The daily Nome industrial worker., 1916-02-15

The strike of agricultural labor CTS in Porto Rico for better condi- tiOns is a forlorn hope.
 The unfortunate fact about that island is that the labor supply is hopelcssly in excess of tho demand and in conseuqence poverty, low wages and distress arc chronic.
 Porto Rico as an American terri tory is an experiment that failed. Not because of the fact that politi- cal conditions have not been inn proved by the American occupation. but because the economic conditions were subjected to no change for the better.
 Really Porto Rico could be select ed by the sociologist to demonstrate that four-fifths of this worlds woes are economic.
 Porto Rico ic healthy place and the Porto Ricans are healthy. Nov and then an epidemic used to sweep over the island and very bene- ficiently decimate the inhabitants. The people regarded this as God holy will and were becomingly humble in it's eXertion by Divine Providence. But latter day and Am crican sanitary science has so lm- proved the lot, that these useial ,e ixr;,,n been forthcoming and in conc quence from 1899 to 1910 tho popu- 1ation has increased twenty per cer'.
 They live simply in Porto Rico Some of them almost subsist on the smell of 8n oil rag. The simple life can show them nothing when it comes to question of subsistence from day to day. But as they in crease and multipy, there are 100 many for the land and they are suffering periodical stretches of ac tual famine among the unemploJ cd and chronic poverty among all the workers. Women work as well as men; they work before marriage anI before and after child birth, and their average pay is twenty five cents day. The average pay for a day laborer is q little over fifty cents 9 day, and you canoGt grow very fat on that. Still, what with this simple life and cheap De- nanas and other fruit thty get alona cheerfully while working. But there are too many men ard too many women for the job, e1t the conse qucnce is that Porto Rico in no par ticular save an improved ilGular sa- nitation, has been benefited b. Unclo Sans control, and that bene- fit is a doubtful ono in the main consequences.
 Tho island of Porto Rico produ- ces sufficient to feed, ciothe and shelter in comfort and in luxury ten times it's present population. Its exports of coffee, fruit, sugar, to- bacco alone reach figures sufficient to provide its population with wealth beyond the dreams of avar- ice Moreover the Porto-Ricans are healthy industrious, frugal end et ficicnt. When working at home there is no more satisfactory work man from the capitalist point of view. They produce the wealth of their country, more than sufficient to keep them all happy and con- tented and it does do no such thing, but instead pays tho dividends for absentee and domestic landlOrdism and proprietorship while they them selves go without.
 Now American ideals of political freedom, courts, officialdom and so forth help not at all to benefit the Porto Ricans. Their troubles do no. arise from political but from econo mic conditions. They do not own the land; they have to work for i pittance and thousands can get no work at all.
 The blessings that the American, flag has brought them are paper blessings. The improvement wrought by an improved political syster, matters nothing when they have not the means wherewith to live.
 In this state of affairs what the remedy proposed is, is most inter esting. They do not propose te strike at the root of the, evil by re storing to the Porto Ricans tn.