Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-09-02
The WaKe-Earner's Proportion.
We propose to review the statement nj

We propose to review the statement of
the Honorable Tom Fitch that Sin many
instances 80 per cent of the article manu-
factured is the value of the labor that
made it" in the light of statistics. The
figures which follow are taken from the
Census reports OF 1880. 1t will be re-
membered that General Francis A.
Walker was Superintendent of the Ce n
sus for the year 1880, and that through
the strenuous efforts of the workingmen
OF the Union, Congress appropriated a
fund of $1,000, 900 to be used by the SUI
perintendent of the Census in the pre-
paration OF special reports bearing upon
industrial matters. Francis Amasa
Walker, erst editor of the Springfield Re
publcan-li his father before him-is
writer on political economy, and the at
torney OF capital. The vast sum
appropriated for the industrial reports
brought forth elaborate results, but the
bias of the able Superintendent made
every report where labor and capital
came into conflict, or juxtaposition, lean
in favor Of the corporations. 1t there
fore remains that the figures of the Cen
sus report upon industrial matters may
be taken without reservation as being
absolutely fair to capital and never in
favor of the wage Garner.
The Census returns for 1880 furnish
the following summary Of the manufac-
turing industry OF the United States:
NJ mber OF establishments 253, $40
Aggregate capital ........... 5000 223. 500
Total value OF products ts...-.... 5369,667 200
Value of material used. 1894 $40 900
Total wages paid id..,........... 9479I e, 500
Profit TO capital l............... 1927, ,4OS. 100
Thus. instead OF 80, so or % per cent.
even, labor receives only about is per
cent. of the value of all manufactures
produced in the United States. The
HERALD challenges the silver-tongued
orator to name single article of manu-
facture which gives to labor SO per cent.
OF its value.
The statistics above fail to show that
large part of the earni gs of labor which
is returned to capital directly and with
out compensation through the profits of
the factory stores, tenelnents and board
ing houses owned by the employing COR
porations. This system of drawing back
the wages paid and which Commissioner
Wright, of the National Bureau of Labor
Statistics, characterizes as extortion, will
probably reduce the actual labor value
of manufactures to 10 per cent. the
exact amount which the corporations
claim is the maximum amount of their
profits.
The latter claim is correlative to wage
returns, and can be shown to be equally
fallacy. According to the table before
given, labor receives 4S per cent. of the
profits, as represented by wages, and
capital so per cent, or return of 81 per
cent. on its investment. Let us see the in
crease of profit to labor from the time of a
low tariff in 1850 to the war tariff of 1880.
The percentage of increase in thirty years
was:
Total value of products. ......... ......... .427
Product per capita. Observation-Disclosures. 40
Material used per capita. observation-disclosures. 81
Wages paid per capita. ............. 49,. Ga
Profit to capital, per capita. ............... 20
The above statistics show an enormous
increase of the total value of products,
and corresponding increase of product
per capita and of material used per
capita. These latter results come from
the increased use of labor-saving ma
chinery-and here comes the lay of the
capitalist again. Within the past fifteen
years, or since 1878, the mechanical re-
sources of the United States-the horse
power of mechanism-has doubled, hav-
ing risen from 100000 to 4,500,0 900.
Now, one-horse power is estimated the
equivalent OF ten men; SO that thus,
within these fifteen years, there has been
added to the resources of the capitalists,
who own the enginery of our country,
the strength of tpenty.taco million slaoes.
But the startling lines are the two last in
the table which show, with all this
enormous increase of capital and re.
sources and Of manufacturing values and
production, that the wages paid per
capita increased only GA per cent. while
the profits to capital increased 20 per
cent. Thus does protection protect labor |!
MISTER HOGAN, the orator, was again