Amerikai Magyar hirlap = American Magyar journal. [volume] (Youngstown, Ohio) 1911-1942, 1922-06-29

it has stayed with us as phrase, a
label for the amount of money that it
was supposed to represent. We still
hear much about it, with good deal
of confusion as to what is meant by
living wage. The trend of events
since the war has put the employer in
the position of clinging to the original
meaning of the term, as a wage ad-
justed to the actual cost of living. But
to the wage Garner himself, the living
wage has come to mean something
more definite. If it means anything
to him the living wage means a wage
on which he can really live-that is,
a pay envelope that will permit him
to do a little more than merely meet
the day to day cost of his necessities,
and enjoy something Of life in addi-
tion. ~ = II tt
To my mind one of the significant
developments of human society since
the war is this frame Of mind on the
part of the worker. In his view living
has become something. above meeting
the bare necessities of life. In his
thoughts the merely living wage, in its
original meaning, is something obso-
lete. He'wiM never willingly go back
to it. To this fact we may as well
reconcile ourselves. and adjust our
economic life to it. While, as now,
unemployment is still rife, and work
is at premium, we may, deliberately
force wages down as we please, 1T can
be only for a time. At the moment
when business imprves and prosper
ity returns, we may expect it as
a certainty that the American work
man will come back with a wage per-
'fnitting him not simply to exist but
to get, something out of existence and
let me say here and now that this is
to regarded as; a reasonable and well
come thing. 7 H ,,1t
am convinced that this wider con-
ception of what constitutes a truly
living wage is entertained not alne
by the workman himself, but the
American people as whole have will
ingly conceded it to him. A few re-
dictionary minds among us may still
cling to the literal Interpretation of a
living wage as one to meet the cost
Of living only; but these l feel sure
will be pushed aside by the greater
number of more liberal-minded Amer
leans who in the future will be sure to
put broader conception on the term,
ga living wage" There is no turning
back the clock of time or events. Dur
ing the war the workman grew ac-
customed to comforts in life that he
had not before tasted Even now he
conceives that many of the most am
bilious of these enjoyments he may
have to give up for good. For the
time being he has been forced to sur
render them all. Nevertheless, large
measure of these new enjoyments he
has never given up permanently. And
/ feel sure that it is not the wish of
our people that he should give them
up forever.
No one has sensed the present eco
nomic situation more acutely or ac-
curately than President Harding him
self. In one of the finest speeches
he ever made, in passage touching
on justice to the working man, he put
a most forcible and moving construc
tion on this popular feeling in favor
of better treatment of the man wht
tolls. In that speech the Presiden
said "The workman's lowest wage
must be enough for comfort, enough
to make his house home, enough tx
insure that the struggle for existence
shall not crowd out the things worth
existing for" No one could have ex
pressed this more succinctly. 1t wa
an expression not simply Of a genera
popular conviction, but of a new de
mand of the working man himself.
AlIeT dll, CIllS dS llOC d ueW Or IeVO
lutionary demand on his part. He il
not exhorbitant. He is only conscious
of having won new dignity, mor'
important place, place of create
respectability and trust, in our ma
tional life, and he now Graves the an
swering reward. This much is certain
that from now on our people in gen
eral will have to shape their way O.
life, their own ability to earn and t.
pay SO that henceforward prope
share Of the simple good things tina
all of US have always enjoyed shall
fall to the lot Of the man who tolls
One form in which this award mus
fall to him is in the form of wage
call it what you will-in view of tn
loose meaning that has come to b
attached to the old living wage.
prefer to call the new wage the buy
ing and saving wage.
Of the forty-one and half millio
persons "gainfully employed" in tn
United States, 24,S00,OOO Or nearl
SO per cent are the actual wage ear