Workmen's advocate., 1890-05-10
THE ElGHT-HOUR STANDARD
 WORkDAY.
BY ALEXANDER JONAS.

l \, and so forth--in word, industrial l operatives in general-shall work but eight hours a day, and that any manu- facturer or boss permitting them to work longer shall be subject to severe penalty-they may throw up their hands and declare those in favor of such law to be either fools or idlers.
 "Why should not the hands work lon ger time if they want to:" is asked. "The more they work, the more they can earn. And they complain often l enough of little or no work to be had Why such restriction? It is sheer follyw It is thus that foolish or uniformed individuals object to the endeavors of organized workingmen, thoroughly con- versant with their subject, towards shortening the hours for labor in all branches of the country's industry.
 But the workingmen know very well what they are doing and can explain why they desire such a change.
 "The more one works, the more he earns, acquires, and possesses!" This may have been true in the past, but to-. day it is far from the case; things are reversed, and one may actually say, in speaking of industrial wage workers, "The more, the longer, the harder they labor, the less they make!"
 And why is it so? There is a reason for everything on earth, and therefore a reason for the phenomenon in question.
 A long time since, when men worked for themselves, or at most for retail in- terch'nge with their neighbors, it was wholly different. If 1 make my own coat or furniture or implements, or build my own house and cultivate my own garden or field then it is true that the longer l work daily, the more have, since l work for myself-my labor pro, duces things for my own use. Yes; even if-being shoemaker or tailor-I make my own shoes or clothing and enough more of the same to exchange with neighbors for flour, meat, furniture and so forth, which l cannot provide for myself yet must have may be arrang- ed that they pay nae a certain sum of money for the shoes and I pay them back portion of the sum for provisions. furniture, or whatever 1t belt is still true that the longer work the more earn and accumulate.
 But such time is long gone by. Since steam and machinery have come to gov ern the world all is changed. When the joiner in the furniture factory, with machine aid, has made the same piece hundred times over, when the hands in the huge shoe shops of the New England States, or the watchmakers in the cele- brated watch factories of America, or the cigar 'strippers' and so forth, throughout all branches of industry, have labored from morning till night in the sweat of their brow, what have they obtained for themselves? Have they completed single piece? A table, a watch, or even clgar! Anything at all which belongs to them, and which they may take and sell or exchange for other necessaries? Nothing like it. They have produced, twenty CT a hundred or thou sand of them, a certain quantity or num- Der of goods or articles for dll employer, to achOm they huue sold heir labor ut C .fsred price. They, themselves, have nothing more to do with the goods, which in no wise belong to them. They receive in return for applying their labor for a certain length of time, a previously stipulated sum, and that is the end.
 As a result they do not receive their just due, that is, what they have really earned, the value of the things produced, even deducting expense and waste in manufacture, and the interest on the ca pital invested. If, for instance, a hun dred machine operators in the course of week have manufactured from raw ma. terlal costing say $1,000, goods worth S3,5OO, each operator should rightfully have earned $25. Deducting waste and expense of machinery, interest on capi tai, and salary for management and boss providing he has done his part-let us say S5 a head for one hundred operators, or S5O0 week, there remains over and above for each toiler SEQ of honestly earned money.
 But the workman does not receive this; he is compelled to divide with the boss, who takes $10 of the SEQ and slips it in his own pocket. The latter can do this with impunity, for the workingman cannot buy factories and machines for himself, but must submit or seek em ployment elsewhere, with no better conditions. Qt is this unrigbtAous divid- ing, by the by, that the Socialists would abolish, inasmuch as they would estab- fish a social order in which neither machinery, nor factory, nor land should belong to one person, who might thus anIlira he rirrht Aannn lI,..l IL