216 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES

Fourthly, by intelligent aiding of every sound enterprise and
every forward step in mass production and mass distribution,
so that good-management and good labor relations may result
in high wages, low prices and equitable profits—objects which
can surely be realized—through improved large-scale production,
 which also insures the ability to export the inevitable
surpluses profitably to the other countries of the world, instead
 of creating supercompetition at home with its certain
bad results to labor and capital.
The American Federation of Labor, as pointed out in the
preceding chapter, has fully accepted the challenge of increased
 production as the basis for wage advances and to
this has added the claim that the well-being of trade and
industry depends upon constantly adding to the purchasing
power of the wage-service. President William Green has
given expression to this point of view as follows :*
Isn't it the plainest of common sense? Increase his efficiency
 and his earnings and you increase his consumption.
The wants of the laboring man are never gratified. He
always wants more of the goods of life, because the laboring
man’s purchasing power is never at a high level as is that of
the well-to-do. Pay him more and he will buy more, for purchasing
 power is always regulated by earning power.
I am for the five-day week, which we have made a Federation
 policy, because it will give labor still more of the good
things of life and increase prosperity generally. Nevertheless,
 I firmly believe that labor must produce more, to merit
this advance. This is a position further in advance than any
position we have ever taken before in organized labor. The
best interests of the wage-earners, as well as the whole social
group, are served by increasing production in quantity and
quality, and by high wage standards, which sustain the country’s
 buying power. We oppose wage reductions in principle;
 but, on the other hand, we are keen about increased
production and the elimination of waste and friction.
""1The New Age, 1928, article by George Mansfield, entitled “Green: A
Study of the Man Himself and His Peculiar Seat of Power.”