Trainmen's Higher Wages a Burden to Farmers

1916

New Orleans, La., Saturday. — That the increase in pay of members of the four railroad brotherhoods, caused by the enactment of the eight hour day law by Congress, will rest ultimately upon the farmer was asserted by Henry N. Pope, newly elected president of the Association of State Presidents of the Farmers' Union, in a statement issued to-day.

Mr. Pope declared that the farmers of the country stand for a fair wage for both labor and capital and favor an eight hour working day, but that he personally doubted the wisdom of Congress fixing wages for labor employed by private enterprise. "I doubt," he said, "if it is in the interest of either labor, capital or the people to make the wage schedule of railroad employes a political issue."

The condition of the farmers of the country is worse than that of the most lowly railroad laborer, Mr. Pope stated, with an average farm income of only $1.47 a day, out of which must be paid the expenses of the family.

The condition of women laborers in the fields he described as worse than during the days of slavery.

"Not a word has been spoken by Congress in defence of the woman who rakes the hay and gathers the sheaves," said Mr. Pope. "Little has been done that has increased the income of the farmer or enabled him to pay a higher wage to his laborers.

"But to-day we find the highest paid laborers in the world, making three times more money than a farmer, demanding twenty-five per cent increase, and Congress hastening to their relief. This increase must, in the end, rest upon the back of the farmer and will reduce his income, increase his hours of labor and call for another levy of farm mothers from the home to the field.

"The farmers of this nation must fight to hold what they have and to get what is rightfully theirs from the government. We must do it through organization."

Mr. Pope stated that by the enactment of the eight hour law Congress had thrust upon the people of the country a new responsibility, and organized labor now stands committed to the principle of government regulation of wages. The government, he said, should fix wages for all classes of railroad employes and should have the power to decrease as well as to increase wages to remedy comparative inequalities.

"In my opinion," he continued, "the next session of Congress should readjust the wages of all railroad employes, from railroad president to section laborer, giving all a square deal and fixing a schedule of pay based upon business justice and human rights. I submit a schedule of wages taken from official government reports which presents conclusive evidence of the inequalities of the present daily wage scale of railroad employes:—

"General officers, $16.11; other officers, $6.49; general office clerks, $2.53; station agents, $2.37; other station men, $1.99; enginemen, $5.28; firemen, $3.23; conductors, $4.49; other trainmen, $3.11; all shopmen, $2.37, and trackmen, $1.50."

Mr. Pope declared that the foregoing schedule showed that the 350,000 section hands in the country were condemned to a life of poverty. He said he believed that Congress, having undertaken to regulate the wages of higher paid employes, should review their wages.

Maine Notes

1916

With prospects of a big lumber cut this year, the Bangor operators are facing quite a serious problem in getting help enough, and good men are scarce at any price. Wages offered are now from $35 to $40 a month, with board and transportation, much higher than usual. The usual influx of Canadians is lacking.

The Recreation commission of Portland has taken steps to provide a toboggan slide on the slope of the Western promenade during the winter, a sport that has never been cultivated to much extent here. A slide has been maintained by the Portland Country club, but otherwise the general public has been forced to content itself with limited opportunities for old-fashioned coasting.

Lucius B. Swett of Sanford has been appointed Judge of the York county probate court by Governor Curtis to succeed the late Judge Nathaniel Hobbs of North Berwick.

Manager Hugh Duffy of Portland has been given permission to transfer his franchise to another city the choice to be ratified by the directors before becoming effective. It was reported that he would transfer his team to Lawrence or Haverhill next year.

In the Bangor strike, over 100 went out and only 12 have returned to work, the company having filled the places of the others.

Harry A. Dearie, alias Harry A. Devoe of Worchester, Mass., Albany, N. Y., and Oliphant, Pa., was freed of the charge of breaking in the United States District court Friday afternoon but was re-arrested on a charge which accused him of breaking into the post on Aug. 11.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 26, 1916, p. 8.

The Story of a Mean Man

1901

This is the story of a mean man. He may not be the meanest on record, but he carries a very fair brand of closefistedness. He had a contract to supply a certain amount of crushed stone. The machine he used could turn out all the work he could get by running eight hours a day.

The mean man had an engineer who was a genius. The genius went to his employer one day and said he thought he could make some improvements in that machine so it would do more work in less time. The genius was paid by the month.

He worked on the machine for several days, taking it apart and putting it together again. When reconstructed, it proved to have greater efficiency than before, so much so that it did the same amount of work in one minute and a half that it used to take four and a half to do.

The mean man, however, could get no more contracts than before. He could fill all his orders by running about three hours a day. The mean man then went to the genius and said: "See here, Henry, I've been paying you by the month, but there isn't as much work as there used to be — not enough to keep you busy. I shall have to pay you by the hour after this." Henry demurred. He had been too faithful, but he didn't think that ought to reduce his earnings over one-half. His employer was firm, however, and Henry resigned. — New York Mail and Express.

Have Got Beyond Feeling

1902

The people of Martinique, or those who still cling to that unfortunate island, will probably not be alarmed by the scientific report that it is likely to sink out of sight, says the Chicago Inter Ocean. They are probably beyond the reach of alarm by this time.


Lucky Old Maids

Woman insure against being old maids in Denmark, says the New York Mail and Express. If they marry before they are 40 what they have paid goes to the less fortunate, and these last are pensioned for the remainder of their lives on a scale proportioned on what they paid in.


Starving in Galicia

In Galicia the wage of the farm laborer has been so reduced that he is starving to death on a pittance of from three to 16 cents a day.


Index of Cleanliness

The average French person uses six pounds of soap in a year; the average English person uses ten pounds.


Will Follow a Swiss Model

Swiss postal officials are to be employed to assist in the reorganization of the Japanese post office. The Swiss postal system is to be taken as a model.

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.

The Douglas Shoe

1900

The best advertised and consequently the best known shoe in the world today is undoubtedly made by the W. L. Douglas Shoe Co., of Brockton, Massachusetts.

The one idea of this company has always been to sell a shoe for $3.50 which equals in every way the $5 shoes of any other concern. They are able to do this on account of there being no middle man's profit, as the goods are sold direct from the factory to the wearer. In 60 of the principal cities of the country they have their own retail stores. The goods are made in all sizes and widths, and few shoes equal them for style and durability.

The factory at Brockton employs over 3,100 hands, and, all labor troubles are settled by the state board of arbitration. Nothing but union labor is employed, and pay is about the best average wages of any shoe workers in the United States. The factory payroll amounts to $17,435 per week. This company makes shoes for men only, and it is their proud boast that over one million men wear them. — Denver (Colo.) Post.


Geese and Sages

One day in presiding at table at his country home in Windsor, Vermont, with a swarm of grandchildren about him, Senator William W. Evarts is said to have asked: "What is the difference between this goose before dinner and me after?" After much futile guessing, he answered, in quiet glee: "Now the goose is stuffed with sage, and soon the sage" — pointing to himself — "will be stuffed with the goose."


Words

In coining such modern words as "telegram," "photography," etc., the Japanese have recourse to the Chinese language, as we do to the Greek.

Chorus Girls Quit Stage for Factory

1920

Higher Pay in Shops Overcomes Lure of Footlights

NEW YORK, N.Y. — Theatrical managers and producers are becoming alarmed at the shortage of chorus girls — and to think that there used to be so many of them the producer had to hide himself to keep from being overwhelmed with applications! This is the word that New York is casting abroad.

In the good days gone, it said, the chorus girls received larger pay than they could get in the shops or factories or offices. Besides, there was the lure since the pay of women in business is so much more than it is upon the stage.

It is said that the shops of New York, and even the factories, pay much better wages than is possible with the theaters. As one observer puts it, "Better money can be obtained in the shops, in the canning factories, in the laundries, than upon the stage."


Shonts' Will Makes Wife Chief Heiress

NEW YORK, N.Y. — Mrs. Milla D. Shonts, widow of the former president of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, who was cut off in her husband's will with a picture and a small bequest, has filed for probate another will made in 1905.

This will gives $5,000 each to Drake University and Monmouth College, Iowa; $100,000 to Mrs. Shonts and minor gifts to the relatives.

The remainder is to be shared equally by Mrs. Shonts and the two daughters.

Dishwasher Runs Amuck With a Bread Knife

California, 1921

History states that the Battle of Thermopylae Pass in ancient days was not such an exciting affair, and if so, it faded into oblivion, alongside of the affair of late yesterday afternoon in which Denny Zanatos, proprietor of the restaurant on Main street above Third, known as Guidi's, did a Marathon down Main street to avoid the wild charge of a Greek dishwasher in the same restaurant, who took after the fleet restauranteur armed with a butcher knife.

The assailant began arguing with Zanatos over wages. Then the battle began, resulting in the knife wielder being arrested by the fire chief and is facing a charge of assault with intent to murder. It is claimed that the prisoner chased Zanatos about the Guidi restaurant a dozen times, not giving the fleeing Athenian a chance to open the door to make escape. Finally a waitress came to the man's rescue and when the door was opened he made one grand leap for the street and would have made Atlanta in her race of the Golden Apple look like a novice had he been her opponent on the mythical cinder path.

—Woodland Daily Democrat, Woodland, California, Dec. 17, 1921, p. 1.

Refused 15 Cents Refused 15 Cents For Haircut, Man Asks For Divorce

La Crosse, Wisconsin, 1917

James B. Taylor is what some women would call a "model husband." He admits that every month he brought home his pay envelope to Friend Wife, whom her fond parents had christened Rena, and it seemed natural to him that he should have some rights with respect to the contents of the package for which he worked hard six days of the week, but—

She refused to give him 15 cents for a hair cut and once she hit him over the head with a book because he failed to account for 80 cents of his wages.

Those are the allegations which he makes in a divorce complaint filed in circuit court here Monday. James charges his wife with being "penurious, stingy and miserly" and nagging him for eight years. On top of that he charges that she admitted being in love with one Joe Crockeroff and also names one Louis Kinnear. both non-residents. The complaint recites that she left her husband to keep house for an uncle at Kendall, telling her provider that she "could not live with him if he was the last man in the world."

—The La Crosse Tribune and Leader-Press, La Crosse, Wisconsin, January 23, 1917, page 1.

MAY HAVE WOMEN MOTORMEN

Employment of women as conductors and motormen was advocated at the annual national convention of the American Electric Railway association, at which street railway men from all parts of the United States painted a dark future for their business unless more income could be obtained or expenses reduced. The employment of women was put forward as a means of increasing the labor supply. F. W. Brooks, president of the Detroit united railways, was the principal advocate of women motormen and conductors. In his paper, "Female Substitutes for Male Employes," he said that not only could women do the work on modern street cars, but that the experience of other countries had shown that with women operating the cars, there were fewer accidents.

"The question is asked as to the physical and mental work required of motormen and conductors," he said. "It is my opinion that women can perform the work of motormen and conductors satisfactorily. It is a current opinion that they may become excited and lose control of their vehicle when contending with congested traffic. It is my observation that under such conditions women are driving motor vehicles as successfully as men.

"In my opinion the same wage must be paid women for like service that is paid men. I take it that the problem before us is to increase the available supply of labor, and if women may be made as efficient as men, they should be given the same consideration."

-- Des Moines Register, Nov. 9, 1917