Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-10-15

Mr.. James j. Davis, Secretary OF
Labor, is "a good provider"-and that
is high praise for family man. AS
head of the great family of industrialists
Of this Nation, he is an optimist. He
sits at the dinner table and watches
the food consumed, and it makes him
glad and proud to be an American, even
by adoption.
Take 500 families having incomes
ranging from $3.50 up to $4,000 year.
What q lot it takes to feed one such
family in America! He told about 1t
over the radio last Sunday night, and
surely the OK was in the ditch or in the
barbecue, before he had finished. Just
one average family of At persons eats
half q huge OK a year-498 pounds OF
meat, not counting bones and gristle.
II that fraction of child-7-l0ths Of
a man-had been full grown, it would
| have taken more than 500 pounds Of
meat, from Christmas until Christmas,
to feed one family Of hungry Americans.
Besides; it requires lot of side dishes
to feed this average American family.
There are the butter, SO pounds; milk
and cream, $50 quarts; -four, 667
pounds; potatoes, 600 pounds, and lot
Of other things too numerous to men
tion-including spinach. What q ra-
toni S o 81
That story about the mendicant who
was about to be buried to save him
! from starvation, and who was offered
some corn by charity to save his life,
| and when he learned that the corn was
not shelled, babe the burial to go on,
! has its counterpart in modern Aneri-
can life, for we demand our fruits and
vegetables canned-haf billion dollars
worth year.
~ 4
All the above information, and q lot
more, could have been acquired Sunday
evening by just listening in, but now
that Secretary Davis has started some
thing in that direction, it is permissible
to follow it up, for there is a great les
son in the study of the standard of 1iv-
| ing in the prosperous United States,
today, as. compared with a quarter CEN
| fury ago. or with foreign nations today,
where meat is a rare luxury allowable,
maybe, once a week.
| How impressed we are to learn that In
the United States there are Is, OOO, 600
telephones and in all the rest of the
nations combined less than 10000, 600!
And we run 22,0O0,0 900 automobiles,
while all the rest of the world possesses
less than 100000. No wonder there is
not parking room enough between the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and when
we do nose in at curb we find a police
ticket nosed in at the wheel pointing to
80 possible violations of law for which
we should hang. "Oh, for a parking
place in some vast wilderness, some
boundless contiguity of shaded" How
we envy Byrd in Little America; he can
park all Winter!
This country is Just getting too dog
goned prosperous to live in!
| X X X
Secretary Davis tells our skilled me-
chanics that their wages have increased
more than the pay of any similar me-
chanicS in other countries. And this
comes right when Congress is discuss
| ing how to protect American wage
earners against ruinous competition of
Europeans. Still, his radio Is nom
partisan.
But the optimistic champion of the
! American wage Garner lets his fancy
/ and will run away from some very dry
statistics gathered by William F.. Og-
burn and under the heading of Stand
ards of Living as a Basis for Wage Adj
| juStmentS," published in the Proceed
ings of the Academy of Political Sci
ence," New York City. Vol. VIII, 1919.
That was when wages were at the
peak, at the close Of the war, yet he
shows that in purchasing power they
had actually fallen 2o.7 per cent, as
measured In what an hours labor
would buy In the usual commodities.
Even covering the period 1890-1912,
when no artificial stimulant of World
War affected wages, DR.. l.. M. Rubinow
found that there was decline in the
purchasing power OF hourly wages.
/ \ 4
How about q changing standard OF
living?