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Show Behinli By PaulMallon Jgy '; Released ty Western Newspaper Union. "FULL WEEK" IIIGIIER OUR TOWN. This is Our Town, U.S.A., the one in which the plumber must hire 12 helpers to keep 6 on the job as the rest earn enough to live satisfactorily laying off half the time, where the bricklayer has given giv-en up trying to handle his crew and gone to blacksmlthirvg, where the unskilled laborer wanted $8 a day for washing windows. It is much like your town I suspect, developing curious phenomena as a backwash of war, that need attention. While progress is thus being made in some lines toward a four and three day week, the local druggist has not been able to hire a helper for three years or more and has had no vacation in that time. His wife is his helper and they open up about 9 a. m. and keep open until 10 or 11 p. m, every day, seven days a week unless tiredness causes them to oversleep and open up late or weariness at the end' of the day sends them home earlier. They are conscientious people who would rather go out of business than offer an inferior or unsafe product, and a fairly general example of the trap in which small business is caught. They cannot get enough products to fill the demand and swell their incomes, as some other war incomes have been swollen in this neighborhood. neighbor-hood. They are patient victims of a hew kind of inflation which is not much discussed and not thoroughly understood. The patience of all the people, In fact, is impressive. In the nearby city more than here, people will stand in sidewalk lines, quietly, good-humoredly for a half hour or more to get to a ticket window or into a restaurant. Hurried Americans Ameri-cans would not do that before the war, or would not take it well if they found it necessary. Patiently also they accept inferior cigarettes, food and service at the prices of the best or more. They even stand, without a murmur the law-evading prices of the gouging merchant, one of whom told me: "You know I can charge anything I want and get it." He was nearly right because in many lines, by cutting quality and service or ' creating Dew inferior infe-rior brands or by any one of a hundred hun-dred devices difficult or impossible for the customer to detect, he can "charge anything." The one who told me this was a restaurant proprietor but I can see the same thing is true in other lines. The list prices on the wall concern items that are sold out most of the time. Evade Ceiling Price. Then there is the roofer. I called one I do not know, who had an advertisement ad-vertisement in the paper, to fix two leaks which are ruining the plaster. He questioned me closely about the nature of the job and then told me: "If we do not get out next week, you will -know we could not handle your job." In the end he made it rather clear that he selected only work from which he could make the most money. If I wanted a roof put on he could do it, but he would not fix small leaks. I guess it will leak all winter unless un-less I fix it myself. I finally contracted for some painting. paint-ing. The painter did half the job, then as it was Saturday he said he needed money to pay his men, so I paid him up to date. He never returned to finish the other half, of the job. I thought he might be waiting wait-ing for a rainy day to do the interior inte-rior work, but we had a week of rain thereafter and he naver showed up. I reached the conclusion he must also have chosen another jb in the middle of mine. Now these are not amusing symptoms from a single community but striking and commen example of a new kind of national inflation which does not show In price t manpower statistics or problems as handled in Washington. Mr. Roosevelt, in his campaign, recognized one of the points involved. in-volved. He promised high wages for a "full" work week, the first time I can recall he mentioned the word "full." This may mean some action is coming to promote full national production by available manpower. But if he contemplates only another an-other national wage increase as suggested, sug-gested, it will complicate the problem, prob-lem, the essence of which is that the people have two or three times as much money as the goods they can buy, and a seller's market is demoralizing de-moralizing war economics. The proper time economically for a wage increase Is when layoffs start in war production, after defeat of Germany so as to take up that slack in purchasing power and maintain main-tain the existing level of national income. in-come. Otherwise more irresistible impetus will be added to the inflationary infla-tionary impulses already noticeable everywhere except in the statistics. The president said something in lis Boston speech about having cured inflation. I think he still has a lot of work to do on It. No definite defi-nite plan has come from the White House or even hint. ' |