Denver labor bulletin., 1918-12-07
LABOR MUST NOT BE FORCED TO
ACCEPT PRE-WAR CONDITIONS
Walsh Sounds Warning Against Employers
Who Trying Reduce Wages and Increase Hours
to Further Their Profits at
Expense.

A sharp protest was voiced by
Frank P. Walsh, associate chairman
with former President Taft, of the
national labor war board, who has
just resigned that position, against
any effort to return to pre-war labor
conditions. Mr.. Walsh. rs a member
of the war labor board. has insisted
that wages and living conditions must
be kept at top notch mark to expedite
production. He said:
THE voice of every intelligent citi-
zen should be raised in warning and
protest against the amazing proposal
advanced in certain reactionary quar-
ters that the country's industries
should return to the pre-war days of
wages and hours. The man who COM
mits himself 10 that proposition either
has no comprehension of the fact or
he is wilfully playing himself in dis
regard of every human and decent
thing for which our nation has been
fighting on the battle fields of France.
Our only excuse for liberation of
the economic conditions surrounding
the workers of this country before the
war was ignorance Of the facts. That
ignorance no longer exists, thanks to
the exhaustive studies carried thru by
the department of labor and other gov
ernmental agencies concerned with
conditions Of employment. These re-
searches show conclusively that prior
to the war the great majority of the
common laborers of the country were
earning far below the amount neces-
sary for n decent and healthful family
existence.
"Ihe deficiency was made up in two
ways-by public and private chari-
ties and by absolutely disastrous in
roads on family life. Either young
men refrained from marriage, or they
married and faced the necessity of
seeing their wives go out to work for
wages to the neglect Of the home and
the children or take in boarders and
80 support n crowded and insanitary
household in which the children were
denied a proper schooling and forced
into the labor market before their
days Of adolescence, and when they
should be in school.
"American industry has been sub
sidized at the expense of our most
sacred and vital institution-the home.
The childrcn's bureau of the depart
ment of labor has found that thou
sands of babies die unnecessarily
every year in this country because
tnelr nOlncTs were
der nourished before the birth of their
infants. Only with the greater diff
Guilty could the average working man
maintain any sort of home. and the
family life was always precarious and
strained because Of economic insecur-
ity and the necessity Of augmenting
the family income by renting every
available cubic foot Of space to lodg-
ers or by the wages Of mothers and
children.
at was a situation that no man or
woman Of decent, humane feeling could
contemplate with anything except hor-
ror and grave fear for the future of
the nation and the race. I am not
speaking too strongly. With the in
creased cost of living Of recent years.
Investigations made by the national
war labor board disclosed that the
lowest possible wage upon which a
worker and his family could subSist
in health and reasonable comfort, was
72is cents an hour: this, Of course.
based upon the actual eight-hour day.
The pre-war rate Of pay for common
labor was from IS to % cents an hour
and because of irregular employment
the annual income was far below what
even this inadequate amount would
yield during steady employment the
year round.
IF those who talk glibly Of getting