The Kennewick courier-reporter. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1914-1938, 1919-10-30

almost every uuHau "oiie SAu way
prices were so low that it would seem
as if any one could buy everything
they need, yet I fear no successful
contradiction when I say that it was
harder to buy then than it is now.
This has always been the case and
the reason is obvious. The day the
producer gets moro produce on his
hands than h, can dispose of he stops
and his laborers lose their
jobs.
A few days after ninety per cent
of our laboring men lose their jobs
they are broke. We all like to live
we'll if we think we can afford it and
the worst trouble with us now is that
we imagine that because we once llv-
ed very well on So a day we ought to
e extremely well on much better
on SIS a day. We forget that nearly
every one of our necessities is the
product of some other laborer's labor
and if we are getting So day the
other fellow should get the same.
Too many of us figure it this way,
that we-I-we ought to get dollar
an hour and Uncle Sam should pass
a law that would enable me to get
good pair of shoes for So, sack OF
flour for $1.25 and dozen eggs for
Is cents. We, forget that the shoe
manufacturer is paying his labor enor-
nous wages, rs well as the flour pro-
ducers, and also all along the line
and the egg producers. There are al
ways exceptions to all general ruleS
and there is no doubt in my mine
but what there are some classes o:
workers who are suffering from the
present high cost of living. Salariee
PEOPLE who received 500 per month
before the war and are only getting
s125 or $3.50 now are having harde:
time to live now than then providing
they had steady employment then as
now). But this class is in the minor
.ity. Anyone earning SIS day nov
can live better than he could when ht
was getting $3.50 or So or $1.50 or s.
a day, five, twenty-five, fifty or hun
dred years ago.
There is one very peculiar situation
in connection with us laboring men
A situation I never could understand
and perhaps never will. 1t is this
When / worked for a dollar and !.
half a day saved money. When I
got So day I did not save as much.
When received So day I did not
save anything and when I could COM
mand 81 I was usually in debt. A
friend of mine started to work in a
retail lumber yard at $45 month. He
lived on his salary and kept wife.
He gradually worked up in the bust
ness and his salary increased steadily
till when / saw him last he was as
years old, drawing salary of $4,000
year and actually in debt and COM
planning about the high cost of living.
/ could cite scores of such cases
coming under my own personal OBJ
servation and yours, too, if you stop
to think about it.
I have tried many times to figure
out this peculiar situation or afflic-
ton of the human race, but without
much success. The nearest / could
come to it was something like this:
There is some kind of bug in the hui
man system that is never satisfied
IF we can afford hemp we want cotton;
if we can afford cotton we want WOO
or linen; if we can afford those we
want silk. IF we are wearing cottor
and earning So day we think if W.
were only getting So day we coult
|, have wool and when we get the S;
we forget that the wooden producer
and manufacturers arc getting mor'
. wages, and you cannot afford the
wool any better than you could be
, fore. There is another situation
think / can come nearer explaining
Ever since I can remember the paten
office has been granting patents
thousands of them-to inventors o.
! labor saving machines and today w
! can turn out at least ten of the hu
, man wants SIS quickly as we coul'
one hundred years ago, in some case
a hundred to one. 1t would seem a.
/. tho we ought to have our wants sup
, piled for one-tenth the effort that the.
2 were 100 years ago, but the way w
holler about h. c. |. it seems it i
, harder to supply them than ever be
, fore. The reason is because when tn
. patent office issued patent for ma
chine to supply ten human wants j
issued twelve patents to other invent
ors for twelve more human wants an