The daily Nome industrial worker., 1916-12-22
GOOD MEN.

John Ruskin used to hold that there was more credit due the pa, gaus who did good for the sake of goodness than those christians who do it for the sake of enjoying eter- nal happiness or avoiding eternal suffering Which may be true enough.
 But it is dollars to the doughnuts that even the most advanced of the Greeks never did good solely for the sake of goodness, but because it made them happier which after all if what most of us are looking for.
 All of which reminds one of the urgings which social workers make upon employers when they want Ire forms" effected. They know much because they are reforms, and by en- acting them good is done, but they ask for these reforms and advise and recommend them because they will return a bigger income when they are instituted.
 It has been very hard for labor re- forms to get a hearing from em- p,oyers at all if they are not finally persuaded that it will profit them to do so and there is something almost naif in the arguments of the Amer ican Federation of Labor organizers that it is more profitable to work men eight than it is to work them ten hours a day,
 We have changed but little from those ancient days when men did good because it made them happier. It is true here and there the ideas of happiness have changed and just at present it is associated in the world with that interesting coin so plentiful with the business interests and so scarce with the exploited at about this season of the year, and known asthe Almighty Dollar. Just as the Greek Epicurus formulated the philosophy that there was no happi- ness without pleasure and no pleas use except in the dong of good. the followers omitted the rider and found their ways of life in the pur- suit of pleasure. So the dollar has become identified with doing good itself.
 Such janeling as the ancient pa, gans enjoyed upon the very noble thing of doing good for the sake of good was possible to them because of the high margin of leisure which they enjoyed, and they enjoyed that leisure because the slaves did the work for the citi- Zens and freemen. Uusually it hap pens that there is a very elaborate cultivation of philosophic 'culture' by those whose cares for the morrow are relieved by the labor of others, and hence it is that fortunate class which has found no necessity to toll and labor is always there with both feet when it comes to telling the other fellow how to live that he may wear crown of glory in the world to come.
 Always and at all times there has been vein of utilitarianism run ming through the most elevated ethical teachings. and because of the fact, it was sometimes hard to per suade the slaves and the serfs and the toilers that they were better off as they were than were they the class usually considred superior to them. But you've got to hand it to that same superior" class that they have got away with that argument for quite long time, and in places yet they have the hewers of wood and drawers of water praying flor those in high braces that they may lead quiet and holy lives".
 So far no one has come forward to explain why person should do good for the sake of goodness. Nor has it been entirely explained why what was good for the one man has been bad for another, and what was good for one class has been very bad indeed for another. They have measured a standard and called it good, and told | the helots that if they measured their lives herewith they would