New York Journalists — Their Pay

1895

In New York city the salaries are higher than anywhere else, partly because of the superior standard of proficiency and partly because the cost of living is greater here than in any other large city. One editor in chief has the same salary as the president of the United States, $50,000 per year, and others receive from $10,000 to $12,000, or more than members of the cabinet. Managing editors are paid from $100 to $150 per week, or better compensation than that of senators and representatives in congress. Editorial writers get from $50 to $75 per week, as a rule, and in cases of rare ability as much as the average salary of a managing editor. City editors receive from $50 to $75 per week and in a few instances $100. The pay of news editors is about equal to that of city editors.

Literary, theatrical and musical critics average $50 per week. Copy readers are paid from $40 to $45 per week. Reporters earn all the way from $15 to $60 per week, with an average of $40, and space writers of particular talent have been known to make as much as $125 per week, though the limitation of topics and the pressure of competition usually keep their incomes down around those of the best paid reporters. There are some writers for syndicates of newspapers, men with names that have a certain value, who earn from $5,000 to $6,000 per year, and there are others of first class technical capacity in various lines whose salaries occasionally reach $5,000. The pay of all classes of journalists averages 10 per cent lower in Brooklyn than in New York city. — Forum.

A Cheerful Soul

1902

"Hanks always looks on the bright side of everything. Do you know what he said when he lost his job the other day?"
"I haven't heard."
"He seemed to be quite cheerful over it. 'You see,' he explained, 'I applied for a raise of salary nearly six months ago and didn't get it. Think of how much more I would have had to lose if they'd given me the increase." — Chicago Record-Herald.


He Dropped the Subject

He was talking to the pessimistic, sharp-tongued damsel.
"Have you noticed," he asked, "that, as a general thing, bachelors are wealthier than married men?"
"I have," she replied.
"How do you account for it?" he inquired.
"The poor man marries and the rich one doesn't," she answered. "A man is much more disposed to divide nothing with a woman than he is to divide something." — Chicago Post.

Federal Clerks Receive Small Salaries

1910

By Arthur Blanchard

Government clerks are generally thought to have an easy time by many outsiders, who envy the short hours and supposedly large pay of those who labor in the big department buildings of Washington.

The facts are entirely at variance with the popular conception. The employees of Uncle Sam have had no increase of salary for years and most of them are getting exactly the same pay their predecessors drew 50 years ago.

This affects a multitude of honest, hard-working men and women who are just able to make ends meet on their scanty stipends. The condition, indeed, so far from being enviable, is pitiable.

Realizing that conditions had vastly changed and that it requires far more to live decently now than it did in 1880, or even later, Congress, a little while back, raised the salaries of senators and members of the House from $5,000 to $7,500 a year, an increase of 50 per cent.

The country at large found no fault with this piece of self-conferred liberality.

Now it is up to Congress to be as just toward many thousands of government clerks as it was generous toward itself.

Investigations lately made show that a lot of these people are forced to take their children from school to help in the family support while others are continually in the clutches of usurious money lenders.

Saying He Never Felt Better, Died

1905

The death of W. H. Rockhill, ex-clerk of the courts of this county, here verifies in a way the thesis of Goethe that no man can survive a happy moment.

He had been feeling ill and went to the office of his physician to tell the doctor that he was improving in health and that he never felt better for many days.

The words had no more than escaped his lips than he keeled over and died of heart disease. — Lebanon correspondence, Cincinnati Enquirer.


Effects of Prosperity

In the six years of the country's greatest prosperity, from 1897 to 1903, average prices of breadstuffs advanced 65 per cent, meats 23.1 per cent, dairy and garden products 50.1 per cent, and clothing 24.1. All these were products of the farmer and stockman who profited more than any other class of the community by these advances. The miner benefited 42.1 per cent by that advance in the average price of metals. The only decrease in the average prices of commodities in that period was in railway freight rates which decreased from .798 per ton-mile in 1897 to .763 in 1903, a loss of 4.4 per cent. The report of the Interstate Commerce Commission shows that the average increase in the pay of railroad employees in the period was trifle above 8.5 per cent.

Pastor Turns Down Raise

1900

There are few people who decline an increase of salary, but the Rev. George C. Lorimer, pastor of the Tremont Temple in Boston, is one of the few. His congregation recently voted him an increase of $1,000 a year, but he has declined the increase, stating that his present salary of $7,000 a year is enough.


And In Other News...

A collection of political curiosities would properly include President Pierce's cabinet, the only one in the history of the country which remained unchanged during the four years of an administration. It is remarkable that the cabinet of Lord Salisbury, which consisted of nineteen members had not suffered a single change in the five years since the summer of 1895, when the present government took office.

A waggish stranger complained to the police of Salina, Kansas, that a resident of that town had fleeced him out of a forty-dollar bill. After the police had spent a day hunting for the rogue, and finally located the suspected man, it suddenly dawned upon the sleuths that there are no forty-dollar bills.

In some grottoes in Algeria French explorers have recently discovered stone implements mingled with the remains of extinct animals belonging to Quaternary times. Further explorations indicate that during the age when grottoes were inhabited the coast of Algeria had a configuration different from that of today. Among the animals associated with the ancient human inhabitants of Algeria were the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, and various species of ruminants.

Congressman Seeks Apartment at Swellest Hotel

1903

The salary of a member of congress is $416.66 2-3 a month. "Uncle Joe" Cannon, of Illinois, when it became apparent that he would be the next speaker of the house, relates the Baltimore Herald, thought it would be a good idea to move from his present comfortable but rather modest apartments to where "a little more dog," as he expressed it, "was put on." He went to the swellest hotel in town and asked to be shown some rooms. The gentlemanly clerk conducted him to the upper regions and unfolded to his vision a handsome suite.

"They look rather likely," said Mr. Cannon, "how much are they?"

"Four hundred dollars," was the reply.

"A year," persisted the chairman of the appropriations committee, who likes to be definite where figures are concerned.

"Oh, no, sir; $400 a month," explained the clerk.

Mr. Cannon appeared lost in reverie for a few moments. The clerk shifted meanwhile from one foot to another, and finally ventured: "What's the matter, Mr. Cannon?"

"Oh, nothing," said Uncle Joe, as he came back to life; "I'm just thinking."

"About what, Mr. Cannon?"

"What I'd do with the other $16.66 2-3."

—Davenport Daily Republican, Davenport, Iowa, March 4, 1903, page 5.