Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 161, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1916 — MAN MUST PAY IN THE END [ARTICLE]

MAN MUST PAY IN THE END

Social Law Exacts Living Wage From Communities After All—Condi* tions in New York. It has been estimated by social scientists that SB4O a year is the lowest income on which a family of five can live in decency in New York. The wages paid by New York city to laborers is S4BO a year. This is $360 below the mark. But is it $360 saved? It is not, declares ' Detroit Free Press. There is a law, a natural social law, that when society refuses to pay the price of decency and justice, it pays the price of indecency and injustice—and the latter is the heavier price. Take the case of New York. Tho worker who earns $360 less than a living wage still lives, but he takes the difference —and more —out of the community. When his children are sick the public doctor attends them. When the child is injured, a public hospital cares for it at public expense. When work is not to be had public funds buy the family its bread and fuel. When the moral frhits of such a life manifest themselves in crime, society pays the policeman and supports the penitentiary by which legal expiation is made. And when the wretched parents die, society pays for the funerals and supports the orphans. This is not to mention the moral and physical menace to the community which such an uncared-for family may become. Count these public ‘‘charities'’ and it becomes clear that the $360 which New York saves on each of the laborers is taken out of New York city’s treasury and orderliness and health —and more, too. * Laws of society are like any other laws of the material universe; they are inviolable. Society cannot break them, but society can bruise itself against them. And that is what society has been doing. With this consolation, however, that every braise society inflicts upon itself awakens its intelligence and concern in that particular direction.