Battg Nome Snitoatrial Worker.
Published Daily except Sunday
Noma Mine Worker*' Union, No. 140. Wntcn Federation of Miner*.
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“To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, or as
searly as possible, Is a worthy object of any good government.’’—
a bran am Lincoln
All changes In standing advertisements must rea^h this office at six
o'clock each evening to Insure Insertion in the following issue.
Advertising rates made known on application.
Address all Communications to Dally Nome Industrial Worker,
Box 210 Nome, Alaska. Phone, Black 184.
Nome, Alaska, November 2;j, 191«.
LKUAL MKT.VrHYSICS.
Benjamin Franklin once said thal
a countryman between two lawyers
is like a fish between two cats. Foss-,
ihly at his time the legal profession
had not reached the high plane
which it now adorns, hut it is quite
remarkable that his view is reflected
in the popular mind with very little
difference today. That is neither
here nor there. But it is in order
to paraphrase this homely saying of
the great American philosopher by
saying that labor between the le
gislative and judicial departments ot
government, is very little better
than a fish between two cats.
The Adamson law has been de
clared unconstitutional. Judge Hook
says it is invalid because it violates
the code that was written by men
who never heard of a railroad ana
aould not possibly conceive any
such thing as railroad employment.
To the layman this sort of thing Is
quite monotonous and quite unintel
ligible, and the only conclusion we
can come to is that the judiciary
usurping the right to interpret as
they see fit the constitution, have
builded thereupon an entirely new
system of legal metaphysics that
cannot be recognized as having any
thing in common with the simple
evangel enunciated by the constitu
iional fathers.
That is nothing new in the way or
human minds. Upon the original
scriptures containing in simple and
easily intelligible language the reli
gion of the various saviors of man
kind, the hireachies and clergies
have built up a system of theology
no person could possible recognize
as having anything in common with
the original simple doctrines pro
pounded by the Founders. It is
quite unnecessary to point out that
those ecclesiastics of one denomina
tion or another who have taken
upon themselves the right to say in
their own way what Christ said, pro
vide the world with systems so ela
borate that modern churchianity
has practically nothing in common
with the religion of Jesus Christ.
So with the courts. With the aid
of precedents, previous decisions
which attain the dignity of infallibil
ity because of the ipse dixit of some
person clothed for the nonce in er
mine, the United States constitution
is today made to mean what it could
never have been intended to mean,
and constructions are placed upon
it thanks to the advance in legal .me
tophysics which would astonish none
more profoundly than those who
took part in, and wrote the instru
ment that sprang from, the consti
tutional convention of t lie United
States.
And just as we see the various
theologies as they come down to us,
elaborate treatises devised by stud
ents of previous teachers and earliei
traditions, elaborate systems aiming
to buttress up the great and power
ful interests of the time, and sub
jecting to complete subordination
the exploited classes during their
sojourn on earth, so also we ob
serve the jurists who have assumed
• the function of interpreting the con
stitution, taking good care that that
interpretation shall take the form
of upholding privilege and the Inter
ests of the great financial, industri
al and commercial powers in the
United States.
It is the most extraordinary thing
that can be only explained in this
way that the judges have discovered
that it is efforts to effect labor re
form upon the part of the legislat
ors, no matter what may have been
the urge under which they acted,
which are mainly unconstitutional,
and it is upon Labor and upon La
bor solely that the punitive clauses
of the laws passed must be enforced.
The Adamson law proposes that
eight hours shall constitute a day’s |
work on a railroad. It does not limit j
the working day. But the purport I
of the law was unquestionably Just
that. Its effort may have been
weak, but at any rate it tended to
avert a tremendous industrial strug
gle which would have paralyzed the
nation.
The railroads wanted without a
doubt to fight this matter out. They
were only too willing to break a
lance against the powerful brother
hoods, whose power they deem is
more apparent than real. As the
brotherhoods were determined to
have the eight hour day, there was
nothing certain then but that a
strike would result.
The legislators got busy. They
passed the Adamson law and left the
brotherhoods like a fish between
two cats: the latter being the legis
lative and the judicial functions.
Now the final upshot of this is
that Labor is left without any hope
of getting its demands through le
gislative means. The legislators
may be willing enough but the High
Priests of the law are not the mem
bers of Congress but the Judges on
the Bench. They are the infallible
ones, and their pronouncements ex
cathedra are those which say what
is and what is not an article of le
gal faith. What is there left Labor
then, with this condition but an ab
solute dependence upon its own re
sources and its own weapons to ob
tain its own demands? If the legisla
tors are unwilling, if the judges are
unwilling and if the employers stand
pat holding all the winning cards,
Labor is left no option but to quit
the political game cold where it
runs up against stacked cards or a
cold deck.
If the jurists, functioning as the
bulwarks of privilege, deem that
they thereby strengthen the position
of privilege, they have yet to learn
something that has already been de
monstrated under less favorable and
less humane circumstances. The im
movable bodies that stood in the
path of progress were ultimately
pulverized and new land marks
established to show where their pul
verization was identical with such
human progress. And it is a fact
ominous enough and menacing be
yond peradventure, that employers,
and those who are acting to main
tain employers in their privileges,
are hastening the very destruction
of that which they try to maintain
and uphold
The brotherhoods will not submit
to the ten hour day even if the
Adamson law is declared unconsti
tutional. The country knows that.
The country knows instinctively that
the battle will not be confined to the
brotherhoods but will involve prac
tically every labor organization. This
will take place even though the
brotherhoods were to say nay and
the leaders of the American Federa
tion of Labor were to say the same.
Undisguised of the usual frills
which are used to express the pur
pose of the labor organization, the
primary instinct of self protection
at the bottom of them all, will drive
to such solidarity of action. Hence
the railroads will plunge the coun- i
try into an industrial struggle will |
be quite as epochal and far reaching ]
in its social consequences as the j
Great war in Europe.
That there is any industrial, com- 1
mercial or financial power in the j
United States can afford to look I
forward to such a condition with !
calmness and indifference would be
clearly impossible were it not that i
those powers have always been
hypnotized by their own conception '
of their own invulnerability. In
point of fact, it has been thiB insane
confidence of those in power in the
final outcome of social struggles
that have so deeply embittered them
all, and have always resulted in
such tragic consequences to both
sides.
The judges with their legal meta
physics, based upon no rational in
terpretation of modern conditions of
life, modern requirements, modern
ideas, are just as ably as they ean,
hastening the greatest industrial
struggle in the history of the world
and doing their level best to prevent
social justice being the yard sticfc
whereby the solution of the labor
grievances will be measured.
Indeed they have closed their ears
and their eyes and their minds to ac
tual industrial conditions that sur
round them. They have shut out the
cries of discontent to be heard by
every other class throughout the
land, and they are still adjudicating
not in line with electricity and wire
less and turbines and locomotives
and steamshps, but in line with the
era of tallow candles and hand
looms. They are the High Priests ol
conservatism and privilege and the
interests. Their system of legal me
taphysics sis the archaic theology ot
mammon; their decisions are stamp
ed with the cant of another age and
the jargon of a dead past. Their
formulae have long ago been em
balmed among the dead issues of a
bygone day and because it is the
same earth, and the same sun tha*
shines upon the same earth, they
live in the idea that we are the same
people and possessed of the same
environment and hence the same
ideas, modes of thought, concep
tions, hopes, fears, demands, and
visions for the future as the greal
great-grand-fathers of the present
generation.
Archaeologists teach that women
and priests have been those who re
tained longest dead past customs.
The pries*s of another day were also
jurists, and that conservatism and
reaction which belonged to the caste
has come down to present time occu
pants of the bench with an intensifi
cation only possible because it is
part of the juristic system.
It is not difficult therefore to
understand in how great, a measure
the courts which deny themselves
reforming, jeopardize peaceful ana
orderly evolution in society. It is
an irony of things that the very
condition they are supposed to pro
mote: the stability of society, is by
these legal metaphysicians endang
ered to a greater extent than by the
loudest of agitators. They will ad
vance not a scintilla when society
wholly advances. They live anchor
ed to the past with their anchor
chains reinforced by tradition, anti
quated convention, precedent and
judicial custom. They act as if im
moveable and immutable in a very
world where the only positive cer
tainty at all is the moveability and
mutability of things.
It is easy to understand that un
der such conditions all things that
they are supposed to protect they
jeopardize, and they are by their
reactionary decisions perpetually en
dangering not only themselves but
the legislators and the administrat
ors.
'The demand for a recall of the
judges and the judicial decisions Is
only an incident: a straw showing
how the wind blows. But it is suffl
clent to rereal where the people
stand, facing these archaic decisions
of a power exclusively using its
power to buttres privilege.
Now that Adamson law would
have not Anally settled things. But
it would at any rate have been suffi
cient to tide over an otherwise cer
tainly positive crisis. It was not
much, and it certainly was not re
volutionary in its scope. It did what
other laws far more radical have
done efficiently and well, much bet
ter than the Adamson law coulu
possibly do.
Yet because it was unwelcome to
the railroads, because the railroads
deliberately boasted that their ser
vants the judges on the bench, most
of whom had been corporation
lawyers would destroy its effective
ness, the judges proceeded to make
good their reputation.
But they do not bring peace to
the world but the sword. They do
not increase the conAdence of the
masses in law and in the interpre
tation of the law. They drive the
masses to work out their own salva
tion by themselves and quite inde
pendent of the courts or the legisla
tive halls.
It that is a desirable thing, well
and good. But it is a condition of
things which will react not upon
the masses who merely rid them
selves of some more useless meta
physical formulae that have little
application to the present, but upon
the privileged classes whose privi
leges will be questioned and inquir
ed into and scrutinized with pitiless
severity of justice quite regardless
of what the courts may say.
The decisions of this kind are
those that lead directly to industrial
struggles whose scope may involve
consequences almost impossible to
preAgure. Surely they are cer
tain to have results quite different
to what those troglodytie minded le
gal metaphysicians would attain by
their reactionary decisions.
LOCAL ITEMS.
They are still experimenting with
the new pumping plant, and some
trials which were given yesterday
afternoon did not prove so sucessful
rather a poor head of water being
obtained and maintained, wholly in
sufficient tcf- fire purposes. An ex
amination of the machinery discov
ered the fact that the fault was due
to the failure to properly prime the
rotary pumps before starting up.
Several little points have to be at
tended to which experience alone
can demonstrate as necessary, and
after that the plant ought to prove
its ability to handle the pumping si
tuation in accordance with all Nome
needs.
CITY BATH HOrSIt
Moonlight Spring Water. (BoU
lug Hot).
M. O. SOLBERO.
Men’s Women’s Children’s
Since the opening of Navigation we have received 3270 pairs
of SHOES and RUBBER FOOTWEAR. Every boat brings more.
“There is a reason”. Our prices are right and our business lias
been built by satisfactory service to our pntrons.
P. A. PETERSON SHOE CO.
<awaiiMgfiifByai!fgwawiiKKKfifBfaiiCT
10 THE PUBLIC
■fl*T,f,r‘Ctrirtrir,rlrlCTlf1Pptl'lpll*tflgu* irinnnririfir iririnrinririnrinriwnpinririfirirtnr
^-T3aixjiT7i7ijaiuT30OTn3wji3w TOuiaurchTiT aaoaoGvooooB0i3UKn3QisraoiSn3i_
On the last boats we received a gen
erous supply of fresh.Candies, chosen
with particular care. We will give
you the keneflt of our experi-cnce and offer a special Hale of diff
erent makes each week until Amas.. This week will be
IMPERIAL WEEK.
Chocolates made and packed by the Imperial Candy Co., at
reduced prices. WATCH THE WINDOW.
On and after Wednesday, Nov. 22nd we will give with every
twenty-five cent purchase (or paid on account) a ticket which
which entitles the holder to one chance on one of our beatiful
Baskets, filled with delicious chocolates. Drawing, Jan. 1..
ROSE CANDY STORE AN 1) ARCTIC BAKERY.
Every Sunday and Wednesday fresh whipped “Cream Puffs."
MSMBIBMgiBiafiilSHBIBliUHiaiHlglBIBIBIWiiliiliilMBIilfBIBiiilHfBfilliililiSilBliiiHfHiiiliHiMiiliHiifiilBIHIBliiliilSIBBi
57 Varieties have arrived at
Mollers Grocery
211 FRONT STREET PHONE, MAIN M H
Kent Transfer Go.
General Transfer 6t Freighting
Ctoal & Qi£
Phone Main 139.
TRY
PHIL MURPHY
FOR LEATHER VESTS & COATS, THE LONG KIND OREGON
CITY MACKINAWS. HATS SHIRTS, PANTS, SHOES, UNDER
WEAR, SWEATERS, FUR CAPS, MITTS, WOOL GLOVES,
PARKAS AND ROBES.
MURPHY HAS THE SOORS
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MINERS
RESTAURANT
Opposite Industrial Worker.
FIRST CLASS MEALS.
Served In
FIRST CLASS STYLE.
Under New Management
OPEN ALL NIGHT.
Phone Main 153.
S. H. SIMEON
4*4*,f,'J*^**J*4*,J**J*^**I**J*^*,J*,i**I*
INDEPENDENT
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.lff
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