Golden Age, January 3, 1923

Download: PDF — Golden Age, January 3, 1923

Golden Age

IV Brooklyn N. Y., WednMday, Jaa. i. 1123 - Number M

The Deflation of Labor

IS IT the true standard of civilization to see how many persons of all sorts, useful and useless, can be supported by a given band of workers! How many idiots! How many insane! How many helpless children! How many frivolous women! How many crooked financiers? How many scheming politicians! How many shyster lawyers! How many fake newspaper men! How many quack doctors! How many dishonest merchants! How many purchased professors! How many snide scientists! How many beggars! How many preachers? How many priests! How many nuns? How many criminals! How many loafers of all sorts!

Even if this is true (as some seem to think) it yet Amains to be proven that it is to the interest of all these non-producers to see to it that the producers work as long hours as possible and for as little remuneration as possible.

As to the hours of work, the British Home Office issued a report in the year 1916, showing as a result of their investigations that a worker employed for eight hours a day may, because of his better physical and mental condition, produce a greater output than another of equal capacity working twelve hours a day; that a sample group of workers showed an absolute increase of over five percent in output as a result of a diminution of sixteen and one-half percent in the length of the working day and that another sample group increased their average output from 152 to 276 as a result of shortening the day from twelve hours to ten, and to 316 on a further shortening of two hours. *

What has been found to be true in England with respect to reductions in hours of labor having a different effect upon output from what one would imagine, has been found to be true in the United States with respect to compensation. Dr. Julius Klein, director of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, told a subcommittee of the House committee on appropriations that at the time when the coalminers here were paid the highest wages, much higher than were then paid in England to the same class of workers, coal could be landed on board ship at Norfolk cheaper than it could be landed on board ship at Cardiff. This was partly due to better pumping and hoisting apparatus, better shipping and delivery methods, but it was also largely due to the far greater productivity of the higher paid worker. Large wages are a spur to large output, and the largest producers are generally best paid. The well-paid man fears to lose his job, thinking that he may never get another one as good. He strives to please. The poorly-paid man, deprived of adequate comforts for himself and family, renders relatively poor service.

There is the tragic side to low wages, too. Whenever a large employer of low-priced labor makes a cut in the wages of his workers, he can know to a certainty that some precious lives will be lost as a result of his act. The „ Children’s Bureau of the Department of Labor has published statistics showing the close relation between income and infant mortality; the lower the earnings the less chance the worker has of saving his babies. Can a man whose babies are dying because he cannot properly care for them put the same heart into his work as one who is adequately paid?

And then there is the business side to high and low wages. “Wages are too high; we propose to see to it that the wages of all worker® in the country are reduced at least a dollar a day.” Let us suppose the business men of the country coming together and making such a statement. It might sound reasonable, but is it!

There are 40,000,000 workers in the country.

If they get a dollar less a day they will spend a dollar less a day. Is it good business to turn away from the possible profits on $40,000,000 worth of merchandise every day! Can the business interests of the country get along with the annual total of, say, $12,000,000,000 less purchases of commodities than at present! Many business men are like sheep, and show about as much sense. If the workers in a community spend their earnings in that community why should any of the business men in that community want them pa;d a minimum wage! Is it not to the interests of everybody in that community that they should be well paid? Will the workers not be more contented, and will not the industries be busier and the dividends larger than could possibly be the case if the workers were paid on a subsistence basis?

Air. Gompers has pointedly called the attention of American business men to the fact that they have much to be thankful for because wages have been high; that it is these high wages that have made America what it is; and that if long hours and low wages make for commercial prosperity then China should be the leader among the family of nations instead of being a tail-ender, so to speak.

Yet with all these good reasons for holding wages at a high level, the leading financier of Wall Street, when asked in 1914 if he thought ten dollars a week was a high enough wage for a longshoreman, is alleged to have made the nonsensical reply, “Yes; it is enough if he accepts it.” Our comment on such a remark must necessarily be that one who would make such a remark shows plainly that he does not love his own children. He is thinking only of the present and not of the future. Or if he is thinking of the future he is thinking of it in terms of machine guns, without a doubt.

Senator La Follette, in some respects the ablest statesman in American public life, boldly claims a great conspiracy by the masters of American finance to bring the workers of this country to actual serfdom through a systematic campaign of wage cutting. Some of his expressions on the subject are as follows:

“I set myself the task of proving to the Senate and the country that the wages of labor today are less than they were at the beginning of this century; that the purchasing power of labor at this moment of time will not command, by a considerable amount, as much of the necessaries of life as was the case ten years before the beginning of this century. I undertake to say that no answer can be made to the facte and arguments which it will be possible to put before the Senate of the United States.”

"Today there are five or six millions of toilers in the United States who are out of work and their families are hungry, to the end that their spirit may be crushed and a new generation of serfs may be bred. This evil combination against the workers is made more formidable and terrifying because it has enlisted the active support and cooperation of the national administration and courts. The United States Supreme Court and the lower courts are depriving the workers of their weapons of defense one by one and seeking to bind them with chains, so that their masters may with impunity scourge them into submission. No such combination has ever been arrayed together for an evil purpose in the history of this country. Beside it, the slave power pales into insignificance by the record that is being made by the federal courts at this time.” The Overshadowing Issue

THE Golden Age gives considerable atten-tion to economic questions because the eco- • nomic issues created by the World War overshadow all others. They are greater than all the other issues combined. If the great financiers are blundering along in the dark bo that they can actually view with equanimity the possibility of a longshoreman working for ten dollars a week, it is not to be wondered at that the common people need to discuss such matters. If they do not discuss these issues and keep the desire for justice always before their minds, they but hasten the day when ten dollars a week for longshoremen and for all other workers will be considered the outside limit in wages, and “efficiency experts” will be preparing elaborate tables showing just how many ounces of oatmeal and chopped straw are necessary to sustain life, while the financiers meanwhile are devising ways and means to get more profits out of oats and straw.

The brightest minds in the world are studying economics, in the hope of unearthing some plan by which the present system of driving the workers furiously for six months a year, and then locking them out of the factories for the next six months while the excess products are being consumed, can be avoided. Just recently some new items have been presented by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The Bureau finds that in 1909 the national income was $28,800,000,000; that in 1918 it was $61,000,000,000; but that when the cost-of-living yardstick is applied, on the basis of the 1913 experience, the actual income had increased in the nine years from $30,100,000,000 to but $38,800,000,000; and that this increase does not allow for the increase of population.

Basing its calculations on data obtained from mines, factories and land transportation the Bureau furnishes figures to show that the proportion of total income paid out in wages and salaries increased from 68.7 percent in 1909 to 77.3 percent in 1918. Of the amount paid out in wages and salaries 8 percent went to officials and the balance to other workers.

The Bureau also shows that of all of those who received income, one percent obtained fourteen percent of the income, ten percent received thirty-five percent of the income, and twenty percent received a little less than one-half of the total income. Stating the same facts in another way: If there were 100 persons interested in each $100 of income, one person out of the 100 received fourteen dollars of the amount, nine other persons received two dollars and thirty-three cents, ten other persons received about one dollar and fifty cents each, and the remaining eighty persons received about sixty-three cents each. In the year 1918, on the basis of the 1913 cost of living, the average worker received $682 a year. The working class, however, purchased seventy percent of the total product.

The Bureau takes up the average net annual income of 172 large corporations in sixteen basic industries during the period 191G-1920, and finds that it was $1,096,000,000 as compared with $414,000,000 during the period 1912-1914. It takes up the matter of reserves; and finds that out of a total net profit to corporations of. $40,000,000,000 in the years 1913-1920, $17,000,-000,000 were added to corporate surplus, some of which was invested in buildings and some held as cash in the bank from which to pay future dividends.

As a matter of fact the New York Journal of Commerce shows that with all the deflation of farmers and the assassination of industry by the Federal Reserve Bank system in 1921 the dividend and interest payments in that year were the largest in history and were double those in 1913. These facts move one to ask: What great service did these corporate interests render to society that justified their being doubly rewarded in the year of the farmer’s greatest disappointment, and in the year when the factory doors were closed to union labor!

That those who doubly rewarded themselves in the same year in which they punished the fanner and the worker knew in advance what they were about is plain from a thoughtful reading of the following extract from the "Business and Financial Outlook of the First National Bank of Philadelphia,” published April 15, 1921, just as the liquidation of labor policy was getting nicely under way: (The italics are ours.)

"Liquidation of labor has become the chief factor in the most extraordinary financial and industrial situation that has developed within the memory of those now living. Wages are being reduced just as the prices of staple commodities have been lowered, and the movement is by no means ended. It is the most important task that the American people have engaged in since hostilities ceased; for it is a life and death question, not only for the workers whose wages are being reduced, but also for the infinitely greater multitude of citizens who are struggling hard to make both ends meet, owing to the continued high cost of living which enters into everything that they eat, wear or consume.”

In other words, here is "an infinitely great multitude of people” who are of little or no use to society, except to the makers of automobiles, golf sticks, fine clothing, and tableware. They do not want to work themselves. It is expensive to live, and the only way they know by which to live nicely is to cut a chunk out of the farmers and workers and live on that until some new war or labor-saving device or other scheme creates another opportunity to pile up a bank roll for those who "toil not, neither do they spin.”

The same effort which we see going on in America to make the workers pay for the war and support in luxury the "infinitely great multitude of people” who came into the leisure class as % result of the war, is going on elsewhere. The London Daily Herald calls attention to the fact that the internal national debt is about £7,000,000,000, and the interest on it about £350,000,000; that as the money increases in value in proportion to goods, the real burden of the interest charges increases and the holders of the war loan get higher and higher returns on their money in goods which can be produced by none others than the workers; that if only one percent were taken off that interest there would be nearly £70,000,000 a year saved — enough to prevent the cutting then under way of the wages of miners and agricultural laborers.

It strikes observers in these matters as very unfair that when readjustments are to be made the ones that are "readjusted” are usually the ones that do the producing, and the legal decisions tend that way. The Supreme Court decides that “no legislation can compel corporations to work for the public at a loss.’" But what court has ever attempted to decide that a workers remuneration is unfair and must be rectified upward! Is a man of less importance in the eyes of the law than a corporation!

But during war times even such a thing might happen; for when the world is being made safe for democracy everybody is anxious that the workers have a fair deal. So it was that the National War Labor Board made a decision in 1919 that 38,000 workers in the em-jdoy of the Bethlehem Steel Company were to have an increase in wages for the period from August 1,1918, to February 28, 1919. But the Bethlehem Steel Company refused to abide by the award; so what good did the decision do the workers! Corporations have a habit of refusing to abide by the decisions of anybody, but woe betide the worker that tries it. No corporation lawyer will rush to his rescue, and no corporationally-inclined court will lend a listening ear to his specious pleas.

Bamnurinff Down tfu Waga

THE peak in wage rates was reached in 1920, when the average rate per hour for males was fifty-eight cents and the average rate for women forty-three cents. The great drive against wages was made during the first nine months of 1921. During that time five million American workers sustained an average cut in wages of sixteen percent. Believing a review of this great movement will be of interest we give some of the details.

In the lines of food production and preparation we find that wages of farm-hands dropped during that period from an average of $46.89 to $29.48 or about thirty-seven percent, and in Brooklyn there has been a large- reduction in the wages paid to bakers and bakers9 helpers — about $9 per week less for each, we understand.

In the mining business during that time 128,500 mine-workers had their wages cut nineteen percent, but the real fight to reduce mine-worh-ers wages was reserved to 1922, as all readers of The Golden Age are aware. The papers have been full of it and hence we have not attempted to keep pace with it. For a fine, statesmanlike review of the situation President Hard

ing’s address to Congress on August 18th was par excellent. '

The President, knowing that the mining agreements would expire on April 1st, 1922, tried to obtain a conference between operators and miners five months before that time, but failed; and the strike occurred on that date. The public has been .robbed shamelessly by the coal profiteers, and with their wages lessened are demanding cheaper fuel

In July the President got the contending interests together, but with no result Then he -pleaded with both sides to renew work on the basis of the wages in effect prior to April 1st, while a coal commission should make a carefid inquiry into all the facts bearing upon the matter and then make recommendations. But a powerful minority of the operators and alt of the mine-workers declined the proposal. Then the President announced protection to any mine^ that would operate. Again the results were nil S

The President calls attention to the fact that there are 200,000 more mine-workers in thk * country than are needed, and that it is impend.....

tive that something be done toward stabilizing their earnings and the distribution of the coal * they produce. He urges an impartial invest!-gation fend concludes with the argument:

‘The almost total exhaustion of stocks of coaL ths , crippled condition of the railways, the distressed situation that has arisen and might grow worse in our gnat cities due to the shortage ol anthracite, the suffering which might arise in the Northwest through failure to meet winter needs by lake transportation: all theaa added to the possibility of outrageous price demand^ in spite of the most sealous voluntary efforts of ths government to restrain them, make it necessary to ask you to consider at once some form of temporary control of distribution and prices.”

It is a matter of common knowledge that the labor c>st in a ton of coal is around $3.00, while the sell ag-price to the consumer sticks around $11.00, and has done so ever since the war. AH the talk by the operators about wanting to reduce the wages of the coal miners so that they can reduce the price of coal is pure moonshine, made for public consumption. The public win not get a lower price for coal; they will get a higher price. One anthracite coal company is alleged to have boasted that it will clean i not less than $30,000,000 as a result of this strike, due to the fact that it will sell off its surplus coal at fancy prices.

As to the suffering magnates in the bituminous industry, the vice-president of the Pittsburgh Coal Company, producing annually 13,-000,000 to 18,000,000 tons, stated to the Senate committee on manufactures in January, 1921, that the net profits made by his company were equal to four-fifths of the wages paid to its mine workers. This is one of the companies which is leading in the fight against the miners’ union, on the ground that miners’ wages are too high and must come down. How would it do if these distressed plutocrats would accept say three-fifths as much in profit as the combined wages of all their workers . instead of four-fifths 1 Indeed, one who is well out of reach of the courts that must pass upon such revolutionary remarks might even suggest two-fifths, or possibly one-fifth.

The coal industry is as badly demoralized in Nova Scotia and in Australia, or nearly so, as it is in the United States. The struggle to reduce the miners7 wages is on in both places, thus indicating sympathy of action among the mine owners, and probably collusion.

Oil production is a species of mining. In Bakersfield, the center of the California oil field, there is an industrial association, consisting of the bankers, merchants, real estate men, lawyers and doctors, which is undertaking to set the wages to be paid in that city for all classes of labor. This is an odd undertaking. We wonder how effective would be an organization of workers that should attempt to stipulate the fees which might be charged by the legal or medical profession, or what might be the profits of the merchants and real estate men and bankers.

In the House of Commons, in England, the Scottish Oils, Limited, has been up before Parliament for paying men so poorly that the wage$ were insufficient for the support of their families and the poor board had to be called upon to furnish relief. The British Government, which has large interests in the corporation, declared it illegal to authorize relief for men working full time; but it did nothing to raise the wages of the underpaid workers.

In the American iron and steel business 412,-800 employes had their wages cut in 1921 to the average amount of 19.2 percent. The re-duct'.uns followed one another in rapid succession. There were three cuts between May 1st and September 1st, one of which was the abolition of time and a half for overtime. The wages for day laborers in the iron and steel industry are now in the neighborhood of thirty cents an hour, and are not enough to live on.

During the first six months of 1922 the sales of iron and steel bonds were enormous, based upon the happy information that “wages in the iron and steel industry are coming down.” The bonds increase as the wages decrease. This is a grim joke, and a grimy one. Investors in bonds in the New York Stock Exchange in the first half of 1922 bought over two billion dollars worth, or more than twice the amount purchased during the first six months of 1921. When the cuts in wages of steel employes were made, no charge was made in the ten- and twelve-hour work-days or in the 24-hour day, when the employes change shifts. The cut cost the steel workers over $100,000,000 a year in wages.

At the same time that cuts were made in the iron and steel industries there was a general reduction in wages in the plants of the General Electric Company at Lynn, Schenectady, and 'elsewhere, and among other electrical workers, affecting 75,500 employes and reducing their wages an average of 18.2 percent. There was also an average cut of 14.8 percent in the wages of 109,300 shipbuilders and 19.6 percent in the wages of 15,600 car builders and repairers.

In the Textile Group

ACCORDING to the table of wage reductions compiled by the J. L. Jacobs Co., Chicago, the group of workers that sustained the worst cuts were the textile workers and, among all the textiles, the cotton workers. It thus transpires that 213,000 cotton workers had their wages reduced by 25.7 percent, and the kindred lines of hosiery and underwear workers to the number of 7,000 employes had their wages cut 24.3 percent. The woolen workers did not fare quite so badly, but they fared badly enough; 100,200 of them sustained an average reduction in wages of twenty percent

At the invitation of some labor leaders the New York Times made investigation of the conditions in the cotton-mill districts of New England. It found unsanitary and deplorable living conditions; it found villages where the owners control everything, including the church and ball park; at Crompton it found an old ramshackle block intended for six families oo cupied by forty-three persons, aged women working for less than seven dollars a week, men working for less than twelve dollars a week and the highest-paid workers receiving only twice that amount, while they all worked fifty-four hours per week. The increase from forty-eight hours per week to fifty-four hours per week was contested bitterly by the workers, and it should have been contested; for it is inhuman.

When the cuts were made in the cotton-mill districts of the South the workers, who had been lifted from a mere existence up to a measure of something like comfort, were thrust back toward the edge of barbarism. Thomas McMahon, president of the United Textile Workers’ Union, cites instances where women who were receiving twenty-seven dollars for a week of fifty-live hours had their wages reduced to eleven dollars and fifty cents and their hours. increased to sixty per week. All these reductions took place in one year’s time.

Reports reach us that more than thirty factories in the textile region of Northern France were idle because of a strike of the workmen, who refused to accept a wage reduction because the application of a coefficient indicates a decrease in the cost of living.

Silk-makers in general were not hit so hard as other textile workers, although 30,500 of them received cuts in wages averaging 17.5 percent. 100,000 men’s garment workers received cuts averaging 16.7 percent In the paper-making industries 24,000 workers received cuts averaging 16.6 percent. Leather workers, boot and shoemakers, wood-heel makers, ribbon weavers, bag menders and box makers, government workers, and clerical workers all came in for their share of similar attention here and abroad.

An odd exception to this general wage slashing was that of the Nash Clothing Company of Cincinnati, which reduced the hours of labor of its employes from forty-four to forty and increased their wages ten percent. Mr. Nash, the head of the company, declared that he was abolishing Saturday work purely because he is trying to live and do business by the Golden Rule; that he is trying to treat the women in his employ as he would wish his own mother, sister, or daughter, treated under similar conditions, and that he must enlarge his plant just at the time when others are retrenching.

Railroad Wage Cutting

NO, READER—we are not speaking of railroad rate cutting. That was done in the olden days, when the railroads were bidding against one another for the public support, and before they had the public at their mercy. We are speaking of railroad wage cutting. And it has been an uphill job; for the railroad men know that the country must have , railroad service, and they are not disposed to be sheared without protesting in such a way that the country will know about it

The Railroad Labor Board, authorized by the Esch-Cummins Act, hfcs no power to enforce its decisions ; hence it is merely an advisory bureau. It advised the carriers not to undertake to farm out their shop work on a contract basis to relatives and friends who would agree, for a large consideration, to use the carrier’s shops and appliances and employ only non-union men. But the carriers, for tin most part, ignored the advice and did as they pleased.

Then the Railroad Labor Board advised the shopmen to take another generous cut in their wages, and the shopmen, seeing what some of the carriers had done, declined to cooperate • and the fat was in the fire. The President of the United States tried desperately to get the carriers and their workers to agree to a review of the whole matter by the Labor Board and to agree to abide by its decisions while they meanwhile return to work.

The question of seniority was involved. Old employes who stayed on at work had been pro- * moted. The strikers were not willing to return to work unless they could have their old jobs back. The President, believing there would be a sum total of less suffering by that means, urged that the strikers be given their old jobs; but the carriers refused to do as he asked.

Then the President urged the men to return to work anyway, and let the Labor Board adjust the seniority disputes individually. A majority of the carriers agreed to this, but a minority refused even that solution, and the men stayed out The President reported lawlessness and violence in a hundred places, where public sentiment had been unable to restrain the strikers from molesting those who had taken their places.

In 1920 the total payroll of all carriers in the United States was $3,733,816,186, which included the salaries of all officials; in 1921 the total payroll was $2,800,896,614, a reduction for the year of $932,919,572, with no record of the salary of even one official being reduced. It will thus be seen that in the matter of bringing down wages the Railroad Labor Board has been very energetic. It reduced the express company workers also.

But the Board has not acquired the same reputation for fairness that it has for energy. It based its case for the shopmen’s cut on the statement that the purchasing power of the reduced wages would still be above the 1917 level, the worst year that railroad workers had had for fifty years. At that time the costs of living were rising rapidly, and the wages had rise n not at all.

The Board made a cut of 13.2 percent in the wages of maintenance of way employes, the lowest-paid workers on the railroads, after E. L. Hardy, a section foreman of Cambridge, Mass., had told them that the children of the men under him were underfed, that their mothers had to work to help out the family finances, and that many of the families had to be helped out by charity.

The Esch-Cummins Act laid down seven principles which were to guide the Labor Board in rendering its decisions: The scales paid in other industries; the relation between wages and cost of living; the hazards of employment; the training and skill required; the degree of responsibility; the character of the employment and the inequalities of wages resulting from previous decisions. In ordering the cut in wages of shopmen, which precipitated the strike, the Board cited only the first two of these items as having entered into their calculations, and they made the fatal mistake of referring again to the costs of living in 1917.

If it be asked what benefit the people have - received from the savings of millions of dollars in operating the railroads, the answer is that they have received nothing. Rates continue at about double what they were before the war, and the service is incomparably inferior to what it was when the rates were low.

Just because he has more sense than a thousand ordinary captains of industry, and because he has a vast fortune, too, Henry Ford is buying all kinds of things; and among the lot he bought a 400-mile railroad running south from Detroit to the Ohio river. First he raised the wages of the workers, and the road made so much money that Henry said he would be glad to cut the rates in two if the Government would let him. But the Government would not let him. What a squeezing of watered stock and a stirring up of old dry bones it would make among the gentlemen that have been persuading the Labor Board to cut wages if they had to show the results that Henry says have come to him just naturally!

As the railroad operators have come to the Labor Board and asked and received what they wanted in the way of wage reductions of workers, so the American Steamship Owners’ Association has come to the United States Shipping Board and obtained drastic reductions in the wages of shipworkers. The total reduction in wages of seamen in one year was fifty percent and for the officers forty percent \

President Furuseth of the International Seamen’s Union, before the joint committee of Senate and House, declares the cost of seamen on a British ship of like tonnage is now fifty-four percent higher than on American ships, due to the limited number of men in the standard American crew and to the great reduction in the wages. He says further that while the American seamen have been submitting to cuts ranging from thirty-seven to fifty-three percent the wages of Japanese seamen have been increased forty-five percent, the wages of Australian seamen nine percent, and the wages of Chinese seamen by a substantial but unreported amount

In the building trades in America 477,500 persons had their wages cut an average of 17.3 percent in the first nine months of 1921, and 6,800 makers of building materials sustained an average cut of 18. 3 percent. Timber workers sustained cuts of forty to fifty percent in wages, and had their working day lengthened by an hour. There was a slight temporary reduction in. the price of lumber as a result, though the price has remained practically stationary.

Minimum Wage Legislation

IN TWELVE of the states'of the United

States, in Porto Rico, and in the District of Columbia, laws are in effect which forbid the employment of women and children at less than certain stipulated wages. Massachusetts was the leader in this type of legislation, which in

some European countries is applied to men as Well as to women. The constitutionality of these laws has been contested in several states, but in each case the laws have been upheld.

Employers of women have been casting longing eyes at these minimum wage laws, hoping for some way to get around them. In Massachusetts a suspender manufacturer came before the wage commission and submitted a budget Betting forth that $11.40 per week would maintain a self-supporting woman. In his budget he provided 15 cents for each meal; he was anxious that women workers should not overeat. Miss Weinstock, president of the Women’s Trade Union League, was present and shattered the efforts of the suspender maker to curb the appetite of his help by demonstrating that $16.50 is the minimum living cost of a' worker in the industry.

In California the married woman who is at the head of the minimum wage commission in that state reduced the minimum wage from fifteen dollars to ten dollars per week; and the editor of the Sacramento Tribune was not pleased. He said:

“Who the hades authorized this lady to obtain figures of the lowest point of existence for working women ? Could this work not just as well have been left to interested employers? Is it part of her secretarial duties to compile data to be used as propaganda for employers? If so, then the Welfare commission is not a body beneficial to working women, and its abolishment cannot be brought about too quickly,”

President Harding is not in favor of the payment of wages that will just sustain life. He sets that a suitable wage should not only provide normal food, clothing, shelter, education and recreation, but that it should offset unforeseen contingencies and give time for development and social expression, without which life is but a monotonous grind. In a speech delivered in New York, May 24, 1921, he said:

“In our effort at establishing industrial justice we must see that the wage earner is placed in an economically sound position. His lowest wage must be enough for comfort, enough to make his house a home, enough to insure that the struggle for existence shall not crowd out the things truly worth living for. There must be provision for education, for recreation, and a margin for savings. There must be such freedom of action aa will insure full play to the individual's abilities.”

It will be & shock to the narrow-minded who believe everything they read against Socialism, and who never get the chance to read anything on the other side of the question, to note how strangely like the President’s utterance is the following from the Socialist New York Call:

"If any more drastic indictments of our capitalist civilization have been drawn than the attempts of various commissions to arrive at a minimum amount that workers, both male and female, can ‘live’ on, we have never read them. If any one asked for a commission to establish a wage that would insure a real living to every worker, a wage that would buy the best of everything for the workers, and allow them to put away enough to give them ril the" comforts in time of sickness, he would be looked upon as crazy. This is the only kind of commission that would be asked if the world were really sane. That such a commission has never existed proves that what we name civilization is merely a condition of society in which a few get a real living and the mauy a bare existence.”

The Family Income

ALL are familiar with the fact that the wages of our daddies are not the wages of today ; but perhaps not all know that while their wages were less their income was more, due to the difference in the purchasing power of the dollar. The following table illustrates the average American wage in dollars for the year stated and the mount of food such wages purchased in the year before the World War:

- Food Value .

Year Wages in 1913

1889 .'....... $445

1899 .............. 426

1904 .............. / 477

1909 .............. 518

1914 .............. 580

1919 ............. 1,162

A concrete example of what has happened to the dollar may be seen in the case of pickminers. In 1900 they received fifty-two cents a ton. In 1913 they received sixty-five cents per ton; but the purchasing power of the sixty-five cents,]n comparison with fifty-two cents in 1900, was only forty-eight and one-half cents. Apparently they had received an increase of pay of thirteen cents per ton; actually they had received a reduction of three and one-half cents per ton. In 1921 the situation was still worse. The miners were then receiving $1,116 per ton; , but the purchasing power of the $1,116, in comparison with fifty-two cents in 1900, was only $0.4279. Apparently their wages had consider- > ably more than doubled in the twenty-one | years; actually they had received a cut in in- ' come of about twenty percent ।

Mudi has been said about family budgets for the typical family of husband, wife, and three children under fourteen years of age. There are such families, of course; but there are great varieties of modes of living. Some have homes of their own, some have not; some have sickness, some have not; some have more children, some have fewer; some have dependent parents; some have no children at all; some have other wage-workers helping out the income; some have no resources other than the wages of the one person; some have investments that help out the income; some live from hand to mouth; some families double up and live in most cramped quarters; some have more room than they can use; some live in climates where there is no fuel bill; some have to purchase and use fuel during nine months of the year. The averages of all these conditions are interesting but not overly conclusive.

In June, 1920, the Bureau of Labor Statistics computed how much of all the different commodities of life such a typical family would consume in a year. There were 400 commodities or services. In different cities in the same year the items enumerated could be purchased for from $2,067 to $2,533; in New York city for $2,368. But three-fourths of the wage earners of the United States receive less than $1,700 per year; so it is apparent that the typical family does not get its full share of the 400 commodities, or else the typical family has additional sources of income.

The saint* Bureau, from studies which it has made in nineteen cities, calculates that of each dollar of family income expended 38.2 percent goes for food, 16.6 percent for clothing. 13.5 percent for housing, 5.3 percent for fuel, 5.1 percent for furniture, and the balance of 21.3 percent for recreation and incidental expenditure.

Where the fathers are paid insufficiently to provide for family needs, the mother comes to the rescue; and the employment of women up to almost the very hour that they give birth to their children is a feature of American civilization of which none can be overly proud.

The Government Children’s Bureau made a study of 843 families in Chicago in which the mothers work. In these families were 2,066 children under fourteen years of age ; as a matter of course these children received inadequate care or no care during the day, and their mothers were usually over-fatigued and in ill-health. The report pays a deserved tribute to these women, many of whom do all their own washing and cooking. Some of these poor souls sacrifice themselves in every way in order to save their children from tasks too heavy for their years, and they work under such strain that they sometimes fall asleep over their machines from sheer exhaustion.

Wage Cute in Britain

THE same campaign of wage reduction which spread over the United States during the first nine months of 1921 spread over England at the same time, showing a determination on the part of the great financiers of both countries to make labor retreat from its advanced position. The wage reductions in Britain in this period affected 7,000,000 persons, and wiped out virtually all the increases in wages granted during 1919 and 1920.

The New York Times published early in 1922 the following table showing the net wage re-,duction per employ^ in various British industries for the first eleven months of 1921. It will be seen that all lines were affected, the same as in the United States:

Net reduc-

No. of

Net reduc-

^ion per

employes

tion in

employ^ .

affected

w’kly w^g,s

per week '

£ s d.

Iron and steel. . 239,500

£431,690

1 16 1

Mining and quar-

rying .......1,291,200

2,460,000

1 18 1

Binding and allied

trades....... 447,400

302.200

0 13 6

Textile ........1,006,700

594,720

0 11 10

Eng’g and ship-

building___..1,362,700

651.250

0 9 7

Transport ..... 912,000

381,300

0 8 4

Public utility .. 316,700

124,400

0 7 10

In the early part of 1920 the workers in British iron and steel industries were receiving average weekly wages of £5-8s-0d, a year later £4-18s-8d, and two years later £3-8s-2d, and in the fall of 1921 there were less than half of the number at work that were employed fifteen months before.

The London Herald, commenting upon the wage cuts whfle they were at their height, said:

“Millions of workers are bearing the bruin of a ruthless attack upon their standard of life. Mines, engineering, shipbuilding, steel, agriculture, building, rsflvaya, education, the riril —rrifle- all have the mi» atoiy to tell Wages and hous aro the objects of the attack, and the anptoyars an seeking to drive the vorkera back to the conditions that obtained before the •Great War?*

The moneys of Germany and Austria have so depreciated that no information can be imparted regarding wages that will adequately represent the facts. In Austria carpenters used to get 34 crowns per week; now they get 2,400 crowns per week, but the purchasing value of their wages has fallen from $7 per week to between $3 and $3.50, depending upon the rate of exchange. This is a fair sample of what has happened in all lines o$ industry. The net Austrian wages in American money range from .$2 to $5 per week. In Germany skilled mechanics receive forty-five cents per day up to ninety cents. • .

The U. & Government has just published estimates of the weekly wages earned in ten leading industries, computed on the basis of current exchange rates, but not taking into ao count the all-important factor of the difference in cost of living in the countries named. The figures are as follows:

Per Week

United States ........................$30.33

England

Belgium

France

Japan

Germany

Italy

Some subscriber in ‘England is kidding ns» In order to make us think that the times are completely askew there he has sent the following facetious clipping regarding the doings in the London Zoo:

JUMBO OH 8TRIDI

rumrs Dovnr nw-xanzjD Morions ar m zoo

As a protert against a naw standard of condititMM 1 not wages—the biggest and most popular elephant at the London Zoo has gone on strika

The trouble arose during ths wook end, when the elephant without warning to its employers^ withdrew its labor, and ceased to give any mars rides to the hundreds of demoting childrm.

His keepers, casting about lor a key to the problem, '

noticed that a change from wooden to trow steps as a means of mounting to the howdah had affected him. - . Sightly or wrongly, Jumbo refused the new sealer

The authorities hope to settle the trouble today by* replacing the old scale and conditions. .

But the times are bad enough everywhere f we do not doubt that at all, and the only remedy we can discern for the lowly workers thatare bearing and have always borne the brunt of tho burden of civilization is the ushering in of Mee-siah’s kingdom and the laying of * justice tn: the line and righteousness to the plummet.*— lariah 28:17.

"And I will pome near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against *. . . those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, and that turn aside the*' stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts.*—Malachi 3:5.

The Four Councils of Nations By Thomas r. Smith

IN ALL business it is a safe and wise procedure once a year to take stock, and note the success or faihirp of the year. In this very important business of bringing peace to this distracted and war-torn world, stock should be taken. In this ease of stock-taking, the question that first confronts you is, Why four councils where one, if rightly conducted, ought to dot The next question is, Why are the whole four councils failures 1 Let us answer these important questions in the light of God’s Word and common sense.

There are four parties or taAan elements that have made up these councils, and every one of them has been and is intensely selfish and self-seeking. Bight here is where they made

their greatest mistake—in leaving the God of heaven out of their councils. How could they ask God’s blessing upon the selfish, greedy, grabbing schemes of their councils f Then again, there are four other factors or parties that made up all their councils: Big business, big churchianity (not true Christianity), big poh- . ticians and big labor. Now all these are in- -tensely selfish elements, and are used by the god of this present evil world—Satan —to run this world along the Satanic line of .war and bloodshed. t

When this world-wide war began in 1914, , there were four popes, and all were Divine Righters: First, the Czar of all the Russians; second, the Emperor of Germany; third, the

King nf England; and fourth, the Pope of Rome. This Pope of Rome is the original and foundation of all Divine Righters.

Please notice that all these popes were heads of their several churches, as well as kings. Also notice that three of these pope^ have disappeared and gone out of the pope business. The great pope of Russia and nearly all of his family disappeared into the grave. The German pope covertly deserted his popedpm, ran into Holland, and has gotten a job at sawing wood. The English pope is no longer a real pope; democracy has eaten the heart out of his popedom; and Ids kingship will soon go with his popedom, also.

The only pope left is the first Divine Righter, the Pope of Rome; and he is desperately holding on to his doorposts in a death grip like a drowning man. This world-wide war has played havoc with all Divine Righters and with Rome especially. The greatest and only Romish Empire in the whole world—Austria—is smashed into many pieces. Over 2,000 Catholic cathedrals and churches were destroyed in Belgium and northern France. Italy suffered also in the same way at the time the Romish Pope doublecrossed the Italian army, when the Austrian forces smashed through the Italian lines so suddenly, almost giving the final victory to the Germans.

_ America went over there under the pretense of enforcing the theory of “Self-determination of the Nations.” Where was that fine theory enforced? In the Mesopotamian grab by England? In the Asia Minor grab by France? Or in the Shantung grab by Japan? Or in the grab of Fiumeby Italy?

The only nation that did not grab, and much to her credit, was the United States. Let us sum up the gain, or Ipss. As measured by a worldly standard, we have lost. Why? Because there is no real peace yet. We are at war now. The Turks and the Greeks are fighting yet. Besides, we have laid a good foundation for future wars in every new frontier we have made. There is no nation nor any person that seems to be satisfied with the present situation. Did you ever know selfishness of any kind to permanently settle any kind of row?

When the apostate church sold out to Constantine for state recognition in 325 A. D., she lost the non-resistant, sacrificial spirit of Christ that had through suffering conquered the great

Roman Empire. She gained the Satanic spirit of conquest and war, and has ruled the world by war and blood, massacre and martyrdom, ever since. It was a sectarian row between two paganized churches as to which should rule Servia that brought on this world-wide war.

The true reason why these four councils have been such great failures is that there was no justice practised at any of them. Rome, during the centuries of her rule, has waded through blood; and the machinery of her inquisition attests the cruelty of that rule. Fifty millions of people have gone ta death, and the Bible says in the Book of Revelation that 'the blood of all the martyrs was found in her.’

Rome is nearing her end. She is the mother of anarchists, and makes them by her despotic rule in all of the countries which she rules. She is also the mother of the boycott. It was born in her confessional. It is the dreaded nightmare of the Protestant merchants. She is the originator of double-crossing. There is hardly a country in the world that she has not doublecrossed. To my knowledge, historical and personal, Rome has many times doubte-erossed the Irish people in their efforts to throw off ithe English yoke. The Jesuit priests know that creed hate of Protestant government is the greatest incentive to keep the Irish true to Rome. Rome double-crossed the U. S. Government and the Protestant clergy in the late Espionage Law enforcement. She started the propaganda that the Bible Students were aedi-tionists and German sympathizers; and the Protestant ministers, houndlike, took up the cry and began their persecuting work.

A minister, or perhaps two; with a crowd of Knights of Columbus as heelers would arrest a man Bible Student, take him out into the woods, lecture him, beat him, and abuse him, or perhaps tar and feather him, just as the fancy moved them. Some men and women were arrested and sentenced to imprisonment. But one noticeable fact is: Not one priest was ever seen at any of these unlawful outrages. Jesuit craft. Why should they be seen when they could double-cross the foolish Protestant ministers and make them pull the espionage npts out of the fire for them? Yet the priests were the originators of the whole Satanic scheme.

We are nearing the end. The last industrial features or struggle of the Battle of Armageddon will occur here in the United States soon. The shooting down of nearly seventy of what they call "scab strike-breakers” in the State of Illinois is only a prelude to the universal anarchy that is coming. Big business and the clergy, Catholic and Protestant, are combined. Labor and the fanners are combining, and evidently will come together. The churches are entering politics, and it will be their destruction. Rome will secretly try to double-cross the Laborites; and it will split the United Catholic Societies, Knights of Columbus. and other organizations right in two. In every country Rome has always gotten the hardest knocks from her own children and she certainly will get the hard knocks here when they discover her treachery. Now I do not claim this to be a prophetic statement of the coming event; but I do claim it to be common-sense placement of the very forces that are already formed and in motion toward the goal.

Like the disciples on the Sea of Galilee, the world is in a boat on the sea of anarchy, and rowing very hard to get to the shores of peace. The world for six thousand years has been rowing hard to get peace in its own way. If Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson, and others at the League of Nations had stopped their rowing and grabbing, and turned to the waiting Christ, He would have arisen and said: "Peace, be still”; and there would have been a great calm. God help the world to learn this lesson, stop rowing, and "cry unto the Lord in their trouble” that He may bring them "unto their desired haven.”—Psalm 107:28-30.

A Ku K1UX Kick By John Balter

WE HAVE in this great state, and according to reports in many others states, what is known as the "Ku Klux Klan,” an organization which is causing much dissension, hatred and turmoil among families and friends. And as one of many thousands, I would appreciate a careful discussion of this organization in your editorial columns, setting out your ideas as to the ultimate results and as to what the immediate and future purposes are; or you may use this article, if you think it will serve any purpose.

Not being a member, I am compelled to look to current news items and local events and the Klan's conduct as my guide. I understand that the Klans claim to combat the political power of the Catholic Church. If so, very well; I have no objection to that. They also claim to uphold white supremacy and enforce the laws of the land generally. They swear obedience to their "Imperial Wizard,” to obey all of his commands. edicts, etc.

Tn the face of all this, I see threatening letters written and sent to individuals, commanding them to leave, stay, or do thus and so, signed "K. K. K.” The Klans claim that they did not send such letters, though such were not received until they appeared as guardians of law, order, and morals. Many people, male and female, have been kidnapped, assaulted and mistreated in numerous ways by mobs garbed in their (Klux) regalia. The Klans deny such acts; but such treatment was not accorded any one until they appeared upon the law and moral arena as guardians of law, modesty, and morals.

The Klans swear to uphold and enforce the law, and in the same oath and at the same time swear to protect each other in every infraction of the law, except in treason, willful murder, and rape. They have been brought before courts of competent jurisdiction, and have defied the court and the law which they have just sworn to uphold, by refusing to answer or give testimony before such court They violate the constitutional rights of citizens by depriving them of liberty and freedom without due process of law. The Klans swear and declare that they are not guilty of offenses against the laws of the land in the face of the fact (so claimed by them) that their "Imperial Wizard” has revoked a few of their charters for such law violations. They break into and violate the sanctity of American homes with impunity, an act which in all nations, now, and in their darkest days, and in our own land, is and was and always has been denounced as one of the greatest violations of a citizens’ rights. They strip females bare and expose their nude bodies to the gaze of a crowd of hooded "guardians” of morals, modesty and law. They deny participation therein, though those who did it had on the regalia of the Klux; possibly the garments were borrowed. They break into the homes of

Californians (under indictment now), and compel two young ladies to arise and dress under the gaze of some thirty of their “Hooded Guardians" of morals, modesty and law. They write letters to officers of the law, advising them: “Go slow in investigating the doings of Klux.” The Kians openly solicit support of Protestant churches and preachers by small donations of filthy lucre, and get said support. But as for me, I would just as soon be under the power of one religious bigot as another; for any of them will devour you if power is given them. They do some charity among the unfortunate, and always manage to get it spread broadcast in all the newspapers. They go heavily armed in their expeditions to protect modesty, morals, and law. They march up and down the streets of our cities with banners threatening folk: "Idlers, go to work"; "Radicals, beware/’ etc., regardless of whether people are idle on account of lockouts, business depression, panics, or what not; or whether or not one could reasonably go to work for a dime or two dollars a day. But this sounds like music to big business, does it not? They do not say to the officials of the corporation and government, “Give these people work and go to work yourselves and lighten the burden." No, indeed! They would see their finish in that command.

Their Big Klegal Klark makes the statement for publication in Dallas, Texas, that it is a military organization, that twenty percent of their membership will be their regular (<military force," that they do not care who knows they are Ku Klux, that they are brave men and will be feared, that in case of necessity they can and will call eighty percent of their entire membership to do military service, and that they are not fighting the Catholic Church, etc.

Then what and who are they fighting? Labor, ultimately. •

Now suppose the garment, mill, mine, railroad, and all labor unions were to announce as a fact that they maintained a “military branch” with eighty percent of their entire membership subject to call at any time to do “military service'’ and that they would be feared (and they would be by big business), what would be the attitude of our well-known Uncle and his best friend, “Big Business”? I wonder whether any one could guess.

What did our Government and big business do to the I. W. W., and they without a “military branch”? What did the New York State government do to the six Socialists elected and sent to represent the people, and they without a “military branch”? What have the Government forces done to the steel strikers of Gary, aud they without a “military branch”? What did and are the state and national governments doing with the coal strikers, and they without a "military branch”? What did our Government do to Debs, Rutherford, and hundreds of others, and they without a "military branch”? What have all governments done to all the suffering, toiling, starving, ragged, illiterate (enforced) masses, and they without a "military branch” f

From the day of the dark beginning of civilization, the moneyed, aristocratic, overbearing, imperial, bigoted owning class have murdered millions of people, and they murdered Christ, all of them without a “military branch”; and that same class who have the people of this nation by the throat, brutally extracting the last ounce of strength, vitality and blood from the people, are permitting the Three K organization to exist, browbeat, and intimidate people, ' and still maintain their “military branch.”

It is well known among people who read and who have quietly and thoughtfully trod backward down the corridor of time as best history will guide them, and who have tried to keep pace with events during the past few years, that all military nations (and that is all of them) have come to be very doubtful as to whether or not they can depend upon their regular armies to defend their vested interests and their positions upon the people’s backs.

Hence, Wall Street, big business, has already gone to the fountain-head of the Three K’s and tested the pulse of the “Big Wizard" and found his child, the Klan, to be a robust, strong, well-organized gentleman with a reliable "military branch”; which child will be just the thing for excellent use in their defense against the people in their last hour of need and trouble.

Does any one imagine that big business does not know just what they can expect of and do with this organization? If they did not think that they knew and if they did not expect great benefits from it, there would not be much time lost in pruning it of its “military branch” and all other branches offensive to big business.

My friends of the Three K affiliation: If you really want to do a service for which you will be long remembered and go down in future pages of history, quit taking advantage of helpless men and women and violating the law by violating the fleshly bodies of those who have, no doubt, been guilty of no greater offense than you yourseves have been some time in life, or possibly within a few hours or days prior to your attack upon them.

Quit trying to scare people with gowns, sheets, and hoods; but, on the contrary, make a vigorous attack upon the power causing all the evil in our land and other lands; that is to say— big business, the controllers of the destinies of men and women generally, who exercise control and power in the most dastardly manner, the class that has brought about the very things which you profess to rectify.

They have driven myriads of our sweetest womanhood to loathsome prostitution through the channels of poverty. They have corrupted officials, from the highest to the lowest They have murdered millions of the bravest, noblest t youth of all lands, only to gratify their lust for gold. '

They have, relentlessly, without pity or mercy, driven the brawn of all generations to the most degrading and loathsome poverty lines; they have prostituted pulpit and preacher in every land; they will sell the life of the last one of you for more filthy lucre; they will sacrifice you upon battle fields, fighting you against your own brothers, in order that they be held in power.

…