216 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES 
Fourthly, by intelligent aiding of every sound enterprise and 
every forward step in mass production and mass distribution, 
so that good-management and good labor relations may result 
in high wages, low prices and equitable profits—objects which 
can surely be realized—through improved large-scale produc- 
tion, which also insures the ability to export the inevitable 
surpluses profitably to the other countries of the world, in- 
stead of creating supercompetition at home with its certain 
bad results to labor and capital. 
The American Federation of Labor, as pointed out in the 
preceding chapter, has fully accepted the challenge of in- 
creased production as the basis for wage advances and to 
this has added the claim that the well-being of trade and 
industry depends upon constantly adding to the purchasing 
power of the wage-service. President William Green has 
given expression to this point of view as follows :* 
Isn't it the plainest of common sense? Increase his effi- 
ciency and his earnings and you increase his consumption. 
The wants of the laboring man are never gratified. He 
always wants more of the goods of life, because the laboring 
man’s purchasing power is never at a high level as is that of 
the well-to-do. Pay him more and he will buy more, for pur- 
chasing power is always regulated by earning power. 
I am for the five-day week, which we have made a Federa- 
tion policy, because it will give labor still more of the good 
things of life and increase prosperity generally. Neverthe- 
less, I firmly believe that labor must produce more, to merit 
this advance. This is a position further in advance than any 
position we have ever taken before in organized labor. The 
best interests of the wage-earners, as well as the whole social 
group, are served by increasing production in quantity and 
quality, and by high wage standards, which sustain the coun- 
try’s buying power. We oppose wage reductions in prin- 
ciple; but, on the other hand, we are keen about increased 
production and the elimination of waste and friction. 
""1The New Age, 1928, article by George Mansfield, entitled “Green: A 
Study of the Man Himself and His Peculiar Seat of Power.”