Montana labor news., 1937-06-24

even while unsold commodities accumulate.
1t is this very fact that reveals the weak
ness in any attempt to set wage standards
along any stabilized schedules. For the
standards that are liked while prices are at
a certain level are obviously unjust when
prices increase ten or fifteen per cent. And
prices are so often spectacularly speculative
as in the increased price Of war materials
and war metals recently, the extension to
consumable goods of such speculative prices
is certain and inevitable as in fact we see 60
ing on right now.
Employers seize every opportunity of en-
HANGING prices. They believe that every
wanton increase in prices is sound business
and it is, within certain limits. But when it
passes beyond the capacity of the wage and
salary funds to absorb the commodities upon
which such high prices are set, the result is
broadly anti-social. We are passing through
such a period just now with very little done
to correct the evil. And the only effective
check upon such arbitrary enhancement of
price levels is an increase in wages which
will overcome not only the deliberate in
crease in prices but the speculative increase
as well.
Any move, therefore, on the part of the
government, state or federal, to establish
stabilized wage minima for organized male
workers should be opposed by labor. Labor
should be free to work out its own salvation
in this direction. They couldn't abuse their
power if they tried.
Medical Security"
The Russell Sage Foundation has just made
a report on physicians and Medical Care"
And the investigation upon which the report
was based was broad and scientific enough
to commend itself to those physicians who
have in this commercial age still a modicum
of vision.
The fact is that proper medical attention
is not available to millions of our people. Sick
ness takes a mighty toll Of unrelieved life and
happiness. Operations and disqualification of
the better sort is too costly. And the costs
are rising. The county hospitals are over
crowded and they can hardly serve the needs
of the INDECENT. Socielized medicine is bitter
Iy opposed and the doctors, looking back at
their hard work and bitter struggle to reach
IHG Dkdlil Vi dCblNG bQCCGSS 1GGl LIldb blGY dIG
entitled to their fees.
How long society will see such vast groups
unable to enjoy treatment at the hands of
experts is question that will sooner or later
be answered in some form of socialized medi-
cine.
Recognizing the Journal of the American
Medical Association as one of the most stall
wart opponents of socialized medicine, the
report proceeds: Events of recent years have
shown, however, that present methods of sup
plying medical service are SO out of step with
contemporary social and economic conditions
that the Journals opposition to change seems
to be breaking down. Recently the associa-
ton has taken steps of a more advanced ma
ture towards finding a partial solution of the
problem of how the scope of medical service
may be extended"
The problem has been lying on the lap Of
the medical fraternity for themselves to solve
a mighty long time. They have done very
little about it even on their own terms. They
cannot procrastinate much longer for the
masses are showing signs of impatience.
It is true that the skill and ability and in
~telligence Of the physician and surgeon is
peculiarly his own. But it has not been ac-
quired by him individually and through his
own initiative. He, too, is a social product.
The wealth that created schools, the labor
that built them, the leisure that was afforded
them, the books and the teachers are all of
them social products of years of training and
their knowledge was acquired under the great
and benign principle that impaired knowl-
edge diminisheth not learning" but cost a
lot of social money.
Besides the physicians might as well real
ize that the attitude of aloofness from a more
social concept Of their profession is sending
sound money to all forms of m~ountebanks,
quacks and other fakirs in the healing art
that could properly and profitably be collect
ed for the use of a procession which, when all