The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1919-11-15
Sx-H0UR DAY MEANS
STARvE, DECLARES
CONGRESSMAN
NORTH DAKOTA REPRESENTA-
TIVE SAYS PLUMB PLAN
Is UNSOUND

II. u, o T.
An unusual interview dealing with
the Industrial situation has beer
given out by Representative Young,
OF North Dakota. The congressional
district from which Mr.. Young
comes has been called upon to pio-
neer in a good many political
theories during the past few years,
and the activities of the North Da-
kota farmers is too well known to
need re-telling. A part of Mr..
Young's statement is as fololws:
Ours Is an agricultural state. We
have no manufacturing to speak of.
For the life of me l can not SEQ
how a farmer "a receive any bene-
fit out of the Plumb plan. It would
ruin him, to my mind, If applied to
railways, coal mines, and other in
dustries.
This proposition is new. Few
people have given it thought. Those
farmers who have considered it are,
SO far as | al learn, opposed to 1t.
When the farmers learn what it
means they will not touch it with
a hundred foot pole. When the
Plumb plan is mentioned one is apt
to think of it as applied only to the
government ownership of railways.
1t Is proposed to apply it to SO many
industries. The coal miners have
declared for it, and in the mean
while went on sthrike because
they were not granted a 6-hour das.
a five-day week, time and a half
for overtime, double time for Sun
days, and on top of all, a 60 per
cent increase in wages. That is their
notion of how much work they
should do and how much they
should be paid, and, presumably, if
they are to get complete control of
the coal industry, by means of the
Plumb plan, they would give Them
selves that kind of a layout. pro-
vided in the meantime their notions
of pay and hours of labor had not
become more pronounced.
The world will starve to death
il placed upon the six-hOur day.
That is why it is economically un-
sound. Do you suppose for a min
ute that hired men are going to stay
on the farm to work IL hours a day
when they can get more money by
working six hours per day plus two
holidays each week in the town or
city? How are you going to keep
them from going to the cities after
the millennium has been established
In the transportation and manufac-
turing industries?
And will the owners remain on
the farm? Already there is a de-
cided movement upon the part of
farm labor to the cities, and already
the owners are facing an era of fall
ing prices for their products and in
creased costs in every direction.
Owners of farms r leaving them
even when they cannot find ten
nants. They say they can make
more money as workers in manufac-
turing plants.
The Plumb plan has no place in
this republic. This is q government
of, by and for the people, the whole
people. Mr.. Plumb proposes that
the government shall buy industries
and turn them over for the benefit
of a certain class. 1t Is unsound.
1t is un-American. 1t will, among
others ruin the farmers. When they
are all enticed from the farms to the
cities by big wages and short hours
and the farms are deserted they and
their Plumb-plan brothers will die
of hunger.
Farmers strike. They will
not do so. But If the Plumb plan
in industry prevails, n by one they
will nail boards over the windows
of their homes and quietly leave the
farms. When that time mn the
truth may dawn upon people of the
Plumb variety, if they survive the
calamity brought upon themselves
and their fellowmen."