Edith E. Smith, president of the Pennsylvania Rural Progress
Association, asserted that the fallacy that lessened production is the
chief cause of high prices has been exploded and there is ample food
produced if waste were eliminated. Said she:
“While city people are complaining of the prices paid the farmer, it
is an absolute fact that the farmer has a hard time to make a living
profit on his business. The farmer has to face the combined problems
of production and distribution and he runs the gamut of both. If any
manufacturer were compelled to face the difficulties of the farmer ...
attempted it on so small a margin of profit, he would quickly go to
the wall.”
Mrs. Smith showed that it costs a Pennsylvania or New York farmer about
50 per cent more to raise a hog or a steer than it costs the Iowa farmer
and that the latter can ship his cattle to the New York market and sell
them cheaper than the Pennsylvania farmer.
Mrs. Frank A. Pattison of Colonia, N. J., who was for some time in
charge of the experiment station maintained by the New Jersey women’s
clubs, spoke on Scientific Management in Home-Making. She showed how, by
the introduction of mechanical devices, such as patent dish-washing
machines or vacuum cleaners, it might be possible to minimize household
drudgery without employing a servant and without using paper dishes or
bare floors.
Everett P. Wheeler of the New York bar laid the high cost of living to
increases in rent, due to governmental requirements and increased
taxation; increases in the cost of food because of governmental
inspection and regulations; legislation shortening the hours of work and
increasing wages; the syndicalist movement and other influences that add
to cost of production.
An interesting comment on the general discussion was made by Christine
M. Frederick, national secretary of the Associated Clubs of Domestic
Science, and consulting household editor of the _Ladies’ Home Journal_,
who pointed out that the whims of women were in no small way responsible
for the high cost of living.
H. B. Fullerton, of Medford, L. I., director of agricultural development
for the Long Island Railroad, was the first speaker at the afternoon
session on Public Control. He told of the development of the “Long
Island Home Hamper,” which is a system of delivering, direct from
producer to consumer, standard hampers containing food products at an
established price.
Mrs. Elmer Black, member of the advisory board of the New York Terminal
Market Commission, discussed Communal Benefits from the Municipal
Terminal Market.
Dr. Mary E. Pennington, chief of the Food Research Laboratory of
Philadelphia, showed in a masterly fashion the contribution made by cold
storage warehouses by providing mechanical means of food preservation
and thus equalizing supply and demand regardless of seasons. Dr.
Pennington pointed out that chickens kept for twenty-four hours under
average ice-box conditions of the private family, changed more
chemically than those kept for months in cold storage warehouses.
Clyde L. King, instructor in political science, University of
Pennsylvania, urged municipal control of wholesale terminal markets to
reduce cost of distribution. Said he:
“This plan of placing terminal wholesale facilities under municipal
control and operation will unquestionably make for the elimination of
certain of the middlemen, will make for the payment of higher prices,
because of the large number of buyers present, and will give to
retailers a greater choice of goods.
“The situation as to the retailers of food products in the city can
well be illustrated by the situation in Philadelphia. There are at the
present time in this city about 490 chain stores, 700 members of the
Retail Grocers’ Associations and 4169 independent grocers. In addition
there are 258 delicatessen stores, 200 butchers, handling some
groceries, and 1923 variety stores.
“This makes 1190 chain stores as compared with 6550 independent
stores. It is clear that the maximum point to which prices can be
boosted by the retailers is that fixed by a subsistence wage on the
part of these small independent stores.”
Irving Fisher of Yale University, in his opening remarks at the evening
meeting, emphasized the growing belief that the real significance of the
increased cost of living was to be found in changing the value of money.
The most striking address of the evening was an appeal by Frances
Perkins, executive secretary of the Committee on Safety of the City of
New York, for the living wage.
“HIRING A SHEET FROM A MISSUS”
In a recent strike Miss Perkins found that many of the girls in
factories lived away from home, many coming from rural districts, and
that most of them lived by “hiring a sheet from a missus.” That means
that two or three of the girls slept in one bed, with a cup of coffee
thrown in with the “hiring” in the morning. Many of these girls had
coffee and rolls for breakfast, lunch and dinner, with an occasional
extravagance, such as a fifteen-cent dinner. Their wages ran from $4 to
$5 a week. Other girls, according to Miss Perkins, buy bread and bananas
for meals, the bananas being great fillers.
Another speaker on this subject was Paul U. Kellogg, editor of THE
SURVEY, who talked on the Wage Scale and Immigration. He outlined the
proposal of transferring the economic regulation of immigration from the
seaboard to the centers of congested industry by applying the minimum
wage to unnaturalized citizens after the manner of child labor
legislation. It would go far, he argued, toward bringing the common
labor market to normal.
Margaret F. Byington, associate director of the Charity Organization
Department of the Russell Sage Foundation, pointed out at the session on
Waste and Extravagance, that scientific ratios of nourishment, while
probably accurate quantitatively, in the number of calories to be
supplied to the different age groups, might justly be criticised on the
side of cost, as various elements tend to make assimilative power
different in different cases. The sedentary worker cannot, for instance,
digest the heavy, cheap food of the manual worker, and the infant’s
modified milk makes its food not cheaper, as scientific ratios would
make it, but dearer than the older child’s.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, author of The Home: Its Work and Influence, in
a paper on Waste of Private Housekeeping, stated that:
“Industrial progress follows lines of specialization, organization and
interchange. Domestic service is unspecialized, unorganized and
self-supplied. For all men and women to perform their own
house-service separately would be the lowest line of industrial
efficiency; for each man to require one whole woman, with more if he
can afford it; to perform his house-service is next to the lowest.
“The waste of labor involved is over 40 per cent of the world’s full
output; fifty women doing work for fifty men, which could be done by
ten women if specialized, organized and interchanging their products.
The ‘waste of plant,’ the kitchen space, cooking apparatus, dishes and
utensils, fuel, with breakage, etc., is at least 90 per cent. The
waste in purchasing is the difference between the cost of a steady
supply at wholesale and the entire expense of all retail service and
delivery equal to at least 60 per cent. The waste in efficiency is the
difference between highly specialized professional work, and the grade
of labor possible to the lowest average—practically all women, under
conditions of overwork, if it is done by the housewife, or, of eternal
apprenticeship, if done by servants.”
Mrs. Julian Heath, founder and president of the National Housewives
League, explained the work of the league. H. W. Hess of the University
of Pennsylvania raised active discussion by his paper on Advertising:
Waste or Necessity, Which? He claimed that advertising was a necessity
and socially advantageous. Samuel H. Barker, financial editor of the
_Philadelphia North American_, discussed the effects of false
capitalization.
At the session on the Minimum Wage, Henry R. Seager, professor of
political economy, Columbia University, pointed out the social factors
involved in the introduction of a minimum wage, showing that we must be
prepared for the elimination from industry of certain groups now
employed and their maintenance in some fashion. The minimum wage to
Professor Seager is only part of a general scheme including social
insurance.
H. La Rue Brown and Mathew B. Hammond discussed the minimum wage from
the experience of Massachusetts, of Australia and New Zealand. Scott
Nearing, instructor in economics, University of Pennsylvania, discussed
the existing wage scale and pointed out that to a large extent the wages
paid in the United States are not up to the necessary minimum.
The first address at the closing session on How Can the Cost of Living
be Reduced? given by Dr. Shaw, editor of the _Review of Reviews_, traced
the development of the co-operative movement in this country and abroad
and indicated the role that productive co-operation might well play in
the development of our industrial institutions. He maintained that
poverty is decreasing, while wants increase.
Martha Van Rensselaer, chief of the Department of Home Economics of
Cornell University, who told wittily of the difficulty of securing
women’s interest in household affairs, they frequently failing to
recognize as do their husbands their own importance in our economic
institutions.
The last paper was by Amos R. E. Pinchot, a lawyer of New York, who
pointed out the relationship which exists between overcapitalization and
the cost of living and the necessity for regulating monopolies.