Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1921-02-05
Fair Play and Better Times

It's idle waste of time to expect too
much of our fellows but just now
those of us who have faith in the fu-
ture feel the need of a little faith IN
the intelligence, in the far-seeing
selflshness-if nothing better-of the
employers of labor. We know what
labor did when it had the whip hand;
it permitted the radicals and the
Brindells to dictate the terms. Now
signs of the times indicate. that more
Of control is passing to the hands of
the employers. How will they use it?
To revenge themselves, for some of
them have good reason to be sore?
Will they exact every particle within
grasp? Will they say in effect to
their employees: You are nothing
more than a part Of the equipment?"
AS with human beings in every sta
ton. employers will not all have the
same attitude, but how large will be
the percentage of those who will take
q broad, humanitarian view of the
question themselves and do their ut
most to urge like procedure on their
associates?
President Alexander of the Nation
al Bank of Commerce had this to say,
speaking Friday evening at dinner
of the wicked" bankers in New
York:
Employers must play fair and not
attempt to lower wages unduly or to
enforce greater curtailment than cir
cumstances warrant. They must rec
ognize that, in any country worth liv-
ing in, the standard of living tends
ever upward. Wage earners in the
United States are entitled to the OPP
portunity to receive more than mere
ly the means for a bare and joyless
existence in return for real work we'll
done. Any other attitude on the part
Of employers would be a menace not
only to the orderly readjustment of
existing conditions, but also to sound
business progress in the long rum"
Pretty plain when a man of that
environment sees it so clearly. We
hope his vision Of business prospects
is equally clear, as he thinks he sees
better conditions ahead. There are,
he says, "a number of great business
forces clearly at work building
sound business structure for 1921"
He sees that normal activity must
come from within; that buying must
not be waited for without effort but
must be stimulated; that conscienti-
Gus labor is better served by a more
normally balanced relation between
labor and demand. He finds that no
section of the. business fabric has
been more subject to disturbance and
miscalculation than the securities
markets and none has shown greater
capacity for readjustment. This from
such source is indeed encouraging.
This bankers recognition of the
fAe~>eASe~A s@A0O VI ldil pay 1S DOIuo
out by evidence from many sources.
Thinking men everywhere have been
impressed by the great need of arriv-
ing at what shall be fair alike to cap
ital and labor, a scientific wage some
call it. No partnership may long be
successful with unjust relations be-
tween the partners and labor and
capital are partners.
This country has again had a les
son of the truth that wages may be
too high as well as too low. In effect
too high a wage hits labor harder
than too low a wage, sometimes. As
one says: labor pays its own wage.
Wages must be paid out of produc-
tion" and we know that China
pays the lowest wage. This
country has paid the highest, and
produces the most per man with it's
labor, whereas China ought to be the
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