The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1907-05-30
BAD FOR THE WAGE FARMERS.
Judge GrosseuP Ssys Municipal Own
ership Would Lower Wages.

ership Would Lower WAGES.
Government control and operation
would also be found. l think. to have
Il disadvantageOus effect upon the spe-
cial interest of the laboring man. La
Dor sometimes gets less than the en-
terprise employing can afford to pay.
but labor never gets more, at least for
any length of time, than the enterprise
can afford to pay. Lowered efficiency
therefore means lowered wages. And
<Tblic ownership always has been and
Ways will be on this account attend
ed by lower wages. The men who are
mOtormen on the municipal street rail
ways of Glasgow, for instance. get a
little less than Is cents an hour; the
motormen of Chicago get from 81 to
"a cents an hour. The locomotive en-
gineer of a German government rail
road gets $50 per month: the American
locomotive engineer makes easily three
times that much. And through the
whole schedule of wages paid by pub
lie and by private enterprises the same
difference runs.
But there is still another side to this
objection. what may be called its per-
sonal side. the effect of public owner
ship on organized labor. Much as la
Dor organizations have been abused
here and there by opposing interests
and much as here and there labor or
CARNATIONS have abused their privi-
INpac II ic in Iahnr. orcr1 iza tinns that
the laboring man finds and will CON
time to find the source of bettered
conditions.
Asking for higher wages the one
man is unheard. But the many speak
ing as one make themselves heard. So
that the labor organization is the Ia
horerS' industrial protector.
I'rt the many speaking as one must
have some one to whom to speak. some
concrete party with whom TO deal.
Under government ownership that par
t. would be the whole public. Let not
the ready sympathy of the people for
alternative measures such as factory
legislation and the like he given too
wide a Significance. for even there
The task was long and hard. nor the
readiness of the public TO side in at
times of labor strikes with the en-
Dloyees. In those situations the pub
lie is an outside party. not the other
party. Until in some public controlled
enterprise there is Il demand by the
employee for higher wages or changed
conditions. some demand that will di-
rectly cost the public something in dol
lars and cents, the laboring man is
without proof that the public can lie
more easily reached than private en-
terprise
Something in this line. however we
already know. Government servants.
from the highest to the lowest. are the
poorest paid people in America PUT,
man for man. against corresponding
trades i'll private enterprise. III" pr2si-
cent of the United States against The
Sresidents Ct the great corpora tons.
M5inet officers against the managers
49, corporation departments. uostal
clerks on the railways against express
,n;iiS, laborcrs against laborcrs. the
&:tyHn;age in every case is with the
employee Of the private enterprise.
md this We know, toO-that, though
the matter has often been urged. the
people at large will not listen 70 any
proposition for increase Of pay in the
government service, Given then =
private cmplo! cr or the puIlic~u3 en-
p,n. or with whom II deal the one
t2""Amd tiil'r:i more accessible and IN
flar.| lroGp or Il reach Easults than