ACCEPTANCE OF NEW THEORY 103 
assumed, of course, that the wage-earner will contribute his 
full measure of productivity. 
For the skilled or especially efficient worker there should 
be, of course, a differential equitably adjusted in accordance 
with the degree of skill, period of training, productivity, 
efficiency, etc. Skill and efficiency should be encouraged in 
every way and compensated fully and justly. They are per- 
haps the most valuable industrial assets any nation can have. 
The principle of the living wage as a basis of wage adjust- 
ments recognizes the obligation of industry vested with a 
public or quasi-public interest to pay employees a sufficient 
wage which will permit them to maintain their families and 
prepare them for the duties and responsibilities of American 
citizenship. A bare subsistence wage is not enough, and 
would mean the stagnation of our civilization. An industry 
which cannot meet its obligation in this respect must be so 
organized that it will be able to do so. 
[n his bill submitted to the Senate in 1922 for the regu- 
lation of the bituminous coal industry, Judge Kenyon 
defined the living wage as follows: 
7. The right of every unskilled or common laborer to earn 
a living wage sufficient to maintain a normal family in health 
and reasonable comfort, and to afford an opportunity for 
savings against unemployment, old age, and other contingen- 
cies is hereby declared and affirmed. Above this basic wage 
for unskilled workers, differentials in rates of pay for other 
mine workers shall be established for skill, experience, haz- 
ards of employment and productive efficiency.l 
WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE, EDITOR AND PUBLICIST? 
[t is easy for the statistician of the railroad owners to 
prove that there is no such thing as a living wage; to show 
1 “The Industrial Code,” W. Jett Lauck and Claude S. Watts. Funk & 
Wagnalls Company, 1922, p. 567. 
2“As I See It,” William Allen White; Washington (D. C.) Evening Star, 
September 10, 1922.