Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1923-12-07
STRIKES
By Gilfillan Scott
are rungs of a ladder.


Healthy discomfort is the main.
spring pushing US onward and up
ward.
When Oliver Twist demanded more
he was obeying nature. The fatheads
who held up their hands in horror
were hogs in office, ignorant pot
bellies, whose creed was "self first
self last, and, if anything is left, let
self have it."
Strikes are to enforce demands fol
more, force being the only way to get
more-orderly force, peaceful force;
quiet, calm, dignified force, yet de-
termined and to-the-last-ditch force.
There are two reasons for low
wages-the strength of the employer
and the weakness of the worker.
Organized money and organized
brains are the strength of the en-
ployer, and lack of organized money
and lack Of organized brains are the
weakness OF the worker.
If the worker is to improve his con-
ditions of living and get some joy out
of life, he must use money and brains
just as his employer does.
The money must come through or
ganized savings, and the kind of
brains needed must be hired and paid
for.
How long is the world to suffer
from strikes?
Just as long as poverty exists.
And how long is poverty going to
exist?
Until every worker refuses to ac-
cent nOVqrtV wages
America is the pioneer Of the
world.
Within one single year, poverty
could be put an end to in America.
How?
By the simple means - every
worker refusing to accept poverty
wages.
Organization is the wonderful word
which works magic. Organization and
the ability to starve out the worker
bring victory to the employer. Hence
organization and the ability to starve
out the employer must bring victory
to the worker.
Starving out the employer is easier
said than done, but there you have
the reason for hiring expert brains.
When employers want a difficult
proposition handled, they don't trust
their own brains, but engage an ex-
pert and let him handle it.
That is good business.
What is poverty?
Inability to afford necessaries and
reasonable comforts. Poverty means
living in cheap and nasty houses, eat
ing cheap and nasty foods, wearing
cheap and nasty clothes, and being
denied everything but what is cheap
and nasty.
Strikes are the means of putting an
end to that cheap and nasty game
of reaching out and getting better
things, of raising the status of the
nation so as to provide workers with
good houses, good clothes, good re-
creations and good savings for old
age.
That means prosperity, money cir
culating and business booming, for
workers are buyers and the backbone
of business.
What excuse do employers make
for low wages?
They claim that they cannot COM
pete with other markets if they pay
higher wages than other markets.
What other markets
If the other markets are in Amer
ca, the workers must see to it that the
same wages are paid Throughout
America. If the other markets are
not in America, but in countries
where workers are underpaid, Ameri-
ca cannot compete without underpay-
ing American workers, and this the
American workers must positively not
stand for.
Foreign competition is the chief
cause of war, and America has had
enough of war.
America has work enough at home
without trying to compete with half
starved foreigners.
The ultimate finish of strikes can
be arrived at by every worker joining
a union, by opening workers savings
banks in every town and city, and by
using the workers. savings to grad
ualy buy control of the railroads and
industrial concerns now employing
them.