The wageworker. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1904-????, 1910-09-16
TIME TO PROTEST.


izations of the west to make earnest
protest against what seems to be the
studied ignoring of labor's interests
in the west by the American Fereda-
tion of Labor. While organizers on
salary and expenses are as thick as
leaves in Va.!ambrosa in the regions
east of the Alleghaney mountains, they
begin thinning out as soon as the sun
down side of the mountains are reached
and by the time the Missouri river is
reached they are as far apart as "open
shop advocates in heaven. There
has been just sone salaried organizer
sent to Nebraska for work in the past
nine years-and he remained just long
enough to get acquainted with part
of the field and was then recalled to
the east. Repeated demands for help
have been made, and every time we
are met with the reply that the Fed
GRAFTON has no money available. But
We notice that the salaried organizers
in the east are as numerous as ever.
The west is the rapidly developing
industrial section of the country. The
faithful unionists of this section who
have been doing pioneer work for un-
ionism for years should not be ex-
pected to keep it up forever at the
expenditure of their own time and
energy. We have been paying our
per capita to the Federation for years
and to date all we have received in
return from the Federation has been
receipts. A dollar expended for or
ganization work now will accomplish
more good than ten dollars spent for
the same purpose few years from now.
The time to win the west for union
ism is during the west formative
period in industrialism. The Nebraska
State Federation of Labor is not fnan-
cially able to carry the burden of
properly organizing Nebraska, but if
the American Federation of Labor
would exhibit some signs of lending
assistance the State Federation might
be able to do it's part. But it is too
much to expect of the infant State
Federation that it take up and push
the work that the unionists of Ne
braska have been paying the parent
body to do-and which the parent
body has not done.
We of Nebraska have been put off
too long with promises and pleas of
poverty. We are entitled to the SER
vices of an organizer for year-and
that, too, of an organizer who will
stay on the job and not skip out just
as he becomes sufficiently acquainted
to accomplish something more than
throwing few hot air speeches into
the ranks.
The only time we of Nebraska see
an organizer of the Federation is when
one hurries across the state en- route
from New England to the Pacific coast
or from the Pacific coast to New Eng
land. Sometimes they wire ahead and
have somebody meet them at the depot
when they take occasion to promise
that something is going to be done for
Nebraska in the very near future. The
parent body could well afford to spend
few hundred dollars in helping to
organize Nebraska, for the returns in
the shape of increased per capita would
soon make up the expenditure. 1t can
not afford, either from the monetary
standpoint of the standpoint of service
it is supposed to render, to ignore the
claims of this section much longer
We are becoming just little weary
of promises without performance; just
bit tired of what seems to be 8
studied ignoring of our rights. II
is time that the unionists of Nebrasks
write few burning words to the
powers that be in the headquarter.
of the American Federation of Labor
at Washington, d. c..