The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1918-05-25
LABOR PRESENTS TERMS FOR WINNING
THE WAR FOR A PERMANENT PEACE
A.
o OF

with the earnings Of the workers and
ing.
Labor has loyalty and enthusiastic
support the liberty loans. Labor. how:
ever, urges that the possibility of
greatly Increased liberty taxation be
no longer neglected. The income tax
Without any additional burden on mod
est incomes At the present rates only
few of the very largest incomes are
adequately. taxed. The great bulk Of
now paying less than one-half and
many of them onefourth the British
rates. A large part of American
tax; unimproved real estate even when
rapidly rising in value and other SINH
lar property producing no technical
income, a total of many billions-as
Labor therefore urges and expects an
early and comprehensive increase in
the graduated Inheritance tax. The
present rates of this tax also are ade-
Quate only for the very largest for
tunes. This makes it possible to Sc
cure a large additional amount from
those fortunes, where the great bulk
that is, fortunes from 100000 to ST.
100000.
Check Rent PrOfitcers.
A decidedly promising, but as yet in
sufficient and unsatisfactory, Begin
ming has been made in the protection
of wage standards and labor condi-
tions, the fixing of maximum prices,
the adequate taxation OF wealth and
the limitation of profiteering. But as
equally vital measure, carried out in
every one Of the belligerent countries
in the the very very first days Of the war has
Unless America takes immediate and
effective steps by national or concerted
state action to check the menac cling in
industry centres, al the above econo-
| mic measures will be in large part
nullified, landlords will absorb what
war profiteers have been forced to
reduced, disloyalty will seize the OPP
portunity and spread unrest and re-
sentiment among our people.
Housing Facilities.
AS a measure necessary for the eff
+ Gent production and administration Of
the war industries, we advocate, fur
ther, the establishment by the govern
ment of adequate housing facilities for
wor workers whose health and com
fort are otherwise impaired and their
productivity lessened.
Favor Voluntary Retrenchment
We are opposed to legislation for the
suppression Of the .so-called non es-
present time a great voluntary and
ductiveness of these industries and this
retrenchment is being rapidly extend
ed. Whatever. the people do volun-
tarily is beneficent. Any violent leg
only cause harm and dissat isfaction.
Involves Decreased Output.
Organized labor will not offer any
opposition to the instruction OF UNI
skilled labor by skilled workers in the
war industries, but it warns the pub
lie that allowance should be made for
temporary reduction of the average
output caused by the inefficiency Of
time of the skilled worker who is
doing the instructing.
A League OF Nations.
From an early stage of the Euro
pean war, and before America entered
into it, the American Federation Of
Labor endorsed the league of nations.
At the Baltimore. convention of 1916
the report. of the executive council was
adopted advocating "a voluntary union
of nations, a league for peace" Amer
Jean n labor fully endorses the plan for
President Wilson on January 20, 1917:
If the peace presently to be made
is to endure it must be a peace made
secure by the organized major force
Upon Americas entrance into the
war, the president proceeded to a still
more definite statement of the princi-
pies of American labor and democracy
nations. In his address to congress
April 2, 1917. the president made it
clear thoat 1.-The concert Of power pro
but league of free peoples, declar-
ing that America Is fighting "for a
universal dominion Of right by such a
concert of free peoples as shall bring
peace and safety to all nations and
make the world itself at last free"
Finally, the president still more
clearly defined the attitude of Amer
ment Of Americas war aims on Jan. s
oE this year. In his address the last
and most important of the II points
formulated was as follows:
"A general associate of nations
! must be formed under specific, COW