The daily Nome industrial worker., 1916-05-02
SIDE TRACKED.

Commission turned in its report, they afforded the nation and Con- gress good material as basis for much needed social and industrial reform which cannot be delayed withous social danger of dynamle kind.
 Now Congress is full of friends of labor, to use the favorite Com persian expression. They are men whose protestations of friendship and esteem and love and respect and reverence and service for the workers passeth the understanding. To hear them say it, their whole lives have but one object and one end: to serve the hardworking, horny handed son of toll, the true support of American democracy etc; the laboring classes.
 When then, at these men are thrust the pointed reports of the ln- dustrial Relations Commission with ample material upon which to base lepislative reform, one would ima- zine that they would be tumDllng over their legislative legs, so to say, to be first with bills to pass and laws to make and enforce. And the man who would assert that that was a mistake would be considered to have an awful crust to thus mallgn the saviors (self-appointcd) of the working class.
 But the fact is that you can hard ly notice any attention paid this rtport at all. It might not have oycr been written. No investig .tion might as well have ever been made Walsh and his merrymen might just as well never have probed anythlnS' and the aim and end of tho friends of labor in Congress seem to be de- voted just now to the devising O. some earnest and skilful manner or eyading action on this report.
 What happens then is this. Comes inc President with his cut and dried qian of preparedness which sweeps all question of industrial and social
 reform off the boards, buries in T mass af naval and military demanda sall matter of social iniquities ana industrial disgraces, and has the en- tire country and congress chewing dhe rag to beat the band over na- tional defense and the biggest navy in the world.
 Oh, these matters of industrial and social reform are buried all right just now for a good long time. IT the intellectuals and the yokels can be got to bandying of words between them, the country will for get all about the savage conditions that prevails in industry and the so- Cial injustices that are protecte,; under the flag
 And that's precisely what has hap' peued. Social reforms of all kinds rest safely and neatly on the side track, while the road is cleared for ' She preparedness bunk to go thund- eriug by and the jointers watch with open mouth wondering where the devil and why the hades the special is running with such speed and with such right of way.
 Nay, even our good friends the soci1li0ts have leapod abroad this preparedness special some to say that the darned engineer is going too fast, others to declare that if fhey proceed on such trip they will land in the ditch, others to as- sert that it must reach it's deStina- ton, and there are few that realize but dimly that the main train on the road of progress is lying with out steam and with crew deGd on the side track, forgotten, or side swiped by the laundering Prepared mesa special that dashed past.
 Of all the issues that have en- livened political action none surely has been more potent for making all classes forget that there was such a thing as the labor movement as this preparedness. Whie the both sides are endlessly chewing the rag about preparedness, there waits the labor movement proper for atten- ton: quite ignored, we say, lying dead on the side track, "as silent