The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1913-12-19
BIG ARMY OF
UNEMPLOYED
COAST CITIES FACE PROBLEM
OF PROVIDING WORK FOR
UNEMPLOYED-UNIONS OF
SEATTLE ACTIVE IN RE-
LIEvING TENSE SITUATION.

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For the first time since the winter
of 1907, unemployment has reached a
stage upon this coast where it has be-
come a real menace The cause for it
may be any one or all of a dozen diff
ferent things. The fact remains that
there are idle men by the thousands
up and down this coast, not tramps,
but workingmen out of job. Seattle
has five thousand idle men, other cit
les in less proportion, perhaps, but in
numbers enough to furnish a perplex-
ing situation. Idleness, long continued,
invariably leads to an epidemic of
petty crimes. In Tacoma the city
commissioners appropriated $1,000 to
provide work, but insulted both resi-
dent workmen of that city and the
migratory worker by offering a wage
scale of 12Rc an hour as compensa-
ton. They have met the situation
better in Seattle. Jeff Davis, "King
of the Hoboes," who knows migratory
workers like a book, told the city
council that the majority of Seattle's
idle men had left their homes in the
East through false representations
made by employment agencies in the
large industrial centers, staked their
all on finding profitable employment
on the coast, landed here penniless,
frienGiess and with no work in sight
Seattle unionists interested them
selves in the problem and backed up
Jeff Davis in his plea for the unem-
ployed. The city council appropriated
$500 to provide work, agreeing to
employ, first, married residents, next
transients out of work. Each man to
whom employment can be given, is
found at least two days work a week
and the city minimum wage scale of
S2.75 is paid. In this latter respect
the city of Seattle puts it all over
Tacoma. A lower wage rate than the
prevailing wage paid constitutes
menace to the established wage in the
future. Organized labor knows that
and in the city of Tacoma is vehe-
mently protesting, but so far without
avail, against the lower wage rate.
A large building in Seattle has been
secured to house the unemployed, Sc
ottIa ,,piopc o1,aroptooipu rapt Iiobt
water and heat, free. The unemploy-
ment problem can never be met
through charity. Work of some ma
ture must be provided to enable the
workman to retain his self-respect and
his ambition to be that most desirable
thing, a useful citizen. There is scarce
ly a city that has not some municipal
problem on hand that might offer
work to the unemployed. The i'm
provement of a street or alley, repair
of city property, or some such project.
Instead of awarding every bit of mu-
nicipal work to some contractor to
reap a fat profit from, why not the
city bid on it's own work, or let it out
by day labor direct if the charter so
provides, and give work to this army
of unemployed? Honest work, even
though it be but two days a week,
will enable the down-and-outer to live
through the winter with some meas
ure of comfort and it is better than
public soup-houses or private charity.
We hate that word-charity. The
worker dosn't want it-he wants op-
portunity to work.
The unions are foremos. in agitat-
ing something concrete and just in the
way of solution of the unemployment
problem. The Jakey Furth crowd that
never put a dollar into any city that
they did not expect to come back to
them with six more in its wake, would
crush the unions out of existence and
at a recent banquet in Seattle de-
clared war on trade unionism. Which
element is of more real worth the
Furth gang of parasites or the prac-
tical, sympathetic unionists of Sc
attic?