SATUttDAY, OCT. 16th, 1920
THE TOILER
PAGE y
Legislation Against The Workers.
Legislation against the workers is the order
of the day see the Lever Act. Injunctions are is
sued by United States courts to keep workers
from combining and refusing to work even if they
can not earn enough to keep their bodies and
souls together earn enough to make it possible
for them to turn up every day on the job in order
to HAMMER OUT PROFITS FOR THE BOSS
ES. Criminal syndicalist laws have been enacted
in twenty-nine States laws that enable a judge
to send a man up for 5 to 20 years, even if he
does no more than make the workers discontent
ed enough to want to join a union to protect them
selves from the bosses and from the government.
The Lever Act is for the. workers but not a
SINGLE BIG PROFITEER HAS BEEN MOLEST
ED BY THE LAW! If any worker thinks there
have been no profiteers, then let him look at the
price reductions that have been made in the past
few days and he will see that for FIVE YEARS
THE BOSSES HAVE BLED THE COUNTRY,
AND THE GOVERNMENT HAS SAID AMEN
TO IT!
Let us examins some more facts about this
alleged "prosperity".
On Sept. 20, Franklin Lane, ex-Secretary of
Interior, issued a long statement about a shortage
of labor, mentioning, among other things, that
"in the rest of the countiy, the demand and sup
ply appear balanced'?. (Let it also be mentioned
that this report was prepared for a life insurance
company.) .
On Sept. 19. the day before, the Department
of Labor stated that Vten out of fourteen rep
resentative industries showed a descrease in the
number of employees on the payroll in August".
The automobile industry employed 10 per cent less
men, the woolen industry 6 per cent, the leather,
hosiery and underwear industries, 5 per cent, the
car building industry 3.5 per cent, the paper mak
ing industry 1.5 per cent less.
And the America First" Publicity Ass. has'
the insolence to talk about co-operatidn rihd "plenty
of food and raiment for all".
There Is Plenty For All
There is plenty of food and clothing for all!
There Li plenty of work for all! There is no need
of part of the populatibn enjoying great abundance,
while the great mass of1 the workers slave and
get nothing but food and a roof and a pool' one
at that! :: r.i ! 1.
There are factories that the workers have
built. There are machines that the workers have
constructed. There are REAL homes that the
workers have erected. If, as the bosses allege, at
present there is no over-abundance of food, no
plenty of work, it is because the bosses them
selves decided to lower production and boost prices
and, therefore, closed their factories. And
THEY DID THIS IN DEFIANCE OF WHAT
THE GOVERNMENT AND THE BOSSES THEM
SELVES HAD SAID that production must bo
stimulated.
There are factories and machines and farms
and homes but they belong to the capitalists.
And they and the government determine whether
they may be used or not. Of course, profits must
be made that is what industries are for.
But what about work for the workers?
What if the workers one day should ' decide
that profits are no longer necessaiy? What jf they,
AS A CLASS, should decide to take over the in
dustries, mines and land, and OPERATE THEM
FOR THEMSELVES?
That would be against the law and the con
stitution ?
For the present, it would be. And for the
present, the bosses may live in peace. Also the
govenment. .
And the government may still make laws
against labor; issue injusctions against the work
ers, send troops against them.
American workers in Montana, Colorado, West
Virginia, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Texas and
Brooklyn have answered governmental terror
and force with counterforce.
What if the workers. should leam to ORGAN
IZE their opposition and FIGHT BACK AS A
UNIT?
Mr. Wood, president of the American Woolen
Company, closed, up his mills. They were his
.mills, so no ono had the. right to complain.
40,000 kwt their jobs, 200,000 souls were thror t
ened with slwvfljtion.
The workers are people of all nations: Ital
ians, French, Canadians, Lithuanians, Poles.
Syrians, and Franco-Belgians. Of course, patri
otic Americans dill them "aliens,'' but they aix1
just the Hfehl people1 to prodnoe $43,000,000
profits for the American Woolen Company ir
rlrree'years.