The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1936-11-26

W oil Ol Tile PRAISE.
Those who have access to the mar
ket pages of the great metropolitan
,u daily newspapers
wage must have been
Increases impressed by the
rapid fire an
nouncements coming from big in
dustrial corporations of wage in
creases, bonuses for employees and
melon cutting in the form of divi-
dends for the shareholders. They
must have been impressed, like
wise, with the sharp rise in secur-
ity prices that obviously has re-
Elected the expanded business and
increased earnings.
A prosperous nation may not al
ways be happy one but there is a
certain psychology about a prosper
Gus nation that makes it carefree.
1t is a psychology that makes the
average man and woman forget to
a large extent about the recent
pinch of economic displacements
and, as well, those same people are
inclined to disregard and give no
consideration to the morrow.
Let us look into those circum-
stances. When corporations or other
forms of business have reasonable
years in their particular lines, early
In the winter they begin to see what
the years total will be. They can
figure rather accurately what the
returns will be in the last two
months, say, after they have made
their totals for the first ten months
of the year. So, whenever they
reach that stage in reasonably
successful year they can make their
plans for distribution of the profits.
Now, we have a tremendously
high tax rate on corporation sur
pluses and we have rather high
tax rates on incomes of individu-
ais. Corporations and other bust
nesses, therefore, start figuring how
to do the best they can with the
earnings of the year. Some of them
determine that their employees
should share substantially in the
profits of their labors; others want
to distribute as much of these earn
ings as they may to their stock
holders because such a showing
creates a demand in the market for
their shares and such demand is
influential in establishment of the
corporation's credit for borrowing
money if it needs to borrow from
the banks. In either event, corpora
ton arrangements obviously give
considerations to the tax the corpo-
ration would have to pay and I
think it is not matter of condem-
nation for them to turn over as much
of their profit as they can to those
interested in the business instead
of to a government which wastes
so much.
To be perfectly fair, it must be
said that the money now being dis
tributed either in dividends or in
bonuses to workers or in wage in
creaSeS was earned before the re-
cent election. Its distribution, how
ever, is motivated largely on pros
poets for the future. In other words,
those responsible for these distribu-
tons of earnings feel that they can
let that money out of their hands.
They may not be distributing all of
the sums available but the "era of
good feeling" is accepted by all of
them as indicating the chances for
continued earnings are bright.
I have merely touched on the eff
feet of distribution of earnings
:, :. among the holders
HotO 1t of capital. 1t is
Works Out just as important
to consider h
effect of distribution of these earn
ings on the laboring classes. Labor
has been convinced under the Amer
lean system for many years that it
is entitled to some share of the prof
it's from its products. Employers
are taking that same view to a
greater extent than anywhere else
in the world. When labor gets bo-
muses. or gets increases in its pay,
there is a reaction among those
workers who have sound judgment
that prompts them to do the best
they can on their jobs. That is to
say, they become contented work
ers and they are less susceptible
to the propaganda of radicals who
seek to promote strikes and labor
disturbances to further the ends of
communism. That is a part of the
era of good feeling as much as the
added earnings of corporations or
the enthusiasm of politicians over
victory.