FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35  
36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   >>   >|  
f the East with the lumber-jack of the Pacific Northwest. To the factory hand the master's claim to the exclusive title of the means of production is not so evidently absurd. Around him are huge, smoking buildings filled with roaring machinery--all man-made. As a rule he simply takes for granted that his employers--whoever they are--own these just as he himself owns, for instance, his pipe or his furniture. Only when he learns, from thoughtful observation or study, that such things are the appropriated products of the labor of himself and his kind, does the truth dawn upon him that labor produces all and is entitled to its own. [Illustration: Logging Operations Look around you at the present moment and you will see wood used for many different purposes. Have you ever stopped to think where the raw material comes from or what the workers are like who produce it? Here is a scene from a lumber camp showing the loggers at their daily tasks. The lumber trust is willing that these men should work-but not organize.] It must be admitted that factory life tends to dispirit and cow the workers who spend their lives in the gloomy confines of the modern mill or shop. Obedient to the shrill whistle they pour out of their clustered grey dwellings in the early morning. Out of the labor ghettos they swarm and into their dismal slave-pens. Then the long monotonous, daily "grind," and home again to repeat the identical proceeding on the following day. Almost always, tired, trained to harsh discipline or content with low comfort; they are all too liable to feel that capitalism is invincibly colossal and that the possibility of a better day is hopelessly remote. Most of them are unacquainted with their neighbors. They live in small family or boarding house units and, having no common meeting place, realize only with difficulty the mighty potency of their vast numbers. To them organization appears desirable at times but unattainable. The dickering conservatism of craft unionism appeals to their cautious natures. They act only en masse, under awful compulsion and then their release of repressed slave emotion is sudden and terrible. Not so with the weather-tanned husky of the Northwestern woods. His job life is a group life. He walks to his daily task with his fellow workers. He is seldom employed for long away from them. At a common table he eats with them, and they all sleep in common bunk houses. The trees themselves teach him to sc
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35  
36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

workers

 

lumber

 

common

 

factory

 

hopelessly

 

possibility

 

invincibly

 

colossal

 

morning

 

unacquainted


boarding

 

family

 

monotonous

 

capitalism

 

neighbors

 

remote

 

Almost

 

dismal

 
repeat
 

identical


proceeding

 
trained
 

comfort

 

liable

 

content

 

discipline

 

ghettos

 

desirable

 

Northwestern

 
tanned

sudden
 

emotion

 

terrible

 

weather

 
fellow
 
houses
 
employed
 

seldom

 
repressed
 

release


numbers

 

organization

 

appears

 

dwellings

 

potency

 

mighty

 

meeting

 

realize

 

difficulty

 

unattainable