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Show Facts That Can t Be Laughed Off 15y GEORGE PECK The Socialists, the Planned Economists, Ec-onomists, the Communists and all the other ists who pooh-pooh the American System of Competitive pjee Enterprise, either do not know the facts or deliberately ignore ig-nore them. On either count they are guilty. If the former, we decry de-cry their condemnation of something some-thing of which they know not the facts and if the latter doubly condemn con-demn them for uttering false accusations. ac-cusations. Now, anyone who is at pains to seek out he facts can arrive at only two conclusions: (1) That the American System has produced for Americans the highest standard of living in the entire world, and (2) further, this standard of living liv-ing is constantly on the upward swing. Jrom time to time in this column, col-umn, we have cited the Steel Industry In-dustry as an example to prove these points. We selected the Steel Industry for two good reasons: (1) Because Steel is a basic indus- , try and is fairly typical of industry indus-try as awhole, and (2) Because of the nature of the busines, the production of steel is concentrat- ed into relatively few separate units, and, therefore, statistics regarding re-garding it are more quickiy and readily accessible, ' it is most interesting and significant signi-ficant that the hourly wages received re-ceived by steel workers today go , about twice as far as they did in -1918 in buying certain common articles ar-ticles of food, while their purchasing purchas-ing power for clothing, furniture and other representative goods shows a still greater increase. For instance in 1918, steel workers received an average of 58c per hour compared with an average of 99c per hour in the summer of 1941. In 1918, a steel worker had to , work 68 minutes to buy a quart of milk, a pound of bread and a pound of round steak, while today he has to work . only 45 minutes. In 1918 it required fifty-one and three-quarters hours' work for him the purchase a suit of clothes while today a comparable suit requires re-quires only twenty-two and three-quarter three-quarter hours. A low priced automobile today can be purchased with 803 hours of steel wages ' whereas in 1918 it took 1827 hours. And these statistics fail to tell the whole story. Everyone knows that low-priced automobiles produced pro-duced today are infinitely superior super-ior to those manufactured in 1918. The same is true to a greater or less degree of practically all modern mod-ern products. So here we have a picture of Competitive Enterprise producing for the worker higher wages and more buying power for these wages, plus a bonus of great improvements im-provements in quality and per formance of the articles purchased. Glib of tongue as he may be, no ' advocate of "Production For Use and not for Profit" can laugh off these pertinent facts. On the contrary, con-trary, they are eloquent testimony testi-mony in favor of the "Capitalistic System for Profit" they establish beyond pcradventure of doubt and fear of successful contradiction S that labor profits along with capital. cap-ital. Give yourself the pleasure of confronting a Socialist with them and listen to him flounder in a maze of inept and utterly nonsensical nonsen-sical drivel. Such potent statistics speak so loudly for themselves that even the noisiest soap-box orator or-ator bellowing at the top of his lungs cannot drown them out. . - |