LOWER COSTS AND HIGHER WAGES 217 
In another connection, President Green further elabo- 
rated his point of view in a public statement, from which 
he following quotation is taken: 
The steadily increasing output of industries makes neces- 
sary 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 dec- 
ades has now found acceptance with economists and progres- 
sive business men. In the degree in which it has found appli- 
cation 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 sanc- 
tioned 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 busi- 
ness world in the face of a serious panic. We will not accept 
wage reductions, the trade unions declared, for wage reduc- 
tions will not only harm us, but will make business condi- 
lions worse. Wage reductions mean smaller consumption. 
Thus out of Labor’s necessities originated an economic prob- 
lem to which economists are now giving sanction. 
To keep wages advancing proportionately to increases in 
productivity, is essential to stabilization of business pros- 
perity, to the best interests of employers as well as the 
workers. 
Opponents of trade unions have tried to prove that unions