Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 253, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 October 1913 — LABOR CLASS GAINS [ARTICLE]

LABOR CLASS GAINS

England’s Middle Class Feel Advance of Former. Paper Declares That the Lot of Professional With Moderate Income Is Far Worse Than That of the Average Working Man. London.—A good deal of attention is being paid to the true meaning and effect of the almost continual labor upheavals that have affected this country in the last few years, and that threaten to continue for an indefinite period. The Daily Express finds ground for hope of peace in the circumstance, or alleged circumstance, that, as a result! of the recent strikes, many of the labor organizations are virtually bankrupt. “Not one or two, but nearly all the societies of organized workers,” It eays, “are Buffering severely from the Btrain put on their resources by the strike mania of the last few years.. The grand strikes have duly taken place. They have neither intimidated the employers nor broken the back of : organized society, though they have done much to imperil that right to work which ought to be no less Inalienable than the right to strike. But they .have effectually bankrupted the General Federation, . reducing its re* serve fund to a meager sum, largely J it is said, hypothecated In _pther <w rections. The Globe, pointing out another feature of the situation that has arisen from the labor unrest, prints a thoughtful article headed “Middle Class Burdens.” “It is,” It says, “easy to wax sentimental over the woes of the socalled working classes; and now that labor has secured a certain amount of] political power, (temagoguea are finding that to heap benefits from the ample coffers of the state upon the working man is a pure and safe road to the attainment and retention of office.” Obviously, however, says the Globe, the state can not continue to provide free education, old age pensions and expensive insurance, as well as satisfying the hundred and one other demands of the trkdes unions, without some other class feeling the pinch. It goes on to say: “If the added burden fell solely or chiefly upon those already possessed of a superfluity of this world’s goods, there would not be much cause for complaint. Probably we should all, collectively and Individually, be better off if society were so constituted that neither the millionaire nor the pauper could exist. But that is a prospect outside reasonable calculation, and, things are, the people who pay sot the lightening of the often well-to-do workingman’s life are that great middle class, which, even before the recent marked increase In the cost of living, has always found the struggle for existence a hard and strenuous one. "At present the lot of the professional man with a moderate Income is, we say it unhesitatingly, far worse than that of the average working man. If the latter has cause to complain that his wages do not possess the same purchasing power as formerly, the professional man has good ground for maintaining that he suffers even more severely from the same cause, while his unavoidable expenses are far heavier. “In what direction, It may be asked. Is a remedy to be found for this state of things? It 1b clear that this one clasß can not go on forever bearing not only its own legitimate share of the country’s burdens, but everybody else’B in addition. Yet politicians and least of all radical demagogues—have no thought for them. Our ears are deafened with the din of many speeches expressing the deepest sympathy for the woes of the people; parliament passes measures intended, at a cost, to relieve this or that grievance of the same sovereign people. But it is to be noted that this phrase, so reminiscent of French revolutionary times, covers, not all the honest working citizens in the state, but only that class of workers already sufficiently cared for. “We do not believe that It would bo possible for the middle classes to combine as the working classes have done, and wrench their rights from parliar ment. But we do say it Is the duty of the Unionist party to come to the assistance of a class which, above all others, has suffered from the predatory and socializing legisltalon of the last few years.”