The daily Nome industrial worker., 1916-05-19
THE REAL REMEDY.

The Coast Seamen's Journal right Iy enough complains of the methods employed in the enforcement ot some sections of the Seamen's Bill which effectually reduce those sec tions to nullity. The orders of the Department of Commerce to the subordinate inspectors of hulls and boilers and those having Tn charge the enforcement of the law, are such a nature to prevent the law operat- ing as it was fully intended it should operate.
 Now that's a common experience in reference to labor legislation. IL is the experience which makes SO many workers distrust legislation of such a nature as not intended to he enforced.
 We needn't go to Frisco to dis cover some example of this. We don't have to leave Nome and vicini- to discover labor laws reduced to a nullity, and while the authorities can find time for entertainments, lit tie or no time have they to give thaii paid attention to the enforcement C. these laws.
 We refer principally to the eigf hour law. Under ridiculous subt- erfuge called a contract drawn up by a pseudo sea lawyer called Q notary, "partners' are hired to work so that as partners and not wage workers coming under the scope of the law they can work against the law nine, ten, twelve or thirteen hours a day.
 We know and everyone else knows that such a partnership agreement is merely a pretensc whereby men may be induced to work under ground in violation of tho law morc than the legal number of hours.
 It would be too much to eXyect that officials burdenod with the heavier pursuits of uplifting the community to a higher plane Of morality and moro lcisurely dcvotinG attention to the worship at the shrine of Thalia, would find time for the moro tedious routine worE of seeing that such labor laws are literally enforced.
 We find a disinclinstion everywhere to burden employers with the oner- ous enforcement of tho legislation passed and enacted in the interest of employees, and while other sta tutes are not to be so idly ignored, labor laws are equally honored in the breach as in the observance.
 You cannot expect anything else Officials usually take thoir cue from the class with which they have been most closely connected. And since they have no memory most of them of any association with wage work ing, they are little concerned about enforcing laws in the interest of the wage workers. On the other hand most of this failure lies with the workers themselves. We cannot escape that. The neglect or failure of government officials to see to the enforcement of labor laws is quite to be expected. But if the workers themselves make up their minds that these laws will be enforced and the eight hour day underground rl- gidly carried out, regardless of any roundabout method of circumventins that legislation, it certainly will be. And if the workers are properly or gaEized and a unit in such organlza' tion all these attempts to work the more than eight hours day will fall of their own weight.
 When men do work under more than eight hours under any pre- text under ground, whether bogus mariners or not, it is evident that there has been failure somewhere upon the part of organized labor to show these workers the folly and unhappy consequences of their acts.
 They should know that they arc not bettering themselves but are bet tering the boss, and they are allow ing themselves to be hooked like lot of suckers by a piece of paper.
 The ability of employers to over ride labor legislation everywhere is the one striking fact of present day law and enforcement. Every little