The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-02-23

chasing power of gold by the re- ceil.t of all increased quantity IT. the form CI wages step, by step.
 But labor and gold have been the with the others did not increase one whit; which show relative to the rest and in terms of the rest Va nishing price. Hence, too, the work CTS reduced to the starvation point and compelled by the low wage rate relative to the higher rate of other commodities. have been compelled i to endure also lower standard of living and the profits and dividends and rents and ] interests and taxes have been kept up by the intensive labor so ill re- Quited, still in terms of diminished gold values, and for that reason ap- parently excessive.
 It is only throwing dust in the eyes of the people to assert that i present prices are due to mono l polits, to spectators, to this, that and the other thing which has been used to exploit the people.
 There is only one thing exploits the people: that and no other. P1i- Vate ownership, which makes of uti- lties commodities, and human need a source of gain. What we see be- fore our eyes is the capitalist system under the stress of war breaking down-smashing right before our ycs-demonstrating it's social and economic inefficiency. And the master class do not like it. They blame the middle man as if the poor
 middleman was anything else but the go-between and often in as hap less position as the under-man
 himself.
 But he serves to fool the people. If the dear people can be got to con
 fine their attacks and GenunciatlonS and diatribes and muck raking to the bold bad food speculator and the commission men and the middle men generally, they will be the
 more likely to overlook the real facts. They will begin to imagine that it is as consumers they are robbed and not as producers. They
 will affect to understand that it is
 the corner grocery man and not the owning manufacturer that performs
 the skinning process, and 1t IS be-
 cause they are mulcted of all they
 have got to pay for life's necessities
 and not because that they are skin-
 ned of four-fifths of the value of
 that which their labor power pro-
 duced, they are in the fix they are
 in.
 So the Federal Trades Commis-
 sion is to investigate. They are
 going to dope with the chloroform ol
 unreasoned facts the minds Of the wage workers and the whole people
 so that everything may be lovely : and free from discomfort.
 Turn we now to Europe whence
 came the gold that is raising sucf Cain with the prices of commodities In Germany wealth is as unevenl, distributed as it is in the United States. Or very nearly as uncvenly So that when the food demand De came intensive for the non-produC , tive laborers in the army. or tn productive laborers at home, tn 1 government saw and indet" 'h 3 blindest man might see that it Wa only a matter of time until the rlcl : would wholly out bid the poore l classes in all the means of subslst : ence. But the result would nav r been the destruction of the poor S And they were needed-the poo e are always extra valuable in wa
 time to the nation. So the govern '- ment had to see that they were fec d What they did was to strike as el = fectively as might be under capita e ism at the root of capitalism itsel
 They destroyed private ownership. 1 J. grain and other food. They COT ; fiscated the property rights whic > the owners by the grace of God ha 5 held therein. And they commai F deered the food and distributed J. under tickets and under the dire IT tion of food dictator. They di P not have the time and probably tf Q nannle would not have had the pt