The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1918-03-08
Don't Forget
The Label League
Dance
At
RED MEMS HALL
March 19
SAYS KAISER
AIMED AT i. s.
TO PAY DEBT
Oakland, California, Tribune,
February 27)

Declaring that the Kaiser's atti-
tude to the United States was funda-
mentally based upon a desire to
make America pay the German war
debt, H. L. Hughes of the Depart
ment of Labor, who is in the west
as a representative Of Secretary of
Labor William X. Wilson, declared
today that the answer to this coun-
try's position in the war rests with
the part organized labor is playing
Hughes is to speak before a big
mass meeting of workingmen in the
Oakland auditorium tonight, on tht
part workingmen in war industries
and shipbuilding plan are to play.
Discussing the present national la
Dor situation, he said:
Labor has everything at stake il
this war. If this war is not won
now, then the time in which we can
easonably hope for universal peace
will be postponed for many years
during which we will again have tc
go through all of the political and
industrial hell that autocratic gov
ernments have meant to the human
race in the ages gone by, and other
great wars will be our portion be-
fore the world will again be free
Labor has always paid the price of
these struggles. Let US finish the
job now and have the terrible busi-
ness over with for all time.
War Not Modern
"Wars are only possible in these
days of modern enlightment where
there still remains governments in
which the ruling head has irrespon-
sible power, such as that held by the
Kaiser of Germany. In a free
government, such as that of the
United States of America, where
the people have for themselves a
voice in determining such matters,
wars are no longer possible. We
never got into this war until the
llnpeIldl deIllldl NoNeillilCHC VI
Germany brought it to our very
doors and made things so hot for US
that there was no longer any pos
sibility of escape from the fight.
We suffered every imaginable out
rage before we could be kicked into
the fight. Now that we are in we
will give a good account of our
selves.
"The Kaiser. thinking that he had
England and France about defeated,
was anxious to get into a fight with
America as an excuse for waging a
war against US in the belief that he
could defeat this wonderfully rich
nation and compel us to pay the
German war debt. He dreams of
eventually overcoming England and
taking her great navy to come to our
shores and impose his will upon this
great people.
at is a serious business we are
| engaged in.
"We are to sacrifice the lives of
thousands of our finest young men
in this struggle. The longer the
war lasts the more we have to pay
in human life-your sons and mine;
your brothers and mine. We must
work and fight like bazes to make
the struggle as short as possible.
"The workmen of the country are
loyal and true, but | am sure
that not all of us have yet fully
awakened to the fact that we are
really at war. The time has been
so short; and the struggle seems so
far away, but affairs like the sink
ing of the Tuscania bring it to US
in rather startling way. We must
awaken. Every American must do
his duty everywhere and in every
place.
Must Do Duty
employers, too, no less than
workmen in our war industries, must
bestir themselves to do their full
duty by the government in this
hour of it's supreme test. Things
must be made right industrially and
then each must do his full part.
"That employers who indulge in
war profiteering and then after the
fashion of the old order of things
seek to impose long hours, poor pay
and bad working conditions upon
his workmen, as we'll as the work
men who is Stacker upon the job,