A NEW LEISURE CLASS.

A five-day week, a six-hour day and a sixty percent increase in wages; these are the demands of the United Mine Workers of America. Unless they are satisfied in full, a strike is to be called on all the union bituminous fields in the nation. The result of such action can best be summed up in the words of president Wilson: "All interests would be affected alike by a strike of this character, and its victims would be not the rich only, but the poor and needy as well, those least able to provide in advance a fuel supply for domestic use. It would involve stopping the operation of railroads, electric light and gas plants, street railway lines, and other public utilities."

This hold-up of the nation, -for it can be described as nothing else-is the most unreasonable measure ever undertaken by American labor. Never before in this country have the workers in a national industry struck for less than an eight-hour day. The professed aim of the American Federation of Labor had been the adjusting basis. A five-day week means cutting down the hours of operation still further and involving a tremendous loss in production. Mr. H. N. Taylor., president of the National Coal Association, stated under oath that the workers received from five to fifteen dollars a day. Increasing this wage by sixty percent would, in a short time, at the expense of the public, breed a new stock of millionaires of the leisure class. Do the mine workers really believe they are going to better their conditions by their demands? Do they not realize that the loss they produce, the less other industries will produce? Scarcity of production and our heavy shipments to Europe are the underlying causes of the present high cost of living. For the strikers to decrease production still further is doing nothing but taking their newly acquired money from their own pockets.

If they do not see the reason of this argument, the public does. The latter receives no increase in wages, but shares the same burdens. Federal investigators claim that yielding to the workers demands would mean a ten dollar extra tax on everybody. For a small minority to attempt to force such a liability on the nation is criminal. This movement must be fought to the finish.

Mr. Cummings, in his railroad plan now before the Senate, advises that striking in the railroad organization be made illegal. The more we see of such irresponsible strikes as that of the United Mine Workers, the more we are inclined to wish that Mr. Cummings' illegal clause be applied to all national industries.