The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1922-01-06


the right to live decently and as
man has a right to live. He de-
mands an industrial system that will
be something more than something
to eat today and hungry tomorrow.
He demands that he have a system
of industry that will have some de-
pendability. some reliability, some
thing that will enable him to say to
his wife, GAS long as | am able to
work we will have something to eat,
a place to sleep and means to send
our children to school," He demands
that he have an industrial system
that will enable him to educate his
children; system that will not COM
pei him to take his children out of
school at a tender age and force
them to work in order to keep the
wolf from the door.
In an age filled with wonders,
when the mind of man is making its
most wonderful conquests over the
blind and omnipotent forces of ma
ture, are you willing to say that all
a man is entitled to is merely to eat,
sleep and work? Has he not a right
to cultivate his mind and give sun
light to his soul?
The common people of America
demand better system-a system in
which they will not have something
to eat today and famine tomorrow.
They do not ask for charity. Char
ity is virtue, but it is a virtue only
to those who are unfortunate and
who have met with unexpected af-
Fiction. The upright, healthy, man
ly man does not ask for the bitter
bread of charity; he does not seek
that which compromises his manhood
and makes him crawl in the dust
and ditch of humanilation and degra-
dation. He does not ask for favors;
he demands justice. He demands the
social ownership or control of the
industries of the country on the ba-
sis of service and not of profit or
possession. He wants an industrial
democracy the same as we have
political democracy.
These are the great thoughts that
are burning like mighty furnaces in
the hearts of the worlds toilers.
These are the thoughts that they are
thinking and speaking, and these are
the thoughts that the plutocratic
bosses are sending them to Jail for.
And these ideas are not going to be
throttled. They are not going to be
suppressed. Capitalism can build a
Jail at every street corner and erect
a gallows at every cross road, and
cover the earth with corners of plain
toilers, but the ideas will march on
until they conquer the world.
The history of mankind is the his
tory of ideas. one after another,
marching on to conquer the world;
and this mighty process of evolution
is as irresistible as the sweep of the
earth through space around the sun.
All reforms in the earlier periods
are fought bitterly. Abolition. wom-
an suffrage, and prohibition, are
cases in point.
The errors of today are not being
more stubbornly defended than were
the errors of the past. The men who
first advocated the abandonment of
witchcraft and witchcraft trials were
themselves accused of being in
league with the spirits of the dark
world.
And so it is today. 1t shocks some
people to advocate that some of the
great industries should be run as the
government is run-for the benefit
of all the people and for the special
profit of no individual.
And these standpatters, or rather
standstillers, think they can solve
these problems by calling men hard
names. Oh, | tell you that so-called
I. w. W.-ism and Bolshevism are
facts that are not going to be gotten
rid of by simply emDtying the die
toinary of all its vile terms.
Would it not be far more sensible
to try to analyze those problems,
find out the cause and then apply
the cure? The methods of the stand
patters and standstillers who don't
want to move themselves and who
hate everybody that wants to go
ahead, is very much like the old sor-
cerers of the past who attempted to
cure disease by burning rags and
rafting tin cans and shouting weird
incantations. And so it is with the
standpatter's economics. He thinks
that by abusing those who do not
agree with him, and calling them
hard names, and having them put in
Jail, he can get rid of the economic
diseases that afflict the world.
l don't think / am guilty of trea-
son when l say that you can no
more solve the economic problems by
suppression and abuse, than you can
change the mountains of the moon
by abuse.
The standpatters also fail to I'M
derstand that repentance can come
too late. Just before the French
Revolution the great landed interests
made big concessions to the pro-
letarians. But it came too late. A
people starved and oppressed for two
centuries were not going to be APP
peased by tossing them bone. They
forgot that injustice depraves a
people. They forgot that oppression
drives men to madness, and that fin
ally the oppressed reach point
where they cannot be reasoned with.
No doubt you have complained
much about the newspapers. Don't
do that. A big newspaper is large
business establishment with hundreds
of people eating out of its trough,
and run at an expense of thousands
of dollars a day. 1t gets its money
chiefly from advertisers; only a
small part OF us prOllCS come from
subscriptions. These newspapers are
run for profit the same as a DEPART
ment store is run for profit. Hence
it will not bite the hand that feeds
it. A newspaper owned by laboring
people will advocate the rights of
labor. A newspaper owned by CAPT
talists whatever its owners want it
to advocate. That is the simple
proposition. The remedy is not to
follow the banner of the kept press.
In all history remember this, that
whoever rules, rules in his own in