Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-09-08
OF THE week.
Interesting News Compilation.
INVESTIGATING STRIKES.


INVESTIGATING STRIKES.
ISession in New York City of the United States
Senate Subcommittee on Labor and Edu-
cation.i
Richard Powers, of Chicago, President of
the Seamen's Union of the Lakes, stated on
the 21st that the Union he represented had
improved the moral condition OF its members;
had secured for them higher wages, and is
now striving to procure the passage of laws
tending to diminis the risk to life incurred
by lack of sailors, by prohibiting the overload
man them with suitable crews. A great num-
bero of lake vessels, he said, were u%nseaworthy.
law should be passed, he urged. providing
that at least two-thirdso of the sailors employed
on American vessels should be native-born
Americans.
George G. Block, as a representative of the
fed that the condition of the bakers was a
very degraded one on account of the long
hours they were compelled to labor. They
begin work at two p. M, and continue until
four, five, six and eight a. m. The greater
number are unmarried. The average wages
are $500 a week. The bakers struck some
work, a days labor. The bosses agreed to
this; but when the men returned to work the
stated pteesi' that sat'" of "st the waiter Walters " employed R,Sedd
in lager-beer saloons many are Prussian army
officers, German noblemen and Russian
to b51 make a nf Fortune tune t b but tn Who oo foana e CHS their
only means to gain a living. Speaking of the
brewers, Mr.. Block said there are in New
about 1900 men; a tradcs-union was organized
in 1881; shortly after there was a strike for a
decrease of hours to twelve per day and ex-
strike was won by the men. Wages range
from $50 to 500 per month.
Adolph Strasser, President of the Cigar
makers international Union, read statistics
showing the average rate of wages. in his
trade in this country, and the cost of living.
These showed that where there was an or
ganization of the workmen Il much larger
were unorganized; highest rate paid, sixteen
S Sinee 1861 g T there had ens b esMes sss a Strikes eG in the
cigar business. OF these 2o7 had been won,
1877 lost, twelve compromised. One strike
lasted ten months, and was finally COM
promised. These strikes actually cost $780,
wages of the workmen of $4,000 per annum:
There were 1S5 branches of the international
Union in this country and Canada. and a mem
bership of $4,000. Strasser suggested. for leg
%islatiye measures which would tend to miti-
eral in this country. the enforcement of a
National eight-hour law, the Incorporation of
labor organizations, and the placing of them
establishment of a National Bureau of Labor
Statistics, and an amendment to the Revenue
law providing that after May, 1884, no license
should be granted to cigar manufacturers en-
ploying prison Or penitentiary labor.
Henry George was examined on the ed.
In answer to the question whether he could
present any facts on the subject Of labor,
he replied that facts could be better obtained
from w%orkingmen themselves; there was one
general fact. however, that a feeling of ex-
IRENE dissatisfaction existed among the labor
ing classes; their condition is not Improving
with the increased prosperity of the country:
there is, in his opinion. no, direct conflict be-
and monopoly; wages in each employ
ment are governed by certain circumstances,
but they must all depend upon the wages
obtained in the most productive industry in
the country, and here this industry is agri-
culture; wages are higher in new countries,
because the soil has not passed so largely into
private hands, and wages win not sink on an
average below what a man can get by apply
ing his labor to the soil. There is no such
ton, although, there may be special over-
productions. the secret is. there is UNI
Reproduction, in something else, and
labor can not obtain work and thus get
the means of paying for the articles it needs.
This state of things arises from the difficulty
in obtaining access to the natural sources of
land, which, as the country becomes more
thickly settled, becomes a subject of land mo-
nopoly. Vast tracts of land in the West are
becoming owned by a few private individuals,
Homestead laws, which aim at giving every
man q home, have, in many instances, had just
should be- under control j Of the Gove pn9leIs.
1t would be managed much more cheaply, and
it would to q great extent supersede the postal
SCENlCC. AL lHlpTOVCLucuJS IlAUC III JCIHK.
raphy would then directly benefit the public.
The Associated Press, in connection with the
western Union Company, has been the means
the public press to take q stand adverse to the
telegraphers. Neither capital nor labor now
gets its fair share of their joint product, the
great portion going to landowners.
Charles Frederick Adams, a Brooklyn law.
yer, appeared before the committee on the
23d. He said he was of the school Of econo
mists led by Prof's. Fawcett and Cairns
He proposed to prevent absolute depend.
ence on wages by restricting m~onopolistic
franchises. Such franchises should be given
for fixed terms, at the end Of which they
should be thrown open to competition. The
witness favored the establishment Of postaI
savings banks and the sale by them of small
Edward King. of the Central Labor Union,
said that. as a rule, the law was always on the
side OF OF e c1Ip1n l.h He tho though aan;t it would sl only be
own battles, like pugilists in the ring, and
without interference.
P. H. McLOgan, representative of Chicago
in the Trade and Labor Union then in session
in New York, testified on the 24th. He said
twenty-four trades were represented in the
Trades Assembly, embracing seventeen thou
sand workingfnen; that he had been really
benefited by trades-unions, and was now re
ceiving one dollar a day more than before the
d 4r n OF unions IN Chicago. The wages
ten or twelve years ago. Witness opposed the
convict-labor system. In Chicago a number
of children are at work, he said, who should
be at school. Higher wages tend
to produce a better and more Intelligent
class of citizens. There was a general feeling
among laboring men that capitalists were
trying to grind them down. In answer to q
question by Senator Blair. witness said that
the disbelievers in evangelical faith largely
Outnumbered the believers.
m. d. Connolly, q printer, President of the
Enthusiastically in Cincinnati, spoke against
the employment of children Of tender wears,
Trades-unions benefited not only their mem
bers but all engaged in work, and witness did
not think it an infringement upon the rights
OF any one for trades-unions to prevent him
from learning a trade. If all were permitted to
learn certain trades, the result would be high
~ Injurious to every one working at them.
William c. Palmer, of Cleveland, a cigar
maker, testified: In 1880 the cigar-makers of
Cleveland were getting from six dollars to
seven dollars a week. The union organized
and wages were raised to an average of nine
dollars a week. Palmer did not think it for
the interest of morality that men and women
should work together in the same shop, and
the t~rades-unions are now endeavoring to
bring about a reform in that respect. The
hours of labor should be reduced, and the
workman should receive the whole of the in
creased value of the product of his labor. de.
Quoting from it only the cost of the raw ma.
terial and fair interest on the capital invested.
A. D. Brock, of Washington, printer. and
President of the Confederation OF. Trades
Unions in that city, testified at length as to
the evils resulting to the laboring classes from
the custom of Woforinp ctoolc nv, +hn ,;J.o.