Show M J 1 M 3 AT W A IS er I 1 TJ 14 national topics interpreted by 1 WILLIAM BRUCKART washington it has been stated frequently that 90 per cent ot of the residents of wash washington ington are located news newa here because it is the site and seat of the federal government in other words washington is a great city because it is the capital of the nation the statement is not completely the truth but a bare analysis by whomever made cannot tail fail to demonstrate that there are thousands who live in washington for the reasons mentioned I 1 consequence of this condition therefore washington news does not get into the newspapers of t the h e country as does other news ne ws the T h e washington date line in ninety ni nine n e out of each one hundred cases is s over a story that deals with some phase of government or politics since washingtonians Washington ians have no vote washingtonians Washington ians cannot be in politics nevertheless sometimes there Is news about washingtonians Washington ians that is of interest to all of the country the observation is peculiarly true of a circumstance that has lately developed moreover the case in point holds a lesson for the country as a whole lately congress passed a law establishing tab lishing a minimum wage for women workers in the district of columbia the statute was rather loosely drawn as it had to be it if it were to work at all it left much to the discretion of a controlling agency called a minimum wage board one of the reasons why so much discretion was left to the local agency however was because the subject with which the legislation deals contains political dynamite and congress did not want to establish a precedent by going too tar far in fixing wages so the district of columbia was left a rather wide scope within which to build its minimum wage structure that was the basis for the circumstance cum stance above mentioned the news about washingtonians Washington ians the lesson for the nation the wage board started out to hold hearings to obtain facts about the wage level and what was needed by the women workers stenographers office workers clerks in stores and this and that and the other type of employed women finally the board got around to waitresses and their wages that was where the lid blew off because who does not know that waitresses collect considerable money in tips promptly up bobbed a red hot question should the tips or the average monthly take in tips be considered as a part of the wage of waitresses well the question has not been settled yet and even when an order is issued it will not have been settled it will go on and on and there will be some racketeers who will organize a society or something to fight for exclusion of tips as part of the wage if that be the order it if the board eventually decides to exclude tips and fix a minimum wage without regard to tips the employers will carry on a drum fire are of criticism about it why because the question strikes at the very heart ot of the relationship relation snip between employer and worker any worker naturally wants as much of a return for his or her labor as can be obtained any employer feels equally that he is entitled to obtain needed labor as cheaply as is possible the waitresses therefore took the position that the proprietor had bad no right to consider the tips as a part ot of the wage on the other hand the proprietor probably with the same justification said in effect that without the lob job the waitress will not get tips and that the owner who takes the risk ought to be allo allowed weI to count those tips as part ot of the compensation further the customers of the restaurant were entitled to some consideration s said a I 1 d consider th t h e proprietors customers that ls is they argued that the customers were charged prices tor for food and service that would yield the proprietor a fair profit the tips it was held were gratuities on the part ot of the customer and they vary in amount some large some small if the wage rate was to be raised and the tips excluded somebody would have to pay more lor for food the waitresses used the argument that the tips were gratuities just as the owners did but since they are gratuities said the waitresses in no wise was it fair to include them in the wage scale and so the argument went but the lesson remains no better illustration is possible I 1 think than the washington waitress wage controversy tro versy there is no better way to show how utterly silly it is for government to mess into private affairs whenever government sticks its hooked nose into private affairs just there begins an unbalancing of human nature that is to say there is no substitute for negotiation between humans each binately fair each desirous of gaining justice according to his light government can and does function admirably as the agency for protection of rights that are important rights of life liberty and pursuit of happiness it can and does prevent encroachment upon individuals divi duals where such individuals can not protect themselves but in matters of earning a living i just plain making money government in my opinion has no place labor has organization where organization is necessary such organization does protect labor generally speaking because it has the right to strike and in all probability fixing of wages will hurt more than help labor while on the subject of expansion of government into every cranberry patch it is inter butting esting to note that into business some ot of the lett left wing new dealers would like very much to put the federal government into the business of making small industrial loans I 1 think probably it will be some time yet before the nit nitwit w it section gets anything tangible into the open on the newest of their schemes but it is true that they are now planning along those lines the thought of this group of so called presidential advisers is that the federal government should start loaning money to small businesses so that those businesses will be independent ot of the great banking trust in short it is proposed that the federal government should be equipped to make a loan of ten thousand or twenty thousand or fifty thousand to a small manufacturer so that he can expand his plant and take on new workers etc etc it is suggested that perhaps there ought to be a new governmental agency created to handle this work so that it will be done sympathetically and with an understanding it all comes about apparently from the tact fact that the present administration has discovered after five years in office that there are great monopolies or trusts or something else in the way of combinations in existence they have found that these monopolies are in control so far that the little fellow in business can not borrow money when he needs it to carry on his business something must be done fo for r them or else they can not have the more abundant life and the prosperity of plen plenty I 1 t y president roosevelt has become intensely interested in having business become home owned or something of the kind he ha has s shown for example in his shots at utility holding companies how much he likes the type of operating company that serves its patrons and mix up in the tangle of corporations that operate in more than one town or city they are good according to the president and they ought to have consideration it might be that federal money loaned to them would save them from bankruptcy or it might be that if they cant make a go of their the ar business they will go bandru bankrupt pt anyway if the federal government had a loan and a mortgage on their assets they would become federal owned after foreclosure that surely would be one way for the federal government to enter the public utility business it is just a possibility I 1 mean every now and then some information leaks out about emergency action that was emergency taken by 9 governa overn action cor ment officials dur ing the hectic days of the hoover depression as distinguished from the roosevelt depression the depression that was on when president roosevelt took office in 1933 was labeled the hoover depression in new deal propaganda one of these incidents came out before the senate committee on public lands the other day the committee was investigating the nomination of E K burlew to be assistant secretary of 0 the interior and that formed the basis of an inquiry into general practices of the department of the interior which is headed beaded by secretary ickes mr burlew was answering questions as to how the department spent much of the three or four billion dollars appropriated to it for public works those were pump priming appropriations if you remember although as tar far as I 1 can see the water has not started coming out of the pump yet anyway mr burlew let the tact fact drop that secretary ickes had bad bought two new automobiles in 1933 he said the purchases were due to the emergency and ol of course money lor for them came from the emergency appropriations senator ot of oregon asked what was meant by the emergency well the secretary wanted the cars and that was the emergency mr burlew replied amid laughter in the room 0 wt western stern newspaper union |