Evening star., 1922-10-31
ATTACKS OPINION
ON living WAGE"
Wharton, on Rai|Labor Board
Minority, Says Statement
Is FaIlacious.
URGES UNBIASED PROBE
Charges Many Untruths Contained
in Observation-Disclosures Labor's
Aim for Comfort.

BY the Associate Press
CHICAGO. October 31-A o. Whar-
ton. one of the three members of
United States Railroad Labor Board.
whose dissenting opinion on the wage
decision for maintenance of way
workers brought forth the living
wase rejoinder by the majority
members Sunday. in a statement pub
lished today decla4ed the majority
opinion was falfaci6us and contained
untruths.
Il was not permitted to see the
majority statement before writing
my dissenting opinion" he said
Now that I have read it l find
that it is fallacious and contains
untruths. In some places it presents
alleged arguments which on their
face are impossible.
Attacks Increase Statement.
THE majority statement speaks of
a s20000,000 increase it has given
the maintenance of way men. On the
same method of figuring it cut their
pay $50.00O,OO0 in the July l decision,
so the railroads are still $4,000, 900
to the good.
1T speaks of the cost of living.
but it does not explain how a laborer
can support himself and family on
$51 a month.
1T does not explain that the imi-
tation pay increase it granted means
only 16 cents a day for each man.
1T says nothing of the poor men,
who live in shacks. box cars and
boxes set up on four posts.
Urges Unbiased Probe.
IT openly urged the majority to
have an unbiased committee sent into
the sections where these laborers live
to find out the truth about their
living.
The majority tries to make the
public believe that I would have
laborers given pay on which they
could buy an automobile this year
and an airplane next year
II only ask that a man be given
pay that brings decency with it: that
Americans be enabled to live as
Americans and enabled to live in re-
spectability in their own environ
ment and according to their own
lights. and not in the environment Of
the wealthy.
Raises Nationality Issue.
1.-THE majority says the average
wage for these men on southern
roads is 25 cents an hour and 81
cents on other lines. Then it says
that the 25-cent men get more pay
than the 37-cent men when consid-
cred in relation to living conditions
in the respective territories
1.-The 25-cent men are mostly
negroes I'D Mexicans. so the majority
admits that 1t gives these Mexicans
more pay than it gives native-born
Americans. How can the majority
Justify that?
"The majority does not distinguish
between pauperism and opulence. 1t
pretends that what labor terms
living wage means opulence. Labor
doesn't ask opulence. 1t asks only
American decency.
Restrained by Majority.
"The majority charges that the
minority, in dissenting opinion
last spring. had advised the en-
ployes to strike against the decision
Of the board and had issued incen-
diary arguments to the employees
"When we wished to make our po-
sition clear publicly we were refused
the right of official publication.
1.-The majority, apparently. wished
to keep pushing wages forever down.
ward, with no thought of the conse-
quence.
stand taken by labor that any kind
Of halt at all has been called"