The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1919-04-16

minimum wage or SIX dollars DAY IS
twice the salary of beginner as sci
entific assistant after college prepa-
ration, and more than he can hope to
earn for the next five years. it may
be said that the college man has a
steady job, while the factory employee
works by the day. Even so, The Coun-
j try Gentleman has not heard that this
manufacturer has been out of work, or
/ that his employees are laid off on ac-
count Of dull times or shortage IN or
ders.
The first effect of all this is sug-
gested in the very question of the
young collegian. If, with no prepare
! ton and no investment, a man can,
by belonging to special organization,
secure more money than can anoth-
er who is carefully trained but who
must depend upon the value Of the SER
vice he is prepared to render, what
| is the use in training?
But are we to become nation OF I'M
trained people simply because it is
possible to secure financial returns
quite independent of the thoroughness
of training or the value of the service?
1t certainly begins to look that way,
for we are making rapid progress in
that direction under the conditions that
have now developed; and who can con-
vince young men of the wisdom OF pre-
paration when so many short cuts have
been devised whereby training is made
futile?
The janitor will, of course, point
| out the greatly increased cost of liv-
ing. 1t is true that the cost of food
and clothing has greatly increased,
though rents have remained compare
lively stationary. 1t is also true that
the compensation of common labor has
increased during the last two years
from fifty to one hundred per cent, and
up, while salaries of most positions
have increased not at all. The citi-
zen on salary has faced the same in
crease in living expenses as have other
people. but he has, like the soldier at
the front, been fighting this war at a
dead loss.
Only the wage Garner has had his
compensation increased, and he never
had so much money before. Increase
after increase has been demand
ed, or granted without demand
many increases being retroactive and
to such an extent that not infrequently
men in employment that could by no
means be called skilled have received
as much as a thousand dollars back
pay at single remittance. The latest
announced railroad increase in retroac-
tive from October first. 1t is little
wonder that jewelers. and others deal
ing in luxuries never before had Sucn
trade, while the salaried man has been
conspicuous principally for the increas-
ing sheen upon his coat sleeve.
Is the remedy to increase salaries |
Perhaps, but how is it to be done?
Salaries run in dollars by the month
or year, while wages are running more |
and more in terms of cents per hour. |
1t is the 4.99 psychology over again.
When the janitors strike for fifty cents |
an hour and everybody gets cold peo-
pie generally say: Whats fifty
cents? Poor fellow, let him have it. .
But il the compensation were named
in it's true equivalent of one hundred
and fifty dollars month, or eighteen
hundred year, it would be an entirely
different matter in the eye of the pub
lie, for the total figure is made to stand
out as twice the teachers salary and
full equivalent of the average salary
at most of our leading universities.
People do not mean to be unreason-
able or unfair but they are dead set"
against large salaries especially in
public psitions. 1t was only a few
years ago that one of our great states
decided by popular vote not to increase
The salary of the governor above
the old figure of one thousand dol
lars year. Public officials generally
get beggarly salary, and even now
that wages have passed salaries there
is little prospects of readjustment, be-
cause salaried people are not in posi-
ton to force the situation. While city
wages have gone up from fifty to one
hundred per cent during the last six
years, salaries of municipal positions
have been raised less than fifteen per
cent.
This all means that more and more
men and women of character will leave
the salaried positions to be filled by a
class who will be content with a beg
carly salary in consideration of the
protection of the civil service, and in
the end the public will be obliged to es-
tablish a pension system to get rid of
superannuted and excess public SER
wants serving on salary. The PADDED
payrolls of public officers will go on
multiplying themselves to no ones
satisfaction but to the ultimate dis
content of vast number.
This is not the worst Of it. The
worst of it is that as matters are go
ing now the time will soon come when
people looking for money will seek the
unskilled but protected employments,
and those who want "soft job" will
prepare for the public service" This
class of salaried officials are natural
bureaucrats, who so multiply forms
of procedure as to greatly increase
the number of positions, and who so
intrench themselves behind breat-
works of official customs that even
the gods are powerless to disposses
them. So will the underpaid salaried
employee ultimately revenge himself
by pulling the house down.
Th;c c4o+n af THINGS canno4 30 ~