Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1920-08-24
MUST STOP INITIATION
Of WAGES AND PRICES
sun and New York Herald.

sun and New York Herald.
Imitation OF prices and of wages has
got TO stop because the countrys ca
pacitv 20 stand any more Is stretched
~ the limit. While inflated prices have
been soaring away from economic values
and Inflated wages have ceased TO be
measured with the economic measuring
stick Of production, the industry OF the
nation has tended TO become deadlocked.
When economic lunatics propose 10 draw
wages out of anything but production
they propose to strip intrinsic value out OF
everything. including wages: When work
ers want - be paid with big punches OF
paper plastered over with dollar marks.
but representing no sound value benind
them because nothing adequate was done
for them. they want to be paid In counter
felt money.
II Is AN unfortunate trait of human
kind. il is a veritable cruelty practlsed on
man bv nature itself, that he persists II
thinking Of ms work and appraising its
reward in terms not OF positive thlr g
Ike necessaries and comforts and luxurles
bat in terms Of dollar marks.
Having had twenty solid dollars for
lis week Of production at eight hours
n dav. he looks upon his forty initiation
dollars when he first gets them, as more
than enough 10 entItle him to ship day of
has production every once IN so often, to
demand that he work only half a day or
not al all on Saturday, or only seven
hours a day for five days, or perhaps
whatever the hours and days he works.,
be viii do even then only hall man
work.
Sooner or later he comes up against
the stern truth and the terrific reality.
Because he has been putting some OF
has forty imitation dollars, as he thought
be was justified in doing. into jewelry,
silk shirts, any kind of indulgence and
nonsense. instead of into normal living and
prudent hlsbandry, he finds he ewes his
butcher and grocer and can't pay them.
He is behind In his rent and faces eviction.
But when he realizes the truth the damage
has been done Chilling his own zeal and
cutting his own work, he has been help
ing 10 hamstring economic efficiency.
He has been helping 70 lower production
and diminish supply. He has been helping
10 boost prices still higher. He has been
helping 10 make the cost Of living more
lnsuiierable.
He sets up clamor others that have
been similarly Stacking or wasting set up
clamor with hun, for more pay to catch
up with the rising cost of living. But they
never catch up with it, they never can
catch up with IT on any such footing. They
might as well try TO climb TO the moon on
creased pole.
Let nobody retort that this is an
argument for "cheap labor" IT is not
an argument for low wage In the true
sense. Ii is an argument for better wage
In the true sense, a constantly better and
better wage, not the dollar mark wage,
which is nothing, but the exchange wage
Of mans labor, every day, whatever the
dollar mark IN which it is expressed, into
the substance or more and better food,
more and better clothing, more and
better housing, more and better of all
that is normal, wholesome and reason
sble-more and more of economic value
which is everything.
And there rs only one way on earth
for human beings TO gain this higher
and higher wage, richer and richer re-
ward, better and better living. 1t is by
striving for and achieving more produc-
ton, then demanding and getting a lar
ger share of that production the solid
and valuable substance OF the thing it
self, not the gaudy but empty shell.
Wages must be Debated, wages are
going TO be Debated, to the basis of
the real value of the work performed
and the thing produced. And this So
luton, in truth, viii put not painted
worthless money but solid wealth in
the pocket OF the man who does square
DAYS work for p square days pay.