Wheeling majority. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1907-192?, 1910-12-22

ments to eliminate them, but when
the workers get together and make the
interests Of one the interests of all,
ii will be done.
100000 a year means that five out OF
each hunderd meets with some kind OF
an accident each year; it means that
in twenty years every worker meets
with an accident or the same person
meets with more than one accident
AS to sickness, it is much harder to-
trace, but the long hours causing ex-
haustion which makes man an easy
mark for the attacq of any thing that
comes along, the bad hygenic condl-
lions, foul air. bad ventilation, alb
sence of sunlight, poisons in materials,
etc., can in great measure be over
come, or can be greatly neutralized
if the profits were not placed above
the lives of the workers.
By the U. S. statistics from 1889
1903, we find the average unemploy-
ment ranging from 5to 40 per cent;
increasing from the first named year,
which is the lowest, to the last, which
is the highest. This gives US an aver
age of rs per cent unemployed all the
time. 1t means that the average man
was idle one fourth of his time.
The causes of unemployment are
given for accident and one and two
thirds of one per cent OF the whole,
while sickness is given as % and two
thirds per cent of the whole. This
makes sickness fourteen times as
much as accident.
It shows that every worker lost
some time each year from sickness or
some workers lost much time. Fifty
six percent of all unemployment was
due to factories closed, unable to get
work and slack work. This in itself
greatly interferes with the income OF
all workers, reducing it by one-fOurth
of all, and yet no worker has sur
plus and could use much more than
the income from full time and still not
have the actual necessities and con-
yeniences of modern life, to say moth
ing of his inability to give his children
more than part of common school
education. But as under our present
system of private ownership of public
industries which manufacture for pro-
fit rather than use, and cannot be run
except the products are sold or used
by the owners, and over which the
4 workers can have no influence because
of ownership, it is scarcely in our pro-
vence to stretch on loss of time due
to over production, yet I cannot re-
frain from noting thought or two.
First, unemployment causes want and
fear of want, which reduces the vital
ity even more than restricted diet,
clothing and poor houses. Second, the
feverish anxiety of long continued un-
employment will not only cause man
to overlook a danger and bad condi-
lions in which to work but the fear
i of losing his job will cause him to
SPEED up beyond his power of endur-
ance after his long idleness, which in
turn makes him an easy mark for ac-
cident or disease. The ever present
1 fear that the idle man might get the
LOB and the worker thrown idle will
continue as long as there is more than
one man for one job unless all work
ers are members of the same union.
II do not mean affiliated unions in
crafts, when one craft will take the
work of another when it is on strike,
but where, in transportation for in
stance the railroads, the engineers,
fremen, conductors, trackmen, machin
lists, ETC., are bound by the same rules
/ in one compact organization. In
short, where the concern of one is the
concern of all. However, this is for
the workers to decide.
The whole is many sided question.
Personally 1 would like to see each
young man when through high school
guaranteed the opportunity to work
and to get the full product of his toll,
as today he is guaranteed to go to
school and gets all the learning he can
take. He gets the whole of it.
Eighty years ago there we're no free
schools in any part of the United
States, and it was considered as i'm
practicable to have free school guar
anteed to every child as it is now to
have guaranteed the opportunity to
work and to get the full product Of
mis- toll.
In 1928 few workingmen in Phila-
delphia started an agitation for free
schools, they then formed a party
with this object in view. The politi-
clans got husy and gave them the free