Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-11-24

than heretofore; it might, perhaps. have
been more condensed, and we are certain
there ought to have been more exhaustive
research. Neither the people nor legis-
lators viii give that attention to long
and heavy official report that any docu-
ment from State department ought to
receive But the third biennial report Of
labor statistics Is SO muck an improve
meat upon the preceding reports that We
can afford TO express hearty qualification.
We must confess that'our faith in the
reports of these bureaus as educators of
public sentiment is not great, because Of
the uniform failure to give them to the
people. II the facts gathered in them, no
matter how unmethodicaIly, could be
generally read by the public, there
would result much good, for out
of knowledge of conditions alone
can remedies for their ills come, or
the falsity of claims be established. But
the usual official report is not read by one
per cent. of the people; the SO trust to the
brief references made TO them In news
papers. Possibly half the members of the
Legislature study the reports, and arrive
at conclusions that become convictions;
the other halt, it can be safely assumed, do
not even scan official reports that extend
beyond fifty pages. A few hundred copies
are printed, and half the number can
usually be found, years after, piled up in
the Z timber land of official repositories.
To give effect TO the value of such reports
as that before us, there ought to be some
means of getting the more striking facts
disclosed and the conclusions reached be-
fore the mass of the people in brief and
understandable form. We should then have
public thought upon the subjects and
public debate, and by the attrition of
minds there would be developed methods
OF improvement and progress.
There is no social and scarcely any state
subject that is of profounder interest than
:" the condition of the wage-earners of
America-their habits, rewards, organize
tions and surroundings, and the effect of
the same upon civilization" In fact, it
may be said to involve the problem of the
age, embracing, as it does, the questions of
cooperation; of strikes as remedies for
real orapparent injustice; of trade union
ism of manual training and trade schools;
of building and loan associations; of the
working of children; of combinations to
" lock OUT" of labor values, including
wages, and the division of the earnings of
labor and capital the laws relating to
accidents in factories; the question of the
hours of labor; the wisdom or impolicy OF
governmental interference in the contract
between employees and employed; of APP
premiership; of the physical and social
conditions of the various classes of laborers
and skilled workers; of female workers,
and the exactions made of them of the
treatment and the social condition of work
ingmen generally Of domestic service; of
savings and benevolent institutions of the
relation of the liquor traffic to the condi-
ton of the workers of the country; of the
importation of foreign-born mechanics; of
the causes of prostitution, and many other
equally as important topics, upon which
the State ought to be authoritatively adj
vised.
We are convinced that in this matter of
gathering and presenting labor statistics
and comparing them with similar research
in other States and countries the State can
derive q great deal of good. But il is
money and effort thrown away Unless there
is almost perfection of machinery and
broad liberality in appropriation of means.
If California is to continue the work of
inquiry into labor and social conditions
and we believe it ought to for publicity
sake alone, as that is in itself of corrective
power-it ought to do ten-fold better than
allowing the statistician $500 for all his
contingent expenses, which must include
his postal, stationery, Office, lights and
fuel expenditures, and travelling expenses
in search of facts, for it has been demon
strated in Massachusetts, and elsewhere
that they cannot all be obtained through
correspondence. The State should either
abandon the Bureau or it ought to so
completely equip it with intelligent agents
and the machinery for probing all the
questions upon which it touches that the
results would be exhaustive, ineontro-
vertlble, and the basis for the policy of the
State and society in any position they may
assume upon the questions treated. Massa-
chusetts and Michigan expend $4,000
annually for the contingents of the work
New York nearly $1,000, and even so
small State as New Jersey gives 81, 200 a
year to equip her Statistical Bureau.
These and similar examples ought to re-
suit in the dropping of the whole matter
unless we can afford to well and thoroughly
do the work