ACCEPTANCE OF NEW THEORY 131

Labor Board became so pronounced that it resulted in
1925 in the repeal of the entire Labor Provisions of the
Transportation Act of 1920.
At about the same time in 1922 that the agitation of
the railway employees for a living wage reached its height,
an acute situation had also developed from a national strike
in the soft-coal fields, and especially in connection with disorders
 and the breakdown of civil government in certain
coal-mining areas in West Virginia. Hearings had been
conducted and an investigation made by the Senate Committee
 on Education and Labor.? In an effort to work out
permanent peace on a constructive basis, the chairman of
the committee, Senator William S. Kenyon, in a Report
to the Senate recommended a code of fundamental principles
 for the regulation of industrial relations in the bituminous
 coal-mining industry, including the principle of a
living wage for unskilled workers with the maintenance
of wage differentials above the minimum for skilled workers.
 In his annual message of December 6, 1921, President
 Harding also urged the adoption of this, or a similar
code, but no action was taken by the Congress.

THE PrACTICABILITY OF THE Living WaGE
In the course of the exhaustive analysis and discussion
of the living wage during this period, its opponents, both
in formal presentations to wage-adjustment agencies and
in less formal public controversy, did not oppose the principle
 involved. They acknowledged that the principle was
altogether worthy of acceptation, but from a practical
standpoint it was “unsound,” “visionary,” “academic.”
Because of the financial burden which would be imposed
either upon industry or upon the consuming public, the
living wage, it was also asserted, could not be actually
"1 See pp. 102-103.