White Pine news. [volume] (East Ely, Nev.) 1920-1923, 1923-05-20
SOLDIERS BONUS.

that the bonus was 10 nave Deen
given to compensate for the differ
ence between the $50 a month that
the soldiers were paid while in the
trenches and the SO TO SIC that un-
ion members demanded II got for
working eight hours IN munition
plants, s~hipbuilding and other m
pigments for the government in
helping to save the nation from de-
struction. Worded in that way the
bill contained an implied criticism
against organized labor.
Looking at it through the eyes OF
hosts of the common people and la
boring men, the wording OF the bill
ought to have been to make mp the
difference between what The meE
were paid for soldering and acting
as cannon fodder and that received
by profiteers who took advantage oil
the war to enrich themselves at the
expense of those selfsame soldiers
who were fighting for the %preserva-
ton of the lives and liberties Of the
said proiteers while they were con-
tinuing to pile mp their unseemly
wealth.
Two questions that were OF COM
mon discussion during the war are
reopened by these references. First
is that of CONSUMPTION of labor; Sec
ond is that of CONSUMPTION Of wealth.
Upon either or both the argument for
a bonus Is erected, and no has a
right TO say that either should con-
tribute a ground for its defeat.
Defenders of unionism admit that
large wages were drawn FOR work
safely beyond the range OF amor
balls and across an ocetn besides, but
they interiect into the controversy
the fact that they were charged such
~exorbitant prices for ordinary daily
needs that the world and the mighty
array of human beings through the
ages of history would stand aghast
at the knowledge of this rapacity.
For instance, In any of the eastern
cities where munitions were manu-
featured and men and women were
gathered by the thousands to do the
work the price of q measly room,
poorly furnished and the acme of
discomfort, was never less than SIS
a week. and that for a sandwich that
would starve a chicken the minimum
charge was Is cents.
Four and a half years after the
war is over 1t appears not so ma
terial as to whether these charges
were exacted from the workers be-
fore they hoisted wages to war
heights, but it has proved inevitable
since the labor movement had its
inception that never is there an in
crease in wages but what there is a
simultaneous rise in living costs to
take the bulk IL not practically every
penny of the advance. People who
live on the earnings of laboring mer,
either as landlords renting them
homes, others renting them rooms,
more who sell them their meals, have
long been conceded the right 10 an
ticipate these wage advances and be
right there on the minute with a cor
responding advance in the price of
the things they have to sell, which
undoubtedly are essentials. SO there,
is some justification for the plant of
the war wageworkers.
The proiteer stood in various
lights and relations before the gov
eminent. 70 two of them being so
nearly alike as to make a general ap-
plicaticn possible. 1t is true tina.
young men died on the field that the
profiteer might live and remain on
earth to exact further profits and en-
}oyments. It is true that these were
out Of personal danger and that few.
indeed, of them were willing to take
any risks whatever either to life or
property. Most profiteers were
beyond the war age and many
of them so mneh so that their
services would not have been ae.
cepted had they volunteered. II
Is further true that they were gotten
at in a way by the bold and dcterm-
ined policy Of President Wilson, who
compelling them to pay as high as
so per cent profit Ia did the thing
that entitled him to the highest en-
blem of greatness of any act done in
49, ~ - III lultiCf llut Ltldf
when the armistice had been signed
and the soldiers returned home,
hoping that for the time business
would keep UP and give them an OPP
portunity to gain some of its finan-
cfal advantages. these identical prof
iteers deliberately Went about 1t to
DEBATE and take out the substance
from all prices paid to the people
for products, yet continued to wrest
extortionate rates for everything
they furnished, sold or delivered.
blasting the hopes Of those who came
home with battle scars, expecting
to rehabilitate their wrecked for
tunes. At no time or period in the
strife or the years that have followed
have these m~alefactors of great
wealth paused in their headlong
plunge after all the wealth of the
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