"DOES IT MAKE FOR DEMOCRACY?"
"Does It Make For Democracy ? " |7 JUR years ago an American citizen was * heard to express her faith that the movement toward democracy was going to be helped forward by minimum wage boards. "The...
...it is because rural life oftentimes has been so barren of pleasure as compared with the city...
...if he live in an organized community, live upon as high and enjoyable a plane as does the resident of the city...
...Yet here is one of their own number whose success has bee...
...The automobile, which is to become an essential part of the equipment of every prosperous farmer, reduces the time to the adjacent city and to his neighbors by two-thiids or more...
...We do not agree with those employers who declare, as did a recent writer in a magazine, in excusing himself for not practicing what he preached, that 'the movement toward the bettering of society must be universal;' we think that one concern can make a start and create an example for other employers, and that is our chief object...
...He Tjan't afford it...
...Elizabeth Glendower Evans has written for La Follette's (see page five) an article which tells us just what minimum wage boards—in actual operation!—are accomplishing and what bearing they have upon "Industrial Democracy...
...but will it work...
...Through the telephone," said Van Hise, "the farmer communicates readily with his neighbors...
...Like the social center movement, the playground movement has discovered that what is everybody's business is too often nobody's business...
...If wholesome outlets are not provided, who is to blame if unwholesome ones are sought...
...It is generally recognized that every city needs play centers throughout the year...
...It is generally recognized that the first essential in working out a creditable recreation system in any city is to have a. man or woman employed to give full time to the recreation problem just as each city has a school superintendent employed to give full time to the educational problem...
...Read it as one of the most important contributions that have been made to the literature of industrial advancement...
...In the upholstered ofefi of "the boss" of many a big industry, Ford's words will probably be the cause of considerable head scratching...
...Along with the necessity for public recreation centers goes the need of a paid all-the-year-round supervisor of the playgrounds...
...Improve conditions in my plant...
...her surprised listener asked...
...In the pioneer days when farmers were very poor, when roads were impassable for much of the year, when the only means of transportation were the horse and the ox, when the post-office was a long way off, when it was difficult to obtain commodities from the city, the life of the farmer w-as even more meager than it is at the present time...
...Mrs...
...men were discussing the "conflict between Labor and Capital...
...If these words had come from the lips of a public officii, what a chorus of scoffing would have come from captains of industry...
...She writes, as it were, directly from the table over which wage disputes between employers and employees are being threshed out...
...Without eaves-dropping further on this conversation, let us turn for information to our foremost authority on the minimum wage...
...Evans' article...
...Theoretically fine...
...Yet only 83 cities employed play leaders throughout the year,—only 68 cities had their play centers open the entire year...
...We invite you to read Mrs...
...Threshed out face to face, and on terms of equality—a fact which accounts for this sentence in Mrs...
...Said one, "I don't know of anything more amazing than the rapidity with which the minimum wage idea has found it's way into statute books and into popular discussion.' ' "The minimum wage," replied the other— "Yes, it is a factor to be reckoned with...
...Changing conditions are rapidly removing many of these hindrances, and the farmer of today may...
...Six hundred and forty-two out of 1,050 cities from which reports were received were active in the playground movement during the year...
...No more of the old time "master and servant" relationship betweer Labor and Capital, where minimum wage boards step in...
...In considering ways and means of "keeping the farm boys and girls on the farm"—a matter that grew into exceeding importance as soon as it was discovered that the city was depleting the country of its youth—it must be remembered that the enjoyment of living goes hand in hand with making a living...
...We do well to end this invitation with the concluding words used by Mrs...
...This movement, already achieved in certain of the eastern states, has begun in Wisconsin...
...Evans' article: "It is in the forces released by minimum wage laws that their true significance lies...
...One manufacturer cannot take a step toward social justice in advance' of his competitors...
...A more profitable investment for any city than public playgrounds, where wholesome and health-giving amusement may be found by the boys and girls, can hardly be imagined...
...While much remains to be done in advancing the prosperity of the farmer, both through increasing his output, and in getting a larger part of the sum which the consumer pays, his greatest problem is now that of living," declared President Charles R. Van Hise of the University of Wisconsin in opening the Fourth Wisconsin Country Life Conference...
...It is not because the farmer boy is not prosperous that he goes to the city, Dr...
...We want those who have helped us to produce this great institution and are helping to maintain it to share our prosperity...
...MADE in Germany" si^ns are more discomforting to the other nations of the world than the fleets of German dread-naughts.—Wall Street Journal...
...they are wont to exclaim...
...Better Living" "DETTER LIVING" is a companion slogan *** to "better farming" among those who are giving thought to what is called the rural problem...
...We do not feel sure that it is the best, but we have felt impelled to make a start and make it now...
...Playground Facts LI ERE are some facts about the playground movement in the United States gleaned from the last Year Book of the Playground and Recreation Association of America...
...Van Hise argued...
...Evans: " 'Does it make for democracy?' is the touch stone by which every effort in social reform should be tested...
...phenomenal calmly telling his fellow businessmen that "one concern can MAKE A START...
...Why that is utterly impracticable...
...Children in 70 cities were given playgrounds for the first time in 1913...
...Evans is a member of the Massachusetts Minimum Wage commission...
...And this: "The absolute autocracy of the employer's rule against which labor has so long and so courageously contended, gives way to agreements formally drawn up between the employer's association and the union as between high contracting parties...
...Believing, as we do, that a division of our earnings between capital and labor is unequal, we have sought a plan of relief suitable for our business...
...To bring the members of a community still closer together will but require that roads be usable independently of the weather...
...The citizens, each too busy with private affairs to keep an eye upon the children at play, must have a hired man or woman whose whole business it is to be the guiding influence of the boys and girls at their games...
...Is there anyone to doubt that a community servant of this kind is not worth his, or her, salt ?. # * # Et Tu Brute...
...The other day, in a Middle "Western club, two...
...Metaphorically, the people in the city and the scattered farms have moved two-thirds of the way toward one another...
...Judged by that standard, minimum wage boards stand approved...
...The youth of the city is its priceless asset...
...The minimum wage—what is that...
...j)ISCUSSING his plan of distributing $10,-000.000 in profits among the employees of his company in the form of increased wages, Henry Ford said: "It is our belief that social justiee begins at home...
...The play instinct is all compelling in the child...
...For they can serve as initial steps toward bringing to pass that industrial democracy without which our political democracy will become a barren phrase,—a mere tale that is told...
Vol. 6 • February 1914 • No. 6
