68 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES

of wage-rates, so that prices might be reduced and production
 and trade resumed. They argued that wages had
been inflated during the war and must now be deflated.
Prosperity, it was contended, could not be revived until
there was a return to “normalcy,” this term being used in
the sense of a resumption of industry and trade on the
basis of pre-war wage and price levels.
In the smaller, diversified industries, as well as in the
basic industries which were unorganized, as for example
in steel and textile mills, wage-rates were arbitrarily and
drastically cut as a condition to the resumption of production.
 In organized coal-mining areas there could be
no reduction on account of existing agreements. In other
highly unionized industries, also, the wage cuts were
restricted in extent. In still other industries, where publicly
 established agencies for wage-adjustments existed, as
on the railroads, the question of lower wages came up for
judicial consideration and action.

ProceepiNGgs Berore THE UNITED STATES
RA1LrROAD LABOR BoarD

By the early months of 1921, a bitter struggle as to
fundamental principles and policies had developed on a
national basis, involving more than 2,000,000 railway
employees, and was centered before the recently created
Railroad Labor Board. The representatives of the carriers
 claimed that drastic wage reductions were an essential
preliminary to the physical and financial rehabilitation of
the transportation system. The employees, on the other
hand, replied that a policy of lower wages would cause a
still further decline in purchasing power, and would militate
 against permanent prosperity, while the maintenance
of existing wages in the higher grades of occupations and
the payment of a “living wage” to unskilled workers would