The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1917-10-11
Labor VS.. Mine Production
mining and Scientific Press)

Joyment of the liberties of the civil
law is by sufferance only
We are not yet short of metals, but
production must be maintained at an
undiminished level or perilous Difficult
ties will confront US 1t is probably
true that our manufacturing capacity
Is insufficient to handle all the iron
and copper and zinc that is being min
ed, but that capacity is being in
creased, and these materials are alb
solutely essential to the conduct of
the war; We shall need more and
more of the manufactures into which
they enter as the war progresses En-
gineering enterprises more gigantic
than have ever been seen are plan
ned, and the longer the war lasts the
more extraordinary will it become as
a battle between giant machines, me-
chanical monsters that will make the
creations of H. G. Wells Imagination
seem tame and commonplace. We are
becoming so accustomed to the extra
lordinary that we are no longer aston
ished, and we fail to realize how tre-
mendous are the mechanical appli-
ances that this war is calling into ex-
istence, but the fact is that the de-
mand for all the metals will display
from this time forward a rapidly ris-
ing curve. In the face of this it is dis
quieting to note a dispatch, couched
in terms Of jubilation, that the mines
at Butte are working at so per cent of
their normal capacity. A pitiful so
| per cent? That is not the result of
Patriotism it is the fruit of mis-
named organization, the Industrial
Workers of the World. Again we read
another dispatch from Clifton, Ariz.,
announcingS& the shortage of labor
is SO severe that the great mines there
can not attempt to operate after Sep
/ TENDER unless immediate relief is OBJ
tanned. At Bisbee the Copper Queen
and the Calumet & Arizona are strug
Cling to maintain normal production
with forces reduced by 40 per cent.
The managers have not so. stated, but
it must be apparent to every miner
that the effort to maintain the reg
ular output with 60 per cent Of the
customary number of employees, when
no changes in mining methods have
been made, can mean only one thing,
the curtailment of development work
That may be tolerated for a brief per-
iod in the face of critical necessities
but it may not long persist without
provoking financial trouble and Grip
ping the output of the property
Mines, such as those at Clifton and
'Bisbee are not developed by the drill,
and the ore is not available for stop
ing without time consuming under
ground preparation. The same cry OF
"a labor shortage comes from Jerome,
and at. Ajo barely half the needed
number of laborers Is available, so
that this plant, perhaps the most per-
'fectly automatic of any copper prop
erty in America, is seriously hamper
ed in it's operation.
1t is surely not patriotism that has
drawn the men from these great
mines; it Is the l. w. w. and the per-
inicious Influence that has spread from
that centre of infection. 1t has bred
Ian Indifference to responsibility that
duplicates in a remarkable degree the
spirit that led to disntegration in
Mexico when the weak Madero proved
unable to administer a democracy that
was ready to lapse into the extrava-
gance of anarchy To put it plainly
the working people do not take theil
contribution to the common welfare
seriously. They are insubordinate tc
those whose duty it is to supervise
them and to see that an economic re-
suit is forthcoming; when chided fol
inefficiency or for tagging, they reply
that the union, not the foreman, sets
the standards for them. Duty has
dropped out of the scales, and the
managers no longer manage; from
, necessity they are declining into mere
persuaders, coaxers, cajolers OF labor
, The big business of the world is moi
, done in that manner and never vii
be. The old Americanism, the sor
, that developed workingmen into grea,
, builders and organizers and producers
was founded on the principle of duty
, and of obedience to those whose func'
, ton it was to manage the work II
, which they took their necessary part
, The old Amercanism did not shirk; 4
did not drop the hammer on the stroke