ACCEPTANCE OF NEW THEORY 0g

cerned with the adjustment of wages and working conditions.
 The employer and employee groups, however,
could not come to an agreement upon a principle for collective
 bargaining, and the work of the Conference came
to naught.
Shortly thereafter, President Wilson called a second
Conference composed entirely of representatives of the
public. William B. Wilson, Secretary of Labor, was
designated Chairman and Herbert Hoover, later Secretary
 of Commerce, Vice-Chairman.!
This Conference was very successful. In its Report to
the President, which set forth in a comprehensive form
both principles and machinery for the judicial settlement
of industrial disputes, the following recommendation was
made in connection with the “living wage” principle.?

Considered from the standpoint of public interest, it is fundamental
 that the basic wage of all employees should be
adequate to maintain the employee and his family in reasonable
 comfort, and with adequate opportunity for the education
of his children. When the wages of any group fall below
this standard for any length of time, the situation becomes
dangerous to the well-being of the state. No country that
seeks to protect its citizens from the unnecessary ravages of
disease, degeneration and dangerous discontent, can consistently
 let the unhampered play of opposing forces result
in the suppression of wages below a decent subsistence level,

" The distinguished public personnel of the Conference was:
Martin H. Glynn Oscar S. Straus -
Thomas W. Gregory William O. Thompson
Richard Hooker Henry C. Stuart
Stanley King Frank W. Taussig
samuel W, McCall Henry J. Waters
Henry M. Robinson George W., Wickersham
fulius Rosenwald Owen D. Young
Seorge T. Slade
Willard E. Hotchkiss
Henry R. Seager
(Executive Secretaries)
2 Report of the President’s Industrial Conference, Washington, Govern.
ment Printing Office, 1920, p. 37.