Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1885-06-21

me during those three years of 8 hour en-
toreement. / could go to night school, pre-
pare my studies, visiG the library aud utilize
these two hours in many ways which under
the ten hour system would never have been
possible.
But carpenters having gained the victory
began to neglect the organization which en-,
Abled them to do so. They sent their dues
instead Of bringing them, they found the
weather too, hot, too cold, too rainy, or too
nice to go TO their trade meeting and before
long, nothing remained of that grand Or
ganization but the skeleton. The conse,
quences which naturally followed have
taught q bitter lesson and to-day the car
penters numbering $500. working under the
3 hour rule, will never again so fookshly de-
stroy By negligence and lose by lazyaess
what took such = hard struggle to attain.
Is it not reasonable to- demand reduction
of hours to eight, when ten hours produce
q so-callsd overprodueEion? If in ten hours
We produce too much, why not work lessH
"YCs" some say, I'VE can't get along
sven under ten, how much less under eight"
To these objections / reply, Why not
work II, II, Is hours then2 Would that
give you more money! Look at the Street
Car Driver, the bakers, the butcher, the
brewers, the cotton mills of MASSACHUSETTS,,
Rhode Island, and Connecticut. They work
II, Ia and Is hours q day and their wages
are lower than ours. They have neglected
organization. In 1876, when | was in Law
renee, trying TO orgsnizs the wesyers and
spinner they were earning Sl,S4 q day.
They thought they could get no lover aud
said, ave sre too poor to maintain an or
s~anization."
Last March / again visited Lawrence and
met some of the very men who in 1876,
were making only 81 35 q day, and too poor
to maintain an organization. In the inter
val they had been cut down to
EIGHTY FIVE CENTS A DAY,
and were working eleven hours at that. They
were not too poor 10 lose 90 cents = day,
three dollars q week, twelve dollars a month,
yet they had thought themselves unable to
pay so cents a month to q union.
Since 1910, when President Van Buren,
issued his proclamation enforcing the eight
hour law on all public works, and when soon
aiterwsrd this standard became general,
there has been an immense
INCREASE n ~LABoR-sAvrSG MACHINERY.
/ i have in my hand q paper containing q
lecture on Displacement of Labor BY Ma
chinery" read before the Social Science As
ISOLATION in 1878 at Cincinnati. 1t shows
the immense strides our industries have
been making, and yet with all this vast in
crease in productive power, we still jog
along with the same ten-hour workday.
Formerly il was all two men could do to
pillow one and q half acres q day; to-day FIVE
and six acres can be plowed by q single
TAI with the improved plows.
The sowing by hand from q bag is noW
superseded BY a machine which does three
times the work and far better.
The ripe grain which formerly was cut
down with 8 hand sickle al the ate of one
foerth of an acre per day per man is now
with a resping machine at the rate Of
twenty or more acres day, and then they
worked fifteen hours and now only ten
hours.
Our fathers would store away the wheat
in bars with the prospect Of plenty of winter
work before them for themselves and the
boys. Now machines in the field do in q
few hours all the threshing, ~winnowing. ETC.,
and in q few hours the grain is ready for
market.
In California, machines are used which
cut, bind, thresh, winnow and sack the grain
so that the filed bags appear, where, but q
few moments ago, stood the golded grain
untouched.
Our fathers found it a hard days work to
hoe halfan acre; now q boy will seat him
self upon the cultivator and work an acre
an hour. doing as much as twenty houes.
Our fathers, By hard work, could shell
twenty bushels OF corn a day by rubbing the
a r on q shovels edge. Now two men
will take the c~oru-sheller and shell twenty
four bushels an hour or 240 bushels in a
short day. With the improved horse power
machines two men will shell 1900, 1000 or
5000 bushels a day, counting ten hours.
To-day one man, by the aid Of machinery,
can produce twenty times s much food as
our fathers did, yet there is no proportionste
increase in consumption. Our fathers re-
uuired as many ounces Of food as we do.
The farm offered constant employment to
the sons and daughters of the farmer. Now
there is work only for a few weeks or
months, and for steadier work the younger
generation hocks to the towns and cities.
Our mothers and sisters were kept busy
spinning the fax, prepared by their bus
bands and fathers. Now the spinning,
csrding and weaving machines turn out q
hundred fold more cloth than under the old
process. The knitting machine in the
hands of our little girl will do fifty times
the work knit by our grandmothers.
Our fathers cut their lumber with whip
saws, made and dressed it for doors, vain
scoting, worked out mouldings, ornaments,
etc, BY hand. They moulded the bricks IN
the same way. A house carpenter could
then build and finish 9 house from sill to
ridge pole, and had al the tools to do 1t
with.
Now machinery makes the bricks, saws
the logs, the planning machine does the
tonguing and growing, the moulding ma
chine makes the moulding, the doors, win
dows, blinds, shingles-eyerything Is done
by machinery. 1t does nine tenths OF the
labor and muscle the lite remainder.
line ClrCQAhE SaN uOCo v
than can be done in ten hours with a hand
saw the planning machine will do as much
as fifteen or twenty men with hand planes;
in cutting mortises and making lemons, one
man with a machine will do the work OF
ten men by the old methods. All the facts
show
DISPLACEMENT OF NINETY PER CENT
of human labor by machinery in our great
building interests. ,.
could go on and illustrate in detail the
improvements introduced since io4O INTO
sboemaking, in matchmaking, in street
OTadinV, sweeping and digging and in min
Ing, but each branch would be a repetition
Of what has already been presented. Ho"
can human labor reap any benefit from this
Sreat increase in machinery, except the
hours of be cut down! Why work at tul
sDeed, every muscle on the stretch, every
movement ouickened, pushing, grazing on
q 20 az mora hours and then hstless,