The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1886-04-23
Robert Hamilton Backs up Eis
Views.


To the Editor Of the Commercial Gazette
have been for twenty-five years
an employer of men, and in that time
have given considerable thought and
personal attention to the wants and to
the interest Of my employees.
In the last few years ! have seen
ard felt the tendency among manu-
features and employers to reduce to
lowest limit instead of maintaining the
wages OF their employees. There has
been rothing in the condition of
affairc which has demanded the many
reductions made in wages, but they
have been brought about almost en-
tirely by reckless and uncalled for
reductions in prices of various manu-.
featured commodities An investiga-
ton will show that the most startling
cuts in prices in all lines of business,
are made by firms who pay a low
scale of wages, and these are the firms
that damage the interests of other
men in business, and are the primary
cause of our labor troubles every
where.
There is nothing that contributes so
largely to the prosperity Of the entire
country as good, honest, liberal wages
received by employees, and if at once
a simultaneous movement were made
by employers to carefully revise their
pay rolls and make such increase as
will give to each and all in their en-
ploy decent living or more, if doing
so necessitates an advance in values
the public l believe stands ready to
pay such advanced prices as the step
might render necessary, and the
question Of capital and labor is solved
at once. While l am the heaviest
shipper in my line out of Cincinnati,
l will pledge my myself, if any rail
road President places his hand on his
supposed heart and says he can not
raise wages beyond the present scale
paid without advancing rates of freight
| for one will pay the advanced rates
cheerfully. And if any branch of in
duslry which l patronize, after adj
vancing the wages of underpaii en-
ployes, finds it necessary TO make adj
vanced prices on their goods, l will
continue my patronage of the firms
who do so, and believe in upholdinP
any organization which lawfully works
towards forcing employers to take
this course. The laborers Of 10 day
have a right to the handling of a
larger amount of the wealth of this
country than they are permitted to,
and in the present agitation am
avowedly on the side of the Knights
of Labor, believing the consummation
Of their objects will be largely to the
general welfare.
The dollars paid to wage workers
quickly find their way through the
avenues of trade, being promptly
placed in circulation. fin the coming
month the pay of the bread earners
was increased an average of ten per
cent there would be hundred
tattered and faded gowns so to the
rag men, and replaced by as many
new ones. a hundred thousand pairs
of shoes badly needed would in the
first month be bought, and many a
worn out and unsafe stove would find
its way TO the junk pile and the stove
dealer. The dry goods dealers, the
jobbers, the cotton mills, the foun-
dries, all would feel the new impetus
to business, and the thrill OF revived
industry would go through the entire
country. l am tired Of seeing EN-
ployers persist in taking the wrong
course by banding together to hold
the price of labor down. A contin
uance Of such policy will place our
country in the situation of my earlier
home, where potatoes are sixpence a
bushel, but no one has the sixpence.
Better for employers to band together
and with their workmen to uphold
prices and wages and the labor riddle
is soon solved.
| am ready to meet the tobacco
manufacturers of the United States
for the purpose of forming uniform
scale of living wages for employees in
our line of business; and to more
fully maintain my ideas expressed on
the labor question, and 10 set an ex-
ample tor others to follow, have this
day advanced the wages of all my en-