The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-06-29
THE STRIKE IN BUTTE.

the strike in Butte is not that there is strike in that mighty center ot copper production, but the fact that already the copper magnates are skilfully using the war as an argu- ment for it's suppression. They are demanding that the copper produc- ton of the country be not curtailed or in any way jeopardized by this strike continuing, and for that req son the government is Justified in making the strikers go back to work. Not in exactly that language has this been urged, but much more subtly and for the same pur- pose.
 Apparently by a good many it is taken for granted that the constitu- tional rights are all suspended in war time, and that involuntary serv itude in the industries can be en~ forced. Neither the President nor Congress can compel any such ser vice, but because war is on it Is believed that the workers may be compelled to submit to any condi, tion however arbitary.
 It is quite another thing with re gard to settling the strike. If the country needs copper, as it undoubt- edly does, government can by the right of eminent domain take and hold the copper mines and put the miners to work under conditions which the private owners have re, fused to concede.
 It would ceratinly be a splendid thing for severe eXploiters of labor if the war could be safely used as a preteXt for tightening the screws upon labor and then when the work CTS began to squirm and rebel against employers, the authorities were to be used to keep them at work. That apparently is the idea in Butte and likely enough We will hear more about it as time goes on.
 For some reason or another 1t is taken for granted that it is correct and right that employers should eN' act the uttermost limits of profits during wartime, while employees being loyal and patriotic should sub init to any conditions that employ CTS wished to impose.
 Furthermore when T strike oc' CUTS we hear all kinds of "oporta that it is fomented by German agents and thus efforts are made to alienate all sympathy against the workers. These foul and purposely misrcpresenting reports should Dc followed up and traced to thelI cource and the evidence thai they were published for the purpose of ,disereditting the strikers given every publicity.
 Now in Butte these reports were the first thing sent out from the copper mines. It was fomented by pro-Germans, by radical Irish, by Films with Tcuton leaning and SC
 
 forth, all obviously intended tC cloak the actual conditions which should have driven to strikes long ago.
 In Butte the copper corporation! have been an industrial autooracl ever since Butte Miners Union No I was disrupted They instituted all kinds of represiv2 meaSure' against the workers; they prac ticcd a ruthless black listing of al active unioniGts, and they .iterall! made their employees serfs of thu industry.
 Whether there was a war or not a strike in Butte might have beer roreseen as eventually i"evltable Indeed it has already been foretolt months ago and long before ther' was even a thought about war. 1'h' isiea that it was fomcnted by mel with Germanist sympathies is pre posterous to anyone familiar witt conditions in the camp; but 1t Il supposed now with war on Will Germany that this report will ell able the corporations to suppress the strike forcibly and with tlu governmental aid, as if the cons/i tuition in wartime were actual. suppressed.
 That 1T is not in this period yt can refer to a decision of the S'u