LOWER COSTS AND HIGHER WAGES 217

In another connection, President Green further elaborated
 his point of view in a public statement, from which
he following quotation is taken:

The steadily increasing output of industries makes necessary
 a parallel increase in purchasing power, for unless the
increased output finds buyers our greater efficiency defeats
itself by contributing to business depression.
Industries are organized to supply the needs not of the
wealthy few but of the millions who work for wages. It is
not enough, therefore, for business to have increased profits.
Wage earners must have larger incomes. The doctrine of
high wages which organized labor has been teaching for decades
 has now found acceptance with economists and progressive
 business men. In the degree in which it has found application
 it is one of the big factors in the present business
stability,

The American Federationist, the official organ of the
American Federation of Labor, has also editorially sanctioned
 the new industrial view as to the interrelation of
high wages, consumption, and prosperity. In its issue of
January, 1928 the following editorial set forth the official
attitude of the organized labor movement :

Economic literature is beginning to find a place for the
proposition with which organized labor first startled the business
 world in the face of a serious panic. We will not accept
wage reductions, the trade unions declared, for wage reductions
 will not only harm us, but will make business condilions
 worse. Wage reductions mean smaller consumption.
Thus out of Labor’s necessities originated an economic problem
 to which economists are now giving sanction.
To keep wages advancing proportionately to increases in
productivity, is essential to stabilization of business prosperity,
 to the best interests of employers as well as the
workers.
Opponents of trade unions have tried to prove that unions