The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-01-15

under the impression that this is so
 But government ownership does not end labor troubles at all. It
 has in many places resulted in the labor troubles being bound up in a straight jacket of authority where they couldn't stir. And if that is the ideal which socialists are after, why, they ought 10 make it plain.
 The fact is that government own edship is just another form of state capitalism with the powers of state backing the suppression of all et-
 fort upon the part of labor to make itself heard.
 It is nothing new. It is as old as the colonial government in New Zea- 1 land and Australia and South Africa
 where government railroads are
 quite valuable additions to the ca ! pitalist economy.
 The Cape Government Railways have always been the ideal of etIici- ency and when the great strike oc-
 cured a few years back before the
 war, what happened to the em-
 ployees is well known.
 l It is however probably that gov ernment ownership of the railroads
 is logical step in capitalist indus 1 trial efficiency. There is no question l but that the yagaries of watered stock, share speculation, rival ab- sorption and exchange jugglery have annoyed, jpcommoded, handicapped and interfered with industrial etiici i ency to great extent.
 Hence it would be furthering the
 ends Of industrial efficiency from l purely capitalist point of view to
 introduce government ownership of
 the railways.
 They are now so consolidated and
 control is so interlocked that the ac. ] Guisition has been made easy. Bonds
 would be hoated to acquire this property and to pay handsomely
 those who have a somewhat dubious
 investment during normal times ill watered stock. The security of government bond would be beyond any sort of peradVenture and to whether for an increase ill wages or any other cause would be as bad as 1 to tamper with the government
 mails, Government would be sacred
 as railroad owner while the pri-
 vate employer is not.
 In New York when the chauffeurs
 struck operating the contractors,
 mail trucks they were sentenced to i varying times in the pen for inter
 fering with the movement of the
 mails, and it would contribute
 enormously towards the industrial efficiency if when a saucy brother. i hood sought to get shorter hours or
 higher pay, they were landed promptly within prison walls.
 Socialist Party members claim that this government ownership is a step in advance. Whether is is or not only those who can foresee the trend of the social evolution can say with any sort of security. But we would be foolish not to under stand that government ownership also rivets upon the workers bonds
 which they will have to break just as surely as the other chains which bind them to an exploited job. This should be taught as well as the advocacy of government owner ship, if only that the future might be made clear thereupon. Furthermore, the theory is ad- vanced that if every activity is gov ernment owned and the working classes take political control of the government, the peaceful revolution will have been accomplished. Now anyone can get happy that wants to on this Utopian vision, al though why it is left to lawyers like the Londons and the Hillquits' and editors like the Bergers and Bensona to lead the working class to such political control is also suggestive of further explanation.
 It may we'll be indeed that it is along this primrose path that the rose water revolution may announce itself to the unexpected gaze of the