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Show SOMETHING MUST BE DONE Beyond the question of a doubt, salaries of employes em-ployes and wages of workers in this country have not kept pace with the ever increasing cost of living. liv-ing. Statistics of the government, supplemented by statistics gathered by newspapers and magazines, all agree on this one point.- As to the cause, there is a wide divergence of opinion, but as to the effect ef-fect there can be but one conclusion things must be readjusted. Either wages will have to be increased, in-creased, or the cost of living will have to be reduced. re-duced. On this proposition depends the future welfare and stability of the nation as a free and independent people. Those who earn their living by work of their heads or their hands the clerks, bookkeepers, managers, stenographers, the workers in the skilled trades and the common laborers-j those whose income is fixed, and whose income can not be' increased by their own efforts, are just now living under economic conditions that cannot long endure. ' When the wage earner and salaried employe find it more and more difficult to make both ends meet, their first impulse is to go after more wages. And an increase in wages is just about the hardest thing in the world to get, as anybody who has had experience experi-ence in that line will testify. Meeting with a slight increase, or with a refusal of their requests or demands they have the alternative of quit-, ting, entering into illegal and criminal ways, or of continuing the struggle, and growing morose and 'sullen as each week finds it harder and harder to meet the expense account. This condition of mind is not only deplorable from the standpoint of those who get into it, but it is a detriment to the em ployer as well. Anger follows sullen brooding over financial matters, and destruction of property and violence against human life iollow anger. The public pub-lic peace is disturbed and business is brought to a standstill. The results are alike unprofitable to employe em-ploye and employer.' These things are usually foreign to conditions wherein the worker is making more than a living. True, there are sometimes senseless agitations for o more wages when conditions do not warrant an increase, in-crease, but usually there is behind a demand for an increase a real necessity. When workers are prosperous, pros-perous, when they are enabled to lay aside a few dollars for the inevitable rainy day, they are pretty well contented. Strike evils seldom threaten when the workers are enabled to provide a decent living for themselves and their families when they can provide shelter and clothing for their children. When the laborer owns his home, is out of debt and is adding a little to his savings account, he is a good citizen and a patriot. 'When he finds it impossible impos-sible to live from day to day on his earnings, his recourse is to get more peaceably, if possible, but get it. Just now there is a mighty host in that condition. They need more, and they will get it peaceably if they can, but they will get it. The demands of the workers extend from coast to coast. If business will not justify the necessary increase in wages, a3 is so confidently asserted by employers, then something some-thing must be done to bring down the prices of necessities, ne-cessities, so that they can be had at the present scale of wages. Just how this is to be brought about it is impossible to say, but something must be done. If the way to resume is to resume, the way to reduce prices is to reduce them. Inasmuch as we have become accustomed to looking toward Washington for relief from about every economic evil with which our country is afflicted, the Sixty-first Sixty-first Congress would do well, to do something just what we know not to Telieve the situation. The matter has got past the joking stage, and it is indeed in-deed a condition that confronts ua. |