Page:Sunset volume XXXVI.pdf/139

 SUNSET, the Paciﬁc Monthly m

F2

The Suicide of Reason COUPLE of hundred years ago France took Alsace-Lorraine from Germany; in [870 Ger

many reconquered the stolen territory with a slice of French terri tory to boot. France armed to get revenge and the Lost Provinces. Ger many armed to keep them. Seeing Germany arm, Russia got busy. See ing Russia arm, Germany armed some more. Seeing Germany arm, France bought more guns. Seeing France buy more guns, Germany ordered additional Krupps. Seeing Germany enlarge the Krupp works, Russia in creased its armament orders. Ger many went Russia one better, France hurried to bring its forces to the new level, Germany gave its army another boost and started a ﬂeet as a side line,

thus bringing England into the game, whereupon Russia enlarged its supply of ﬁeld howitzers etc. etc. until some one carelessly tossed the lighted match into the mess. BANG! Reason commits harikari when the armament race begins.

Mr. Hearst in a recent editorial saw the Japanese attack the Paciﬁc Coast while England, mindful of its

duty to its ally, attacked the Atlantic Coast and half a million Canadian veterans swept in from the north. We have a vivid picture of British Columbia invading Washington to help the Japanese. But we would like to know whence the half million Canadian veterans is coming. So far onl 220,000 have enlisted anclfmore thanCanadians 50,000 have been killed or disabled. If Canada does raise half a million, one-third will be put out of action, and the entire army will be

disbanded when the European war ends. For the new Anglo-Japanese war against the United States the re cruiting would have to be done all over again. We have a great deal of respect and admiration for California's newest Senator, ames D. Phelan, but we cannot fol ow him with his 50,000Japa nese veterans. In the ﬁrst place we cannot quite grasp the method by which these 50,000 veterans, scattered

civilian task at noon for the daily

drill, the military training to be dis pensed with only in favor of work in the gun factories and powder works. The Preparedness arguments will make funny reading in lglo—unless the European armament race should continue as vigorously after the war as before. In that case the uniform will cease to be an unfamiliar sight on American streets. Twenty-Cent-an-Hour Patriots INETEEN and a half cents multiplied bv ten makes less than two dollars a day. De ducting Sundays and the in evitable periods of unemployment, - average earnings at this rate sink to barely ten dollars a week. In Ore on the Minimum Wage Commission fias ﬁxed $9.25 as the lowest amount that will enable an adult woman worker to live in decency. It is obvious that no American family can subsist on a wage of nineteen and a half cents an hour earned by its head. The result of this wage scale is the presence in the body politic of large masses of foreign workers, most of them unmarried, unattached and un

digested by the pepsin of American ideals. Their allegiance to the coun try in which they work is measured b the wage rate of nineteen and a half cents an hour, their respect for its in stitutions was glaringly shown in the ﬂames of Youngstown and Ludlow. Who can lay all the blame for the Ohio excesses on raw foreigners ﬁlled with raw booze who have suddenly been blessed with political liberty? It is bad enough to have native workmen sullenly go on strike in su preme national crises. England has felt the sensation. In the United States there are several million foreign laborers whose loyalty the country can claim only at the rate of twenty cents an hour. Any plan of Preparedness which disregards this element of na tional weakness is woefully incomplete. Preparedness must include the liv ing wage and a radical change in the national attitude toward immigration in its program.

and with Anton Johannsen, general organizer ‘of the carpenters’ and joiners union. After the verdict Tveitmoe is re ported to have said: "There will be ten years’ war in Los Angeles. They will pay for this.” The secretar ' of the State Building Trades Counci did not maintain that Schmidt was innocent. No labor leader alleged that the trial had been unfair, that Schmidt had been rail roaded to the penitentiary. Los An geles was threatened with revenge merely because the community had brought tojustice an active participant in the murder of twenty men. Does organized labor endorse Tveit moe's threat? Is the American Feder ation of Labor sending ﬁfty organizers to Los Angeles as a “punishment” for Schmidt’s conviction? Did organized labor really mean what it said when it repudiated the McNamaras after their confession or did it merely fail to have the courage of its convictions? Hypocrisy is contem tible. There is far more courage an manliness in the I. W. W.’s open, frank declaration

of war against a capitalistic society than in the attitude of labor leaders who encourage and condone dyna miting out of one corner of the mouth while the other corner deprecatcs dynamiting and murder.

When is a Law Not a Law?

OMEONE recently dug up a moth-eaten Blue law in'Oregon, passed before the Civil war and ordaining complete Sunday closing of practically all commercial enterprises and amusements. The webfootcrs shivered in antici ation of a Canadian Sunday until Ju ge Gan tenbein, apparently of Teutonic origin, saved the state from the impending made-in-England catastro he. Tak Labor Leaders and Hypocrisy ing the bull by the horns he declared FTER the dynamiting of the the act unconstitutional and the base Los Angeles Times building, ball fans were jubilant until the in which twenty men were federal courts opined that Judge

over a territor ' eighteen hundred miles long. can be concentrated hur riedly and without arousing suspicion at two or three points. We would also like to know why we are maintaining a secret service if it has not yet dis covered the place in which the equip ment of 50,000 men is hidden. With roasted to death, Matthew A. out effective concentration and equip Schmidt and David Caplan, among ment the gun men of the Chinese others, were charged with murder. tongs would suffice to protect Cali They became fugitives from justice. fornia from the scattered, unarmed, After the lapse of four years Schmidt undirected groups of Japanese. was caught and brought to trial. For If it's the half million Canadian a while his attorneys att‘empted to soldiers and the 50,000 Japanese veter make the jury believe, the McNa ans that are causing all this stir and maras’ confession notwithstanding, excitement, the nation does not need that gas and not d namite had caused he trial lasted for more guns. It needs an ice pack and the explosion. a cathartic. If, on the contrary, there months, the defense being supplied is danger of a concerted attack by with ample funds. The jury found England, Japan and Germany, every Schmidt guilty on the ﬁrst ballot and able-bodied man should quit his rendered its verdict in less than an “WM

hour. It was proven to the complete satisfaction of the jury that Schmidt had ordered, paid for and called for the dynamite part of which was used to consign twenty men to a horrible death. During the trial it was brought out that McNamara and Schmidt had been in close touch with Olaf Tveit moe, -treasurer of the Cali fornia secreta State lByuilding Trades Council,

Ga_ntenbein was wrong. llavin set tled the state's power to enact egis lation blue as the Arizona sky the federal judges sent the case back to the Portland bench where Judge Gan tenbein promptly continued the case until after the state election in No vember. He maintained that the pop— ulace was against the enforcement of the forgotten statute and that it should be rendered inoperative until the uestion of the obsolete act's repeal cool he settled at the polls. As laws go, Oregon's Sunday-closing act is a perfectly good statute, a little