The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1918-04-13
Real Labor Unrest; What
It Is And Its Meaning

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(F'rom Washington Trades Unionist.)
The human mind is the most COM
pick piece of mechanism in the world.
1t is the master mechanism. How it
works nobody knows. What it will
do individually and collectively under
any given conditions nobody knows
not even it's owner.
The man who digs your bitches has
depths you cannot plumb. You see
him come and go every day and his
coming and going become a part of
your daily habit of thought, like the
coming Of your morning newspaper.
Some day he doesn't blend with the
scenery as you are accustomed to
viewing it. Unknown to you there has
been some cries in his life; his mental
depths are in turmoil; age-o1d ques-
tions come to the surface. Placility
becomes turbulence and you are an
noyed-unless you have become sim
ilarly turbulent yourself, in which
event you are not annoyed. You un-
derstand.
Your ditch digger has thousands Of
years of his ancestors life and
thoughts and yearnings slumbering
in his soul and speaking when he is
reused. He has not always been a
ditchdigger. Some centuries past in
Asia Minor, in Greece, in Italy, along
the whole line of civilizations push
upward, he has been oppressor and
oppressed, just as you have been
mostly oppressed, for the oppressed
have always been in the majority.
One life begins and ends; but the
blood-f1ow is continuous from gener-
alton to generation. The thousands
Of years behind US speak in us and to
us and through us every day. The
greatest thinkers, ancient and modern
affirm this.
There has been more stirring of the
human depths since August, 1914,
than there had been in the whole
period since our Civil war. All Of our
accustomed grooves have been upset.
In our social bearing we lack a sure
ness of direction. The guideposts
have become weathervanes. Our
placid gray matter has been set seeth-
ing. The former smooth surface Of
our minds which reflected the current
weather, the passing clouds and the
orderly seasons is turbulent; the sedi-
ment of the centuries is bubbling to
the surface from the depths.
We get into channels. Channels are
comforta BILE. They fix direction. Where
you are going doesn't worry you. 1t
suffices that you are comfortably on
your way. Then something happens
and destroys the channel. You and
your ditch digger face each other with
the eternal question of your mutual
relationship in your eyes. The thou
sands Of years back of each Of you is
compacted in the look. And you
couldn't phrase the question in words
if you tried. You don't try, either of
you. Instinctively you know it, but
to save your souls neither Of you
could say it.
If you tried to say it, you would
both use the words you used in the
channel-wages, open shop, cost of
living. Especially the ditch digger
would He couldn't phrase the con-
centrated protest of 10000 years in
moment of crisis any more than he
could think logically in a year in the
ClldiIel' IL ~ LOO DAS, wv ONcI-
whelming, too much a rising of his
whole being.
So when YOU ask him what he is
turbulent about, don't bubble about
the lack of clear-cut answer. It can't
be made; you couldn't make it your
self. But if you want his answer,
get it in his reactions. Hear him give
approval to war against the kaiser;
note the set of his features when the
war profiteer is mentioned; watch him
as he listens by the hour to the man
you would call an agitator; catch his
constant sanction to the opportunities
open alike to everybody and his equal
1y constant suspicion of opportunities
not possible for his children. The
public schools are never afraid to go
direct to the people for money; the
universities are.
Business based on the idea of max
imun cash returns to the owner, at
any cost to competitors, to labor, to
the social order, to the government,
was bound to be boomerang.
i The labor unrest is the instructive
protest of 10000 years against all
this
lem, and it is announced from Wash
ington that an agreement has been
reached. The preamble looks good to