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Show r THE CITIZEN 6 i 4 Let's All Join And Boost For Our Own Home Town a result of this disproportionate and Two business men met and, more through perfunctory habit than otherwise, one asked the other, Hows business? There is no business, replied his friend, and continued: How can there be business when most of the customers are without income and the few who are employed receive such small wages they can only buy the barest necessities? Even those who have mcney are so harried over the uncertainty of things they do not dare to spend their money, not knowing what great need-maarise tomorrow, what further adverse turn things may take or how long this condition is going to last. Conversations similar to this are becoming quite common of late. No matter how low prices are, goods do not move, simply because most of the people have no money with which to buy. While it is generally conceded that there was a certain amount of unemr ployment as a result of conditions, normally this effect of the war should have passed long ago in this community, as it has passed in Regardless of many other places. newspaper reports to the contrary, people who have been forced to leave Salt Lake because of adverse conditions here write back to their friends that business is simply wonderful, as one recent correspondent expressed it. The hundreds and hundreds of skilled workmen who have been forced to move elsewhere are steadily employed at wages better than ever paid class of workhere. This better-paimen form the backbone of the business of any community. Upon their trade and that of those who profit from their prosperity, depends the very life of many business Institutions those which deal in more or less articles; things not absolutely necessary to sustain life, but desirable for y after-the-wa- d non-essenti- the edification, recreation and education of the masses to something better than mere animal existence. When this class of business house languishes, it is not long before those dealing in necessities feel the pinch of forced economies, trade slumps, bad accounts increase and the number dependent upon charity grows. It is all very well to plaster the town with signs announcing that business is good, buy, build, create a job, etc., and other similar bunk, which no one believes or obeys. It was perhaps a wise thing to seek to deflate the fafmer and the worker, but that kind of deflation can only result in distress and want so long as the things the farmer and the laborer must buy with their deflated income remain undeflated. The farmer was the first and hardest hit. Regardless of the fact that there were bumper crops last year, the farmer was unable to realize, in many instances, sufficient to meet liis installments and interest on the' investment necessary to plant his crops. As deflation, numerous banks and other business institutions were forced to close their doors. This was particularly true of the intensely agricultural sections of Idaho tributary to Salt Lake, where many farmers have lost their all, while many others do not know how they are going to finance next springs planting. During the same period there has been a like determined effort to disproportionately deflate labor. Many employers have taken an unfair advantage of the prevailing unemployment and are reducing wages far below that necessary to provide a living. At the same time efforts are being made to lengthen hours and speed up production, while thousands remain idle. The one-side- d same employers, if their business depended on the work done by horses owned by them, would not for one minute consent to the overworking of those horses and at the same time reducing their feed to either a quality or quantity below that necessary to maintain their strength. They would readily recognize this as suicidal, inhumane, and unwise. Now, while we are spending our money to whistle up the wind of business, while we are, by word of mouth and on the billboards, advising others to do things to make business good, of what use is this waste of money if at the same time we concentrate our energies on doing things that still further paralyze business? per cent of the people of these United States are either farmers or wage earners. If this great part of our own people are without adequate income many of them without income of any kind how is the other 5 per cent of the population going to prosNinety-fiv- e per? Civilized society is an endless chain of more or less necessary links. This chain is of use only as all the links are kept strong. If the principal parts of the chain be broken, then the whole chain becomes useless, and society fails. If low wages alone made prosperity, China should be the leading industrial nation of the earth. Ten cents a day is a big wage in China. But China is the most backward nation on earth, largely because her people do not have sufficient time to become enlightened or enough money to buy more than the absolute necessities for mere animal existence. Yet there are supposedly intelligent people now making a desperate effort to reduce the masses of free American citizens to conditions those prevalent in approximating China. Press dispatches are filled with forebodings, of great concern over our trade. Those most active in deflating labor say we must reduce production costs to the European level in order to compete with Europe, and they appear to believe the first thing for-.eig- n necessary to this end is to smash the free, democratic organizations of workmen in this country. A point of deepest concern at present is Germany, and many of the very people who raise this cry loudest are busy doing their part to flood the American market with German-madgoods, because they can make a greater profit from the sales of these goods than from those made in Amere ica. its Germany does ont accomplish low costs because of the absence of the labor union. As a mater of fact, with a population less than half that boasted by the United States, Germany has twice as many union workmen proportionately four times as many union men as has this country. If unions caused high prices we should be able to undersell Germany instead of Germany underselling us. Instead of trying to force all the deflation on to the farmer and the worker (if we sincerely desire to come down to the European standards of value) we should deflate everything to that level. Then we should begin to eliminate all the conveniences enjoyed by American citizens and not in general use in Europe. By no other means can we come down to the European level. Such policy, carried to its ultimate, would not only be a distinct step backward in our progress and civilization, it would mean the immediate elimination of untold thousands of business concerns dealing in things not known to the masses of Germany and countries. The ownother ers and executives would be compelled to go to work for less than they now urge on American workmen. Rather than devote all our efforts to reducing American standards of life nato those of the backward tions, would we not make quicker and greater gains by educating the masses of the old world to demand and enjoy the many comforts and conveniences common to American life? Tell them, we only live once, why not live in keeping with our time? Now, how does all this affect Salt Lake? This city exports nothing to foreign lands, yet nearly all its business men have fallen in with the des- old-worl- d old-worl- d perate effort to rediif ards of life to those old world, and, as quence, they are sufl! tl alties of their unwist1 The great market tf ufacturer and merc01 If that market be piJ? in our unwise and J B of what use is a lain eign market? If half.H were given employmf increase in businesiP1 can merchant and be more than double- all our foreign mai i de employed and a ten in all incomes estatT ven would more than cr e business all our fo& s mo bined. Where will r n. markets when all of 1 more than they con foil .tinue to waste our hen sane effort to save? r at Salt Lake is a tit wl by nature. It lacks be backs of more the great natural tor f for an immense ecSani guishes, its business r tion slipping away rat pop-jor- k cr employed. Is it not time the. evolved that would r: thf to all this and .v;IS classes to boost fo'niol, few our most favored t idvis is to have a small c boosting and spe to induce other p118 whiie these same.)r68 itatii continue to back s out the citizens afc ones ing alive a class i unwarranted industry and .nnec andt busit this rsey Conservative, atague long been ready asBC movement. Is bus wjj ing to co operates, gau to its own great! wjt ation of the natur. perity of our coinEjrp Salt Lake Typogtfacro Phone Was. 7762 (Ve ii Jven 3 New Jersey , Pioneer In rep d Industrial fiS esear (The New Republic, March 1, 1922.) We have before us a remarkable industrial document. It is a report of the committee on Industrial Relations of the New Jersey chamber of commerce. This committee is composed of representative business men, whose affiliations would seem very far from convicting them of radical tendencies. Their report, which was unanimous, was submitted to the board of trustees of the state chamber of commerce and was adopted by them. The doctrines it embodies are therefore certain to influence the action of a considerable body of the employers of the state. Labor difficulties, in the opinion of the writers worl from three sepalent j sue between va?3 off! issue betwi en fr as t to complete poMsionE ( f the6, i bors natural d&he re and the issue ovftnsora bitrary conduct the one side, ami safc'e tho d- non-unio- n Libor, i Wariest These are is1 so fu: tied, if iml'isttf bB policies are to the tlement? The0 re group the three lieaiD: c"ermIn ments within th |