davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
New-York tribune., 1918-11-24

There is decay in the old political sense
of the Switzsr, a complete lack of any
real foreign policy and poverty of ideals
which sometimes seems to border upon
spiritual bankruptcy. And here Professor
Ragaz stops to break a lance against the
wretched phrase, Point dargent, point
de Suisse, as contrary to all the great
minds of Switzerland from Zwingl on
ward. Even the peasantry is becoming
steadily infected with capitalist thought
The result is that the Oldest democracy of
Europe, the motherland of democracy, has
ceased to be a real democracy, and in
certain sense has almost ceased to be
real republic Indeed, the growing re-
spect for monarchical ideas is shown by
the vehemence with which large section
of public opinion turned against the re-
publican and democratic countries and in
favor of emperors and crown princes.
at must not be supposed that Professor
Ragaz, in all this frank and outspoken
criticism, is ever really in doubt as to
the spiritual future Of Switzerland or
the possibility of keeping alive the true
Swiss spirit. He simply sees the danger,
and is of those who at the right moment
prefer skilled surgery to homeopathic
cures. Those who deny the small state,
he clearly sees, those gross material
lists who judge all by size and quantity.
The danger of the Philistine attitude is
New-York tribune., 1918-11-24

the book consists in a condemnation Of
xenophobia. TO be Swiss is to honor
and love foreign peoples Switzerland.
both by its composite character as blend
of three great racial and intellectual cur
rents and also by its proud historic tradi-
tions as the forerunner of democratic lib
erty in Europe, is specially bound to re-
sist the infection of racial hatred and TO
appreciate the best qualities in all its
neighbors. Acting on this principle, Pro-
fessor Ragaz finds words of warm SYM
pathy for France and Italy, and in par
ticular for England, whom he greets as
the home of political and religious free
dom and as Swtzerlsnd's most loyal friend
and protector in the past
"But it is his verdict upon his own
kindred nation, Germany, which is the most
striking and deserves to be quoted at some
length:
New-York tribune., 1918-11-24

I'm another respect the Presidents ap-
pealanee at Versailles and on European
rostrums will scarcely be welcome. II
David Lawrence, his faithful Rosner, is to
be believed, the President entertains ideas
akin to those entertained by the British
Labor party and the minority of French
Socialists. If this is so, his advocacy of
them in Europe will necessarily SAVIOR OF
intrusion into delicate domestic contro-
veisles concerning which all peoples are
sensitive.
"Lloyd George and Clemenceau do
not want to hold joint debate with the
head of the American Republic under any
circumstances, and certainly not while he
is their guest and they are engaged in
thrashing out in a democratic way their
domestic differences"
"The Mail" speaks of president Will
sons regretable decision" and "The
American Evening Sun" refers to
"agitating his pontfcating in Europe as
head o. the American Peace Commission on
the ground that statesmen of the Entente
countries eagerly desire him to become the
spokesman of humanity IN the ssasy-
New-York tribune., 1918-11-24

wages is to insist on having them; that the
wages are determined by what the laborer
needs to live on, or holds as his standard
Of living; that wages in America, for ex-
ample, are high because laborers used
to high wages and insist on having them;
that women get little because they do not
sufficiently object to penury or starvation.
And so, it is held, the necessary thing to
get wages up is merely to raise them. If
some laborers get more, and getting more
achieve higher standard of living, still
others will feel that they need more, and
thus will easily get more. The standard Of
living rising by particulars, it is then al
ways the easier to get it and the wages to
support it higher in general. Each en-
ployer, it is argued, can afford to pay more
il all the others have to.
The easy secret Of higher wages is there
fore in agitation. And if the laborers are
unwiscly slow in raising their standards Of
living and the wages that these standards
justify and enforce, then the thing to do is
to procure some legislationto decree that
the employer shall pay. And thereupon, be-
ing law abiding citizens, they can and thus
surely will find the means of paying.
Either method, indeed, agitation or legisla-
tion, will equally we'll suffice. &c. again, it
is possible to start either with the higher
wages that will establish higher standard
OF living, or with the higher standard that
will impose higher wages.
The best point, however, at which to start
New-York tribune., 1918-11-24
Autput the Fruit
" Of All Wages

wish this were all true; but it ism, ?.
IS she output on which the wages Of tho Ia
borer depend. If the employer il sp,n-
n1oned to work for his health he w;,i s.a.
his health in vacation. With His sr,.,,
loss, there viii befall bitter penurr g..
the iaborer that has asked impossiblv mu..
Commonly the employers comnet;t,o..
leave for each employer narrow maro;n oe
gain.
Wages then follow prices Up or down
Strikes can help the wages in general o,,,,
when, during an upward shift of prices ,hs
margins are temporarily and excent;onsy,
generous. Strikes cannot prevent fsI,;n..
prices and therefore cannot prevent f.,,;ne
wages. In times of this sort strikes nsroI'
mean unemployment.
I realize that this view may be eas,v ~
terpreted as saying that with rising nr;ces
the laborer gets fleeced and with fallins
prices gets starved. And it Is true thar -
the down grade of prices he secures no corr.
pensation for his losses on the unvrsde
When wages lag behind rising prices the,s
are generous profits. Then why should mot
the laborer get an advantage in one per;od
TO offset his losses in the othere
But facts are not a question of ought but
Of is And, in truth, the employer would
have an equally cogent argument: Whv
should he not have good profits on the up-
grade to Offset his narrow margin or b;s
losses in the years Of business dearth7
But the truth is in a third view There is
but one basis of justice for both laborer
and employer. Prices ought to be stable
the years of rising prices and of falling
prices equally to be condemned Were our
governors and financial leaders wise 10
recognize their duty and loy~'ty in the fal-
filment of it, they would make it their
business to prevent these ups and downs in
price movements, rather than, as for ex-
ample in these last few years, to make them
a part of their policy and purpose and
method. Rising prices work hurricane of
unmerited loss and unearned gain-all
things speculative, with money the most
less upheaval and of blind mischance-with
not the least among the sufferers those who
have only their labor to SELL Falling prices
impose bankruptcies, liquidstions, stagna-
ton, unemployment, other violations of the
obligations of contract-with not the least
among the sufferers the wage earners the
men who must live by their work and who
are yet made to face the problem of living
in the lack of work
New-York tribune., 1918-11-24
\ n Inevitable Burden
"A of War

Note how the profits came about
The war somehow set prices to going up
The goods that the employer had to sell
rose faster than the wages that he had to
pay. This increasing spread between wage
costs and selling prices constituted the
profits. Viewed from the laborer's angle
this meant declining real wages; the dol
lars were buying less.
This looks wicked And it was wicked
not that the real wages were low, for they
had to be If there were to be a war; not
that the masses had to suffer, for there was
no other way if the war were to 20 on: not.
finally, that the laborers did not get the
bonds in place of the profit makers. for
future taxes must be high enough at best
but that anybody got any bonds. bonds on
which some one in the future must be taxed
to meet the interest charges and finally
also to discharge the principal
Nor was it by the fact that the prices
were high that there was injustice nor
even by the fact that the prices which
were rising faster than the wages made pos
sible the profitsif only it had been true
that the government which had allowed the
in taxes. 1t was in The wrong sort of set
tlement with the collectors-in the giving
to them of bonds instead of receipts in full
that the harm lay. Not only must the
laborer bears great share of the war bur-
den during the war, but face his burden
of taxes after the war was finished The
one burden, the current burden, was in
evitable. But it should have been the sole
burden.
This is no place for discussion of why
the prices rose, so that, by rising, there
was room for profits. If, however, the wages
had not suffered through the rising of
prices they must have suffered directly
through lower money wages.
In one way or another they had to suffer
Rising prices were merely one way of i'm
posing an inevitable burden. Wages always
lag along behind prices. The profit mar
gins were then the method by which es-
sentialy the laborers were taxed. In the
absence of this sort of tax another must
have been devised. Labor had to pay be-
cause the war involved costs, and because
this cost had to take the form of restricted
civil incomes-diminished civil consump-
ton.
But will not the wages finally catch up
New-York tribune., 1918-11-24
\ lien Forces
"a Breaking In

"Meanwhile, side by side with the changed
military conditions, Switzerland's economic
independence has vanished. She is depend
ent on Germany for coal, upon the Entente
for her very bread, and her whole system is
rddled through and through by foreign
capital and foreign industrial interests
Moreover, her dearly won national individ-
uality-her Volkstum, in the expressive
German words being eaten away and
threatened with dissolution Foreign in
huence has for years past been flooding
Switzerland from all sides, and, while the
hordes Of tourists undermined the ideal
outlook and Independent character of the
peasantry, a parallel horde of traders has
honeycombed the economic life of the
towns. 1t is reckoned that at this rate in
fifty years MAJ ajority of the population will
be n-Swiss. Tourist traffic is making
slaves Of u.s. The guests have become to
great extent the masters"
"The same is true even in the intel
lectual world. Literature and the press
are stihed by foreign and exotic imports
New-York tribune., 1918-11-24
n Tixed Races
AVA Also a Problem

"Moreover, Switzerland must no longer
rest content with merely negative for
egn policy. Those who direct the policy
of small state must not have a narrower
horizon than those of a great. On the
contrary, he who is in a small ship must
know the sea, if possible, still better than
the captain OF a giant liner; he must OBJ
serve wind and waves still more Closely
Switzerland's foremost aim must be TO
uphold the principle from which and for
which Switzerland lives The European
system must be transformed in the Swiss
New-York tribune., 1918-11-24

But it must be realized that after tho
slack in wages has been cancelled no further
room exists for an increase in real wages.
If, then, prices turn toward fall, they cannot
have far to fall-no more than enough to
cancel this margin of lag-before wages
in terms Of money must also fall.
In general. falling money wages have
to go with falling money prices-pre-
cisely as rising money wages have to go
with rising money prices. There is only the
wage lag to be allowed for. There are in
truth inexorabe limits to the wages that
can be collected from employers The in
take from selling prices sets an inflexible
limit to the outays. Employers employ for
the employers margin. If the laborer re-
quires for making one pair of shoes money
enough to buy more than one pair, the cur
tain rings down; the employer strikes
Money wages find their limit in the money
product out of which wages are paid
Strikes can avail nothing to change this. If
production does not leave the employer
enough to make production worth while. he
quits the game. Unemployment results
nothing at all for the laborer, because the
employers margin of toll is denied
New-York tribune., 1918-11-24
THE Government Itself
Il as Profit Maker

We return, in truth, to this question of
profits as a clew to an understanding of the
actual working of the entire process. How
is the restricted consumption Of the
masses of the population, the dim
mutton in real wages, to be gathered into
q fund available for war and placed at the
disposal of the government? In no ordi-
nary sense were the iaborers being sub
jected to taxes. The income taxes did not
touch them. Excise and customs counted
for little. But all the while profits had
grown apace. 1t was in the profits that the
mystery found its solution. The profit
agents.
Some part of these profits-no very ex-
orbitant part of it must be admitted
taxes intercepted. Income taxes also took a
moderate share of what was left. But
after all is said it remains true that most
of these profits the government secured not
through taxation but through borrowing.
The profits were there. The government
could have them. This was the meaning of
business usual. Give business the
profits, and business would buy bonds with
them. 1t was, in truth, question between
bonds and taxes, when once the rising
prices had awarded the profit margin
And the bearing of all this on the wages
question is not to show that labor did es-
cape or could escape its share Of the bur
den. 1t bore its burden-not through
taxes, but solely in terms of reduction in
real wages. 1t was the profits that re-
New-York tribune., 1918-11-24
4 Few Home Truths
"A for Germany

The essential preliminary to souho
relation to Germany is that she should
abandon all desire of dominion and doml-
neering manners toward us, and we, on
our part, all servility and glorifeaton
toward us. We are a separate people ana
wish to remain SO. The circumstance tns'
a part of US speak the German Language
does not alter this in the least. We want
to be as little dependent on Germany as
on any other people; indeed, on her leSs'
of ALL because the dependence is the moss
dangerous to US. 1t is against her tha'
we must be most on our guard till further
notice. Only after her political and GUY
ural rebirth can this barrier of distrus'
which is to protect our independence IAN
though We earnestly desire that it may
fall SOON For the spiritual qualities 0i
the German mind, on the other hand, th'
Swiss can only feel the greatest possiOis
esteem, and if Germany one day g0e,
ahead in the opposite direction, we sns''
then gladly follow her.
"1t is true that we of all people mus'
tell her a few home truths. We must sa'
to hex that we have not the slightest deslie
to recognize any peoples claim to % W.
chosen one. If there are chosen peep'ss'
they must in any case net say so, ana 40,
ask others to believe them forthwith 81.
the fact that they are chosen must 'ss1
not to arrogance, but to humility ana ~
recognized by this latter quality
Germans must also renounee many ~'@s'
which make of them odium gener's ~
mani-their loud manner, their srroes"..
toward the small, combined with resp
toward the great, their faculty OF 'e'rs
too clever by half. their intellectaas SnsD
berry, their deification of the powers .A~'
be, their shady methods of compebuo'e
their greed and lust of power, and sssH
all, their desire to 'arriveF
New-York tribune., 1918-11-24

greater in the small state, but none the
less life runs deeper, and there is fuller
play for the soul The canker against
which, above all, it is necessary to guard
is etatisme, that cult of the state as an
end in itself which leads toward false
centralization and is expressed in the
triple plaques of militarism, bureaucracy
and the party system. 'Materialsm and
naturalsm play havoc with democratic
thought State absolutism is the direct
opposite, of the principle on which the
confederation rests. Switzerland arose as
a free league of free communities and
can only hope to exist as such democracy
Is of her very essence and lifeblood.
New-York tribune., 1918-11-24

ment, he has earned the right to speak to
the American people. We hope his brief
address to the Pan-American Labor Con
ference at Laredo will have serious atten-
tion, not only in the ranks of labor but
throughout the country. This passage in
particular is worthy of note:
"'Our movement is not to destroy, but to
construct, and all may just as we'll un-
derstand now as at any other time that
the advantages which the workers Of
America and the Allied countries have
gained, and which hope even to ex-
tend to the peoples of the conquered
countries, are not going to be taken
away from us, and we will resist the at
tempt to the uttermost'
"He would be a bad American who should
seek to deprive the workers of advantages
they have gained"
"The Brooklyn Eagle" calls the Com
pers statement "a discordant note" and
'The New York Evening World" usu-
ally in marked sympathy with labor
groups, asks:
"1f organized labor is preparing TO fight
to the last gasp to maintain in all direc-
tions these war standards of wages, it
might we'll prepare at the same time to
face charges of colossal postwar profiteer-
ing
"By what right can wage earners who
have lived up to exceptional war incomes
demand that when is over they shall
be in no wise expected to retrench?
"On what grounds of economic justice
can labor base a claim to share only the
winnings and the blessings that result
from the great conflict"
New-York tribune., 1918-11-24
MIR. Gompers Strikes a Few Sparks

TIME public declarations of the
head of the National Founders
Association and the American
Federation of Labor on labor
wages have assumed the aspect of con-
troversy. Will wages go back to the
prewar standard? Newspaper editorial
writers comment on it variously
This is what "The New York Evening
Post" has to say on the matter:
"More heat than light has been generated
in the controversy, all too premature, be-
tween the head of a manufacturers associ-
alton and Mr.. Gompers. The former had
made some unguarded remarks about the
need Of cutting down wartime wages and
lengthenng the hours of labor. Mr. Com
pers took this a challenge and made a
violent reply AS in duty bound, because
president of the American Federation of
Labor, he struck note of high defiance,
declaring that workingmen would resist to
the uttermost' any attempt to take from
them single advantage won in the days
Of war. This morning the manufactures
explains that he was misunderstood, and
that he and his class have no desire to
diminish the privileges or impair the gains
of the workers.
"This flourish of arms will probably go
no further at present. Fortunately, we are
in for long period yet of government
regulation of the big industries, SO that
severe clashes over the question of read
justments, which in the end will be nee
essary, unlikely. Yet the tone adopted
at the beginning, on both sides, is un-
New-York tribune., 1918-11-24
wv 7HAT of the little peoples? The
M Great War was fought for
them in part Belgium, Serbia,

wv Great War was fought for
them in part. Belgium, Serbia,
Rumania-their fate rested
on Allied arms; safety for them was in
the progress Of Allied flags and danger
appeared in their wavering Yet there
are other lesser nations which took
no active part in the great struggle,
but whose future lies equally in
the worldwide recognition of their demo-
cratic principles. The modern historical
landscape has changed SO tremendously
and the whole structure of commerce
and trade has become so interrelated
that nation cannot live to itself, as was
once possible. A writer in The New
Europe" discusses these questions as
they affect Switzerland, quoting from a
book on the subject by a Zurich pro-
fessor He observes
"The Great War has raised in an acute
form the problem of the small state. Have
the conditions of the modern world under
mined its right to Independent existence :?
weakness to the community of nations {?
Is it not desirable, even in it's own higher
interests, that it should become merged in
those larger organisms which alone offer
the fullest opportunities of intellectual
economic and political development? In
short, is not the small state an anachronism
in the light of the vast international is
sues involved? Belgium, Serbia and Ru-
mania have, each in its own way, given an
answer to these siren voices of mate
rialistic age But while the fate of the
smaller belligerents has added an heroic
note to the great tragedy of this war, no
less interesting and far more complex psy-
Geological problem is presented by the po-
sition Of the smaller neutrals. Among them
Switzerland occupies altogether special
place. The racial preiudces which her free
institutions had happily dspellcd have
again raised their head under the stress of
a world tragedy, and the Swiss themselves
have formed the phrase 'le fosse,' to de-
scribe the gulf which had suddenly arisen
between the Romance and Teutonic sec
tions of the population
New-York tribune., 1918-11-24
An Economists Plea to Business
Men to Stabilize Prices as a
Precaution Against Trouble

ported smaller production for civil pur-
poses. The per capita supply Of food has
fallen. The crops were scant last year; nm
exceptionally large share of the scant sup
ply was exported. The crop of this year
is in the aggregate not much, if any, lar
ger, and a still larger share Of it must so
abroad The supplies of clothing have
been. meagre in view Of the wool that the
soldiers had to have and Of the cotton thar
has been consumed for explosives
New-York tribune., 1918-11-24
N THE heels of the "feeler"
emanating from Washington
fortnight ago regarding the pos

SlDllty Oh PRESIDENT Wilson'S at
tendance at the peace conference comes
the announcement from the White
House that "the President expects to
sail for France Immediately after the
opening of the regular session of Con-
gress for the purpose of taking part in
the discussion and settlement of the main
features of the treaty of peace"
This causes "The Baltimore Sun" to
comment:
The President is in the position of the
man who asks advice from his friends in
order that he may have the pleasure of
disregarding it. Assuming that the press
represents the thought of the people, a
majority of them were against the project"
'The Boston Globe" feels that his
presence is almost mandatory:
"The Presidents decision to 60 to the
New-York tribune., 1918-11-24
By II. ]. Davenport

Professor Of Economics ia CorneU Uan-
Versity
"NHE notion is widespread that wages,
now that they have gone up, will
IL STAY up The laborers will insist:
will not consent to reductions. In
fact wages have not gone up, excepting in
the superficial terms of money. In terms
Of what the wages will buy-real wages
are distinguished from nominal wages
they have been falling. Money wages have
been rising because prices have been ris
ing-money becoming cheap. Wages are de-
rivatve from prices. When prices are ris
ing employers compete against one another
Tor labor in order to get the advantage of
the widening margins of gain that the ris
ing prices offer. This competition pushes
the money wages up With time enough
if general prices stop rising--this competi-
tive bidding up OF money wages will finally
cancel the exceptional margins. Wages will
catch up with prices and profits.
But during this interval of readjust-
ment the real wages suffer In terms not
of money, but of what the money will buy.
they go not up, but down. This is merely
another way of saying that, in periods OF
rising prices, money wages do not keep up
with prices. This is not to assert that no
where during these recent years have there
been advances that were real, but only that
in general real wages have been lower
rather than higher
New-York tribune., 1918-11-24
Nur Interest in
~ Switzerland

"The fate of Switzerland can never be
matter of indifference to this country
which, like America, is bound by spiritual
links to the country of Calvin and Of Rous-
seau, and so many Of whose poets and
thinkers have drawn inspiration from the
unspoiled traditions of Swiss liberty. Pro-
Sessor Ragaz. Of Zurich University one Of