The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1922-01-13

was president someone asked him
that famous question:
"Mr. Taft, what IS A HUNGRY
man to do who wants work and can't
get it,"
And Taft made the famous reply:
"GOD ONLY KNOWS"
Think of it: Our industrial sys-
tenn is so crude that able-boded men
are actually hungry because their
strong hands and willing arms can
find no employment. To my mind
unemployment is the worst social
disease imaginable If a man is a
beggar and a tramp because he is
lazy, or diseased, or feeble in health,
or is natural born tramp and lag
gard we can apply simply remedy.
BUT when he-is involuntarily idle;
when he says: II am hungry and
] want bread for my family, but l
cannot get it although l am willing
to work, it is a different matter"
Sampson of old, it will be recalled,
brought down the temple on his own
head.
1t has always been a matter of
wonderment to me that the "privi-
legged classes" are so short sighted
/ wonder that the Gear of Russia,
himself a weakling, but surrounded
with men of learning and supposed
ability, did not forsee that despotic
orgy was ultimately doomed.
1t is strange to me that the Hob
enzollerns of Germany, presiding over
scientific nation, could not see the
handwriting on the wall. The Ger
mans did not heed that simple line
of Jesus that che who lives by the
sword will perish by the sword" The
Shareholders of the Old South could
not forsee that ultimately they would
be overwhelmed.
And now, in the twentieth century,
it is so strange today that the mon
led autocracy that rules America can
not see that unless they make radi-
cal changes they are doomed. But
none are so blind as those who WILL
NOT see. These autocrats WILL
NOT SEE; blind as the bats of the
gungeon they are plunging headlong
to the inevitable and memorable. Like
Tam O'Shanter and his luckless
mare, they will ride on to the end
of the perilous and fatal pilgrimage.
The present system is monopoly of
natural resources, which leads to
waste, strife and destruction.
1t is the opposite of cooperation
and therefore is at war with the
highest ideals of the age.
1t is dishonest in that under it
men amass vast fortunes without la
Dor of any kind; without giving value
received; and this encourages dishon-
esty in others until the whole nation
seethes with it.
AND 1T LEADS TO WAR. For
don't forget that the present monop-
olized system was the mother of all
wars in the last century. 1t caused
the recent world war. WHY? Ger
many was a capitalistic country with
swarming population. It's trade
had extended over the earth. 1t had
taken trade from England, France,
Italy, and, to a degree, from Amer
lea. But even at that Germany had
to have MORE MARKETS. Her capt.
talists had built up such great fac
tories that they did not have mar
kets enough.
Such was the origin of the "Thrust
to the East" program; that was the
origin of the Bagdad railroad scheme.
But veen at that when the war start
ed 20 per cent of Germany's labor
ing class were out of employment
Socialism was boiling everywhere.
Profits, profits, profits, profits were
the everlasting demands of German
capitalism, backed by the iunkers
and the Prussian militarists. So Ger
made a dash at the throat of France
and the war was on. The result was
the end of kaizerism.
I want to observe that there can
be no real and actual progress in
the world, no economic betterment,
until international wars are abol
ished. AS long as we have these
periodic blood-debauches that pauper-
ize, felonize and brutalize the world,
all talk of permanent betterment is
lost on the wind. We are today in
the grasp of hard times, and we talk
about hard times and the high cost
of living.
l want to tell you that it would be
better if you would talk about the
high cost of war.
In 1914 our national taxes were
tbs millions. Today they are over
five thousand millions. We will be
taxed, and our children after US will
be taxed for a century to come to
pay the fiddler.
If a man were to work for years
and accumulate a competentence and
then come into town and squander it
all in a debauch he would never be
able to regain that which he had
lost. And so it is with war. We no
sooner accumulate wealth and raise
a good crop of young men, when,
alas, one of these blood-debauches
starts and the world sinks back into
barbarism.
War is degrading. We raise sons
and try to teach them honor and hu
manity; but wars undo all that and
degrade them into the business of
killing.
l have read that the next war will
be fought with poison gases and dis
ease germs. WHAT A FITTING
CLIMAX OF ALL THE HELLISH
BUSINESS. DISEASE GERMS!
Have your hydrophobia squad;
your bubonic plague squad; your
smallpox squad-that fittingly SYM
bolizes the whole internal insanity.
The first step in world betterment
is to abolish war.
But they say we will always have
war. Why? We used to have duel
ling and we abolished that. Why not
abolish international duelling?
The best reason in the world for
the embellishments of war is that the