San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-03-20
CLERKS AND THEIR PAY.
A CHICAGO MAN SAYS THEY ARE
SUBJECT TO ECONOMIC LAW.
Merchants Prefer Three Clerks to Two for
the Same neutrality-suspicious. In
crease in the Number of Distributors.
Supply and Demand.

Clerks constitute one of the most numerous
classes of a great city's population, and their
types, manner of life, duties and temptations
make an ever interesting subject for study
Thousands of men and women are today
penned in behind the counters of innumerable
establishments in Chicago weighing, meaSur
ing, answering sensible and senseless queS
tions and cultivating habits of courteous ad
dress for their own and their employers in
terest-and the majority of them for pit
lance wholly disproportionate, it is said, to
the duties required and the services rendered
The connection between clerk hire and crime
and immortality, the responsibility Of employ
ers for the hardships and slips of their en-
ployes, the physical mental and moral con-
sequences of what clerks as a class have to
undergo, are thus matters of vital Importance
to the students of social science. Said gen
tleman yesterday in reference to this phase OF
city life:
SIGNIFICANT FIGURES.
Most of what people term the abnormal
features of social development find their ex
PLANTATION in private motives, in the innate
desires of individual citizens; and hold that
clerks themselves are primarily responsible
for what are commonly set forth as wrong
and hardships. The wages for services are
not essentially different from the price of
commodities. Supply and demand regulate
both. An abundant supply or an unusually
strong demand means invariably rise in
wages, and the reverse means a fall.
Now let me give you few facts. From
all appearances there is little or no difference
between the present decade of our history in
respect to popular sentiment, and the decade
preceding. Hence, the facts of the one period
are approximately true for the other. From
1870 to 1880 the gross increase of the popula-
ton of the United States was zoos per cent.
During this same period agriculturists in
creased in almost exactly the same ratio as
the general increase Manufacturers and
miners increased in number AZ per cent
while professional men and those engaged in
personal service show an increase of SO per
cent. Our farmers, manufacturers and
miners are practically our only wealth pro
ducers, and we find their average percentage
of increase to be sc. Thus we have SO per
cent. increase of wealth distributors merely
handling the products of SO per cent. in
crease of wealth producers for 80 per cent.
general increase of population.
These figures, think, are very significant
What is more, they only tell half the story.
During the last decade-and the present will
yield equally surprising results when the
census of 1890 is taken-farm laborers in
creased only Is per cent, in the face Of 50
per cent general increase, and domestic
servants only 10 per cent, while general
clerks and copyiSts show 3l5 per cent. in
crease, clerks in hotels and restaurants l07
per cent. increase, walters and porters $50
per cent. increase, and laborers about stores
and warehouses an S13 per cent increase
Now, from the very nature of things, what
must be the inevitable result of such a state
of affairs upon a vast number of the popula-
ton of cities' Simply small wages, irregular
employment, and often privation and conse-
quent wronG!oipg. $685.. 80.