The Frontier Has Closed: A Warning to Labor

Now, my friends, when I say we cannot escape this struggle, on what grounds do I base that statement? Not on guesswork; I base it on facts. I want to say to you, men of labor, that I know something of the labor end of the game. I worked day after day for twelve hours a day, side by side with colored men, and got a dollar a day for the work. I broke away and went to Alaska, fought my way over Chilcoot Summit and down White Horse Rapids. When we passed over the great frozen stretches of Alaska, we stopped on a cliff that looked out over Bering Sea. It meant that the great frontier, which for a hundred years gave an opening to the surplus labor of America, had passed forever. Today, there is a bright-eyed boy in every little town of the country thinking of leaving his narrow surroundings. Where will he go? He will not go to the frontier; it has ceased to exist. He is coming to the industrial centers of America—to Chicago, to New York, to Everett—to enter the labor struggle. He is the ready tool of the combined scab labor crowd to hurl against the standard of every organized trade in the land. My friends, every man of labor here has got to accept the supreme obligation of universal organization, from the man who digs the ditch to the most highly skilled mechanic in the land.