The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-04-11


 worker for whom they got the job, and they left them stranded high
 and dry to face the winter here. It is about time that this sort O l thing was ended, as it is now nearly 1 ended in Alaska. The wonderful
 energy. the grand efforts, the abjl- 1 ity and funds that labor has eX- pended in the saloon, utterly wasted 1 rom the standpoint of the labor l movement. cannot be overlooked. | It has tied labor to reaction and i conservatism. and it has retained us
 in the slough of despond while We frittered away, in hopeless effort
 against a useless struggle, all our energy.
 We believe that the Labor move
 ment will progress by leaps and
 bounds where the workers will dis
 engage themselves from the infu-
 ence of liquor traffic. We know
 that what the labor movement re-
 Guires above all other things is edu- Ecation. organization and independ-
 erce. Ii the saloon is the place O.! attraction rather than the Union . Han organization is intertered with: ii the worker has to depend , upon the saloonist's favor for job,
 his self reliance is squandered ill trucking 10 one who would tan his hide for 9 dine; if the solace , of souee is the ideal that q worker
 holds before him, education. the l sheet anchor of the movement, be | comes out of the question. , There is no puritanism in this , Even ii there was. because it is com nonsense. we would be compelled to advocate it
 We cannot lightly pass over this , Russian revolution without insist . ing upon the important part the
 prohibition of vodka played upor 3 it's successful continuation. Over ( r year ago one writer said that i , vodka was kept away from the peo pie for one year, the Tzar would [ lose his job.
 The remark Of that clear thinker
 has come true, The Tzar is jobles' | today: the Holy synod is having = it's claws clipped and education = solidarity, democracy and repuhli e canism have taken the place of th' a imperial bureaucracy of the Roman - offs It is a great lesson capable : of mighty small and very close loca % applica ton. We cannot overlook it - IL is there for all the workers. It |
 io be hoped that none will fail t s profit by the instruction it clearl. n brings
 0 We expect that sooner or late - there will be a reaction against proh ' bitior because of the fact that i t gives sthe workers a better opportun t ity to plan, to think, to act. Tn a employers who have been advooat n ing prohibition as the Tzar did, t 0 increase their working efficiency d overlook the fact that it is als il bound to increase the workers soc t ial efficiency. They overlook tn c fact it also makes more efficien - union men and more efficient fight V CTS in the cause of labor.
 V Indeed this very fact has quit h ominously been mentioned in an al .- ticIe published in the interest of th
 liquor trade. and therein it wa T conteaded that the saloon was t very active factor in promoting cor e tentment by directing from agitativ $ channels the sociable instincts c Ii the workers and provided them wit S place where they could forget tn is conditions they had complained c e on the job.
 There is whole lot in that al $ gument: but just as it is an argu d ment which the employers wi h take kindly to, in order to preserv e the saloon. so also it is an argu IT ment for the workers to aid in it I. abolition In clearing the deck n for action in Labor's struggle, tn " first that must be swept away is tn [, saloon The courage of the keg B not the courage needed the excite S. ment of the tank is not the stimuli l. to effCrt that will get anywhere IS The courage must be the plain coul Il age of a mans heart to do his shar " and the stimulus the reward of tha !. effort in the labor movement.