The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-06-06
|M.E.TracySays:

. F. G. Chairman Jesse H. Jones announces
Az That corporations will not be granted loans
unless high salaries are cut. To leave no doubt
ne lays down specific conditions Salaries of
100000 and more must be cut by so per cent
including previous reductions: those between
$4,000 and 100000 by SO per cent and so on
down to those Of $4,000, for which Is per cent
cut is prescribed
Such ruling is no more than Just The
already overburdened taxpayer should not be
compelled to furnish money for corporations that
still grant officials unnecessarily high pay.
The salary and bonus grab has developed
INTO racket by Which corporation heads, operat-
Ing through hand-pcked board of directors
mulct not only the public, but their own stock
holders
AS long as the President of the United
States works for $4,000 year and members of
his cabinet receive only $15OOO there is no posi-
Die excuse for the enormous compensation
granted officials of certain private corporations
TINE theory that because. corporation made
Il five or ten million dollars through deal
or campaign engineered by it's executive head
he deserves $500,000 or 100000 as a bonus. is
tommyrot since the organization at his back
Che capital at his disposal and above all else
the vast number of employees working in dis
clplned cooperation made it possible
Individual ability is entitled to recognition
and reward, but no less in the middle than at
the top.
Ferdinand Pecora, counsel for the senate
committee now Investigating our great financial
houses gets SO day While that is obviously
too little, it comes nearer being in line with
common sense than the absurd pay voted cor
poration heads who owe much to a corps of
faithful heutenants
These alleged supernen are furnishing
vivid Illustration Of what they can do to meet
an emergency by calling on American taxpayers
Tor help, and by conceding that they and their
institutions would go broke, if the government
did not come to their rescue.
If the new deal calls for anything, it is
drastic readJustment OF pay as reflected in the
prepoSterouS inequalities which exist be-
tween the golf-playing end and the working
end Of an office.
ME time has come for us to give consdera-
Il ton to the maximum wage Both have
definite effect on mass buying power If there
is an amount OF money below which the aver
age man can not live decently, there is also
an amount which he can not spend without
being foolishly extravagant.
Il the government must come to the aid of
private business through loans and regula-
tons as now seems essential, it has right
to insist on a more equitable distribution of re-
turns.
Taxpayers should not be compelled to furnish
money Tor bigger salaries in private business
than they are willing to pay in public business.
The new deal will be neither new nor effec-
tive unless it includes this phase of corporate
enterprise which has been carried to nonsensi-
cal extremes and which not only has led to
unjust discrimination, but to a lot of Office
politics within corporations.
Business has been handicapped seriously by
the striving and maneuvering of those in high
positions to rig things so that they can extract
little more for themselves regardless of what
L costs the consumer or the stakeholder.