The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-03-13
\ SERIOUS MATTER.


 time that Labor papers are prone 10 take too serious view or He and that their articles are almost always couched in terms bordering upon pessimism, as if the aShtet side of life did not appeal to the labor movement at all.
 It may be granted that the charge is in part true. The labor move ment does take a serious view o1 llle and there is little enough in the average workers existence to tn- duce him to behold things through rose colored glasses. Life IS tor the most part matter Of sleep ana work or hunting work, and this mono tonv is to be little varied by the pur- suit Of pleasure.
 Labor papers might descant upon the higher things of life; move to an ethereal plane where such hlGh browed subjects as music and the drama and art are the topics ot esthetic and cultured intellectual i,v. but it would be the merest at- fectation upon Labor's part for the nIain and lamentable truth is that we have neither the leisure nor op- portunity to cultivate these thlhss'
 If is true hat every now ana then from out the workers arises a master singer. a novelist or poet with words that burn and flied with thoughts that breathe, but that may not disguise the fact that Tor l"e vast majority the realm ol culture Is far removed from attainment by the workers. 1t first of all premises a leisure which is not to be en'oyed bv the toiIers, and it is part Of the mission of the labor movement to see that it is.
 All dcvelopment individual so- eiaI or intellectual comes only to those who can turn aside rom the .truggle to make ends meet and de. rofe their time to the cultivation of sa.h will lead 10 that development.
 Inherently the existence of class with considerable leisure in any society. has. while it led in the other extreme 10 corruption. degra- dation and degeneracy. also to those higher pursuits which have been identified with intellectual progress in every age. Certainly Greece is a notable example of the truth of that: a slave holding democracy the leisured classes developed ai that has been said in metaphysics and in philosophy IS such to the highest possible standard The nGmoa of Plato and of Aristotle stand for the ultima thule of metaphysical investi- gation.
 The chief complaint is that the workers have no such leisure. They are chained 10 their tasks. Economic necessity drives them to their toll with unvaryine monotony and their lives have been liShtened of no load by reason of the immense technical progress which human beings have made throughout the ages.
 The workers themselves, with in siactiye philosophy have inyesti- gated the reason for this, and they have in their time stolen from the wage slavery which has been theirs, oailt up a system of working class economics which may he pldgiqrized by capitalist thinkers, but which TOT all that may not be contro- Nerted.
 Their conclusions on this head have driven home the need of more leisure for the workers. The pur' pose of the labor movement has been 70 consider labor conditions as they are and discover why they are and to organize for their improvement. They have discovered that they are as they are because of the fact that they are exploited. Not be. cause they are thriftless, or disso- lute. or lazy; but because they are mulcted of three fourths and more of the product of their labor when at work; because they have to work all day to provide profits for another who owns the means whereby they can apply their labor; because they
  must make their labor power pro- auce in values more than it cost, which surplus values will be an nexed by the boss who pays them