The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1919-06-26
LABOR FIGHTS BOLSHEvISM
From Ken6eId-Lamoreaux News


The main reason why Bolshevism
has gained no foothold in The United
States is our great middle class. While
we still have large amount of too
poor people and large amount of too
rich people; yet we have in the Amer
lean middle class safeguard against
Bolshevism, and this is what distin-
cuisines us from Russia, and various
countries of Europe. Of course our
social conditions are not all perfect
yet. We have, without knowing it, for
the past fifty years, gone through a
cycle of social improvements. We have
learned that rash, hasty decisions and
improvements are not always the wis
est. We have learned to consider the
results of our actions. So when Amer
lean labor does not follow suit and
overthrow the government, burn down
the factories, destroy homes, loot
shops, and kill individual ambitions,
we know it is because we have learned
from our own experience and from the
history of other countries that these
methods are not the proper means of
improving cur social, living and finan-
cial conditions. Education and Common
sense are the most effective methods.
When we read IS we did the other
day in the Chicago Tribune that an
important l. w. w. leader who was
condemned to be deported to Russia,
(his own honey has chosen to be shot
rather than go back, we know that
these anarchistic extremists" are
slowly being exterminated by sane
and healthy attitude of the working
class. When we put through the law
of ''work or fight" we gave these an
archists Knockout that they will
never revive from; for they breed
chiefly among hoboes, idlers, unem-
ployed, or enslaved people, and when
"Organized Labor" fights them openly
and with legitimate propaganda as in
the Labor Digest, and Labor News"
we know that Labor itself is aware of
the danger of having anarchists around
that Labor is alive to the fact that it
may be alright to have constructive
criticism, helpful suggestions and
needed improvements for the working
man. But they need not be induced
through murder, riots, strikes and
blood-shed.
HIGHER WAGES A BOOMERANG.
What Labor wants is mostly a
chance to live and be happy; not "slav-
ery'', or merely existence They have
seen too much of the comforts of life
of other classes that are better off, and
knowing that they supply the chief
force in accommodating wealth, natural
" want a fair share. There is nothing
they like better than work" but they
also want enough remuneration to
make living. However, when Laber
clamors for wages, and gets it, they
are throwing boomerang at them
selves, for added expense means in
creased cost of manufacture and that
means increased cost of living. Then
with cost of living increased, labor
will 'holler" for more; and will again
increase cost of living to cover the
first increase and so it goes on
year after year. In the long run, labor
is no better off, for it isn't what we
make that counts; it is what we
save, and get out of life.
TWO WAYS OUT
The immediate remedy is the cas-
lest and it is the one that satisfies
our individual ambition; it is study
and training. The ambitious worker
who wants TO advance has always
chance to do what most big men have
done for ages,-invest his savings in
an education and thus work himself
out of the lower paid class
Now there are a few socialistic
classes who want to deprive US OF even
this our personal satisfaction. They
want collective bargaining, collective
incomes, and collective distribution.
However, that will, kill the "individ-
ual" and you will have to share every.
thing with Tom, Dick and Harry,
every hobo and loafer. This, of course
won't work. We love independence and
freedom too much for that. By the
way, we have an example of dissatis-
faction and unrest in a few factories
where everybody gets the same wages,
old or young, skilled or unskilled.
This only breeds trouble.
The second and most important
way is through social improvement.
This includes decreased cost of living.
This war has been a great lesson in
cooperative efficiency. Our eyes have
been opened to the great possibilities
of national economy. We may advance
some, and improve individually, OF in
a class, but the big things are acconnp-
lished in savings, in transportation,
in scientific methods of manufacture
ing, in classifying and cooperating
various branches of commerce, in CO.
operative organizations, in habits of
thrift, in utilizing waste, in short cuts
of distribution, in community markets,
in development of new resources, in
strong backing of home industry, and
in developing foreign trade. To do
this, we need more big men who can
view the U. S. A., as whole, com.
mercially and industrially, and thus
develope national efficiency.
Then, and not until then, will We
stop the clamoring voices Of Labor, of
dissatisfaction, of unrest, of the /. w.
WIS, of Bolshevism, and Revolution.
For it will mean that Capital and La