The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-06-02
THE WAGE AWARD.

The railroad labor board, after
weeks devoted to investigation of the
subject, has ruled that the wages of
railroad employees shall be reduced an
average of IL per cent. This figure
is about what the public had been led
to expect. Probably the decision will
not be satisfactory to either side to
the controversy. Neither will it prove
satisfactory to the public unless it
shall be followed by a cut in freight
and passenger rates.
Both the railroads and their en-
ployes owe it to themselves and to the
public to accept the boards award
without attempt at resistance in order
that the business of the country. al
ready badly handicapped. may pro-
coed.
With the reduction in their pay, the
railroad employees will feel themselves
these they should have. A revival of
the discussion of what constitutes n
living wage may be expected. The
principal difficulty in the solution of
this question is that there is a. wide
difference of opinion, and a wide
variation in costs of living in different
communities and under different con-
ditiops, making it impossible to deter
mine definitely, either upon evidence
or by arbitrary rule. what constitutes
a living wage.
The accredited economists of some
of the labor organizations declared
not long ago that $4,000 a year is a
necessary income in order to permit
a workman to support his family ac-
cording to- decent standards. This
means. apparently, that in their opinion
$4,000 a year income to each of its
employees is the least an industry
should expect to pay and if it can not
pay that it ought not continue to ex-
list.
The bare statement. that the indus
try which can not pay a living wage
ought not to exist has been made for
the purpose of supporting the implied
assertion that every industry that does
exist ought to pay what its employees
consider a living wage. 1t would be
just as sound, however. to take the
other view, that when employees find
that an industry does not pay them
what they consider living wage they
should seek employment in some other
industry that will. That is the course
the stockholders of the railroads have
pursued. When they found that rail-
road stocks would not pay a reasonable
dividend on the investment, they sold
the stocks and invested elsewhere. For
that reason the market values of
stocks have rapidly declined and in
vestors have lost accordingly.
Statistics show that a large proper
ton of the farms of the country do
not pay a living wage to the owners
and their families, if the wage is to he
computed according to the standard
that would be demanded by city en-
ployes. Yet it would be hardly sound
economics to assert that because ag-
riculture in some years and some To-
calities and in many individual cases
in all years, does not pay living wage
to those engaged therein, agriculture
ought to be abandoned.
A fair, reasonable and satisfactory
adjustment of wages for workers in all
parts of the country on a general level
is rendered more difficult than it
might otherwise be by the VARYING
costs of living in different localities
1t may cost a worker in one town
| twice~as much to live as it does a man
| performing the same labor in another
town. The injustice of a horizontal
wage reduction thus becomes appar-
ent. but there seems to be no way IL
avoid it so long as employers and en-
| ployes are not permitted to establish
the rate of pay by mutual agreement