Union Labor Bulletin

MR. LEGGE'S INEXCUSABLE BLUNDER

Mr. Alexander Legge who went from a great harvester
company to the chairmanship of the Federal Farm Board has
attacked labor's wages.

Labor's average yearly wage in the farm implement industry
was $1,391. What's wrong with that wage? Is it too
much?

Let's go further with Mr. Legge. He talks about pay envelopes
that make prices high for farmers. What envelopes
were these? Mr. Legge laid it all to labor, but United States
Government figures tell another story. While, from 1914 to
1927-the latest year for which there are figures--wages
rose roughly fifty per cent, salaries rose roughly 100 per
cent. If there is too much being paid, there it is!

Mr. Legge is in the salary class. Maybe his salary went
up 100 per cent in those years.

There's another point to raise. From the same governmental
figures it is shown that in cereal preparations, raised
by farmers, out of a total value added by manufacture
amounting to $67,928,240, in 1930, just $8,178,357 is wages,
while the average wage per worker was $1,369. The average
value added per worker in manufacture was $11,374! Those
figures are up to date--1930--from the census of last April.

Let the farmer look at those figures and ponder.

When Mr. Legge next goes out to do battle it will be well
for him to look to his guns, let him pick another collection of
flintlocks.

And as to what he has just said in Syracuse, charging
labor, which is criminally underpaid, with being the robber
in the equation, it is clearly up to him to retract. He may have
been talking to farmers, but workers have ears. And they
know the facts.