The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-07-07

great causes of social agitation, so- eial dis oitent and economic dis turbauces in which the proftmahe1 as well as the rest snare.
 When high costs of living provide insufficient food for the table, when the family necessaries are not pro cured ill proper proportion from the pay envelope there is always ineyit 1 ably some discontent. At no period in the history of the world could it be possible to starve a man or a mans family and eX- pect that that would be enjoyed by the victims. So when economic con ditions decrease the purchasing power of the dollar to the vanishing point you cannot expect content ment and you may expect agitation quite regardless of any personal re- sponsibility whatever.
 And that is the quandary in which employing classes find themselves. 1 The system which profits them, is the identical system which calls into into being strikes and labor revolts . throughout the country.
 It is this way. Labor applied to machinery and raw material pro duces the wealth whereby every man jack of us lives. The right of ownership of that machinery entit- les the owner thereto to take the entire product of labor and distri
 bute in such form as he pleases. He gives some in the form of wages to the laborer, the rest he realizes in the form of profits or rent or taxes. The proportion which he gives to labor may be great or small, but just as it is great his profits will be small and just as the wages is small the profits will be great
 When he wants to retrench, his instinct tells him to retrench on labor and he knows as we'll as any one that at all times labor must be kept within due bounds or there will be nothing left for himself, He keeps within due bounds natur- ally enough and takes care that la bor will have just enough to live upon. When prices go up, it costs more to live upon for labor. He has to pay more for rent, more for food, more for clothing, more for shelter, more for sundries which are inevitable in the reproduction of laborers to take his place when he may work no longer.
 A decade ago someone figured that it took something over six hundred dollars a year to keep a worker and family together in a semblance of decency. To be sure that didn't allow any bank account or liberty bonds or luxuries of that kind. It just meant that sickness and pleasures were reduced to the minimum and the worker, eat, worked and slept his time away without any interruption in his earnings Since then prices have gone up over fifty per cent and there is a determined effort made to prevent wages going along with it. i Moreover the workers are trying just as hard to keep up their end of the wage scale and between the two, employers and laborers, we have the historic struggle which will end sometime, but end only when there are no employers and employees, but just all workers for the common welfare. When that will be, it would take wise man to say That it is closer by reason of the war is not unlikely. They have advanced many leagues in this direction in Russia and the end O. that advance is not yet.
 However, in any event, the req fact is this that try they ever so hard the employer cannot rid him. self of this industrial agitation; | this economic discontent Labor pains are inevitable in the birth of the new social order and society is now even now, making ready to give it birth.
 It is being born within the shell of the old and ii is the sate of the old order to have t. endure the pains for which itself must share the responsibility.
 ] It is as ridiculous to blame labor