The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-02-18
BY ROBERT sCRIPPs

BY HUBERT +. SCklPPS
TINE great defeat of democracy
Il in government and individual
ism in industry is that no scheme
has been devised to take care of the
workingnlan in slack times, or when
new inventions upset long estab-
lished conditions of employment.
Since abandonment of the feudal
system and setting up of possession
of wealth as the chief. distinction of
the leaders of society, the working
man has been left on his own, eco
nomically, commodity i'll COM
modify market, his value and his
living standards subject to all sorts
of fluctuations.
No employer has he'd set up for
him a sufficient incentive, in his own
interest, to look out for his employees
in lean seasons as well as in sea-
sons of plenty. 1t is these feast
or famine" conditions of employ
ment that undoubtedly have awak-
ened the interest of the masses in
such socialistic experiments as Boil
shevism and Fascism, in spite of
the manifest disadvantages of the
relationships involved.
Free press" and ''free speech"
have special professional interest
for journalists and politicians, but
to a mechanic or bod carrier who
is neither author nor orator they
must be secondary to prospects of a
regular job and continuity of family
life.
Il q
4 THOUGH, to the common
L n man, feudalisrn of course con-
stituted a sort of dictatorship, the
system did in itself create a per-,
sonal interest on the part of his
leaders in his and his family's well
fare.
Prizes of prestige and authority,
as well as of fat lands and privi-
lege, came, under feudalism, as a
result of position at court. Posi-
ton at court, in turn, was based
essentially on the potential political
really the military-value of the
baron to the crown. This was in
turn. based on the number, eff
cheney, and loyalty of troops that
he, in an emergency, could put into
the field in the crowns service.
The sort of barons who LASTED"
under this scheme, or who reason
ably aspired to advancement, we're
those whose serfs and tenants were
comparatively healthy, contented,
and particularly attached to their
persons. There was every incentive
for the ambitious lord of the manor
to see to it that his followers never
suffered unduly.
In bad times there was good, self
ish reason for him to dig down into
his own reserves to make jobs, or
to provide relief, so that they should
not suffer. Otherwise, might they
not be won over by the blandish-
ments of an opportunist neighbor,
and he find himself endorsed on
his next visit to the seat of govern
ment?
With the advent OF the nineteenth
century and the So-called age Of
steam, this system began to break
up. The crown-the government
already had gone in for professional
soldiers and sailors. Stock compa-
MES were invented to make possible
expensive factory installations that
displaced hand workers by TIE thou
sands. The same thing happened
in the mines.
PRINCIPAL shareholders became
i largely foreign, so far as pro-
ducing districts we're concerned.
Wages certainly started to increase,
and some aspects of working condi-
tons to improve, almost altogether
by the action of laborers them
selves, functioning through unions.
But the active selfish interest of the
owner employer in either the good
will or personal welfare of the en-
ploye ceased to exist.
!, a shareholder living in London
or New York, could have no possible
selfish interest to cause me to care
whether miner in Cornwall or
West Virginia did or did not like
me personally, or whether his chill
dren were or were not healthy.
To get under my hide at all on
the latter score, you had to appeal
to a very generalized patriotic sense.
which yet was not develOped-and
which, apparently, is not developed
yet well, either in the United States
or any other great industrial nation.
Economists, trailing along with
the rapid developments of the last
and the first years of the present
century, developed the idea that
with increased wages and savings
banks and all sorts of stocks on the
market purchasable in small units.
laboring AND artisan clusters could
be eduCatedlto attend to their own
savings and insurance funds each