The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-06-04
THE T3Ii OF \ PUP.

 days Nugget which gives one a chance for an article on quite an important subject.
 THE TAIL OF THE PUP. .. Once upon time an Ignorant and Immature Pup met an Intelli- gent and Rational Human Being.
 Wait a minute" said the Ignor- ant and Immature Pup. II want to show you something.' Thereupon he set to whir ing rapidly in vain effort to catch his tail.
 "I don't see that you're getting anywhere" observed the Intelligent and Rational Human Being with all air of ponderous wisdom.
 "Nor l." agreed the Ignorant and Immature Pup. That's Just the point I wanted to bring out. Now, having established the fact that it is desirable to get somewhere, want you to observe how similar to this performance of mine is the way YOU Human Beings act about your wages and prices. You raise the wages of w0rkmen so that they may buy more and then you raise prices so that they can buy less and then raise wages to reach the prices and then you raise prices i'll order to offset the wages and
 "Come, come, enough of this nonsense!" expostulated the lntelll- gent and Rational Human Being. '.Do you think I'm a fool to stand her talking to an Ignorant and I'm mature Pup?'-EX."
 The American Aesop that devised that fable doubtless felt that he was tearing off quite a chunk of wisdom when he threw this economic boml into the ranks of the wage workers The idea that increased wages eau sed the increased price is very gen eral among employers, and has beer been faithfully taught by number of economists who have the canlh' sagacity at least to know upol which side their bread is buttered It possesses the unfortunate dlsad vantage as an economic theory O being so self evidently untrue tha it can be disproved without an! great exercise of gray matter O much mental effort upon the part 0 any person.
 The fact is that even originali! high prices were not caused D. wages: that they have no relation to wages paid is simply correct, ant when labor is demanding hlghe wages, labor is simply making al effort to keep some sort of a gril upon the original standards Of nv ing that was it's own, before price started on this extreme ascension scale.
 Obviously if wages caused tn high prices which prevail then ther should be a definite relation be tween the per centage of increas in prices and per centage or Ill crease in wages. If wages be re presented by ten and prices be re presented by twenty, if wages ar increased by ten per cent ten pc cent will have to be added on tn prices. The per centage or III crease would be the same in bot instances.
 Now nothing of the kind ha taken place. On the contrary whii wages have been increasing 2S pc cent within a given time, accordlp to carefully collated figures. price of various necessaries have bee increasing 6S per cent. II wage had been the cause of the increas prices should have increased but per cent and no more. But wha has become of that 40 per cent dlf erence? Who gets it? It is nc shown in labor's pay envelope. is not there that it is dropped. Wha then is actually happening? An the answer to these questions, yer ouicklv and satisfactorily and con pletely explains why fables Of Tn mature pups and the like appear bolster up the employers position and to help to keep labor in Il place as God has ordained, etc.
 First of all we said that labor wages had nothing to do with price