Named for Lincoln
Mad e in Lincoln
BERTHS
FLOUR
Test of the Oven
Test of the Taste
Test of Digestion
Test of Quality
Test of Quantity
Test f Time
Measured
Test it
by Every
Proves Best
Demand Liberty Flour and take no other,
does not handle it, phone us about it.
If your grocer M
H. O. BARBER & SON
ft
Subscribe for Will Maupin's Weekly.
Once Tried Always Used
Little Hatchet Flour
Made from Select Nebraska Hard Wheat
WILBER AND DeWITT MILLS
RYE FLOUR A SPECIALTY
145 So. 9th St., LINCOLN, NEB.
TELEPHONE US
Bell Phone 200; Auto. 1459
First Trust and Savings Bank
Owned by Stockholders of First National Bank
The Bank for The Wage Earners
Interest Paid at Four Per Cent
139 South Eleventh Lincoln, Nebraska
EE2
P
Gr
The Dr. Benj. F. Baily Sanatorium
LINCOLN, NEBRASKA
For non contagious cbronio diseases. Largest, beat
equipped, most beautifully furnished.
WAGES OF LABOR.
Basis on Which All Business Is
Conducted.
FOUNDATION OF ALL WEALTH
Earnings of Toil Support Entire
Structure of Commerce and Industry.
Low Wages Lessen Incomes of
Manufacturer and Merchant.
Many manufacturers and merchants
utterly fail to understand the intimate
relation of wyges to business, mean
ing both the volume of business and
the grade of goods manufactured.
They look upon the millions of popu
lation as an abstract thing which
should mean a large volume of busi
ness, but overlook the fact that it is
not the barefooted man that creates a
demand for a pair of shoes, but it is
the man needing shoes -who is the hap
py possessor of money with which to
purchase them.
Our. merchants and manufacturers
seem to understand that a serious crop
shortage in the agricultural districts
forewarns them of lessened trade in
those districts, but they do not seem
to comprehend that a wage shortage
in the industrial centers will as surely
diminish the volume of trade in those
centers.
Every merchant and manufacturer
is dependent upon the purchases of the
masses of the people and not upon lli?
purchases of the classes whose num
ber is very limited, and whose pur
chases are largely made abroad.
For illustration, if the shoe business
of this country were confined to sup
plying the wants of coupon cutters
about 95 per cent of shoe manufactur
ers and shoe retailers would have to
go out of business.
It is said of one New York million
aire that he pays $20 to $25 a pair for
his shoes custom made and that as
soon as the new custom shop finish
wears off so they need to be polished
he throws them away and dons a new
pair. This man of wealth is quite ex
travagant in shoes, but there are not
enough like him to run a modern shoe
factory three months in the year, and,
moreover, he himself, with all his
wealth, is dependent on the masses of
the people for their maintenance of the
volume of business, which supports all
his various properties and yields him
his vast income.
Vast fortunes are engaged in busi
ness enterprises or are invested in real
estate or railroads. In either case in
come depends not on the commerce of
the rich, but upon the purchases of
the masses in a large sense the wages
of labor.
These wages support the families
that support the merchants. The mer
chants and families support the land
lords who own the high renting retail
stores and tenements.
They also support the schools, street
railroads and other merchants.
They also support the manufacturers
and their employees in other cities and
all merchants and landlords dependent
on them. .
And these families and their wages
and their merchants and their manu
facturers in transporting goods or per
sons from one city to another consti
tute the business of the railroads.
Wage earners spend nearly all they
receive. If they receive more they
spend more. If they receive less they
are obliged to spend less.
Every time wages are raised 10 per
eent there is 10 per cent added to their
gross purchases.
. When wages are reduced the volume
of business is reduced just that ir. vr
When a merchant favors redn; .
the wages of labor in his own cit v !:
is voting to diminish his own buslnes :
and is approaching that much nearer
bankruptcy.
Since labor unions fight to preserve
and advance wages they operate to
maintain or enlarge the volume of
trade, and at the same time, they are
protecting their members from starva
tion wages they are protecting Hi.
merchants from bankruptcy througii
starvation business.
Some misguided small bore capital
ists say that we need an influx of
cheap Asiatic labor.
Let us grant their contention figura
tively and what would be the result?
We will assume that all our labor
is performed by Chinese.
Then all our commerce would con
sist of supplying the Chinese wit!i
their oriental food and clothing, ami
even these would be supplied by Chi
nese merchants, as is the case now on
the Pacific coast.
Our merchants would vanish, nnr"
our city real estate values would
shrink 75 per cent or more.
Every railroad would go into a re
ceivership, and all our manufaetur
ing enterprises would perish.
Every one of the great fortunes thai
flaunt their wealth and insult our in
telligence would crumble.
Our rich men are either very igno
rant or else they think we are.
They ought to know that we know
that the thing that supports the whole
structure of manufacturing, merchan
dising, real estate values and railroad."
is the standard of wages, to maintain
which the unions are pledged to the
last man and the last dollar.
Our exploiters are not smart enough
to get much fat off the commerce of
a Chinaman. They want to exploit a
man who earns more and so is more
profitable. They know.
Individual cases of wage cuttinp
may be profitable to employer or tr
merchant in an immediate sense or fm
a special reason, but if the condition
were general and continued It would
be ruinous for all.
Mine Workers' New Officers.
The report of the tellers submitted to
the international convention of United
Mine Workers of America recently in
session at Columbus, O., show that
John P. White of Oskaloosa, la., was
elected international, president by ;
majority of 20.743 votes. Tom L.
Lewis, the present international presi
dent, received 72,190 votes. For vice
president Frank Hayes of Springfield.
111., was elected over E. S. McCui
lough of Bay City. Mich.
The members of the board of audi
tors, which is also the credentials com
mittee, were all re-elected. The tellers
were also re-elected.
John Mitchell, formerly International
president. led the list of delegates to
the American Federation of Labor
with 113,285 votes. Other delegates to
the federation elected are John P,
White, Duncan McCald, II. W. Wilson,
Frank Hayes, John Wallace and T. L.
Lewis. The new officers will assume
their duties April 1. .......
Charter For Western Miners..
The executive council of the A. F. of
L. has granted a charter to the West
ern Federation of Miners on equal
terms with the one now held by the
United Mine Workers of America. The
matter will now be submitted to the
Western Federation of Miners for rati
fication.
It is made a provision of the issue of
the charter that members of machin
ists' locals now existing in mining
camps are not to be required to join
the Western Federation of Miners in
order to follow their trade In the miu
ing camps.