CHAPTER VI 
ABANDONMENT OF THE COST-OF-LIVING AND 
SUPPLY-AND-DEMAND THEORIES 
The theories of adjusting wages according to changes in 
living costs or according to variations in the supply of 
labor had no place in the new order of thinking. They 
were soon, therefore, disregarded both in theory and in 
practise, and, finally, definitely abandoned by all enlight- 
ened industrial interests and by all judicially-minded arbi- 
tration and wage-adjustment boards. 
THE GENERAL CHANGE IN ATTITUDE 
The representatives of labor, as already pointed out, had 
always undeviatingly claimed that the idea of adjusting 
wages periodically in accordance with an index of living 
costs was first introduced during the war solely as a war 
measure, and that it was then assented to by organized 
labor only as a patriotic arrangement during a national 
emergency. Under normal conditions, they had further 
asserted, the only utility of a cost-of-living index was to 
assure that there would be no backward step in economic 
progress. During a period of rising prices, there should 
be, it was declared, at least a corresponding increase in 
wage rates in order that the preexisting purchasing power 
of industrial workers and their families might be main- 
tained. This attitude was forcibly expressed by the Execu- 
tive Council of the American Federation of Labor in its 
report for 1921, as follows :! 
"1 Egeniive Council Report, A. F. of L. Proceedings, 1921, pp. 68-69. 
Frog, Reding in Trade Unionism,” by David J. Saposs; New York, 1927, 
Q