The daily Nome industrial worker., 1916-09-22
ceive attention.

eight hour day is good for neither man nor beast. In one breath it is urged that capital is needed, and in the next the poor commercial and industrial interests swear that business and industry wont stand an eight hour day-the poor country!
 That's nice sort of argument to put up to induce capital to invest in a country, advertising the fact that it is too poor land to provide shorter work day for the toilers than the unlimited hours that now constitute a days work in most un- dertakings.
 There ought to be a good rally to the eight hour day referendum this fall. If for no other reason than it will show us precisely where we stand. It is one that every voter ought to support, for the simple reason that it will bring things to show down here.
 The workers have been getting the short end of it TOT the past few years. Rates have gone up, prices have gone up, but wages have not. They are still paying out the same scale. They are still toiling for the same number of hours each day they are still doing the same drill for the same old pay that will buy ! fifty per cent less than it did ten years ago.
 The man who buys package in a store that costs two bits four or five years ago is lucky today if he gets l it for fifty cents. What cost two | bits a year ago and still has the price marked on the wrapper, is now thirty-five cents. Ten cents whacked on for freight! Figure it out and see who gets the best of it!
 It is about time, then, that this eight hour day proposition should receive some attention. Whether the legislature obeys the electoral mandate or not, or whether as a law it is enforced or not, the work CTS should support it just as an ex- pression of opinion. And then if the officials from one cause or an other let it lie a dead letter and re- main unenforced as has been the case with the eight hours under ground, we still have educated our selves to the state when we know and know clearly that some stouter force is needed than mere ballot casting.
 The eight hour day will appear on the regular ballot. When it comes to casting a vote on it place an X opposite the eight hour day demand
 Goodness knows it is wanted Goodness knows it is pitiable state when those who do want it have not the moral courage to organize to demand it. But since we have got to do the thing on higher plane without risking the job, it is worth while trying the ehigher plane once in a while.
 They have kind of stacked the cards against it. It is political free dom to allow those who are not em- ployees and don't expect to be, but hope to make money through their interests which employers, to vote upon the question also. If the workers got together in one. union they could enforce a general eight hour day in Alaska without any vot ing. They would declare their in tention to work eight hours and nc more. Without organization they cannot do that. But they can, in tho absence of that economic might, jus vote upon it.
 The eight hour day gives an i'm . portance to the ballot which i might otherwise lack for in tnt estimation of not few, it IS really more important than the candidates
 Like other measures which ten( , merely to reform conditions, tho } eight hour day is no solution of thu working class problem. Far iron that. But it helps some; even help' not little. It gives us what we al need. more leisure.
 : The man or woman who works , eight hours instead of ten or twelv, , will, having more time to recuper ate, live better, feel better and re ally be better. For the most of u,