Republican farmer., 1920-05-14
INDUSTRY-P BROTHERS
 CAUSED HIGH PRICES

Washington, May "A study Of prof1teering in American industry, made under the auspices of the rail road brotherhoods, was presented to the railroad labor board today in sup port of the railroad workers demands for higher pay and to refute the charge that increased labor costs are responsible for the high cost of liv ing.
 Prepared by w. J. Iauck, former secretary of the war labor board, the study seeks to show that profiteering in industry is the fundamental cause for high prices in practically all com modities- It gives many statistics to support that contention.
 Calling attention to the many war made millionaires, the study contends that a threefold relationship exists between high prices, profteering and the addition to the quota of mil lionaires," and that the increase in the wealth of the wealthy is an tunanswerable refutation'' to all at tempts to charge labor with prof iteering, and to all attempts to hold l labor responsible for the high cost of living.
 'For, if invested wealth gets a 1 larger return says the study, ca larger proportion of the national in- come than formerly, the man who gives personal aIvice or labor is bound 1 to get a smaller proportion. The menace of the future lies in the prob ability that the vast profits which ara still held in reserve will be capital Eized in order that under the pretext of a fair return on capital, those who own them may continue to take the larger proportion of national income even at the expense of very great suffering on the part of the workers when the over-stinulation of war has passed away"
 Of the extraordinary increase il the price of sugar now mounting tC 800 per cent, the study says, the in lcrease in labor cost paid by the con sumner was less than 15 per cent. Int result of advanced prices, according to the quoted reports of F companie! producing over half the sugar con
 suned in the United States, was pie
 tured in the net profits of these con
 cerns, which, it was said, rose from
 an average of $11, ,000, ,000 during th'
 years 1912-1914 to $34, ,000, coo for tn
 years 1916-191S.
 In the meat packing industry wher
 profits were said to have increase, = 1 : bor item was shown so small that | | wage increase of 100 per cent wouI : add less than five per cent. to tn total cost of the meat The increas
 in price between 1914 and 1918 wa [ shown as eight times the total laibo s cost and the 1918 price represented 2 I times the total labor item.
 y Profits absorb approximately one [ half the retail price of certain kind l of cloth, the report declared, whil s the labor items amounts to from one t fourteenth to one-twentieth of tn
 price. Similar relations were picture
 in the manufacture of mems gal | ments.
 Shoes, according to the study, "ful
 nished a splendid opportunity for tt
 profiteer." The profit items in 191
 it was charged, absorbed nearly ont
 half the price paid by the consume e
 or nearly three times the total labo
 cost, while in 1917 the profit iten y amounted to approximately three-fftl e of the total price and more than fiN t, times the labor cost.
 e Increases in the retail price of b r. luminous coal were shown at fol s- times the increase in labor costs whi
 the proportion of the proceeds of u