Evening star., 1946-09-29

The many and poignant difficulties
confronting the United States at home
these days are by no means unparalleled.
In fact. in this year of our Lord 1916
the United States is undergoing largely
the same tribulations as in 1919 and
1920.
Take all these strikes. Undoubtedly
they are slowing down production and
distribution. Undoubtedly they will con-
tinue to act as drag on our economy
for some time to come. However, we
had serious and crippling strikes back
in 1920, too, and We managed to
survive intact.
In 1919 the coal miners went out on a
strike that lasted six weeks. After the
Government had taken out two injunc-
t1ons against the strike, the union theo-
retically obeyed a court order to call it
off. But in actuality the miners still did
not go back-then. as now, men could
not be forced to work against their will.
The wage increase that the miners
finally were awarded after returning to
the mines averaged no less than 81 per
cent. And the railroad shopmen, after
some of them had gone on wildcat"
strike, received the full wage boost they
had demanded to forestan an authorized
strike.
100000 on Strike.
Then there was the great ,1919 steel
strike of 365, 900 workers. It was lost,
but not before it had seriously hindered
steel production-and whenever steel
production falls by the wayside, almost
all other production suffers Other
strikes in 1919, notably in textiles, build
ing and clothing, brought the total
number of strikers in 1919 to over 4,00O,-
600.
Then, in the following year, the num-
ber of strikers fell to less than 100000.
Aside from wildcat strikes of railroad
switchmen and yardmen, only one walk
out in 1920 involved as many as 100000
workers. And about one-fourth fewer
strikes were won in 1920 than in 1919.
What happened in 1920 was that the
first postwar depression set in around
the middle of the year. Instead of labor
continuing to be scarce, jobs became
scarce. There had been only 500 900 un-
employed early in the year; soon there
were to be almost 100000
This shift in emphasis from need of
workers to need of jobs set in about 20
months after the end of the hoStilities
of World War I. AS this article appears.
the United States is about 1872 months
beyond VI day.
Similar in Many Aspects.
Not only in labor difficulties is the
domestic picture today like that of 1919
20. In constantly rising prices-in fear
and detestation of Communism and of
all its works and workers-in deep eco
nQmic and political dissatisfaction
Among the farm population-in sharp
collapse of stock market prices from
high levels-in what seemed like onerous
taxation (although 1890 taxes would
be called light today)-in demands by
Negroes for greater rights and in the re-
emergence of a Ku Klux Klan-in a
severe housing shortage, bearing
especially hard on war veterans-in a
hundred other ways. the economic and
social problems of the United States in
1916 as compared with its economic and
social problems in 1890 bear out the
old French adage, ''the more it changes,
the more it's the same thing
Take what We used to call back in
1920 the high cost of living. Until
recently We had been fatuously congrat-
ulating ourselves that the price imitation
of World War II had so far been less
than one-half that of World War l.
And it is true that the consumers price
index of the Bureau of Labor Statistics
is, now only 46 per cent higher than at
the outbreak of war in 1885, whereas at
the imitation peak in 1920, it was all of
ITO per cent higher than at the out
break of war in 1914.
But In 1899 prices were considerably
higher than in 1914, so they had less
distance to travel to reach the same
postwar levels. The hard fact is that
actual retail prices today are almost as
high, on the average, as at their peak
after World War I. And they are still
going up.
For most prices the peak reached after
World War I came in June. 1920. Here
Is comparison of actual retail prices
paid by wage earners in large cities
now and then: