The Land of the Free! (1906)

From the February 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

A dispatch from Dayton, 0., reports that 300 employees of the National Cash Register Co. were discharged because they failed to attend a meeting to listen to addresses on the labour situation by the company officials. The meeting was called by the company because of its decision to refuse the demands of the Typographical union for an eight-hour day. This is the concern which advertises itself as the “model employer of labor,” because it furnishes bath towels, pocket-handkerchiefs and hair curlers to its employes. In return for these kindnesses the company exacts complete obedience from its slaves, as shown above. This only makes clear again that the capitalists will grant everything (even higher wages sometimes), but freedom to the workers, for with freedom will come an end of exploitation. The capitalists are dictators because they own the tools with which the workers must earn a livelihood. When the workers own the tools the despotism of capitalism will cease, and only then.

Labor (St. Louis).