48 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES

due consideration to the customs and standards of different
localities, declared as binding upon the Board that:

1. The right of all workers, including common laborers, to
a living wage, is hereby declared.
In fixing wages, minimum rates of pay shall be established
which will insure the subsistence of the worker and his
family in health and reasonable comfort.

2.

Obviously, this principle had developed from the street
railway wage arbitrations at Seattle and San Francisco in
the autumn of 1917, previously described, and from the
Chicago Stockyards case of about the same date. It also
soon became apparent that employers and representatives
of the public, in originally accepting in conference the principle
 of a “living wage,” had not taken into account the
real significance and implications incident to the practical
application of the principle.
At special executive sessions of the War Labor Board,
held in Washington in July, 1918, the matter was thoroughly
 considered in all its aspects. Experts from all
parts of the country, including those who the previous year
had assisted in the preparation of the Seattle and San
Francisco “minimum standards of health and comfort,”
testified. The Board also had budgetary studies prepared
by their own staff, which showed the rate of wages required
 to enable unskilled workers to maintain either a
“subsistence standard” of living or a level of “health and
reasonable comfort.” The resultant rates were so much
higher in amount per hour, however, than those prevailing
at the time, that the Board feared the dislocating effect
upon production of practically applying the principle
during the war period.
After prolonged discussion and consideration, it was
"1 Executive Proceedings of the National War Labor Board, Washington,
July, 1918.