SOCIETY RESTS ON JUSTICE BASIS; CHARITY IS UNSTABLE FOUNDATION
D., Rev. Fr. Francis J. Haas, Ph.
WEALTH LINES UP TO DEFEAT TOM WALSH ON another page of this week's issue of The Progressive will be found a story telling of the situation in Montana that faces Senator Thomas J. Walsh in his...
...These financiers are plainly worried at the exposure that may cause stockholders to ask if this is the only thing that boards of directors do with their property...
...These employers could set a good example by recognizing the one force that battles for wages in this industry...
...Stewart, from the Standard Oil Company and his arraignment on the charges of perjury and contempt...
...With almost unlimited sums of money at their disposal, the forces that have lined up against Senator Walsh can be expected to make a bitter and aggressive fight to defeat him...
...This information was pried from officers of the company in a court suit that is intended to check merging this company with Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company...
...A group of Bethlehem executives received a total of $36,493,608 in bonuses from 1911 to 1929, inclusive...
...Now, in the coming election campaign, these interests see an opportunity to avenge themselves...
...HIGHER WAGES WILL BUY BREAD THE American Bakers' Association has launched a "buy-more bread" movement...
...WEALTH LINES UP TO DEFEAT TOM WALSH ON another page of this week's issue of The Progressive will be found a story telling of the situation in Montana that faces Senator Thomas J. Walsh in his candidacy for re-election to the United States Senate...
...No sooner had the statement been made than one of the high officials of the company hastened to deny it...
...Wheat consumption will be increased 100,000,000 bushels a year, and the farmer and other groups will benefit, it is stated...
...TN THE 600,000 or more people that live in Montana, how-ever, there is a great number that have not been blinded by the propaganda of the corporation controlled press...
...It is from these that Senator Walsh can expect understanding and support in his fight against the money crowd...
...and resulted in the ousting of Col...
...Of women workin- n stores and mercantile establishments in 1920, 56 per cent v. over the age of 25, while in 1929 only 17 per cent were above ears of age, as a result of these restrictions...
...THE OLD MAN" MAY FIGHT BACK IN previous issues of The Progressive attention has been called to the growing practice of big business and industrial employers of hiring only young men and considering their workers ready for dismissal and the "junk pile" when they have reached the age of about 40 years...
...SOONER or later the big employers of the country, who in the name of a false and ridiculous "efficiency" have ruled out the middle-aged, are going to realize that their best customers are those past 35 or 40...
...The ease with which Bethlehem directors concealed this vast sum should open the eyes of workers who imagine that they are partners in the company plant when they buy a few shares of stock on the installment plan...
...A GREAT deal of credit must be given to Senator Walsh for bringing to light the corruption that attended the transfer of oil lands under the Harding administration in 1924...
...It was shown that three vice presidents, last year, received in excess of $375,000 apiece in bonuses...
...A minor official of a big chain store organization recently made a statement that his concern did not hire "old men" but placed the limit at 35 years...
...Not content to stop there...
...Senator Walsh continued his campaign against monopoly and wealth by investigating certain unsavory activities of the aluminum trust, the steel trust, and the power trust...
...This would be useful if wages were to be cut or a tax reduction campaign launched...
...From all indications, a bitter and revengeful campaign will be waged against him and in favor of his opponent, Albert L. Galen, by the big business interests whose malpractices he has fought in the past few years...
...This is sound reasoning, but these bakers ignore the fact that consumption depends on income and that a low wage worker is a poor customer...
...Even hard-boiled Wall Street financiers question if any man is worth such a wage that would average $5,416 a day if the president worked 300 days in the year and took no holiday, nor winter trips to Palm Beach or summer trip to northern Europe...
...Isn't this little, event suggestive of a very effective weapon that could well be used against employers who rule out the worker after the age of 35 or 40 on the basis of "efficiency...
...This sort of bookkeeping could easily make a 100 per cent profit look like a streak of red on the wrong side of the ledger...
...When they begin taking middle-aged workers off the pay roll they are in effect losing good customers...
...He didn't want the customers of the stores, many of whom are middle-aged people, to think they were being discriminated against...
...If workers have a decent wage it will not be necessary to launch advertising campaigns to increase business...
...Then the shoe would be on the other foot, for very likely the middle-aged people of this country would be found to have perhaps the greatest purchasing power of any age group, and the loss of their business would be a severe one...
...Thousands upon thousands of dollars will likely be spent by these interests and the big money crowd that controls the state to punish this man who dared to go against them and fight for decency and honesty in the interests of the people...
...If the Bethlehem directors can hand out $36,000,000 to a few insiders and pay their president a secret bonus of more than $1,600,000 without their stockholders' knowledge, isn't it fair to assume that additional "pay dirt" would be struck if the investigation were continued...
...As one of the leaders in the investigation into the oil scandals, he pushed the inquiry which resulted in the trials of Secretary of Interior Fall, Doheny...
...Suppose middle-aged people of the country refused to buy goods sold or manufactured by these corporation;} that have set about to "junk" the worker after the age of 40...
...Stockholders of the company were unaware of these tremendous salaries until the information was forced from the company...
...There are a few militant and independent daily and weekly newspapers that refuse to be absorbed or driven to the wall by the powers of wealth...
...which brought about the conviction and entence of Sinclair...
...Senator Walsh is indeed deserving of the support of every progressive minded citizen, regardless of what political faith he may be...
...The people of Montana, when they learn the truth, will know that the fight Senator Walsh has been carrying on has been their fight, and no amount of campaign money, no matter how lavishly expended, can convince them otherwise...
...Many of these bread manufacturers oppose and have forced wages to their lowest point...
...STEEL DIRECTORS SECRETLY SLIP VAST SUMS TO INSIDERS of the Bethlehem Steel Company, last year, a bonus of $ 1.623,532...
...The stockholders believed their president was paid $12,000 annually...
...RECENT figures issued by the association that has been or-ganized to fight this growing discrimination against the middle-aged reveal that as long ago as 1920, 57 out of every 100 clerical workers was forced out and kept out of employment by the operation of employers' age limit restrictions...
...These big corporations dominate the politics of the state in a large degree, control its legislature, and own most of its important newspapers, both Republican and Democratic...
...Awaiting them in Montana they find a well oiled machine, dominated by the $600,000,000 Anaconda Copper Company and the $100,000,000 Montana Power Company, ready to start in motion...
...And isn't it fair to assume that Bethlehem is not the only concern that has perfected plans to hide profits...
...Boards of directors are agents of the owners—stockholders —and yet we find more than $36,000,000 has been secretly handed out to a few insiders between 1911 and 1929...
...A number of concerns, it is said, have realized this fact and have gone so far to protest to other manufacturers and big merchandising concerns to stop discrimination against workers who havf reached middle age...
Vol. 1 • August 1930 • No. 39
