Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1921-12-08
DICTATED WAGES Under
ATIACkB BY JOHN |, LEWIS

their employees the right to organize
for their mutual protection and help.
Examine in your own mind the list
of those whom you have heard de-
manding de1ation of wages. You will
find they are employers of that type.
Then demand for wage reductions is
simply part of their plan for the de-
struction of the trade union move
ment in America. They have decided
that extensive reductions of labor
will reduce the efficiency of labor
unions. They are aware that organ
lied labor contends for wage scale
that will enable the worker to main
tain his family on decent American
standard of health and comfort. 1t is
this fact that sets this class of en-
ployers against labor unions.
Prices Not Down.
But, we hear some say: prices
would come down if labor would come
down." Experience does not prove
this contention. Employers are not
making such promises. We hear some
say that prices have already come
down; that manufacturers have re-
duced their prices and that labor
ought to do the same. Some even 90
SO far as to say that prices have
reached the pre-war level, and unfor-
tunately, they induce some people to
believe such statements This encou-
ages some to denounce labor for fight
ing to maintain it's wage standards
The fact is that prices of the
articles that the worker must buy
have not come down to the pra-war
level And let us al hope that prices
will never again reach the pre-war
level.
Only few days ago there ap-
peared in the daily newspapers an
article telling about the terrific
slump" in prices of the necessities of
life, and demanding that labor accept
wage reductions for that reason. And
on the same day there appeared in
the same newspapers an official state
ment from Washington which said
that the general average of prices of
the necessities of life throughout the
country still was go per cent above
the average for 1914. Here we find
prices still 60 per cent higher than
they were before the war, and yet
these employers are demanding that
labor stand for reduction of wages
to the pre-war level. One fails to see
anything fair in such an attitude on
part of employers. Organized labor
asks only a square deal.
Not Back Sliders.
Wage standards were far too low in
1914. 1t would be an injustice to force
labor to return to the 1916 level
America is not nation of backslid-
ers. The citizenship of America be-
lieves in progress, in going ahead and
not backward II is contrary to every
American thought and a violation of
every American ideal to encourage a
policy of sliding backward from the
1921 standard to the standard of 1914
Let's forget 1914, in business, in in
dustry,and in our every day interest
in humanity. Let's look forward and
eyond the present and strive for the
attainment of better things. Let's
work for the upbuilding of our coun-
try and all that it contains. Let's
swear new allegiance to that true
that is founded upon the
rock of justice and the square deal
A nation is what it's people make it.
Americans have made this the pest
country in the world by going con-
stantly forward in the path of pro-
gress. Let employer, employee and
everyone else stand together and not
only maintain the 1921 standards of
living and industry but make them
better as the years go by. The har-
mony, concord and unity that is so es-
sential to the future of the country
cannot be inspired by defation of
wages and return to the standards
of the year 1914.