The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-02-25

scnool 20 help earn the common means Oh
living. while the wives keep boarders or make
overalls In Providence, Rhode Island, it re-
quires one hundred and thirteen persons to sup
port one capitalist, and in Berlin the proportion
is one hundred and one to one. He did not be-
lieve that short hours would encourage intern
perance Statistics prove otherwise. 1t is shown
that whore eight hours exists as the days labor,
drunkenness is rare, while the ten-hour system
is prolific in intoxication. Mr. Smith was fre-
quently interrupted by applause and cheers
Miss Grace lowering. with the Glee Club CIV
ing the chorus, sang '"The Star-spangled Ban
ner," which added to the enthusiasm of the hour.
THE REMARKS OF Mr.. ROSS.
Morris Ross was then introduced He read the
first pages Of his address with difficulty. as he
still suffered from a weeks Illness, but as he
reached the merit of his argument, the audience
gave him the closest attention. and often rounded
off his neatly turned periods with energetic ap-
plause Mr. Ross said:
We are each of us and all consciously or un-
consciously striving for the betterment OF the
workingman The cause that opposed this
couldn't live. for it would be opposing the two
forces that make and mark this age-the age OF
reason and machinery. Reason and machinervp
Seek definition of ths modern workingman in
his complete expression and you shall not find
one better than that.
This, then, is his age, its chief forces working
type; and he is coming to his own! He is coming
to think and live like man, not live and sweat
like horse, and he Graves for his children
higher ideals. That has been characteristic
glory of the American workingman. Hehas not
much believed in the religion of Estates of life
unto which it pleases God to call people"
To improve this state for himself his chill
dren ne will change custom and invoke law. He
may ask of law for those of tender years protec-
ton. that they may go free from toll. He may ask
Co. ~1E I'LL Il
botches, and, therefore, such care Of the appren-
tice as shall make true workman of him. he
may ask of law that money be paid him for his
labor, not store orders-"pluck-m me" stores, they
call them in Pennsylvania. He may ask of law
that eight hours shall be days workout not
yet, pershaps. He may not want it. He would
fix it as a custom first. But have you noticed
how constantly this eighthour project is re-
ferred to as 1.-THE eight-hour law2' There is a
significance in that To the objection that such
commodity whose price is fixed by supply and
demand. it may be said that the same is urged
as to money, yet we fix the price of money by
law at per cent, for example; and where that
hasn't made the figure it has knocked per cent
out of the current rate, fetching it from 10 to g.
But there are other answers Every healthy
NAN has seventy-six Of them a minute they are
the pulses of his lifes blood, which cry out that
labor is something more than commodity; and
never more was it this something more than in
wrought the division Of labor-and the division
of the laborer!
The old-time shoemaker, who kept garden,
and whose wife spun and wove, could keep him
self during time when there might be no de-
mand for his commodity. He has given place to
the factory hand who does nothing but make
shoes-no! | mean parts of shoes. Machinery
hath done this. If you train men-ranks and
hies of them-in vast armies to nothing but
sewing soles on shoe, or buttons on coat, you
urr. nd rift vyhn N
further need of the one thing that has all their
lives absorbed all their knowledge and skill.
The society that has caused this is bound in the
nature OF things, to sustain these men to the
extent that its demands have kept them from
being self sustaining.
If it used to take nine tailors to make
man, it now takes nine men to make tailor.
Machinery hath done this. The thing to do then
is-combine. It is simple Arithmetic Cutters,
htters. lasters, hnishers, must combine to form
the complete shoemaker. He must combine with
the complete tailor, and the complete carpenter
and builder and complete locksmith and tin
smith-these each made up of ranks and files
and factories Of men who do parts of the trade
until the complete workman. self-sustaining,
is produced. The division of labor means the
combination of laborers-inevitably.
The eieht-hour proposition labor approaches in
good faith 1t is not intended to establish it and
then strike Sound political economy, not sharp
practice, is contemplated. These men now idle,
then at work. will have wherewith to spend for
food and clothes. One man for every Ave taken
from the mass Of idlers now supported at the gen.
eral expense and added to the ranks of the pro-
ducers will stimulate trade with the butcher
and the baker" who. in turn. will increase bust
ness for the candlestick- maker, and thus there
will be an improvement all along the line, which,
In Its turn ought in the nature of things to work
an increase in the profits of capital and the wages
of labor
Improvement will come, too, from the better
quality Of the work. Who does not feel that
the workman, with freshened brain and Drawn
from two hours more of rest, can do better
workl The best work in the world was done in
normal working day of eight hours-the build
ing of the latter part of the Middle ages-and
Thorold Rogers. who has gone deeper into this
subject than most men, says: Employers are
very likely to discover that the laborer's resist
ance to an excessively long day was not entirely
personal, and that the work might suffer from
tn workman's WEAKNESS and exhaustion"
asked an intelligent workingman who hears
me now, to give me his notions of the eight hour
movement. He wrote
!. This movement Is brought about by i'm
proved machinery and the displacement of labor
by such machinery; to counteract this we must
have shorter hours.
q Again, man has only certain amount of
vital force to expend. This is almost, if not en-
tirely, exhausted in ten hours labor This alone
should cause the adoption of eight hours.
B. 1t would also be agrand temperance move
ment Men begin to drink. not from the love of
liquor, but to stimulate themselves after ex-
haustive toll to further exertion. Give men and
women eight hours and they will soon cease to
want alcoholic drink to keep up artificial
strength.
Why try to begin this thing or the first Of
Mays is fully answered by the retort nterroga-
tive "Why not?" A date does not make it arbi-
trary The sun crosses the line at certain Sec
ond, but it is approaching it one way and anosh-
er half the year. Labor has been approaching
this day for half century. Fifty years ago we
worked thirteen hours day in our factories
Massachusetts fgures) The German and the
French factory hands to-day work seventy-two
and seventy-eight hours week. They are
where we were then. We have come thence
gradually to eleven hours and. three years ago,
TO ten hours q day. Switzerland has
CONS to eleven hours, and attests
the great moral improvement among
the workmen as the result. Fifty years ago
Englands cotton factory week was reduced from
seventy-four hours to sixtynine. Thence il
came to sixty and since 1884 has been fiftusix