Daily Name Indugtseil ÆEZKEE
Published Daily except Sunday
Nome Mine Worker*’ Union. No. Z4«l Weawrt. ..>» Miner*, i
Subscription Price ,
$20.0.0 ]
.. $10.00 I
. $1100 |
-- ' ,
"To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, or as.
•early as possible. Is a worthy object of any stood government."—
s bran am Lincoln
Address all Communications to Dally Nome Industrial Worker,
Box 210 Nome, Alaska. Phone, Black 114
All 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, ltll, al the post office at
Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March t, 187>.
Nome, Alaska, June 2, 1010.
One Year
■lx Months. .. .
Oae Month ...
SOME FACTS.
I
1
Right now, before the hurry and t
bustle of tho open navigation period £
is upon them, 3ome people of Nome i
manifest an inclination for a gencr- ■ s
al stock taking. This has been more ; i
Clearly manifested in the activities |!
of late undertaken by tho Chamber j i
of Commerce and the tentative Bug- 11
gestior.s of candidates for the city i
council at the recent elections.
Nome is facing conditions which
havo long ere this been faced elae- ]
where, conditions of high prices for i
all commodities, and unlike other
places, Nome has literally no pay
roll wherewith to meet that in
creased cost of living. Without
danger of contradiction it may be
stated that there f.re more people
depending upon actual producers in
this community for subsistence than
any spot of its size in America.
And that there have been so many
who depended upon the productive
activities of others for their living
here has helped net a little to de-1
ceive many r.s to the actual eco
nomic status of the camp. Bui
throughout the past winter there
ho.3 been a searching of heart upon
the part of the business and other
interests. The lack of a pay roll has
struck home as never before and
some, more energetic ordinarily
than the rest, havo become alive to
tho fact that the bottom hr a drop
ped out of tilings and they have
flopped to bed rock with an un
pleasant thud.
In addition to that prospects for
the future are not alluring. The
certainty that prices will be raised
on almost all commodities sh’ppod
in is very positive. The steamship
companies will charge higher rates
and with those higher rates the
man who ships in his freight will
when disposing of it try to recoup
himself for the higher charges by
passing it along. That has always
been done and always will be done.
Kvcry increase to the retailer
moans an increased price has to
come from the wags worker. His
labor will produce the wealth for
that. Ho must take It out of the
ground to pay for the higher freight
rates, the higher cost ? of living. The
grocer is not going to lose over it;
the clothier, nor the shipping com
pany—none of these will accept
their toll as final. It is passed to
tho consuming public.
As it is right now the miners in
the Nome district are standing all
the traffic will bear and then some.
The values are not in the ground.
They are only abstracted by taking
it out of the workers’ hide; by mak
ing the miner work ungodly long
hours a day, by making him violate
in alleged partnership agreements j
the eight hour day and by exploit- j
„ug him to the most intensive limit
They certainly have got efficiency
aqd speeding up down pat in the
mines of this camp.
Looked at from the wage workers
standpoint, unless the wage worker j
wants to bo tho perennial goat, it
would bo much better if every
dinky two-by-four law-violating
“company” in this camp were com
pelled to close. And when we con
sider the number of men who have
throughout the past winter taken
leasos and operated ground of their
own who have not only not made
wsgoa but hardly cleared expenses,
it would have been much better for
themselves who did that labor if
they hunted up another field an.,
got somewhat where they would at
least make something for them
solvcs and not all of it for the other
fellow.
The camp that cannot pay living
wages, work the men decent hours
per day, and provide proper ana
adequate camp accomodations is
best wiped of the map and closed
down sine die.
fypw what has actually been hap
Iidling in this camp lS; this. Nome
haa. been living on just such propo
iitions. By speeding up workers
to the limit, driving them for ille
gal hours of fake partnership
lgrecments, employing them on bed
rock and skinning them in the end,
so-called "operators” have been
able to force through enough low
grade dirt to pay the coal bills, the
grocery bills and dance a little rag
time; to support this fraternal or
ganization or that, and to
keep a number of parasites going
who in other places would have to
get in and earn their bread with the
sweat of their brow.
But during the past winter,
thanks to the unusually rotten con
dition of mining things the camp
got down to bed rock. Not in years
have business men been 0o hard
pressed; not in years have they
uttered complaints so loud and so
long as to the conditions which
were with us and ahead of us.
They have suddenly realized that
the low grade dirt will admit only
just so much exploitation and that
no prosperity can be built perma
nently out of the hide of labor if It
is not in the ground to which labor
applies itself.
For the worker conditions are
not so serious. The man who pro
duces all wealth, knows to his
wealth production and to his ex
ploitation there is a strict limit. He
can get out and will get out. He is
not likely to waste his life endeavor
ing to support the metropolitan
ambitions of a jerkwater town. Nor
is he going to peddle a lot cf hot
air to himself and eat snow oalls
for his pains. He cannot afford
with the wages paid and the oppor
tunity of work given him to pay
one cent more for the commodities
than he i3 now paying.
He cannot afford to keep so
many non-producers enjoying a
pleasant life of non-prodnction any
longer. He has packed the whole
caboodle of them for many years
long after he himself made any sort
of a half way decent living. Time
and time again he has protested
against the efforts continuous and
persistent to lower his wages while
the price of necessities went up.
Prom the four dollar scale to the
three dollars a day scale went his
wages while everything he bought,
food and clothing went up all th6
time, steadily and persistently.
Those who did not do the work
which was producing wealth but
whose activities were concentrates
in tearing a chunk of that which
labor had produced, lamented that
the ground was low grade and
couldn’t stand any higher wages.
This was the argument heard ana
it was upon this argument that
wages were reduced, that the eight
hour law was evaded and the eva
sion justified. The point is wholly
ignored that a low grade mine that
cannot pay wages might as well be
closed down, unless tho workers are
willing that by an intensified labor
power and a further decrease in the
standard of living they are to con
tinue the process of providing a
living for a wholly out of propor
tionate number of non-producers in
every lino of business and every
line of parasitism. That is to say
it has all to come out of the work
ers hide.
There have been a good many
who were willing enough. There
have been men whoso condition was
so abject and whose need for
money so severe that they have
boen willing to contribute to a
continuance of this condition. They
scabbed and they became party to
an evasion of the eight hour law.
They sought first tho Job and just
so long as the job afforded them a
living, for tho time being accepted
it
Economic stress forced some to
scab who would otherwise possibly
not do so, but it is quite apparent
that with tho low grade mines re
quiring in the estimation of busi
ness men a complete sacrifice from
abor and with the higher costs of
living also demanding the sacrifice
jf the residue of their wages, the
limit has been reached.
Nome may have a future. But
In the meantime ways and means
must be forthcoming to maintain
a productive population if it is to
maintain a parasitic population.
Nome must have its shows, its en
tertainments, its dances, its chari
ties, its annual this, that or the
other thing. But every red cent
and every silver dollar must be
produced by labor. It will not come
like manna from Heaven. It is not
materialized by some business le
gerdemain in bank or store. It
must come from the men who work.
Other things are all subsidiary to
the mining industry. The reason
of Nome's existence here is the min
ing industry. Everything else is a
purely chance circumstance that
exists because of that.
You do not increase the wealth
of the country one iota, one jot or
tittle by buying and selling, even if
one were to sell until Doomsday
People talk of money making ven
tures wherein there is no produc
tive enterprise. They are literally
money taking not money making
enterprises.
With the advent of higher prices
then where is the camp to get olt
at? The camp cannot afford now to
pay what it has to pay. It is too
heavily commercialized and all the
wizardry possible will not change
that condition although the town
is boosted until Doomsday. Many
merchants are here openly admitt
ing that they are waiting for
chechaco money and damning in the
meanwhile the dull times.
But that's a broken reed. No
camp ever yet could live under such
conditions and its security and its 1
permanence lies in tho productive,
population. The individual who
tries to live by taking a steak olt
his own body is doing what Nome
proposes to do to survive.
This is not a very heartening
view, but it's correct and being cor
rect it must be faced.
If goods of all kinds are to be
increased in prices, up must go the
wages if tho workers are to remain
in this camp. Somehow men have
remained here in Nome living and
hoping against hope. They felt in
stinctively! with a wage working
market played out, with nc work
during the winter in the mines,
with just a few small fry operating
1 on a hay wire scale and then taking
i more out of the hide of the men
employed than out of the "pay
’streak”, at odds with themselves tc
violate the law by some mean and
trumpery subterfuge and all the
time prices soaring, soaring ani
soaring with the prospect of at
taining invisible aviation heights in
the near future.
The people ought to face condi
tions; not to peddle to themselves,
not to live in day dreams. The
workers have no money to pay for
the higher prices demanded and it
is useless and vain to think they
have.
The imperative need Is that when
work is more plentiful during the
summer the wages bo generally In
creased. The winter work is now
conspicuous by its absence and while
here or there there may be pros
pectors looking for the pay streak,
they will not likely employ many
men. But there is work here in
the summer time and the wage
scale, in proportion to the costs or
living all the time increasing, is not
sufficient. Men do not earn a suffi
ciency for their immediate neces
sities and this thing has got to be
remedied somehow.
If the prices go op and wages re
main the same, that condition is
tantamount to wage reduction.
Wages must be Increased.
NOW IS THE TIME.
As the bright sunny days are com
ing on, have your clothes cleaned,
pressed and repaired.
We make them look liko new.
■ clean hats.
We make alterations.
We make suits to order.
We guarantee first class workman
ship.
Wo guarantee modern methods.
We guarantee prompt service.
We.appreciate your patronage.
Come in and see us.
NOME TAILORING CO.
Between Segerstrom & Hagen ano
Zehners Jewelry Stores.
CITT BATH HOUSE/.
Moonlight Spring Water. (Boll
ing Hot).
M. O. SO LB ERG.
MINERAL APPMCATION NO. 0283
I
I
L\ S. Land Office, Nome, Alaska,
April 18th, 1916.
Notice Is hereby given that the ,
Plume Dredge Company, a corpora- ■
tion organized under the laws of
the State of California, with its
principal place of business and post
office address, Mills Building, San '
Francisco, California, has through
Jas. M. Streeten, its authorized
agent, whose post office address is
Nome, Alaska, made application for
a United States patent for No. 14
Above Discovory placer mining
claim, situated on Melsing Creek,
in the Council City Recording Di
strict, Territory of AlasKa, and de
signated as Mineral Survey No.
1172, which said placer mining claim
is described according to the plat
and field notes now on file in the
U. S. Land Office at Nome, Alaska,
with a magnetic variation of 21
deg. 38 min. E. as follows:
Beginning at Corner No. 1, a
spruce post 4 ft. long, 6 ins. dia
meter, in earth mound, scribed 14
Ab 1 1172 on N. face, whei ce U. S.
L. M. No. 1172 bears S 59 deg.
34 min. W. 380.3 ft. Thence N. 35
deg. 35 min. W. 544.4 ft. to Cor.
No. 2; thence N. 66 deg. 27 min.
E. 1376.6 ft. to Cor. No. 3; thence
S. 37 deg. 56 min. E. 526.4 ft. to
Cor. No. 4; thence S. 55 deg. 37
min. \V. 1397.6 ft. to Cor. No. 1,
place of beginning, containing an
area of 17.025 acres.
This claim is situated on Melsiug
Creek about four miles north of
Council City, Council City Re
cording Precinct, Alaska. Lo
cation monur.cnt No. 1172 is
a schist stone 37x20x5 ins.
18 ins. in the ground, with mound
of earth 4 ft. high, 6 ft. base, situa
ted about 30 ft. above the bed of
Melsing Creek, on the south side
thereof, in latitude 64 deg. 55 min.
N.t longitude 163 deg. 39 min. W.
The location notice is recorded in
Vol. 10, page 132, of the records
Council City Recording District, Al
aska.
The adjoining claims are as fol
lows: On the northeast No. 15
Above Discovery on Melsing Creek;
1 on the southwest, No. 13 Above Dls
j covery on Melsing Creek; claimants
! unknown; on the northwest and
'southeast, claims unknown; all un
surveyed.
G. A. ADAMS.
Register.
Date of first publ., April 20, 1916.
Date of last publ., June 21, 1916.
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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
L WORKER OFFICE
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“S. S. UMATILLA”
First
Sailing
South
Nome Direct to Seattle
Make Your Reservation Now
wrote boots
$8.00
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Cheap John Store
Kent Transfer Co.
General Transfer & Freighting
Qoaj & OUL
Phone Main 139.
MURPHY HAS THE GOODS
Summit Shirts, Stetson Hats,
and Connelly Shoes
DHI-I5.VK CLOTHING. A Suit of tills will answer any miners
requirements, and has proven the best goods of the kind on the
market to date.
PHIL MURPHY
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ARTIC SPRING
WATER
Always at your Service.
Prompt delivery— Blizzard or
Shine at usual Rates 10
Buckets $1.00. BOc. a Barrel.
A. D. POTEET.
Phone Red 120.
MEAT MARKET
Wholesale and Retail Dealer
In Beef, Pork, Mntton, Veal,
Ham, Bacon Poultry and Fish
Game In Season. All fresh
Stock. No old or damaged.
W. H. Webb prop. Phone M.15
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Ii Your steady cigarette must suit
your own taste, of course.
Test any other cigarette in the
world alongside of OMAR and
you will find that OMARS are
the most “comfortable” and
“sensible” cigarette that you
ever smoked.
20 For 15 cents