Montana labor news., 1935-08-29
Reflections For Labor Day

For the first time in a good many years, the
unions of Butte are not going to hold a Labor
Day celebration. Last year thousands of peo-
pie visited the Gardens to hear the speakers
brought here by the Silver Bow Trades and La
Dor Council and also to listen to the local orators.
Both Senator Wheeler and Congressman Mon
Afghan delivered stirring addresses.
1t has often been said that people learn more
during troublesome times, such as a war or
other great exciting period which rivets their
attention. The depression has not been an excit-
ing time, for the people, but it has taught them
to think of things that probably never entered
their minds before. 1t is safe to say that the
people in general have learned more about econ
omics and government in the last five years than
any other former folks learned in a generation.
How do people learn? By seeing, by listening,
by experience and by reading. Many men and
women seldom if ever read, that eliminates one
source of knowledge. But these same human
beings will listen and they receive their educa-
ton in economics in the saloons, on the street
corners, in the union meetings, chatting with
their neighbors and in the sanctuary of their
own homes. So, through the medium of one or
all of the resources of learning they absorb a
goodly degree of practical economies. What
have the common people learned? They have
learned this, that perched on a pinnacle reaching
to the skies, lives a few men, a mere handful,
who hold the destiny of all the lesser folks in
the palms OF their hands. These men are kings
and despots who rule with an iron hand; who
rule with more cruelty and selfishness than any
monarch that ever swayed his people under the
1.s-- ..-1A r liz. NIL -a. H.. --.. IL
power in the United States and why do we, the
common people, permit them to retain their posi-
ton OF tyranny ? No one gave them the power.
They took it. They have taken control of the
government. The government has been and still
is, operated in the interests of these lords. Is
it a natural condition OH no, far from it. 1t
is unnatural. Any other animal but man would
not suffer starvation, restitution, misery, cold,
and a lack of all the finer cultural and spiritual
things of life merely because a few of their kind
had all of those things corralled. Coralled be-
cause the very people who are without those
things had given them all to the select few.
Animals in the lower brackets of life would take
back these things necessary to the maintenance
of life, by force if necessary. But man cannot
take lessons from the animals. He is too smart.
He isolates himself from the rest of the living
stream. Sets himself up as a superior being and
blindly suffers torture for his pride and stupidity.
The working people are so trusting, so gull
Bile. They put business men and professional
politicians in office so that these same men can
keep up the system that keeps them in agony,
and they do it over and over again. No wond-
er that the l. w. W., long ago, became discour-
aged with the ballot. How can any business
man who is p%rofiting by the capitalist system be
of any earthly use to the unions or the working
people. He is in business to make money. He
likes money or he would not be in business. He
supports the profit system. The profit system
is the devilish monster that keeps the working
people in serfdom. Now a man cannot be for
the profit system and also be for the working
people. He must be for one or the other. There
is no middle ground.
W. do not seem to have advanced very far