Page:Jay Lovestone - Blood and Steel (1923)).djvu/24

 the most dimsighted that the assertion of Gary and his Committee that the Steel Trust cannot afford to pay for an 8-Hour Day is as fraudulent as the contention that a labor-shortage precludes the possibility of inaugurating the Three Shift system.

First of all, an 8-Hour Day will not increase the cost of production by 15 per cent.

Secondly, the Steel Trust can very well afford to pay a much larger increase, if it were necessary.

Thirdly, the gigantic Government subsidy granted the Steel Trust entirely disposes of its ridiculous cry of poverty.

Of all the unfounded arguments raised by the Steel Trust against the abolition of the 12-Hour Day, the point that the workers themselves do not ask for or want shorter hours is the most absurd.

Opening its Report on the Total Elimination of the 12-Hour Day, the American Iron and Steel Committee said:

"Apparently the underlying reason for the agitation which resulted in the appointment of this committee was based on a sentiment (not created or endorsed by the workmen themselves) that the 12-Hour Day was an unreasonable hardship upon the employes who were connected with it. The Workmen, as a rule, prefer longer hours because it permits larger compensation per day."

This is an old game that the Steel Trust is playing. The same fraud was resorted to by the English manufacturers when the workers were struggling for the 10-Hour Day. The forefathers of the Steel Barons brought forward loads of affidavits secured through fraud and duress, purporting to show that the workers were opposed to fewer hours.

The pith of this method is the following. First, the Steel Masters force such low pay on the workers as to compel them to labor unbearable hours in order to eke out a starvation wage. Then, they blame the workers for the continuation of the system of long hours because they dread being pushed still further below the line of least subsistence.

Little effort is needed to destroy Gary's reputation as a friend of the workingmen. Appearing before the Senate Committee in 1919 the