Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-09-22
SIX SINGLE TAX MEN
Holdka Meeting All to Themselves,
and Discuss Sewing Girls.
BROTHERS 60 ON THE WARPATH.
Edgar Thomson Employees Will Present q
New Scale This Year.
NEWscARRIERs ABOUT TO ORGANIZE

The Single Tax League of Pittsburg helo
a meeting last night. 1t was not very sue
cessful from a numerical point of view
There were but six persons present in ad
dition to the representatives of the press
These were Messrs. Edmund Yardley, who
occupied the chair; Mark Roberts. j. j.
Quin, 7. W. McCloskey, j. B. Sharp and
McDade, of Bennett.
Discussion generally turned on the ques.
tion of women wage-earners and the rela.
tions they occupied in relation to society.
Mr.. Quin wanted'to know where the profits
went to on jean pants made by sewing girls
at 81 20 a dozen and which sold for 81 30
each, when the material for pair cost only
13 cents? 1t went, he argued. in sustain
ment of high rents and into the pockets of a
man who merely had to own property to
live, but which were paid by the labor Of
the sewing girls and others. He said that
girls had no option but to follow this occu-
patton for a livelihood, as they had better
opportunities of marrying we'll than if they
entered domestic service.
MORE THAN HIS SHARE.
Mr.. Sharp did not agree with Mr..
Quin's figures on pants, but conceded that
the landlord who sat idle got more than his
share OF the profits. In addition to this,
while wages were at standstill, rents were
certainly increasing. The placing of taxes
on land, he argued, would make everything
cheaper; would increase the purchasing
power OF money because the price of articles
would be less through taxes being reduced;
k,,, L.
titlon among landlords would follow and
low rents for the tenants would result.
Mr.. McDade had a paper to read on the
relative properties of land capital and
money capital and labor capital, which he
supplemented by discourse in elucidation
of his theory, which was that land was the
original capitalist and that nobody else
had anything more than equal rights to
what they might get from it. Mr.. Roberts
was Of opinion that the whole fault of the
economic troubles of the time lay at the
door OF the farmers. Let them only COM
mence with the farmers and the
cessation of taxation in the city
would begin. Farming was declining every
day, he said. The farmers were mortgaged,
and the farmers boys coming into competi-
ton with the city labor, wages we're thus
kept down, and it mas no longer possible to
proper position, he maintained, should be
that of mothers and not of workers.
MERE FOOLISH PRIDE.
Mr.. McCloskey expressed the view that
girls would be much better off as domestics
than as shop workers. 1t was foolish
pride on their part which prevented them
from being so. They would receive better
treatment than in the shops, and if their en-
ployers were SO ignorant as to deprive them
OF the privilege OF seeing their friends, as it
was charged was the case, then the employers
were ignorant of the rights OF free
Americans, and required to be educated up
to proper belief. The importation of for
egn labor had as much to answer for the
poor payment of girl workers as competition
among their employers, and if some restric-
tions in this way were accomplished they
would not be obliged to accept the wretched
wages which force some OF our girls on the
streets.
ffMr. Yardley summed up the discussion by
affirming that the securing of the single tax
would accomplish three things for the
sewing girls; it would take the tax off what
they consume; it would lower their rent and
it would increase their wages by creating a
demand ior higher-priced goods through the
ability of the consumers to buy higher grade
goods than at present.