Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-05-02

nre two sides OF the labor problem. Both
are symptoms Of lack Of foresight. Read
| justment after the Is problem that
! ought TO he considered now
! TTHE labor situation in the United States
| i today is both paradoxcal and dangerous.
! The paradox is that in time of extraordi-
| nary prosperity there should be industrial
/ unrest. The danger is that the situation Will
| be relieved by methods which will lead to
more violent economic paradoXes in the end
Tho germ Of the situation lies in the war
of course because the pressing necessities of
capital came originally from the manufac
turers of munitions and war supplies. Deeper
than that is the effect of war in shutting off
immigration and taking from the employers
hand his great threat-the unemployed. For
once the necessities Of the employer are
equaled by the power of the employe. And
both are blind mouths seeking to be fed at
once with no vision of the future.
Two results have developed from single
cause, and neither is wholly satisfactory. The
Steel Corporation and the Bethlehem Steel
Company cotton works in Massachusetts,
powder works and industries totally uncon-
nected with war supplies have adjusted their
needs to the laborer's power by granting vol
untary increases Of wage, making the worker
n fair participant in their prosperity. Bethle.
hem has raised its wages 30 per cent. in nine
months, the Steel Corporation 20 per cent. in
less time. Yet May Day came with the en-
phasis all the other side. Hundreds OF
thousands of workers are striking, in garment
factories, along the docks, in the Westing.
house works. In the railroads, the vital in
dustry, four hundred thousand men are ready
to strike for an eght-hour day
Obviously the situation is illogical. but 1t Is
too easy to say that one side is all right and
the other all wrong. The demands of labor
for reasonably safe conditions, reasonably GER
tain tenure and reasonably profitable wages
are recognized by this time and are being
granted with only the normal delays Of a very
faulty human system of economics. The
present strikes have another basis. They
take advantage of temporary situation and
purpose to make their gains permanent
The result of all this, whether it comes
through voluntary grant through bitter
strife. may be a benefit to certain laboring
men, but it cannot be of advantage to labor
because It is bad economics. The vicious
circle of higher wages-higher prices will be
completed and only in the brief time before
the adjustment is made will any gain be
apparent. The mine worker will receive an
abnormally fat pay envelope but once the
conditions of world-industry are settled again,
his wife will pay an abnormally heavy coal
bill The superstition that labor can be
prosperous without any relation to the pros
perty of the country persists no doubt, be.
cause there have been times when the wealth
of the few bore no relation to the comfort of
the many. But il will not work out in prac
tice.
The entire difficulty is that labor tends to
be rigid in it's relations with capital No sys-
tenn has been devised to make the price of
labor as fluid as the price of money, The
rate of interest on loan depends on the con-
dition of the money market today The price
of labor today may depend on contract made
five years ago Just as no one could have
foreseen the war and the peculiar conditions
of employment it was destined to bring about
so no one can foretell what labor will be worth
when peace is declared. Proportonately it
will be worth what 1t is now, but our system
of money payment does not keep to proper
tons
An agreement to work al Sc day made in
January, 1914. would put the laborer at a dis.
advantage today. An agreement made today
at $40 might be ruinous to the employer in
January, 1917. Yet both the employers who
are raising wages by 90 or 80 per cent. and
the strikers who demanding such wages
are preparing for this disaster.
Specialists and theorists have argued loudly
concerning the changes in America when the
war is over. Some have threatened disaster, |
others have prophesed unexampled prosper
ity. What we know is that there is bound to
be period of transition, when labor is shifted |
from the industry which happens TO pay now
to the industry which pays always because it
il productive of something always necessary. !
That time of transition will be wofully hard
to bear If the standard of living allowed by
war prices becomes a fixed habit. 1t will be
harder still because prices will have gone up
in the meantime, and will not recede half so
fast as the rate of wage will fall. While muni-
ton works are being subtly transformed into
breakfast food factories thousands of men will
be idle Whether immigration sets in again
or does not there must be vast amount of
friction before normal industrial life begins
again.
There must be no panic then, and to prevent
II there should be no imitation now.
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