Arizona republican., 1905-03-31
Who Is the Employer ?

A brief comm unlc1IiOn rom MT Goldwin Smith. published in the Sun on Sunday last. draws attention to q fact which should be impressed on the mind of every American citizen. It is that in this country the producers are also the consumers. When. by strikes or by other processes, they increase the price of products, they also in crease their own cost of living.
 Mir GoIdwin Smith illustrates this by declaring that the consumer Is the real employer In the United States the consumers are the wage earners, always the great majority of our peo- pie. It is they who cat the products of the farm, who wear the clothes and utilize the many devices produced in shops mills and factories and who live in houses erected by labor of their own class. The capitalist. that is. the so-called employer, is an Intermediary who takes his commission for his ser vices. The public pays. and the price il pays is fixed by it's own attitude toward the various products.
 If the farmer must pay a higher price for his plough or his boots. he must charge more for his grain and potatoes If the cotton mill operator or the coal miner, because of Q strike in an iron foundrv or a brickyard, must pay a higher price for his house rent or his stove or his frying pan. he must find some way to get more for his services from the public by way of the so-called employer.
 This will and must remain true as a fundamental in prices and in cost of living. so long as the people of the United States are both producers and consumers of 95 per cent of the mer- chandise required for their use and maintenance. Compared with our do- mestic trade, our foreign commerce is an item of little significance. The peo- pie of this country live largely by and upon their own labor. They exchange their labor among themselves, and the so-called employer Is practically no more than an agent in the transaction. The public itself pays any increase in the income of any part of that public, and the beneficiaries of a local in crease must sooner or later, be called upon to contribute their share of the increase enforced in other localities by their own act Incomes and cost Of living move in conjunction and the better paid public must pay more for its living with no real gain by the pro- cess-New York Sun
 The foregoing suggestions embody per tinent facts which are generally overi ooked by the public in considering the ch ect of labor disturbances. The Sun should have made an exception of the mining industry, however. Rath- CT, 1t should have added that when mine operators are confronted by de- mands which call for increased ex- pense of operation, they cannot com ply at the expense of the public. They must bear all the burden themselves. Any extra expense that is put upon the cost of production means a direct loss to the mine owner or employer, as the values of gold and silver are fixed And the same is true of copper min ing so far as Arizona is concerned for the ability to fix the price of cop per does not rest with the mine op- orators of this territory. There is nc opportunity, in short, for mine owners to protect themselves against exces- siYe cost of mining when such extra cost results from causes such as are referred to in the Suns editorial.
 This very fact accounts in a large me. sure for the difficulties which have been encountered in operating certain: properties in Arizona. The cost Of mining has been increased without any compensating advantage to Op- orators. and if labor agitators from Colorado and elsewhere were to have their way it would mean disaster foI numerous enterprises that are yet 1T the prospecting stage. And hundred: of promising properties in the territo- ny must still be classed as prospect: rather than mines. for the dividend period with them has not vet beer reached.