The Gem worker and the Idaho labor herald. (Boise, Idaho) 1914-1917, 1915-07-08
LABOR And IT'S FOES
Predatory Interests Influence Public Opinion
through VenaI Press

Tor the railroad workers TO keep
compact and militant organization for
the protection of their rights. Their
living wage has been obtained only BY
that method and in the face of furious
opposition on the part of railroad
owners.
Public sentiment has been seduously
worked UP by false news accounts and
lying editorials in the great cosmopol-
itan dailies to the pitch that has Great
ed an impression in the minds of those
who are not wise to the situation in
railroad affairs that the railroad own
ers heve been willing to play square,
but this has not been and is not the
case today. They have not been will
ing to give one inch of ground that
they were not forced into by the per-
fection of organized efforts on the
part of railroad train service employ
ees. In other branches that were not
quite so critical i'll importance there
has been forced on the workers. a re-
luctant acceptance of inadequate
wages simply thru the fact that the
particular branches of service were
unorganized and individual.
Organization is the only thing that
stands between the wage worker today
and a Chinese rate of wages and this
will be the case until this country is
placed in the hands of those who are
more interested in the welfare of the
everyday citizen than in the selfish
ambitions Of those who have used
government as a means to exploit the
industrious for the benefit Of men who
have gained millions by wholly pre-
datory methods.
Organization is protest against ex-
ploitation and it is the only effective
one now in the hands of the worker.
But the organized worker should not
let this blind him to the fact that the
larger questions of economics are still
more important, and this will take him
directly into politics. The position of
organized labor is favorable or unfav-
orable as the general surplus on the
labor market is reduced or increased.
With an industrial depression organiz-
ed labor is at distinct disadvantage
because the moRopolistic exploiters
are able to recruit out of the surplus
strike breakers to take the place of
organized laborers. Industrial depres-
sions ara caused bv land monopoly
which has brought about the centraliz-
ing of population into the large in
dustrial centers and created an arti-
fetal surplus on the labor market
This is made possible only by an UNI
just system of taxation. Free land and
open it to use and the ever crowding
surplus of city workers will find free
outlet to the land that will build up an
increasing demand for industrial
workers. There can be no equitable
balance between agricultural and in
dustrial work while the surplus Of
workers crowd into the industrial CEN
ters already overcrowded. The sur
plus must be diverted toward the land
and the single-tax on land value offers
the only scientific remedy to our pres
ent absurd situation, in which we see
this country really only about one
third developed while the country
population is decreasing rapidly in
proportion to an ever increasing dem
sity of population where they are
really needed the least. This will con-
tinue until the idle lands are forced
into USE. Tax all land according to
/ its unimproved value and the specula-
tor who holds land for a rise in value
viii be forced to sell to those who are
willing TO use it. and as values in
crease levy a higher rate of taxation
against the land owner who persists
in an attempt to gain where he does
MT SOW. There is no other legitimate
way of creating lasting remedy for
industrial depression, labor surpluses
and general hard times. Give us a
high tariff or a low tariff, give us any
kind of money system and yet fail to
cover the question of land monopoly
and will still have a crowded labor
market and over-supplied labor mar
ket will make it increasingly hard for
labor, organized OF unorganized. to
maintain its rights. There are many
other reforms needed but this is the
tap-root of monopolistic power over
labor and monopoly's vantage ground
10 the fight to create a perpetual con-
dition Of servitude among industrial
workers.
There is reallv no natural cause for
a surplus on the labor market or q
icondition of servitude on the part of
llabor There are enough necessary
/ things TO be done by the state TO
keep perpetual shortage on the labor
market II is only because the peo-
pie have not as yet been goaded
strong enough to hunt for a remedy
that really improves conditions. They
lare still gropipg in the dark biat- after
awhile will make an investigation and
when they do the remedy will Be
found In the mean time Organized
labor can do nothing better than dc
It's best along labor lines and support
any honest effort with its moral suD-
lport that looks toward the cure Of the
lmain trouble with the body polite
which is land monopoly.
MARCUS DAY