The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1949-03-31
MEMBER AUDIT BUREAU
OF CALCULATIONS
THURSDAY, MARCH 81, 1919
Inside Your Congress
Ralph w. Gwinn, NC.
Minimum Wage Law

The committee on Education and
Labor in Congress has taken another
step into socialism. We march on
down the road to serfdom under the
Lesinski banner bearing the slogan
"Minimum Wage Law" H. r. 1880.
1t sounds humanitarian. 1t pretends to
do for the people what they cannot or
will not do for themselves. Like all
demogogic promises of government to
fix prices, its sole practical purpose is
to rob one group to benefit another
that has the most votes in it.
This administration under the Les
inski Bill proposes to make all en-
ployers engaged in interstate com
merce pay the apprentice, the learner,
the slow worker, the handicapped or
injured veteran, the old, the part-time
worker, even the baby sitters at least
IS cents an hour for 40 hours a week
and S11212 for overtime. If the
father and mother are engaged in in
terstate commerce while the baby sit
ter sits rs cents an hour for 40 hours
a week and $11215 per hour for all
overtime must be paid unless spe-
officially exempted exempted from the
bill. The law denies to all such per
sons the right to work at all unless
they can induce simebody to pay the
legal rate If they can't, then they
must 90 on the relief rolls. They dare
not take even 73c. an hour. The bill
is actually a compulsory unenlplOy-
ment bill. That is planned economy.
That is socialism in any country, in
Guiding America.
To illustrate how it works We have
more than 5000 country weekly
newspapers. Traditionally they en-
ploy many newsboys and paper car
riers. They employ apprentices to
learn the printing trade. The testi-
mony showed that there are more
than $4,000 GI's learning the print
ing trade and working for less than
IS cents an hour while they are learn
ing. Instead of going to school at tax
payers expense, they learn a trade
and get a little CONDENSATION while
they learn. The SECRETARY of the News
paper Association testified that this
arbitrary government management Of
the small newspaper business from
Washington would revolutionize it,
destroy some of it, and cause tens of
thousands to be unemployed. Every
one knows that learner breaks more
machinery on a farm than he is
worth for the first six months or a
year. No farmer can pay rs cents an
hour to boot When the government
fixed the price of grain, feed went so
high that beef and butter producers
could not pay it. Farmers went out Of
business The public got less beef and
butter at higher prices. When the
government fixed the price Of rent so
as to rob the little property owners,
the property owners liquidated, went
out of business, stopped renting and
quit building any new apartments.
The result has been that the tenants
have robbed themselves and have
gone out on the streets and into the
arms of the rent chislers.
This is the way all humanity suf-
fers under socialism around the
world A moral breakdown of govern
ment ultimately hurts worst Of all
the learner, the apprentice, the least
productive, the low income group, the
pensioners. They become unemployed
and unhoused and unfed first of all
dependents on the government.
What sense does it make for the
government to decree that you can
not legally sell Y bushell of apples
for less than rs cents when the pub
lie will pay only so cents? The
government stops trade by making
it impossible for one group to dc
business with the other 1t should be
obvious that we must all trade with
each other at prices each can pay. No
one but the people themselves dealing