The copper era and Morenci leader., 1919-12-12
FATAL FALLACY
(From Bisbee Review)

ingmen which is proving large factor among the causes of the present industrial unrest is the falla cious and runous belief that 'the less work you do, the more you will leave for others.
 This is a conviction held by large bodies of work ngmen throughout the United States and England quite aside from any taint of Bolshevsm, l. w. Wism or the Intentionally destructive and anti American doctrine of any such radical elements It is a conviction bred of the honest but mistaken desire of many worzingmen to furnish work to their fellows while shortening their hours of labor
 Around this fallacious belief have centered many strikes, increasing demands for shorter and ever shorter hours, and for continual lessenng of the amount of work expected in return for certain amount of remuneration or to be performed in a certain number of working hours.
 One of the most apparent evils of the tenacious clinging to such conviction by laboring men, is that no limit may be set to the lengths to which it might go With the conviction firmly held by labor that the less work each man does the more he will leave for others, attempts by labor to carry that conviction out to it's logical ultimate conclusion, would eventually lead state of affairs in which each man would be doing not enough work daily to muss his hair while still seeking to do less work-were it thnkable that such state of affairs could be attained before the achievement of an industrial chaos ending in the suicide of all pro- ductive labor
 But this is not the only evil of such conviction Its most runious results is the immediate curtail- ment of production not only in the industry to which the fallacious doctrine is directly applied, hut fO oherO Of Oth ted indu so complex is our modern industrial fabric that all industries are more or less nterrelated, and it is impossible to curtail production in one without indirectly forcing curtailment in a number of oth- CTS And curtalment of production necessarily means the throwing of out of work
 Thus the doctrine that 'the less work I do the more work there will be for others acts 100 per cent efficient boomerang, reacting it's source with crushing effect.
 The fallaces of this doctrine nowhere better or more simply and lucidy set forth than in cent speech in the British House of Commons by David Lloyd George, that keen and sympathetic observer of the laboring mans problems who has pulled Great Britian through many acute la bor crisis. Said the British premier in part:
 "The world is suffering from shell-shock on great scale The habitude of industry has not been altogether recovered. We don't make quite enough allowance for that. Men have been living dir ferent kind of If during the past two three and four years and it is not easy to get them into frame of mind to stand by machine for eight nine hours per day. But wish that that all.
 Tt is true that hours of labor have also been reduced One of the arguments in favor of the duction of the hours of labor have heard in this ,ouse for the last twenty thirty years was that you would not reduce production and that the contrary you might increase production. I have heard it many time when I used to vote for the eighthour bill for miners. heard it on the seven hour bill, and I have heard it whenever there was any discussion hours but, unfortunately the fact is that although there has been substantial re- duction in the hours of labor, you have had duction in output which is almost in mathematical proportion to the diminution in hours. Effort has got to be quickened frightened.
 Employers managers, foremen, and workmen, must put their backs into why labor is being induced lend countenance to that policy is one which is creditable to it's intentions and it's desdes. It is due to the falacy that the less you work the work there will be for others There never was a more fatal fallacy. You have only look at the coal trade. The reduction in the output of coal is deprivng people of employ ment. If it goes it will throw hundreds of thousands out of employment in this country De- Hberately reduce the output means in the end aIl-arcund unemployment gigantic scale The price of food will go up. The cost of material will go up. You will not get material for the country. There will be no work for those who md tran nSf