The Vinita daily chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1902-1913, 1910-05-26
WAGE BOARD MAY
Be A NECESSITY
Says That Unless Wages of Lower
Paid Workers Are Increased
workmen Will Degenerate.
BY Associated Press.

by ASSOCidleu IreSS-
st. Louis, Mo-, May 26.-Minimum
wage boards were suggested as solu-
ton OF many industrial problems by
the Rev. DR.. John A. Ryan, professor
of ethics and economics at the St.
Paul seminary of st. Paul, Mimi, in
an address before the National Con-
ference of Charities and Corrections
here this morning.
Father Ryan seriously suggests that
unless wages of the lower paid work.
ers of the country are raised and GER
tain parasitic industries are abandon
ed, the stock of American workmen
will rapidly degenerate. He urged the
establishment Of minimum wage,
which in a given community would
permit those receiving it to enjoy
standard of living which would main
tain or increase their efficiency. He
cited many precedents to show that it
would be perfectly reasonable for leg
islatures to pass such legislation as
would be necessary to create state
boards with the administrative power
of fixing a minimum wage.
In summing up the objections which
have been made against the abridge-
ment of freedom of contract which.
would be established by minimum
wage legislation, the speaker SAID that
the most important objection is
brought forward by those who con-
tend that the economic processes of
production, exchange, distribution, and
consumption could not be modified by
the proposed legislation as to bring
about happy result. Specifically
and in brief that argument is this;
An increase in the wages of the under
paid in any given industry would
cause an increase in the cost of pro-
duction. increased cost Of production
would necessitate rise in the price
of the product, the latter would be
followed by lessened demand. at least
on the part of those consumers who
were not also producers of the goods
in question, and the diminished de-
mand would either be balanced by an
increased demand on the part of the
laborers whose wages had been in
creased, or it would not be thus bal
anced In the former hypothesis, the
workers would lose as consumers all
that they had gained as producers;
or, in the latter contingency some
OF them would be thrown out of en-
ployment. This objection is no more
valid against legal minimum wage
than it is against any other measure
that aims to benefit labor at the i'm
mediate and apparent expense Of the
employer. Every successful effort of
a labor union to obtain improvement
in working hours, or any other inn
provement in working conditions, and
every legal regulation of factory condi-
tions, of the length Of the working
day. of the age of the working child.
of the manner of employment Of wo-
men, puts a new burden on the en-
ployer. and tends to increase the cost
of production and the price of their
product. AS matter Of fact this
argument has always been used
against any interference with free
dom of contract between master and
nan, whether by legal or by trade
union action. 1t was for many years
effectively urged both by manufac-
tuers and economists against the first
proposal to limit the hours of labor
and age of child employees in the
English factories something less than
a century ago. If it had prevailed,
English women would still be labor
ing as beasts of burden, harnessed to
cars in the depths of mines. children
from five years upward would still
be toiling in the English factories six
teen and even eighteen hours a day
under the lash of an overseer, English
laborers of all classes would still be
forbidden by law to organize FIR self