New Britain herald., 1915-04-28
The Hard Times Issue in Politica
(Springfield Republican,

Inc use OF the hard times issue for
partisan political effect has ordinarily
been so cheap, whatever party has
benefited by it,, that people who care
to study the real causes of a business
depression have to stand one side
while the political battle for votes is
in progress much as one would get
away from a big wind.
The question whether there will be
hard times enough to influence the
voters when the next presidential cam
paign arrives is now very plainly wor-
rying these journals which have been
making jealous use of the issue hith-
erto. They are keen enough to
realize that if a fair degree of pros
perity should develop in the coming
year, the business depression would
be quickly forgotten. They know, too,
that by all the rules of the game the
party in power would be entitled to
claim credit for whatever prosperity
prevailed under it's administration.
They cannot make an administration
responsible for. all the adversely it
encounters without conceding it credit
for all the prosperity that accom-
panies it.
The Wilson administration hardly
gard to the prosperity issue, but it is
certain that it's most 'insistent critics
have been premature in seeking to
overwhelm it by identifying it in the
public mind with industrial calamity.
If the United States keeps out Of war
in the next year and a half as, sue
cessfully as it has in the past year
and half, the prediction now heard
from some discerning business heads
that this country has seen the worst
of its business troubles will probably
prove we'll founded. In that event.
the country's business has a year and
half in which to improve. before
the voters again choose a president.
If the worst has already happened,
and if betterment is in store for the
country in substantially all lines, GER
tain potent facts must impair the po-
litical effectiveness of a hard times is.
| sue year from next summer and
fall. These concern American labor.
One is that the war has greatly
checked immigration already, in some
industries the present effect even be-
ing a scarcity of workers. Another
fact is that the business depression
thus far, even in its worst phase, has
resulted in very little cutting of wages.
| The liquidation of labor which was
desired so strongly by many capital
| lists as a by-product of hard times has
| not occurred.
Chairman Gary of the United States
Steel corporation has had to meet
! complaints from shareholders that the
| common dividend was passed While
| wages were maintained at the high
| level established when business was
I good. Wages were not reduced by
! the steel trust for good reasons. It
! did not dare to continue paying divi-
| 6lends on the huge volume of common
| stock while cutting the wages of it's
| workmen But this one case is mere
ly illustrative. On the railroads, the
electric traction lines, in the mines
| and in the various great industries
there has been no "liquidation of la
Dor" .Unionsm may be credited part
~ with this result; but big business
in general has been reluctant to chal-
lerge either unionis1n or public opin-a
! ion by this step. Every other -ex=
| pedient, such as. part time for. all
| workers, has been resQrted to in tho
| depths of the depression to avoid
| wage reductions
| While there was much actual idle
ness last winter, the Indications are
| that labor will emerge from the hard
times period, identified mainly in the
public mind with the war, in a con-
| dition far superior to it's condition at
! the end of similar experiences. AL
most nowhere must labor now face
the. prospect of winning back by
! strikes what was lost in a period of
| depression. The difference between
this situation and that of 1894-tS96
| Is very notable both in an economic
and a political sense. The political
effects of 1t next year are not unlikely
to be considerable and the best poll
ticians will not ignore them.