
bor is all sufficient it. . There
is contempt for thy monkt. a
machinists. And there is the hope
that such an organization in itself
would be invincible. , • ,
But the day of such a contention
is long since passed and it is the
fads of the labor movement itselt
which has disproved it. Today wha:
nee>i?d is not an organization of
any tfade one hundred per cent effi
cient, but an organization of indus
tries which would reach that almost
impons’fcle standard of efficient or
ganizat'c-r.. ’ -
Long ago, but not so long ago
that it cannot be recalled, the Amal
gamated Society of Engineers m
Great Britain represented such
a one hundred per cent effi
ciency In organiazticn of the
machinists. Apparently they
controlled the great ma
chine shops, ship building yards ana
i laundries of the United Kingdom.
! Their treasury was of dazzling opti»
! lence. They were real aristocrats
| who spoke of their profession and
| who despised above all things Uio
1 monkey wrench machinists woo
were their helpers.
They struck. And their s *kr
was a protracted one. They tied
up firm after firm until those linns
broke in the monkey wrench ma
chinists and helpers to do the work.
And they broke the helpers in in a
surprisingly short time. The “En
gineers” were compelled to sue for
peace and they surrendered abjectly
with a treasury empty and a pres
tige gone for ever.
it is precisely the same in the
United States today. If every ma
chinist as a machinist were tc
strike, without the co-operation ct
the other workers they would last
In a protracted strike as long as a
snow ball in Hades. They would
find that the tenders, helpers and
mnokey wrench artists would ac
quire their trade and their skill in
a surprisingly short time'.
Today skill is just as valuable as
at any time. But that skill can be
acquired in a much shorter time
than ever before. The day of the
craftsman is gone by. Automatic
machinery has done that and an
intelligent man with ability to take
pairs can acquire the trade in such
a short time that the machinists
themselves have been thinking.
It is true that organization will
secure a rise in wages even for t>
craft union such as the machinisv
It also (rue \ua*. they have helped
in not a small way to prevent a
lowering of wages In many places.
4«afaiwiaa»H!Ks»f^
nut ihe combination of employers ,
has had no desire to lock horns j
with the machnists mainly because I
they were satisfied to pay what the*
did^ pay. But they did succeed in
lowering the actual proportion of
that which they produced which the i
machinists, unionized or not, rs {
ceivcd. They speeded up the mnehin- j
ists with relentless persistency until j
today there is hardly a shop where I
the product has not been almost {
duplicated witli hardly an increase j
in the total amount of wages paid. I
The machinist does more work for [
less money and he does it in spite -
of munition worits activity, and in j
spite of strikes to rc3ist the speed t
ing up experts. , l
The machinists face a competi j
tion from the unskilled the same as E
all the rest of the skilled trades, f
The best of them can be filled with- [
out very much loss of time or money *
uiioii the part of the employer. . J
It is a business proposition. If
the employer finds that it pays him y
to concede tl^e raise in wages which §
is demanded: that it will be cheaper S
to pay this in wages than in paying §
it for strike breakers, for breaking |
in unskilled, than in having his bus- 9
iness temporarily dislocated, that j
will be done. If not the strikers j
will be fought.
And it is this situation that a
one hundred per cent efficient craft
union would have to face. Unless
the unemployed who have not skill
are organized or the unskilled work
ers are also unionized in the same
industry, as the machinists there is
little hope of any victory and to say
that a craft union can be a Gibraltar
of invincible strength in the labor
movement is to talk rot.
It may, as during the rush in mu
nition plants, secure an increase in j
wages for the workers employed
therein. But that’s all. It will not !
be able to holdout. And it has real
ly no objective but the establish
ment of a craft organization which
will sacure for a few, some benefits
while the rest of the workers can
take their medeclne whatever it be.
Over and over and over again
have the machinists, carrying union
cards remained to work while the
rest of the workers unskilled went
out. And they violated no principle
which would not be also a prin
ciple with a one hundred per cent
organization.
AT THE OtiD STAND.
Now open rot- easiness, The
MERCHANT’S CAPE, serving as ,
i usual the best meals In the best
style In Nome.
DAN HALPIN. Prop.
The Talk of the Smoking
Public
CENTROPOUS
VEGA DEL RAY
Cigars.,
!!
YORKEY’S smoke shop
il IE NOME INDUSTRIAL WORKER |i
l!
is prepared to handle
all kinds of
JOB, PRINTING
wm
Let us figure on your
work. Call up Black
134 or call at
IKE INDUSTRUU. WORKER IK
yaBWwnaafiniHBiaBaaranR™^
NOTICE
We have been appointed agents
for the
i
| Dodge Automobile
The popular, fully=equipped,
pleasure car that satisfies all
e a com co.
Cheap John Store
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j *
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SEE CHEAP JOHtfS STORE BEFORE BUYING. OUR
PRICES .ARE ALWAYS THE LOWEST IN TOWN.
- ..
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General Transfer & Freighting
CMLA OH
Phone Main 139.
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PHIL MURPHY
iawaii!ig*aig»ci»ugfBiaigiiiiaig|gn»iBii!jaH!fBig>>tfgii
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I
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Phone Red 126.
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Game in Season. All fresh
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W. H. Webb prop. Phone M.15
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