ACCEPTANCE OF NEW THEORY 153 
as politically free, and to meet this fundamental need 
declares that wage-earners should be paid sufficient not 
only to enable them to satisfy their physical, social, and 
cultural requirements but also to make it possible for 
‘hem to become owners of the industrial undertakings in 
which they are employed. 
This lofty but democratic conception, which is some- 
what restrictedly expressed by the term “the cultural wage” 
or standard of living, may, of course, seem to be more 
or less in the realm of idealism at the present time. It is 
a striking fact, however, that, in a greater or less degree, 
it is now the settled policy of some of our basic industries 
to attempt to realize it by plans for extending participa- 
tion in earnings and the selling of stock to employees of 
all classes. In a few cases the ideal has already been 
realized by employees acquiring control of large under- 
takings, such as the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company 
ander Mitten Management in Philadelphia, the A. Nash 
Tailoring Company of Cincinnati, the Bank of Italy in 
California, the Columbia Conserve Company of Indian- 
apolis, the Dennison Manufacturing Company of Massa- 
chusetts, the Dutchess Bleacheries of New York. and 
ytherg 1 
Eliminating from consideration, however, the elements 
of industrial democracy, and restricting the matter to the 
evolution of standards for measuring an adequate basic 
wage, it is clear that the “living-wage” movement since 
the war has practically advanced to a point where the 
standard of health and comfort, plus reasonable savings, 
has been sanctioned by enlightened public opinion as the 
irreducible minimum of compensation and living for the 
unskilled industrial workers. This minimum has not only 
"1 “Political and Industrial Democracy,” by W. Jett Lauck: Funk & Wag- 
nalls Company, New York. 1927: pp. 270-272.