The weekly Floridian. [volume] (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1867-19??, 1888-01-05

Commissioner Carroll Wright has submitted
to-she Secretary OF the Interior his third annual
report Of the Bureau Of Labor, which relates en-
tirely to The strks and lock outs for period Of
six years. This report is the result OF the frst
general Investigation Of the subject ever made,
is asyolnminou document Of many hundred
pages, and gives the details of every strike and
lockout 10 the United States during the period
above named. The number of strikes was 4,O10
and the whole number of employees involved
1918, GOA, whose lost wages amounted TO CSC 948 :
S82, and the loss to employers by stoppage Of
work was ga, fe4.s14. Thus the statistics prove
that while the striking system Is expensive for
all concerned il falls with nearly double weight
on the employes-in figures, but in fact with ten
fold weight, for they are many and are reduced
to want, while the employers are few End not In
want, their loss being merely what they are pre-
vented from making by the stoppage The
strikers received some assistance from Labor Or
CARNATIONS, but the total so contributed during
the six years was only $4.4ao SOS, and as this
came out of the pockets of workers it should be
added to, not deducted from, the $50, 940, 1852
loss of the working world. About forty per cent
of the strikes were for increase of wages, twenty
per cent. for reduction Of time of work hours,
and the balance against increase OF hours and
against reduction of wages. In majority of cases
the strikers failed in their object.
The result of this most useful investigation
supplies great and convincingly instructive les
son. for its plain figures are before all the people,
and whether in the ranks of labor or of capital
they are taught that strikes don't pay-pay
neither employe or employer, and that their diff.
ferences should be settled some other way. 1t
impresses the wisdom aud justice of the better
course, which is avoidance ofthe causes that lead
crs by stoppage Of work show that they were max
ing too much money, and could have paid better
wages and thus prevented the discomfort that
ended in striking. From the figures it appears
that the comparatively few employers were clear
ing profits amounting to more than half the total
wages of the many employees. In some indus
tries this might not be too much. considering the
amount of capital involved and number of hands
employed, but it is entirely too much profit on
the aggregate labor employed in nations man
ufacturng industries and these are fairly repre-
sented as a whole in the statistics, which go TO
prove that the tendency under the system of tar
if protection has been to make the poor poorer
and the rich richer rapidly that capital has be-
come autocratic and labor rebellious, aud hence
the desperate and expensive warfare which has
been waged for years, and which will coniue I'M
til tariff reform strikes at the root of the evil
1t is fact proved years ago by the figures of
official Investigations that the wages paid in the
industries that are most protected average far
less than in others. This fact was discovered by
Republican officials working under Republican
administration, but they would not acknowledge
that il was because they were highly protected,
though they could give no other reason. They
chung to their protective tariff platform because
they had no other to cling to, and it is all they
have now, rotten as it is, to 60 into this years
campaign wih-a campaign which will end in
the disastrous overthrow of the opponents of
Cleveland and national democratic policy
Referring to the Bureau of Labor we would
mention, as a matter of personal interest to
many readers, that Capt. James F. Tucker, one
of Florda's sterling democrats, is an official
the statistics from which we have quoted. His
department of service embraces several South
ern States, extending from Florida to Texas, in
elusive His present work is the collection of
Bureau of Labor by instruction of Congress.