Wood River times. [volume] (Hailey, Idaho) 1882-1915, 1885-02-25
MINERS WAGES.
SANDUsKY,O O., Feb. IA, 10

NN~S On O'S ACOs Az 1000
To THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES:
l read your printed paper every week,
and am always surprised to see how
good paper you afford IN that little
snow. bound valley of Mood River.
Far back East again I REGAL! with
pleasure the summers spent upon its
lofty "Ssw. tooth" mountains in 1880
and 1884. l want to see it rot only
prosperous, but VERY prosperous; yet,
from what l learn in the TIMES, there
is bad state of things there NOW.
You are evidently friend of high
wages to miners. All ooMsiderate
men are. Miners work, whero it is
square work and not ''sojering," re-
quires as good a mixture of muscle
and brain as any l know. But miners
cannot, any more than any other men,
ignore the laws of business. When
there is surplus of wheat the price
drops, and the farmer is cut to the
quick. But he can't tell the miner /:
4'You've got to pay me Sc hundred,
for that's the old price," The miner
would laugh at farmer or merchant
who would try to keep flour up to the
price of few years ago. Common
sense tells him the merchant CAN Az
FORD to sell -four cheaper when wheat
is down.
To-day all the necessaries of life in
Haley are selling at from one half to
ene-fourth of the prices that formerly
ruled in most mining camps; yet the
Miners Union is trying to keep up the
same wages that ruled in such camps
years ago. They are trying to make
their own trade an exception to all
others; for while wages and the cost
of living have decreased proportion.
ately all over the United States, the
miners alone imagine themselves en-.
titled to exceptional advantages among
wage.workers. see no more justice
in the claim than for baker to keep
the price OF bread up to the $40 rate
for -four, after flour has dropped to s..
Whoever gets So, steady wages, in
a safe mine near HALEY, if he wastes
no money in drink, can support pru.
dent wife and children, pay hospital
and other forms OF miners insurance,
and lay up money. l have had thirty
years. cxperience,not in hiring miners,
but in selling homes to working men,
and have found that they who quick
est get through paying for them, and
out of debt, are, in nearly every case,
men who get STEADY WORK Ar Low
WAGES, and who make the "gude wife"
tho custodian of all the money, and
responsible for all household payments
And the most unthrifty, and always
overhead. and ears.in.deb men, are
they who get big wages spasmodically.
There is neither money, comfort, OF
any other good result in changing off u
around saloons or incumbering wives
hearths waiting for big wages, and
losing more time and money in lazy
sulking and swearing one-h half the year
than the best wages will make up the
ether half. l have not single &C.
quaintance among the owners of the
Minnie Moore and Queen of the West
mines, but when l read in the TINES
that those fine properties are closed
because the owners will not pay miners
81 per day, know the miners have a
bad case of the "big head" 1t hurts
the whole country, but no single per.
sons SO much rs themselves. They
show themselves practicing the part Of
Irish landlords, instead Of the common
"Iive and let live" sense of Ameri.
cans.
! venture to say that there are to-
day fifty mines within ten miles of the
Wood River that might be pouring
out steady little streams of pay-rolls a
$3.50 per day for laborcrs and $3.50
per day for miners, which are at thi.
moment covered with untracked snow
These attempts to make wage.cor
ners which the Miners Union cap
tains are fooling their men in, result
principally in fat saloon-keepers, sh;v
ering and hungry women and chill
dren, and red.nosed rummies. Mod
crate wages and busy miners are wha
make the pleasant homes.
PLAIN Truth.