The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1919-10-14
SHALL WE IMPORT LABOR?

SHALL WE IMPORT LABOR?
There are millions of European.
who want to come to the United States
and are waiting for the reopening O.
our gates to immigration" said Julius
II. Barnes, head of the grain corpora
ton at Spokane, Saturday. That this
is true cannot be doubted The mer
and women who have gone through
more than four years of the most ter
rible suffering and privations are
looking to the United States for relief
just as the whole world is looking tc
US to lead the way. They want te
come here and get away from the re-
construction tasks, the terrible taxes
that must be paid for generations tc
pay for the war and to get some of the
prosperity for which the United States
is noted.
English railroad employees have
been granted an increase of pay to
81 shillings ($12.24) per week, but
this is only to apply as long as the
cost of living remains at ITO per cent
above pre-war prices. When the cost
of living is lower their wages will be
lowered. These men want to come to
the United States where railroad lab
orers and train men get from 500 to
$500 per month and where common
labor Is now paid for at the rate of
$3.50 to So per day, and skilled labor
at proportionate prices. Where men
who are getting $685. per day strike
Where coal miners demand a 30-hour
week and Sc minimum wages
We may have to open the gates to
immigration if labor continues it's IN
reasonable demands. Such wages as
are now being demanded cannot con-
tinue. Every one is demanding a low
ering of the cost of living but this
cannot be done while wages are adj
vancing. A representative of the fed
eral department of agriculture at
Washington, d. c., was in Moscow
this week He said:
'3The people of the west have little
real conception of the gravity OF the
labor situation, especially in the IN
terror, away from the coast. 1t is
one of the gravest problems we have
to face and it's gravity is especially
noticeable in its effect On agriculture.
7 have vicitad oil rartiouc IF tba ITpi
ted States, from the tobacco and cot
ton farmers of the south, to the big
wheat farms of the ives. and l find
production is threatened with serious
curtailment because of the labor prob
lem. In Montana | talked with a
farmer who farms several thousand |
acres of land and raises wheat on |
large scale. He is going tc reduce his
production materially. He says that
during the last harvest if he even
made a suggestion to his employees
who were getting higher wages than
had ever been paid for FARM and har-
vest work, they would throw down
their forks or other tools, say, go to
HI and quit work. That represents
the attitude of labor everywhere and
industry cannot stand such condi-
lions long
American people-the American
to 'give the Amer
can laborer every opportunity to i'm
prove his condition, but who will say
hat the condition of the laborer mas
been improved during the hisn wages
II the past few years? How many J
aborers have saved and invested any
If their enormous earnings? True,
many OF them bought Liberty bonds
Turing the war, but we learn from all
titles that these bonds are now he
ng sold at sacrifice and the money
pent for luxuries to which the lab. :
'rers have become accustomed dur
ng the time when their earnings have !
one beyond their widest dreams in
asst years. Uncle Sam can solve This
abor problem by opening the gares
0 foreign immigration. Will he. be I
orced to do this? The answer must :
e made by the American laborers. f
&c - "a
THE COLLEGE TO THE :
FARM. I
BY putting in operation its short F
purses in agriculture, dairying and /
ONE economics the University Of {
iaho will greatly increase its use Z
illness to the people of the state