The Commonwealth. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1911-1914, 1914-01-01
EVEN CAPITALIST PRESS AID
MITS SYSTEM CANNOT EN-
PLoY ITS IDLE WAGE
SLAVES.
Haf-Starved Men Thronu Streets of
All Cities VainIy Seeking
Employment.


tured in the Seattle Star, a capitalist
daily, but paper which is not afraid
to publish even some of the uglier
facts of the present outgrown capital
ist system.-Ed.)
There are as many unemployed on
the Pacific coast this winter as the
entire standing army of the United
States.
In California the number approx
imates 100000.
San Francisco's jobless are estimat-
ed at 10000; those in Los Angeles at
$4,000; Portland's $4,000, and Seattle's
about 10000.
And on the heels of this congestion
of the destitute in the larger cities,
has followed the biggest crime wave
in years.
Harassed by hunger and RESPONSE
bility for distressed families, thou
sands of law-abiding men are on the
brink of desperate measures.
In Portland they have already be-
gun to "rush" the restaurants, demand
ing food.
The calling of special session of
the legislature to deal with the acute
problem is being urged in California,
local relief measures having proven
entirely inadequate.
q. t.. 1r.1
coast is paying for the alluring but
lying advertisements of big business
to flood the man markets of California,
Oregon and Westinghouse bring
down the price of muscle and sweat
as we'll as the enticements of big real
estate corporations.
Hope of employment with the 1915
exposition has greatly stimulated the
influx in San Francisco. Here certain
railroad advertisements are blamed.
The futility of this hope is apparent
in the announcement of the exposition
comptroller that there are already
over $4,000 applicants on the waiting
list
Take Los Angeles. Not an indus
trial city, the demand for labor is
never large. But the men who are
fighting to preserve the "open shop"
in every way encourage glut of idle
labor, tending to lower wages.
Portland, normally the winter stamp
rNf; boT
and construction workers, suspended
at this season, has watched the prob
lem grow even more acute this year.
Seattle finds itself in similar stu
alton, with hordes seeking a hand-to-
hand existence.
"The hardest winter in years.
everywhere this disquieting statement
is being made.
The holidays brought out the sharp
contrast between joyous opulence and
abject distress in blunt fashion, the
shoppers running the gauntlet of the
army of destitute, existing on street
doles.
Ill SIOWlu6 dlhilh muhASiPe"ii'iSo
have passed emergency employment
and charity measures, but
No steps have been taken for al
fundamental solution of the problem
of unemployment increasing every
year
"No Fundamental Solution"
The Star is right in declaring that
mo steps have been taken" by the
capitalist class for a fundamental So
luton of the problem of unemploy-
ment." Nor can the owning class take
such step. Industrial depressions
and a growing unemployed army are
inevitable consequences of labor dis
placing machinery under private own
ership operating for profit. The one
fundamental solution" for poverty
and enforced idleness is collective
ownership of all land and machinery
which is socially necessary and pro
duction of commodities by society for
use instead of by individual owners
for their own profit
The Socialists alone stand prepared
to supply this one fundamental rem
edy for undeseryed poverty and en-
forced idleness.