Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-08-10
WHERE DO WE GET Off

WhEhE DO WE VEL UT
TlHERE will probably be no railroad
Astrike. The leaders of the four great
brotherhoods Of railroad worimen have
agreed to submit their demands to the
Federal Board Of Mediation and Concilla
tion. The railroad managers asked that
the dispute be arbitrated in this way.
Assume that the Board OF Mediation
and Cancellation or an arbitration board
later will find that the workmen should
have an increase in wages, or its equiva-
lent in some form. The railroads will
have to grant the increase when it is
| recommended. They will then have to
go before the Interstate Commerce Com
mission and plead for permission to in
crease their freight or passenger rates to
will be compelled by the logic of it's pre-
vious findings to permit the increase.
Every Philadelphia commuter knows
what this means. a year or more ago
the Interstate Commerce Commission told
the railroads that they must increase
their passenger rates and not attempt to
meet the deficit in their earnings 10y
putting the whole burden on the freight.
The price OF communication tickets went
up, and the ordinary man, paid by salary
or wages, had his net income reduced
by the amount of the increase in the
price OF his Communication ticket. The
money went to pay the increase in the
wages of the railroad employees that had
previously been granted
The average citizen will have to put
his hand in his pocket and draw forth
ployes may get by the mediation award.
He will do 1t in this way: If the freight
rates are advanced his grocer will in.
crease the price of what he Sells his
butcher will add a cent or two a pound
TO the price OF meat, his tailor will charge
him a dollar or two more for suit of
clothes and the shoe dealer will add some-
thing to the price of the shoes or the
shoe manufacturer will use a little cheap.
er leather and keep the price unchanged
And so on down the whole line.
The salaried man is between two mill !
stones, One is the organized labor which |
can force an increase in its pay and !
the other is the capitalist employer who |
can compel the consumer to reimburse |
him for every increase in the cost of |
running his business. The schoolteacher
suffers, so does the clergyman and the
stenographer. the college professor and
the clerk. The nine or ten million women
workers who are not organized suffer
along with the millions of other laborers.
They apparently have no redress.
They do not object to the prosperity |
OF any one. But they do think with some |
bitterness of the hardships with which
they find themselves surrounded. Some
relief does come to them ultimately. for
we all know that the general scale of
pay is higher than it was twenty years
ago, but the workers who need the relief
the most get it last and in the least
degree.
The conditions will continue until it
is generally admitted that all kinds of
workmen and all kinds of employers are
mutually interdependent and until it is
perceived that any change in the eco
nomic equilibrium brought about by an
Increase OF wages in any one trade
Affects the whole social fabric and until
it is agreed that the burdens OF a wage
increase must be so distributed that
they will bear heavily on no one. 1t is
unfair that one group OF workers should
be paid at a rate far in excess of that
paid TO other groups simply because these
other groups are incapable of organiza-
tion. Perhaps in hundred years or so
the economists will hnd a way out. In
the meantime, the vast majority Of
simply pay the freight and
wonder when the end will be.
DIPLOMACY BY POPULAR WILL