The Parson Thanks Westwood

American Wage Earner Receives 2 0 Times More Than Russian

Chaplain Simpkin , National Chaplain o f Hoo-Hoo, Sounds Warning to Working Men

PAYS GREAT TRIBUTE TO WESTWOOD PEOPLE FOR TORNADO SUFFERER ' S FUND

Pleads t o Men to " S t ay Put,'' Save Their Money and Play 50-50 Game With Employers

We are indebted to Mr. W B. Laughead, advertising manager for the Red River Lumber Companl, for his thoughtfulness in sending this material, a reprint from one of W es twood' s daily papers.

Speaking to an audience of · 1,100 that filled the Westwood Theatre on Friday evening, May 8, which, through the kindness of The Red River Lumber Company was privileged, not only to gather for this meeting but to be guests at the show as well. Dr. Simpkin also spoke to a large crowd in the same building on the preceding Tuesday evening. Dr. Simpkin spoke for three-quarters of an hour on the most pressing problem that faces employer and employee in the present e conomic situation.

He first thanked the good people of Westwood for the splendid response which they had made to the needs of the tornado sufferers in Indiana and Illinois, complimenting them on the fact that for the number of people living in Westwood that Westwood had made the : greatest single contribution to this relief fund of any community in all America, even those close tb the stricken district. He stated that the Westwood gift, in common with all the lumbermen's gifts reaching the Hoo Hoo office in St. Loui s, were being expended by lumberm e n in the affected districts and the expenditure was being made to help working men who had lost their homes.

Dr. Simpkin then said in part:

"My business is to bring a preachment to employer and employee seeking to have each be fair to the other, for our brotherhood which is working for their interest in lumber realizes that only in fair play on the part c'f each can our dream be realized. The lumber business is in a hard position, for while there is good volume, prices are far from satisfac1tory and almost all the lumber business oi' America on its manufact u ring end is bei n g" cond uct ed at a loss that cannot go on for long with the maintenance of present wages, which are only slightly lower than in the war period and with taxes that are high e r. American lumber, and other business, can only maintain itself as man and machine produce on the highest possible leve l. America is looked upon today by Europeans and others as a very Paradise. When one thinks of their lack of work, their low standard of wages, and their tax burdens he feels how fort u nate is the American worker.

"You remember d u ring the war the downbreak of the old Russian Government and later of the Kerensky effort to establish a Soviet Republic, when the Communists took power how the I. W. W. and the radical in this happy country wo u ld have destroyed America and rebuilt it like Russia because he said that Russia was going to be the Heaven on earth with capital destroyed, with brains and management displaced and everything put in the hands of the worker You take Russia today and see the Russian working for the most pitiful wage ever known in our modern times, with no freedom, not owning his grain, not permitted to own his sort of God, not owning his wife or his family, but just a sort of slave owned by a handful of dictators-the most miserable wretch that walks the earth today. Having destroyed the capitali st he has also destroyed capital and for three yea rs past has been seeking to borrow a quarter billion dollars from France, from England, from the United States, for a ll his capita l has been wasted or stolen.

"It is sig nificant that th e other day Mr. Trotsky, who used to be a few years ago a $20.00 a week writer on a New York radical paper, was able to buy, in Geneva a palace which a king could no longer afford to keep up, and he paid for it $500,000. Wh ere did he get it? He and a few of the leaders have enriched themselves and have placed outside Russia fortunes for themselves and for the future. Now there comes back an effort to try and make Russia like America and the free nations, with private right s, and the right to think, to read, to s peak and to worship as they please

"An interesting document was issued by the labor government of England last November which shows the position of America and Russia and the rest of the nations. Taking wages of the British worker and that which that wage would purchase in food, clothing, shelter and the like as representing 100. France is repr esen ted by 81, Germany by 69, Italy by 67, and this vaunted free communistic Russia by 12, while Canada is 158 and the United States is 221)4.

In other words, the worker in the United States can buy with his wages twenty times as much food, etc., almost as in Rus s ia two and a quarter times as much as i1; Britain, and over three times as much as in Germany One feels that the Russian worker instead of finding Communism a Heaven has fo u nd i t a rea l He ll. Yes, the Ameri- can ought to be thankful, for with the best machinery on earth, and the best fed workers in the world, there can be maintained when these abnormal times are past, a forty per cent differential between America and the next most favored country All that is needed is fair play, an honest day's worth of work for an honest day.

"You men ought to realize that the tremendous investment of money in lands, plant, and machinery here is just so much of personality represented by the investment working side by side with you for its wage. You are very fortunate that you can find such steady employment and if it is to continue the company for which you work must earn its wages in profits or dividends. You see unless the average business can earn better than a six per cent dividend it begins to decay

"You will be surprised to know that it is necessary for the money invested in America to earn annually seven billions of dollars in order to remain in a healthy condition, taking care of replacements, and keeping the machine in shape to produce economically A ten-year period without a fair dividend for capital invested would bring the greatest calamity and unemployment, hunger and wretchedness to all branches of American life that can possibly be conceived, and so we must see that in the partnership of e mployer and employee, the co-operation in life and industry is necessa ry to our continuing welfare.

"There is no place in the United States where th e employing end is fairer than here at Westwood, for in this great fr1dustrial plant there is more to praise and less to cnt1c1ze than in any similar plant in the whole country, and I want to plead with you men that you will seek to give a fifty-fifty deal in your services.

"I want, too, to urge that the appalling loss that comes to you workers and to society from the tremendous turn-over of labor shall be minimized. I want my brother workers to "stay put" and let some moss accumulate on your backs and some whiskers on your pocketbooks. Stay put; save your money; accumulate your first five hundred; be a capitalist, for every man who has a dollar or more is a capitalist. Invest that which you save and prepare for the years of age to sit in self respect, as becomes independent Americans, and as you toil h e re rem ember that you are not only earning a wage but that as you give your best you are serving your company and yourself and you are also giving a service to society and to Am er ica.

"You ought to be willing to stand by authority and government, for not only is the official life of Westwood here to guard you and insure your happiness, but from Lassen county authorities up through state and federal government to the God who is our King, all the forces of life are spending themselves to insure for you, justice protection, happiness and peace, and ought to find it a joy to respond by playing yo u r own simple par t i n life and in industry."