The Potters Herald

Strikes "Just Around The Corner"

The coal strike hasn't been the only struggle faced by employers, employees, and the Government. While the United Mine Workers staged a showdown other more powerful labor organizations were seeking favorable decisions from the War Labor Board to back up their arguments in favor of higher wage scales.

The present Government formula of handling the demands of organized labor is based on the theory of official Federal action to reduce the cost of living. In the vernacular of the proposed arrangements the President is engaged in pushing a subsidy and he has placed a message before Congress demanding new food plans for the future, predicated on the assumption that huge shipments of food overseas must be continued while the war is being won and that the only way to keep prices down in the United States is to vote public money to sustain and support subsidies. He suggests that about 500 million dollars a year is a moderate sum for the Government to appropriate for this purpose.

Of course, the theory is that a subsidy to farmers would automatically reduce the cost of food and living, and hold it at the old basis. That would remove the otherwise natural increases in prices while the farmers would continue to receive their full share of pay. The workers in turn could get along without higher wages because of the roll-back.

Mostly everyone's has ideas about this question but if reports from Capitol Hill are correct the Senate is likely to have the last word about the matter. The news from the Hill is that the Senate will probably ban subsidies on food.

Apparently Congress doesn't think much differently from the "folks" about this matter. inasmuch as very few people expect prices to drop or stay down. In fact the present rise is so steady that a good many thousand people believe that inflation is here now.