Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-12-04
Legal Enactments Necessary.

Where labor organizations are lacking
in effectiveness or in wisdom, where in
dustrial combinations are all-powerful
and short-sighted. recourse must be had
to the state to define the least favor
able conditions of employment. In this
way legal enactment has heretofore es-
tablished a competitive base line as to
the length of the working day, the en-
ployment of women and children, and
the safeguarding of dangerous processes.
The same Intervention will establish as
a statutory minimum wage for less than
which it shall not be lawful for en-
ployers to contract or laborers to en-
gage-an amount sufficient 10 maintain
a workingman's family in decency.
THE inability of competent wOrkmen
from time to time to find employment is
a cruel incident of modern industrial
life More perhaps than any other single
cause. it is responsible for the INJURY
and mental bitterness of self-respect.nS
toilers. To be able and eager to work,
and TO be unable to secure a job. to rear
La family in responsibility and to see
comfort. self-support. even decency. sip
away through no assienable fault is So
cial injustice.
Much of the best social thought and
effort of our day is being expended in
the search for less wasteful and less
sluggish correctives of unemployment
supply method. Labor exchanges for
the better distribution of labor conges-
tion and for the 'decasuallZatlon or the
labor market: compulsory education ana
technical training for the avoidance or
blind alley occupations; residential de-
Capitalization for the settlement or town
workers in the country where employ
ment upon their holdings may be mad
when industrial work temporarily fails;
labor colonies for the 'WOrk-Shy'-are fea-
nf rational program whose TRIBE
end is to aid the worker iii keeping his
job when ne has il, to regain it speedily
ii he lose it and TO escape the physical
and moral retrogresSion that comes
swiftly with involuntary idleness.
Absorption of the Unemployed.
1.-THE adequate payment Of the en-
ployed. the industrial absorption of the
unemployed, still leave one inevitable ele-
ment of poverty-the dependence of
those who by reason of old age. illness
| or infirmity are 'unemplOyable' at any
sufficient wage. Some part of this in
ability is the consequence of underpay-
ment and unemployment. Men whose
physical vigor is Slapped by undervitali-
Zation or whose moral independence is
weakened by recurring idleness tend by
sheer law or disuse to become ecOnOmi-
cally unserviceable. The largest part
| results, NOWeSci, HUN tHc lduuIc VI TIE
modern tOiler to provide for the disability
| incident to sickness, accident or old age.
Whether the omission is due to lack of
means, to lack of foresight or to lack of
| insuring devices the end Is the same
There comes an impairment of economic
efficiency with no compensating provision
Remedial effort here also will be two
| fold i'm character-pOstive and preventive.
! Increased wages and more regular EN-
ployment will provide greater margin OF
l economic safety. Formal insurance
| against unavoidable illness. idleness and
| infirmty through the agency of trades
| unions. friendly. societies, corporate en-
| ployers and governmental offices will an