﻿Soap Ethics 
 
They take one-third of a bar of soap, drop it into a revolving grinder––in a flash it is soap flakes and sells for five cents. One five-cent bar of soap will make three five-cent packages of soap flakes. 

Arithmetic, Avordupois and Neuralgia teaches us that soap manufacturers thus obtain 10 cents profit on a 5-cent bar of soap, plus original profit on the bar, less the cost of grinding and paper which amounts to one-tenth of one cent. Thus, on an article that costs them about 2 1-10 cents, they clear 12 9-10 cents; six times its cost. No wonder they can contribute to the campaign and champagne funds! 
There’s money in soaping the people. 

Cleaniless may be next to godliness but damn me if such ethics doesn’t look like a chunk of Hereafter, such as Billy Sawpath threatens us with. 
Dr. Copeland, U. S. Senator from New York, says, in Mpls. Trib.––”Glucose, like Oleo-margarine, is a wholesome food.” Unfortunately, the places in which the Senator eats, do not serve oleo or foods containing glucose. He puts forth a tearful plea in favor of starch sugar –– but it’s dollars against slushfunds that the doctor keeps himself in legislative trim by eating pure cane sugar –– cost, per pound, 1½ cents more––and genuine “blackstrap” 
I’ve not been a lumberjack all these years without learning something about medicine. “Cope” may have a monopoly on legislative sense but when it comes to drugs and family remedies I know glucose and oleo-margarine like no living man knows––and dead ones don’t count, or know. . . . 
Equitable wholesome taxation is an established fact, (under the benign and benevolent guidance of American capitalists)––in the cane sugar country, Cuba. But, all the lands are not yet under the control of our sugar kings. By destroying their markets in favor of starch glucose (incidentally beet sugar) Doctor Copeland’s remarks seem strangely coincidental with the expansion scheme of our sugar lords. Once the people become reconciled to wholesome glucose (and oleo) the Cubans will find it profitable to sell out. Once they sell out, Doc Copeland may finish his sentence, thus: “Glucose and Oleo-margarine is a wholesome food” but not in it with Cane Sugar, Cane Syrup, and Creamery Butter. 
There’s a difference between wholesome food, good food, pure food, and best food. Copeland, just now, speaks for wholesome food. 
We speak for the other three. 

 A noted top-loader, whose temper is recognized as a model of unevenness with scalloped edges, took refuge in a “windbreak” that passes for a Hotel in Rhinelander, Wis. Upon retiring to his room, (after all opposition had been squelched in the various confectionary stores) he threw back the yellow, nicotine-stained sheets of the “trundle” (that passes for a bed) and was horrified to find it already occupied by several hundred belligerent crumbs,––lice. 
He was astounded––came near swallowing his cud of “Five Brothers,” (smoking and chewing). When he regained control of his spluttering temper he rushed down to the office. 
“Did you rent me a room a little while ago?” he opens up on the clerk gently. 
“Why, yes,” returns the clerk, 2what’s the matter with it?” (He don’t know). 
“Come on up and I’ll show you––come on up,” invites the top-loader, his touchy nature beginning to warm up, “come on up.” 
“There’s no need of me going up,” protested the clerk, “I know the bed’s all right; the Congressman of this district slept in it last night.” 
“By the Crucified Saginaw Slim,” busts out the top-man, “I don’t object to sleeping in a ‘congressional bed,’ nor do I object to sleeping with a congressman, but damn me for a Flambeau ‘dead-head’ if I’m going to sleep with the whole Republican party!” 
“Hush, hush,” cautions the clerk, “here, take this pint for a pillow, and curl up on the floor––that’s the last room we’ve got.” 
Although this was supposed to have happened years and years ago when congressmen were not so pulchritudinous about their double knit “body-guards,” it illustrates the trend of times business ethics so well that I cannot resist offering it, as I heard it. The story is absolutely true beyond question. The bed is still there. The crumbs in the third and fourth generation, are still there, but not still. . . . The sheets are still unwashed and the town is still there––and getting stiller. 

Note.––Swenson tells me Saginaw Slim was Mackinaw Mike’s sawing partner in his younger days. 

So, you see, industrial unionism is not dual unionism––it is different. It is distinctive unionism, in a class by itself. It has about it many things that endears it to the worker––any one of the many good features will guarantee its support, life, success and grand old age. We stress its technical form by saying: Organize industrially, by industries and industries, but although, its form alone would and will bring home the bacon to the workers we do not rely on that only––we demand a change in the wage system. The wage system has been repudiated by professional men––doctors, lawyers, business men refuse to work for wages––It isn’t good enough for them.