Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-08-01
LSHELNG R0AnS -NONEY

ISSUING BOG Us HONEY.
Among the many bills introduced
into the house Of representatives of the
Twenty-Grst legislature was one to pro-
hIbit the owners OF works where large
numbers OF operatives are employed from
| paying their employees in checks. The
bill was introduced by Capt. Dawson OF
Trinity, who explained that the owners
of big mills and other manufacturing
establishments were in the habit
of paying their employees with
/ checks, to the great Inconvenience
and considerable loss of said employees.
The bill was looked upon by some Of the
/ able statesmen in the house as a very
/ funny thing, and when 1t came up for
/ consideration they proceeded to have
ments were tackled on by men who
/ thought il funny to be smart, and when
! Mr. Ousley of Denton moved to postpone
/ the bin until the Fourth of July the mo-
/ ton was carried unanimously, even
/ Capt. Dawson himself being too much
surprised and Disguised to vote against it.
! The men who voted against that bill
! simply did not understand it. Some of
them thought it was meant to prohibit
| operators from paying their employees
! with bank checks, and in their profound
/ Ignorance voted to Kill it without wait
/ ing 10 have their darkened understand
Ings enlightened.
/ \ great many mining, milling
ana other establishments are in
/ the habit of issuing checks call
/ ING for various amounts from
City cents up to $40. These checks are
made with figures printed on the margin
/ designating various amounts from one
/ cent to 81, the sum of all these figures
! being the face value Of the check. They
/ are payable in goods at the company
| store, and when an employe makes a
purchase the clerk punches out figures
on the check equaling the amount Of
! the purchase.
y more pernicious system was never
adopted
The check is good nowhere but at the
store OF the company, and there only in
! goods sold usually at higher
figure than cash customer would
have to pay elsewhere. It amounts
/ i'll effect to compelling the en-
| ploye to work for board and clothes for
! his family He gets nothing to save, and
| if he makes good wages he can
only lay up an accumulation of
/ store checks. As consequence, habits
| of improvidence grow upon him; in flush
| times he spends all he makes, and when
| work is duh he must stint himself and his
family.
/ In Northern Illinois, where the barred
out coal miners are now in want, this
pernicious system has had much to DO
with creating the misery. Year after year
committees have gone to Springfield and
besought the legislators to pass q law
killing the check system; year after year
the monopol!st lobby has defeated them.
In West Virginia great cry went up
from the mining districts to the legisla-
ture, and that body in 1877 passed a pro-
hibitory law. The operators in that
state now pay cash, and the employees
spend their money where they can get
the most for it.
Capt Dawson s bill may not have been
perfect, but it was aimed at most dan
gerous system, and those who so eagerly
bounced upon it would better have
amended and passed it.
Texas will one day have great many
large manufacturing establishments, and
it would be well to have a law prohibit
ing the pernicious check system before
the operators become so strong that they
will be able TO perpetuate it and the
slavery which it is certain to entail.