The Centralia Conspiracy | Page 6

is not done that people may have lumber for their
needs, but rather that some overfed parasite may first add to his holy
dividends. Production for profit always strikes the logger with the full
force of objective observation. And is it any wonder, with the process
of exploitation thus naked always before his eyes, that he should have
been among the very first workers to challenge the flimsy title of the
lumber barons to the private ownership of the woods?

The Factory Worker and the Lumber-Jack

Without wishing to disparage the ultimate worth of either; it might be
well to contrast for a moment the factory worker of 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 scorn his master's
adventitious claim to exclusive ownership. The circumstances of his
daily occupation show him the need of class solidarity. His strong body
clamours constantly for the sweetness and comforts of life that are
denied him, his alert brain urges him to organize and his independent
spirit gives him the courage and tenacity to achieve his aims. The union
hall is often his only home and the One Big Union his best-beloved. He
is fond of reading and discussion. He resents industrial slavery as an
insult. He resented filth, overwork and poverty, he resented being made
to carry his own bundle of blankets from job to job; he gritted his teeth
together and fought until he had ground these obnoxious things under
his iron-caulked heel. The lumber trust hated him just in proportion as
he gained and used his industrial power; but neither curses, promises
nor blows could make him budge. He knew what he wanted and he
knew how to get what he wanted. And his boss didn't like it very well.
The lumber-jack is secretive and not given to expressed
emotion--excepting in his union songs. The bosses don't like his songs
either. But the logger isn't worried a bit. Working away in the woods
every day, or in his bunk at night, he dreams his dream of the world as
he thinks it should be--that "wild wobbly dream" that every passing day
brings closer to realization--and he wants all who work around him to
share his vision and his determination to win so that all will be ready
and worthy to live in the New Day that is dawning.
In a word the