PRE-WAR PRINCIPLES AND METHODS 25 
Basic StanNpaArDps DEVELOPED 
During this period two minimum levels or standards 
were developed for use in wage-determination. They may 
be briefly defined as follows: 
(1) The “pauper or poverty level,” which represented 
roughly a standard of living just above the line where 
families were obliged to accept aid from charity or where 
they would run into serious debt. Industries paying wages 
which did not permit a higher level than this were termed 
parasitical and anti-social, and were condemned as causing 
high rates of infant mortality, encouraging woman and 
child labor, and developing “family incomes” instead of 
‘ndividual wage standards. 
(2) The “minimum of subsistence level,” which was 
based essentially on mere animal existence and allowed 
little, if anything, for the needs of men as social creatures. 
At this level was no allowance for temporary unemploy- 
ment, and no provision for the savings that are necessary 
to take care of sickness, accident, or old age. It was 
claimed that workers receiving this wage were only a few 
weeks removed from the possibility of dependency. 
Both of these standards, with emphasis, as a matter of 
course, on the latter, were put forward as a bulwark 
against the serious effects upon wages of the unhampered 
play of the forces of supply and demand. 
LaBor OFriciaLLy DecLarep NoT To BE a 
CoMMODITY 
An official and general sanction of the point of view that 
labor was not a commodity was established by the Con- 
gress in 1916. Under the provisions of the so-called 
Clayton Act, passed in that year, it was declared that 
“labor was not a commodity or article of commerce.”