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5. Authority over the personnel of labor in this country.
- “We decided upon a dilution of men with women labor, which was a thing that had always been fought by the labor unions.”
6. And now behold as complete an illustration of one part of the Protocols as ever could be found in any Gentile government. Readers of previous articles will remember the passage:
- “We will force up wages which, however, will be of no benefit to the workers, for we will at the same time cause a rise in the prices of necessities.”
Mr. Baruch at one time was inclined to sidestep the matter of fixing wages; he did not like the expression. But that the reader himself may decide, we quote the testimony in full:
- Mr. Jefferis—“Did the War Industries Board fix the price of labor?”
- Mr. Baruch—“If you can call it that way, but I would not say so; no, sir.”
- Mr. Jefferis—“I am trying to get at what you did.”
- Mr. Baruch—“No, sir; we did not fix the price of wages.”
- Mr. Jefferis—“What did you do?”
- Mr. Baruch—“Just what I told you.”
- Mr. Jefferis—“Probably I am a little dense, but I did not catch it if you told me.”
- Mr. Baruch—“When the price-fixing committee fixed the price of steel, we will say, they said ‘This price is agreed upon, and you shall keep wages where they are’—and those were the wages that were prevailing at the price we fixed. At the time prices were fixed at first they were very much higher than the prices that we fixed.”
- Mr. Jefferis—“When you got the price of any of these low materials you would fix the price of labor that was to be employed in producing them?”
- Mr. Baruch—“To the extent that it should remain at the maximum of what it was when we fixed the price.”
Considering the weight of Mr. Baruch’s authority, and the stipulations he made, this was to all intents and purposes a fixing of the rate of wages.