LOWER COSTS AND HIGHER WAGES 20%
suyer, the worker, in the market at home, which provides us
with all but a fraction of our national wealth and prosperity.
No matter how large the population, we know that no low-
wage country is prosperous, and we also have it proved in
figures and facts that no low-wage industry in the United
States is prosperous to-day. No low-wage section of the
country to-day is as prosperous as are the sections where
higher wages prevail. The employer, therefore, who reduces
wages, whether from a selfish motive or because he thinks it
good business, is not a good business man and is hurting
himself. He may for a time succeed in paying a wage below
the cost of living, but he is only throwing on the community
at large the expense of paying, in the form of unpaid grocery
and clothing bills, the wages which he himself should pay.
To be very frank, he is stealing from the public. This ap-
plies to any industry as a whole, as it does to any individual
employer. The time has passed when any industry or any
employer who seeks to break down wage scales will be
looked upon by the community as shrewd or clever in busi-
ness. Such employer is not clever in business, but a parasite
on the community, and public opinion will eventually force
him to pay a decent wage or get out of business. . . .
With his good wages the worker has, as I say, contributed
a tremendous new buying power to the American market.
This not only enlarges business for the entire country, it not
only keeps the mills busy and their workers employed fully
and at good wages; it brings the worker himself new and
larger enjoyments in life. To mention only one such enjoy-
ment, the automobile, once a luxury for the well-to-do, is
now in the hands of thousands upon thousands of the
workers, and the time may come when not a worker in the
and will be without one. A thousand similar enjoyments
are now within the reach of all, because machinery and mass
production have cheapened their cost. . . .
My only concern is that we shall study to see this greater
wealth as evenly distributed as it should be. . . .
We must guard against the general economic loss we shall
