The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1914-09-18
John D. ROCKEFELLER AIDS
STATE WIDE PROHIBITION
REAL REFORMS WHICH ARE NEEDED WILL BE LOST SIGHT
OF-THOUSANDS IN THIS STATE WILL BE COMPELLED
TO JOIN THE ARMY OF UNEMPLOYED.

A long train Of struggles compass
ing the whole universe have taught
Unionists one fundamental principle:
Injury to one is injury to all" There
fore any attack made upon any part
of the organized body of Unionism is
an attack upon all organized labor.
Any economic eruption or revolution
concerns all laboring men and women.
Any change in our economic condition
which will throw one man or ten thou
sand men or women out of employ
ment without first having provided
other means of subsistence for those
unemployed men and women is de-
serving of our most grave considera-
ton.
Labor should not lend itself to the
assistance of would-be reformers who
aim only to destroy and have no re-
constructive plan.
To our sorrow we have learned that
the average reformer has but one idea.
1t may be because he has no room for
more In any event the fad reform of
most people has become a mania with
them and they prescribe it as the cure
all for every i'll.
A foreign corporation has come
among us in the last few years to
preach to us that all crime and all pow
erty are due to alcohol The laboring
man who uses his brains disputes this
statement, because he knows that it is
false. He knows that poverty comes
alike to the drinker and the total alb
stainer. He knows that poverty is not
of our own seeking or our own making.
The student of social economy (and
there are many of them in our ranks)
knows that the greatest of all crimes
is the exploitation of the man who
works. The man who works is every
day contributing money to create is
sues which will absorb the attention of
the masses, so that the most disgrace
full of all crimes. the robbery of the
workingman and woman, may not be
considered.
The Anti-Saloon league, an Ohio cor
poration, with John D. Rockefeller as
one of its principal contributors, has
entered the state of Washington and
inaugurated a campaign to establish
statewide prohibition. SO long as
this issue can be made important the
peculations and piracy Of the Standard
Oil and other great corporations will
be lost sight of, and real reforms
which are needed to keep the 'com-
mon herd" in possession Of their hu-
man rights, are sent to the discard.
Prohibition. fellow Unionists, has
been shown everywhere to be a dan
gerous experiment. 1t would do here
what it has done in every place it has
been tried, throw thousands of men
out of employment. drive good citizens
from the state, create industrial de-
preston, raise taxes and increase the
burdens borne by the poor
Prohibition would throw ten thou
sand men out of employment at once;
men directly allied with the industry
in this state. 1t would also close up
half the cigar factories in the state
and throw out of work other thou
sands who are in trades allied with
the liquor industry, These unem-
ployed thousands would become a men
ace to other thousands who are en-
ployed, because they would come in
competition with them for their jobs.
The larger employer of labor knows
that when there is a surplus of that
commodity Qabor) he can got into the
open market and buy it cheaper That
is why we so frequently find him con-
tributing to the Anti-Saloon league and
arguing for prohibition. If we vote for
prohibition we are assisting those who
would grind US to the position of
slaves.
AS union men and women we cannot
afford to be used as tools Of those who
allawys have and always will oppress
us.
If we look this abortive issue square
ly in the face, every laboring man and
woman in the state of Washington
will vote against it.
Correspondent in the Tacoma Labor
Advocate