New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1918-04-10

uePenuS.3 Real wages na0 steadily de-
creased since the packers smashed tie
union in 1904. It was proved that a
great majority of the employees had been
working for about tWo-thirds tie mini
mum sum which scientists have found
to be necessary for decent and health
full family existence. Housing condi-
ftions m the, stock yards. district were so
appalling that even the Federal Judge
who acted as arbitrator summed up the
situation with the word: Terrible"
The packers method of hiring men was
typical Of their refusal to accept any
onsibility for the welfare of the
community. Great crowds of men gath
cred each morning at 6 o'clock before
the gates of the stockades, and those
who seemed huskiest were tapped on
the shoulder and told to 'tcome on"
by the employment agents. This is
what open shop employers and their
friends on the federal bench call the
workman's fright Of contract" Men
were taken on by the hour instead of
tie day, and dismissed summarily at
the pleasure of the foremen.
The achievement of Messrs. Fitz-
patrick, Nockels, and Walsh in pro-
curing an agreement that provides
collective bargaining and recognition
of the employees organization is a
notable victory for the cause of industrial
democracy. 1t sets in motion process
that will go on and on, and it is there
fore the best answer we could hope to
get to questions raised by disclosures
of bad labor conditions. But collective
bargaining power is of avail only when
the employer is in the market for men
and dependent on their services. OF
what avail will it be VIXEN the packers,
in order to maintain profits, must cur
tail production and thus commit sabot-
age, as Professor Veblen calls it? Union
organization can dictate terms of EN-
ployment; it has never yet succeeded and
can never succeed in forcing an en-
ployer to maintain operations and to
give employment when Re does not
wish to, when business expediency bids
him curtail production. It is this form
of business sabotage that organized
labor must put an end to if it is ever to
secure regularity and security of employ
ment. 1t is business practice that in
wolves highly-developed cooperation be-
tween group of competitors who are
thus not competitors at all, except
when it comes to dividing the spoils.
And so we come to the: common
interest of the packing house employees,
the stockman on his ranch, and the
consumer of meat, in remedy that will
free them of private monopoly control
and it's extortions. On the first step
we can all agree. Tie terminals and
stock yards must be placed under
public control and operated on terms
fair to all. Understandings and private
agreements between the traffic man
ayers of the great packers and the
railroads must be broken up, and freight
rates re-examined for the purpose of
eliminating schedules that favor undue
concentration of the packing industry
the arbitrary building up of live stock
markets according to the will and the
self-interest of the great packers. This
is only tie first step if monopoly control
is. to be- destroyed. Land adjoining
the stock yards must be made available
for competitors on large or small scale,
and on fair terms. The current in
vestigation has shown that the great
packers have taken care to acquire
ownership of all available packing house
sites in the neighborhood Of the yards
They must be made to relinquish it.
monopoly prices would throw too great
burden on prospective competitors
who might lease land from the Govern
ment. A program of drastic taxation
OF land values in the vicinity of the
yards would accomplish the result.
What is more, it would end the extortion
Of. other landlords who otherwise will
take in rents what the packing toue
employee gains in wages. It would
encourage the intensive development of
modern home districts at tie same time
that is opened opportunity for comret-
ing packers, and thus strengthened tie
bargaining power of the organized en-
ployes. With the field free for tie
development of terminal yards and
packing plants in smaller. centers, pack
ers in the established centers would: be