The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-02-01
PUBLIC MUST PAY
Higher Wages Make Higher
Prices for Consumers.
C.. b. Forbes Warns Rail Men
Against Asking Too Much.
OTHERS NEED SHORTER HOURS
Unions Face Danger When
They Assume Too Much Power.
Shears That Clipped Capitals
Wings May Clip Theirs.
OTHERS NEED SHORTER HOURS
BY b. c. FORBES.

New York, Feb. Are you
householder?
You are, anyway, a consumer You
have to buy food and clothing and
shoes.
You pay. directly or Indirectly, for
coal. for lumber, for steel products,
for house rent.
You contribute something to the
earnings of the railroads, for almost
everything you need has 10 be trans
ported.
So far so good
Wen, now, when wage increases are
granted railway men, coal miners, iron
workers, textile employees, etc., YOU
pay the increase. 1t comes out of
YOUR pocket
The extra dollars are first taken in
by the companies before they are paid
out AND YOU, the consumer-do
the paying in.
The higher the wages demanded
and conceded, the heavier your eX-
penses become.
1 recently wrote IN article caution
ing certain very strongly unioniZed
workers against insisting upon unrea-
sonably short working hours-some of
them want to work only seven hours
u day.
l tried to explain then that at this
stage of our development, it was not
quite fair to the millions upon millions
of very poorly paid workers, both
women and men, to impose upon them
the additional burden of paying I'M
necessar ily increa sed prices for the
things produced by these men.
Others Need 1t.
/ argued that the rest of us could
not we'll afford to pay favored classes
of workers big wages for less than
a full days work and that the in
creases in wages and shortening of
hours should begin with the myriadS
of poor souls who toll for l 0 or - or
hn1Ts. q
wage.
Union representatives have replied
that their agitation for shorter day
is aimed chiefly at providing more
jobs, at enabling some of the unem-
ployed to get a share of the total work
to be done.
They contend that if each man in
particular trade or industry worked
only seven hours-an1 received, of
course, as much pay as he did for
eight hours or more-the total num-
Der of men needed by that trade or in
duStry would increase.
That sounds very sensible and very
plain. doesn't it? But is it SO sem
sible?
I do not think it is. The cost of
producing the things turned out in
these trades and industries will, of
course, be greater, as extra men will
be needed to produce the old amount
You grant that--it is indisputa BILE.
All right.
Now let me ask if the higher price
charged for an article will not tend to
reduce the number or amou t of that
article the public will or can buy?
When automobiles cost $1,000 each
how many were sold? And how many
workers were needed to make these
autOmo bileS?
Now that automobiles can be bought
for $500 to $1,000, see how many more
men the automobile industry can give
employment to.
The Printing Industry.
was a printers devil when the
machine for setting type was coming
into vogue. The comps trained TO
set type by hand were inimical to the
new invention, on the old ground that
it would throw lots of them out of
work.
But more men are engaged in the
printing business today than ever be-
fore, thanks largely to the cheapness
with which printing can now be done
If any union, because it is strong
and can be arbitrary, cuts down the
working day unreasonably and thus
greatly raises the cost of what the
men produce, the tendency will be to
lessen the demand for the product and
to reduce the total number of men
needed to do the work
High prices check consumption and
when consumption decreases so does
the number of persons required to
supply the goods.
BY producing things as cheaply as
possible, after paying a full days
wages for a full days work, the de-
mand will be stimulated, and the
broader the demand the greater the
employment.
This is NOT a plea for low wages.
1t is an attempt to explain the effect
of unreasonably shortening working
hours and thereby so increasing the
cost of production that consumption
will be reduced.
The unemployment-and the un-
ployable-problem is gigantic 1t
will not be solved but aggravated by
such methods as eXtorting big wages
for a few hours work by a few of the
more powerful unions, by unduly re-
strictinE the number of apprentices,
by charging exorbitant initiation fees
by unions.
Unions that go too far simply be-
cause they are strong do not tend to
mend matters. They bedevil them.
The public have clipped the wings
of capital for having flown too high.
And the public will also prove capa-
bic of managing any union or unions
that begin to act as if they owned the
earth.
For it is the public-YOU-that
have 20 pay all wages Don't forget
that fact.
FnEER HHFAE n-RRER