The daily Nome industrial worker., 1916-03-30

them, and if they have not they will | not be enforced, unless they favor | capital directly or indirectly; di- rectly in improving the employers | position, indirectly in soothing the healthy discontent arises among the workers from continued sense of injustice follows from unallcviated exploitation. But take striking in- stance of Gompers inconsistency ! Eight hour law is considered ex- tremely bad agitation; clauses tn not commodity are well worth by the capitalist parties is excellent, labor legislationn promoted while Labor legislation promoted by a referendum or by working class party is abominabie.
 That's so rotten that it's smells to heaven, and because Judge Ander- son has punctured the folly of it so effectively, Gompers should wri.e him a letter of personal thanks. This declaration of the law that labor is not a commodity ic econom- ic nonsense Not if forty million congressman so declared could they alter fact. Labor is a commodity bought and sold in the market, just the same as bread and tobacco aud oIa h ing. The employer buys it, paying so much for it's use every day. He doesn't buy the worker but he buys what the worker provides: his labor power. The price varies with vary ing circumstances. When very plen- tiful it's cheap as dirt, when scarce it is extremely expensive. In this it is just exactly the same as any other marketable commodity
 Maybe some workers don't like the idea that their labor power is bought and sold like a car load of fertilizer or sack of coal. But liking or dis liking does not change an element ary fact.
 A dogmatic declaration that the sun moved round the earth did not sustain the geocentric theory against the truth that the earth moved In it's orti. around the sun, and the uprn.ured fact that the earth did move, containe! absolute truth of which even punitive measures wt re powerl-ss to prevent the concsel- ment
 Of course there is no preventing Congress or labor executives from makir.S any such declaration they see fit They could if they had a mind to, and could effect important political ends, declare black was white and rain was sunshine. and heat was cold, and water ws.s dry. Eut that would not necessarily maKe us believe that this was so.
 And when we face condition and hot theory and behold day after day moon after moon workers sell ing their labor yower just as the grocer sells sugar to the highes. Lid der, we cannot be prevented from believing the truth.
 Anyhow that declaration in the Clayton law does no earthly good. If an eight hour law is useless when labor is powerless to enforce it or see that it is enforced, much more ridiculous is it to be amending laws concerning capital when capital con- trols absolutely the economic power. What does it matter whether labor is considered a commonly or not. That will not protect labor if perse- cution is sought after, for they will still be subjected to conspiracy or other punitive codes which may ap- pear dead letters until aroused against labor when they are as full of force as live wire. The very simple proposition is this. The workers individually arc quite Epoweriess. They could not enact or I enforce solitary reform fof them selves as individuals Their strength cotnes only by soiidarity.o Massed action is their only hope. As the en- tire fabric of society rests upont labor, so united laboring class has society absolutely at the mercy tf lsHch masked action Apart from any Isids issues then. it Is q question of leconomfca might against economic might which in turn is a question of