13
About 20 per cent of the people feel
that "A few are getting all the money”
and " I f the rich had less, the poor
would have more.” But most Ameri
cans feel that any redistribution of the
wealth by putting the top limit on
salaries would be of little advantage
to them personally; some suspect they
might be even worse off.
The public is equally emphatic that
married men should not get more pay
than single men simply because they
have families. Workers should be paid
"according to ability and work pro
duced.” Remarks a Toledo, Ohio, per
sonnel manager, "Any attempt to bene
fit the family man by paying him
higher wages would probably backfire.
It would put him at a disadvantage in
competition for jobs with single men.”
Says the wife of a tire changer for
busses, "A single man should get the
same amount for his labor, but the
married man should have help in hos
pitalization, medical and dental care.”
Still others say a man’s family and
personal obligations are not an employ
er’s concern.
The same fundamental notion of
fair play and honest rewards for honest
labor turns up in the answers to:
"Should men and women receive equal
pay for equal work?” Three fourths
of the men and four fifths of the
women say "yes.” "Payment is for
work, not for sex,” says a Miami, Ari
zona, stenographer. " I f women’s w ork'
is satisfactory,” believes a North Caro
lina farmer, "their pay should be the
same.” The few dissenters feel that
women are somehow less capable than
men in the workaday world. One wife
of a serviceman states that equal wages
for women would "hurt men’s feel
ings.”
In summary, we may say that the
violent claims and counterclaims of
unions and management gave a chao
tically untrue picture of the wage situ
ation in America today. Union workers
are certainly not the most exploited
groups in this country. Factory take-
home pay has toppled since the war,
but it is still as high as the average
American income. Today, as before the
war and during the war, a ditchdigger
earns as much as some ministers, a
movie star is worth fifty college presi
dents, some Ph.D.’s get cooks’ wages.
The deepest discontent over wages
seethes not in the breast of the man
with the lunch pail, but in the one with
the shine on his shoes and on the pants
of his blue serge suit.
At any rate, the sense of personal in
justice which one in every two Ameri
can adults feels, has not yet seriously
dimmed the bright U.S. virtues of self-
reliance and enterprise. Although the
public resents salaries which run into
the hundreds of thousands of dollars,
although some feel "the money’s not di
vided right”— still they will defend to
the end the right of any American to
make all the money he can. They only
wish that those who make a real con
tribution to human welftre {not movie
stars) could be rewarded accordingly.
They aren’t asking for any special
favors or baby bonuses for family men
— a man should shoulder his own re
sponsibilities. All they ask is the chance
to work like blazes for those extra few
dollars in the pay envelope that will
mean Utopia someday. And when they
get a raise, and Utopia is still around
the next mountain— well, they still
have the chance to keep on trying,
don’t they.
Studying the many forthright opin
ions voiced in this survey, one might
well say the attitude of most Americans
is: Congress, hands off, please! Don’t
go trying any communistic schemes to
bring more money to the masses. There
are no "masses” in America, just a
bunch of feet-on-the-ground individu
alists who want to straighten out a lot
of human injustices in their own rug
ged way.