The Labor enquirer., 1883-11-10
TIRED.
One of the Worlds Underpaid
Workers Weary Of Life's
Burdens.
A slavish Toll Of Ninety Eight
Hours in Every Seven
Days,
Not Enough Given for a Family's
Support to Make Wander
bilt a Lunch.
TIRED.

= "
Support to Make Wander
bilt a Lunch.
u am tired of this world and ready to
go at any timethe sooner the better,n
slid the driver on a Fifth avenue car last
night a man of fifty years of age.
It seemef > the listener that this was a
strange remark from one of that class
which is supposed to have no human feel
ings and to be worthless to society except
as a machine wearing itself away without
oil for the benefit of the privileged few.
But a moment of conversation revealed
the curious fact that this man had feelings
like unto other men, and that the hopeless
ness of his life made death seem TO him a
boon. ~ Il {, .zg.s... ...a i;
For more than ten years he had been a
driver on Yanderbilt's street cars, and to-
day his wages buy him less of life's neces-
sities Comforts he dare not think of than
when he first began this daily round of
toll. -,5ss5S s#
He has wife and three children, the
fourth was mercifully removed by disease
which poverty breeds, With this little
family he lives in one room in a tenement
house, for which he pays $11 pei. month
for rent To meet this rent and buy his
family food, he works six days in the week
from eleven in the morning till twelve at
night thirteen dreary hours; and on the
seventh he rests? No! On the seventh
he works from $50 in the morning until
after II at night-nearly eighteen hours.
But of course he gets ample pay for all
of this labor? ,. .... -la N, ~.ys...
Yes, what the Tribune, OF the Times, OF
the Commercial (which thinks fifty cents
day more than a workingman earns),, or
the Herald considers ample pay. w.
What the whole band of American aris-
tocrats and their selfish, heartless organs
consider ample pay.
He gets $1.6O'a day six days in the week
and forty cents more on Sunday.
Eleven dollars and sixty cents for
ninety-six hours work. Twelve cents and
eight ninety-sixths of cent an hour.
Of this munificent weekly sum the
wages of one week in four must go for
rent Clothing, food, furniture, medicine,
everything must come out of the remain
der not large enough to buy Vanderbilt's
cheapest lunches!
Think of it you heartless fools, who
talk flippantly of the laziness and unthrift
of workingmen. We call you heartless
because that is what you are, and fools be-
cause you are inviting the bloodiest war OF
the poor against the rich that ever swept
over nation.
Think of it!
Behold this man toiling necessarily &C
hours out of 1853, leaving him but u to eat
and Sleep like the animal to which you
have reduced him. Is that an evil dence Of
laziness?
Behold him supporting wife and three
small children for week on S11.6O. Il
that unthrift?
And for what
Does the future hold outa hope for him
No! The past proves to his sorrowful sat
isfaction that the longer he lives and work.
the lower will be his wages and the highe
will be his rent.
Is there hope for his children? None
The thorny path that he treads spread
out before them.
He works for Vanderbilt and a landlord
Vanderbilt presses down his wages ant
erects costly buildings, buys magnifcen
paintings and tightens his grip on homes
capital and sweating labor; while the land
lord raises his rent and with the proceed
buys more land with which, like sponge
to soak more and ever more of the. earn
ings of the industrious.
Is it any wonder that this overworke
and underpaid man is tired of life? Is
any wonder if he wishes he and his Who'll
family might go through the Valley of tn
Shadow of Death together?
But there are hundreds like him, an
thousands in worse condition. Would
be any wonder if in their desperation, the
revolted against the authors of their mis-
cry? What may not men with familie
to support and reckless of life be expecte
TO do?
We warn the thought less revelers on tn
earnings OF the poor that the days of the
heartless jollity are approaching an en'
Whether that end shall be in peace or
blood must depend upon them.
The poor are too poor to battle for then
selves except as brutes battle their POI
erty has almost deprived them OF the Il
telligence to ever think for themselves.
Unless the middle class, recognizin
its own tendency to degenerate under IL
influence of the same conditions which al
reducing the lower order to a state of an
malism, shall interpose and discretely d
rect peaceable movement to elevate Il
condition of all, by securing to each Il
fruits of his labor, secret assassination
arson aid violent crime of every form wi
mark the beginning of another century ;
the bloodiest epoch in the history. of Il
world. .... s....s