ABANDONMENT OF OLD-TIME THEORIES 87 
falling, the underlying economic and social considerations, 
it was asserted, became the most important factors entering 
into the determination of wages. It was only when these 
were fulfilled in their entirety that the price level, it was 
claimed, could be allowed to affect earnings. These fun- 
damentals were: (1) whether the original basis of wages 
was correct or just and reasonable, and (2) whether exist- 
ing rates of pay were sufficient to maintain adequate living 
standards. 
Constructive and intelligent students and industrial lead- 
ers, as has been set forth in the preceding discussion, also 
recognized that the basic pre-war or post-war standards of 
compensation may have been entirely inadequate or unfair, 
and that the subsequent readjustment of such standards 
according to changes in living costs would be a hopeless 
procedure, for the obvious reason that, under such a 
method, old inadequacies or injustices would be perpetu- 
ated, and there would be no opportunity to improve the 
living conditions or to advance the general economic and 
human well-being of industrial workers. 
Specific examples have already been cited, as in the case 
of the award of the United States Bituminous Coal Com- 
mission of 1920, to show how the cost-of-living theory was 
set aside in favor of the “living wage” basis of wage 
adjustments. Additional illustrations may be further sub- 
mitted, which show, irrespective of the “living wage” and 
other fundamental principles, how the tendency developed 
toward the repudiation of the cost-of-living and the com- 
modity basis of wage adjustments. 
The following significant citation indicates the general 
attitude. It is from an award of an arbitration board for 
the Springfield (Massachusetts) Street Railway Company 
and its employees, of which the chairman was Mr. James J.