150 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES 
in an industrial community should be a wage which provides 
a standard of living consistent with the requirements of 
decency, health and reasonable comfort. This principle is 
easily expressed; its’ application, however, is more difficult. 
As late as January, 1926, the Public Service Commission 
of Pennsylvania formally sanctioned the living-wage prin- 
ciple in discussing the relation of the wages paid to fares 
charged by the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company. A 
complaint had been made that the unusually high rate of 
77 cents per hour paid by this Company to its motormen 
and conductors was excessive, and after a careful examina- 
tion of budgetary studies and wage standards, the Com- 
mission said :? 
The Company frankly avows that its policy is one of high 
wages and good labor rather than low wages and poor labor. 
It points to the notable cooperation and loyalty of its men 
and its total absence of strikes for nearly fifteen years. 
A study of the 77-cent wage from the view-point of eco- 
nomics and sociology shows that it produces anriual earnings 
but little if any higher than the minimum budget necessary 
to maintain an average family on the basis of living costs in 
Philadelphia. 
The foregoing evidence, and much more of like tenor, leads 
us to the conclusion that the wages paid by the Company are 
not unreasonable or excessive compensation for the labor 
performed. 
In March, 1928, the “living and savings” wage standard 
was formally accepted in a written agreement between 
organized labor and management. At that time, Mitten 
Management, Inc., one of the most successful operators 
of street railway properties in the country, and the Amal- 
gamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Em- 
"1 Order of the Public Service Commission of Commonwealth of Penna., 
January 12, 1926, on Application Docket No. 11,417, 1924; p. 13-14.