The daily Nome industrial worker., 1916-09-21

personal subjection; every sense ot freedom and initiative is taken from him. He cannot do this and he must not do that. He is just an unthink- ing piece of living machinery whose brain power is only in the way. And he dare not organize to change that condition.
 This has been recognized by every observer.
 Judge Brandeis, then MT. Bran deis, testifying before the Industrial Relations Commission declared: 'We are as free politically, perhaps, as it is possible for us to be- Every man has his voice and his vote, and the law has endeavored to enable, and has succeeded practically ill enabling him to exercise his political franchise without fear. He there fore has his part, and he certainly can secure an adequate part of the government of the country in all it's political relations-in all relations which are determined by legislation or governmental administration. On the other hand in dealing with in dustrial problems the position of the ordinary worker is exactly the re- verse. And the main objection as l see it, to the large corporation is that it makes industrial absolutism possible, in many cases inevitable.
 The Industrial Relations Commis- sion went into this little known, or little exposed, phase of the national life somewhat eXhaustively. "The commission has held public hear ings and has made thorough inves- tigations in such industrial commu mites as Paterson, N. J., Los An geles, Cal, Lead, s. D. and Colorado where the right of collective action on the part of employees is denied "These investigations have shown that under the best possible condi- anu lllC nlOoI CACCll- ent motives upon the part of the employers, freedom does not exist either politically, industrially or so- cially, and that the fiber of man. | hood vii inevitably be destroyed by the continuance of the existing situ- ation' That is from the final re- port of the Commission on Industri- al Relations.
 And it may be pointed out that inevitably from this industrial su- premacy, from the establishment o1 industrial absolutism, "a state with in a state" as Brandeis called it in his testimony, there will follow also control of political freedom makes such thing impossible. The indus trial absolutism in Colorado of such coal companies as the Colorado Fuel and Iron Co.,, reduced the poll tical freedom of the people to such mythical affair that the Supreme Court of that state in the counties where the coal companies had ocn- trol, upon petition annulled the cleo tions in scathing and stinging de- cision. State Senator Helen Ring Ro- found that while the counties of Las Animas and Huerfano are geograph- icaly a part of Colorado, yet indus trially and politically they are a barony or principality of the Colo rado Fuel and Iron Go.
 It may be alleged that conditions aer not much different as far as the industries of the country are con cerned, in any nation which has reached any important stage in ca pitalist development.
 That idea is wholly wrong. In point of fact, government in most cases now steps in and prevents any such a ruthless exploitation as Is continued in the United States. Tn the United States industries, speed ing-up is not an exceptional but a normal condition. The employers pay higher wages, but they exact an even greater increase in production. The employers in Europe still main tain greater interest in their em- ployees And pay closer attention to the personal conditions of work. This is either due to the unionist control or to the desire of the gov ernment to prevent too great de- terioration in the working classz physique which will result in the loss of so much human gunfodder. '