The labor standard., 1922-02-15
PRESENT WAGE SCALES NOT SUFFICIENT TO
 MEET LIVING COSTS
Senator LaFollette Says That Capitalistic Methods Will Bring About SerfdOm or a Period of Strife.
(By Charles M. Kelley !

| WASHINGTON, D. C.-Notwith. standing the American worker is to- day receiving less real wages than before the war, the Amefican em. ployer Is determined to force him back
 to stlEl lower wages. An accurate comparison of union
 wage scales with living costs cover
 Ing period of twenty years shows
 conclusively that, measured by the
 amount of food, shelter and clothing hls pay will purchase, the worker now is infinitely worse off than he was at the beginning of the present century So declares Senator Robert M. La
 Toilette, of Wisconsin, who recently
 delivered in the Senate perhaps the most sensational deliverance vet made on the condition of the working peo- pie.
 In terms of what money will buy. the track-laborer on the railroads to- day Is receiving in exchange for his toll only $341 year, Senator LaFoI- lette said.
 That means that these men, hun dreds of thousands of them, have
 been reduced to a level of $1 a day which shows that they have "got back to normalcy'it with a vengeance. Not satisfied with thrusting them below the level of subsistence, rail road managers are today before the
 United, States Railroad Labor Board demanding still further wage cuts.
 The railroads ask the Labor Board to make the daily wage of laborers Sl.5O for a ten-hour day. Measured by the purchasing power of 1900, this will be equivalent to only fifty cents.
 This" says Senator aFollette, would be less than Chinese coolies were paid in the days when the Pa cific railroads were permitted to im- port them freely and exploit them unmercifully."
 Senator LaFollette directed the at tention of the Senate to great con- masters of American finance and business" to destroy labor unions, which alone stand between workers and serfdon1. Labor Is being crushed, he said,s by the processes of unem- ployment and wage cutting.
 Today there are five or six mill lions of toilers in the United States who are out of work" continued Sena- tor LaFollette, "and their families are hungry, to the end that their spirit may be crushed apd new generation of serfs may be bred"
 This evil combination against the workers is made more formidable and terrifying because it has enlisted the active support and cooperation of the national administration and the courts ss
 .The United States Supreme Court and the lower courts" Senator LaFol- lette charged, "are depriving the workers of their weapons of defense one by one and seeking to bind them with chains. so that their masters may with impunity scourge them into sub mission"
 No such combination has ever been arrayed together for an evil purpose in the history of this country. Beside it, the, slave power pales into insignifi- canoe by the record that is being made by the federal courts at>this time.
 'This effort to crush fabor," says Senator LaFollette, "and reduce free born Americans to the condition of Russian serfs, may succeed, although I still have such faith in the courage and integrity of the American people that I believe they will finally achieve glorious victory as overwhelming as that which crushed the slave power in 1865 But, in any event, success can be achieved by these sinister forces only after a period of strife and chaos which is too horrible to contemplate, and their success, however and when ever accomplished, will mark the downfall of all the American repub- lic."
 Any attempt to further depress wages, the Senator said, would be dis astrous. He contended that the worker today is living below the level of decent subsistence. The worker during the war did not profteer, con- trary to popular belief, but, like Alice in Wonderland, was compelled to run twice as fast to keep in the same place. The calumnies uttered against labor, Senator LaFollette said, were wanton and wicked. While was rife in business and finance, labor contributed loyally and generously to the winning of the war, and is getting in reward treatment so brutal, so unjust, that decent opinion must stand appalled, at its mere contemplation.