The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-05-04


 named class of which Scott Nearing | is the ablest and extrcmest expo nent are quite numerous. Nearing says War eats the soul of a na- nation, just as hatred eats out the soul of the individual man or wO man who indulges in it. And there l fore, 1 believe that there is no such 1 thing as sufficient provocation for war: or fer one group of men and women to deliberately set out to in fict injury upon their fellow women and their fellow men"
 1 That's an extreme view. It is shared by few and only be a few. i The other set of pacifcists are sim ply pacifcists now because they are pro-German, just as they would be waving all kinds of flags were the United States to go into the war upon the side of the Central Powers. Their affinity, and oppo- sites. are those pro-Allies whose lOydllH lO tue Ohlteu totttCo IohSS after loyalty to old Hengland or La Belle France but who now are in that fortunate position when they l can wave flags without injuring their deeper sentiments at all.
 Surely with all this labor has got little to do. What labor has to concern itself now with is unques- tionably organization, and to see to it that it is not compelled to com plete sacrifice while profiteers gorge themselves in a nations hour Of peril.
 Hence it is of prime necessity this anti-war talk be relegated to the back, ground of bourgeois ideal ism. Anti-War agitation is equally vain. It is no use bucking the tide when. the tide is flowing and the means available to do so now, no matter what may be the war sen timents, arc no more efficient than the broom that Mrs. Burlington made use of.
 We must realize that right now the plunderbund is lying in wait in the shadows of the national danger to take away every gain labor has made. while itself gobbles up great CT profits than were ever made be- fore Only organization is the price of safety today. and that organiza- tion is more likely to be overlooked if we engage in any long winded anti-war agitation which will not stop the war, but may react upon the real work of organized labor easily enough.
 1t would no doubt be very satis- factory to those whose loyalty to the declared enemy of America is more pronounced than loyalty either I to class or to country, if labor would act the part of catspaw and by powerful agitation perpetually agitate against the war. But it will better labor nothing at all.
 Labor has not now job control. Labor has little organized strength. And it is sheer waste of time to fritter what Labor has got, in fool ish pacificist agitation and anti-war demonstrations.
 We all know very well that this war is going to be fought and fought to finish whether labor op- poses or aids it. We all know very well that it is going to be fought with all the resources at the com mand of government. We know very well that these resources in- cude labor and life and property. We know very well that these wlli be taken whether the relatively few who are organized were to make effort to prevent it or not. We know quite well that being so the only thing for labor is to organize so that it can prevent itself being completely sacrificed in the interest of the others and after the war it is not completely prone, helpless. unorganized and without even 6 semblance of organized strength It will be recollected that when the war in Europe broke out, it was held that the workers could have prevented this terrible calamity by their refusing to fight and the so- cial democrats were piled with con demnation because they supported the war credits of the German Elm lpire.