The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1913-12-19
Low PAY EFFECTS
Underlying Principles of the Mini
mum Wage.
STRENGTHENS THE RACE.
Industry That Cannot Pay a Fair
Wage Is Parasitic-ln Effect It Elk
acts a Subsidy From the Community.
A Nations Most Costly Production.

Wage Is Parasitic-ln Effect It Elk
acts Subsidy From the Community.
A Nations Most Costly Production.
Discussing some of the fundamentals
that underlie the principle of mini
mum wage, Mrs. Margaret Dreier Rob
ins in her address as president of the
National Womens Trade Union league
at the annual convention spoke of
living wage as one of the important
means of strengthening the race.
THE industry" she said, which can
not pay a fair wage is parasitic and
receives a subsidy from the community
through its public or private charities.
through its clinics and hospitals,
through its reformatories and prisons
through It's almshouses and homes for
the aged. We are living in the midst
Of a wealth producing, poverty breed
ing, industrial chaos. The demand for
the minimum wage on the part of the
general public is simply the statement
that it is tired of substituting indus
tries.
Through such subsidies it has ena-
bled many an employer with no bust
ness qualification whatever nor knowl-
edge nor judgment to open an indus
try. put the wages as low as condi-
lions permit, quite certain that the
community will bear the burden. 1t
would seem that a training school for
employers is as essential to the well
fare of the community as a trade
school for workers. Just as the most
important knowledge to the worker is
the value of his or her labor power, so
the most important knowledge to the
employer is that living wage is the
first charge upon any industry"
Mrs. Robins called attention to the
fact that in 1908 the first industry to
come under the minimum wage act in
England was that of chainmalling
done largely by women. The wage
board decided that the women's wage
should be doubled. "Who were these
women so eXplOited? Mrs. Robins
asks. "They We're the mothers of
those men whom the English army
would not accept into its service dur
ing the Boer war because they did not
come up to the physical standard de-
handed. Three times the British army
has had to lower its requirements of
physical strength for the men could
not measure up to the standard de
manded. But these woman chainmak-
erS were not only mothers of sons
they We're also mothers of daughters
the mothers of girls, potential moth
ers of another generation, each one
representing Il lowered vitality and
constant trend toward degeneracy."
Mrs. Robins concludes that the most
costly production of any nation and its
most valuable asset is not its annual
output OF corn, neither the wheat
harvest nor the yield of coal or cot
ton, but its output of men and women.
Upon the quality of each generation
depend the strength and greatness of
the nation, This we recognize by pro
viding that the state shall care for
the health of the people and contribute
to their education. Is it not. therefore,
time for US to insist that the state
cannot afford to put in so great an in
vestment only to reap the continuous
loss of the defeated young lives that
go under in the industrial world?