Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1922-09-15
LABOR AND THE RETAILER

There should exist the closest bonds
of sympathy and cooperation be-
tween organized labor and the aver
age business man. By average busl-
ness man We mean those hundreds and
thousands of men working, like our
selves, with hands and brain, and de-
pending upon profits rather than
wages for their income.
This great army of business men
serve society as distributors of COM
modities, such as the grocer, the
baker, the clothier, the jeweler, the
general merchant, and the great bulk
of their patronage is derived from the
enormous mass of our citizenry who
are wage workers. The wage work.
ers as a rule, and the exception only
proves this rule, spends ALL he re-
ceives in wages for commodities. HIS
wage is so small, when compared with
his needs and wants, that there is
rarely a surplus. When the wage
worker, by increased efficiency, by
organization, by steady and unin-
terrupted demand for his services, re-
ceives increased wages-he immedl-
ately increases his purchases from the
local retail business men.
The organization of wage workers
into unions for the purpose OF better
ing their standard of living and IN
creasing the amount of their wages,
should appeal strongly to the lntelll-
gent retail business man, draWln@ the
bulk of his trade from these workers,
as a move benefiting him in the same
proportion as it does the wage work
ers themselves. The more the worker
receives in wages the more he spends
with the retailer, and the larger the
volume of the retailers trade, and the
greater are his profits. 1t would
naturally appear then that the re-
tailers would encourage the efforts of
the workers to better their condi-
tions, if not from humanitarian
reasons, then from the cold, selfish,
practical reasons of better and bigger
business and larger profits.
Yet, alas, how often is the exact
opposite true.
With few exceptions the retail bus
mess man is not in sympathy with
any move to organize the workers,
and this can be explained only by the
fact that, like the non-union worker,
the retailer accepts his opinions and
his reasons ready-made from the big
business, which is his enemy just as
much as it is the enemy of the wage
worker. The iron-clad law of big bus
mess is: produce things the people
need and want just as cheaply as pos
sible; transport them just as cheaply
as possible, and sell them back to the
producer at the highest possible
prices" The ultimate end of this
course, if permitted to run it's ultimate
end, can mean but one thing-the ac
emulation of all the wealth in the
hands of very few, and the reduc-
tion of the many to stage of bare
existence.
And the small business man and the
retailer need>hold out no hope to him
self that he will escape the operation
of this law of big business. Already
he is in process of being reduced to
the status of the wage worker, in that
many of the articles he sells come to
him in packages with the retail price
stamped upon them. He therefore is
in the position of the unorganized
wage worker, having no voice in set
ting the price he pays for an article
or the price at which he sells it. When
this process is extended to all articles
of merchandise, the middle man will
then have become merely cog in the
distributing mechanism of big busi-
ness and his profits will be restricted
to mere subsistenceyas is the workers
wage.
The law of big business is that it's
accumulations from under-consump
tion of the workers must be reinvest-
ed. 1t is simple matter of mathe-
matics to determine just how long it
will take few of the big organiza-
tions of wealth in America to absorb
every atom of property-down to the
last corner grocery and the bootblack
stand.
Today there is only one influence in
America opposing that ultimate pur-
pose and end. That is the organized
wage-workers. They should have the
hearty support of the small business
interests-and n,,A-A have it if Amer
lea is to continue as land of oppor-
tunity, freedom apd justice.