The Connecticut labor news., 1923-09-22
Can All Have $l0,0OO a Year?

man is the most idea1istic person o
 earth Contrary to the. usual notion
 higher wages than his competitors. H.
 takes pride in the quality of his faitl
 in human nature; but he does shut u
 about 1t. He does not want to be knowl
 as hard-boiled egg, but neither doe he want to be known nut. I said to an association of manufac
 turers not long ago: "I maintain tha
 If each business man were to use ever!
 betterment device that has been devel oped to this day, within five years ths cost of goods would be so reduced tha
 every ordinary laborer would be able
 to buy the things that only man witt
 an income of ten thousand dollars 2
 year can buy to-day"
 WHERE PROSPERITY LIES.
 Ours was not a social-reform meet
 ing. We were talking about how to
 make more money. It was a hard-head-
 ed gathering. Every man was either a
 proprietor or a manager-a man with a stake in industry. Before the war my
 statement would have brought out h tolerably polite snickering.
 This audience did not even smile in diligently. It took the statement at its face value-just as though l had said that by certain improvements the cost of electrical power could be reduced. That attitude means a lot. It means that we are on our way to applying to the study of human needs that same intensity which have applied to the study of things.
 Years ago, before we knew much about metallurgy, steel was simply steel, and when we built machine, sometimes the steel proved to be right, and some times 1t did not Nowadays no r11anu1- a generic name. He uses that partic- ular teel which is best fitted to each part, and he spares no expense to find exactly the night kind-for only the right kind will be truly economical. To-day we are just beginning to stop talking of labor in the way that used to talk of stee1-and by labor I mean all who work for wages. It is 1awning on us that labor is an obso- etc trade term that what we used to .hink of mass IS not mass at all, 1 put number of individuals known as human beings. And, also, we are learn ng that these human beings and their 1 antilles are consumers as well as pro- lucers, and that the prosperity of in- 1ustry is bound up with their prosperity l IS consumers. How are we going to reach that $1O,-l 100 purchasing power? The problem is hief1y one of management and intelli- ,ent leadership.
 Among the more or less popular chemes of to-day which can only de-
 CD Trying a new social order which l. will abolish capital. Capital merely epreSents the tools with which we york. If we destroy, we cannot work. Abolishing capital IS only withdrawing he tools from the hands of those who lave shown that they can at least do omething with them and putting them :, nto the hands of those who have not hown that they can do anything.
 (2) Abolishing profits This offers 10 solution, for if you take industry as whole and set off the profits against he losses over a term of years, you will find that the net gain of the pro- rietor is but an inhnitesirnal percent ge of the total production. Reform nasfling sledge hammer down on a aid head to kill fly.
 (3) Taxing capital. This is not a lethod of achieving anything, for it nly serves on the one hand to reduce he number of tools that we have to SC, and, on the other hand, to pro-! lote useless expenditure by the Gov- rment.
 (4) Raising wages or fixing prices y law. The Government cannot ere te. It can only prohibit. Laws which aise wages result only in the payment f phantom wages-that is, wages ,hich eventually have to be paid in hantom money such as Is issued by iermany and Russia. Fixing prices annot help, because if the price be fix d too low no one will produce, while 1t be fixed too high, consumption is ut down.
 (5) Putting production into the con-, -ol of the workers. This does not get s anywhere. The cooperation of the yorkers is essential, and representation f the workers is sometimes way of citing better cooperation But con- -ol by worker is very different. Moth 1g is to be gained by what is known S putting labor in it's place" and, keWise nothing IS to be gained by talk lg labor out of its place and betting
 profusely.
 The rise cannot come suddenly. nor an 1t happen to everyone at once. It annot come as the result of a strike.