Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1891-09-17
HOW GERMAN wEAvERs LIVE.

| HUN GERMAN WEANERS LIVE.
Testimony of a Free Trader in a Free
Trade JOurnaI-Do American Working
men Want to Live Like This?
The death of Hermann Raster, of the
Illinois Stats Zeitung, which occurred
recently at small watering place in
Germany, has occasioned comment in
the newspapers all over the United
States, as Mr.. Raster was widely known
as man. of ability and independence.
Mr.. Raster's paper, the Stats Zeitung,
has been Independent, with strong dem
ocratic tendencies, and the Chicago
Tribune is everywhere known as a
straight-out anti-tariff organ. Under
these circumstances it is difficult to ac-
count for the publication of the follow
ing article which appeared in the Trib-
une of July "a:
I'm recent letter from Hermann
Raster printed in the Stats Zeitung he
has something to say about the people
in the neighborhood of the little bath
ing place where he is staying They
are weavers by trade, and under aver
age circumstances each of them earns
about 40 cents a day on which to sup
port himself, wife and children he may
have. The democratic free trade ora
tor will say at once that everything is
much cheaper abroad than here and
that the 40 cents are equivalent of a
great many more in American money.
This is Mr.. Raster's statement of
what the weaver buys with his wages
daily for himself, wife and children:
Rent of the single room they occupy,
which contains the loom, cooking uten-
sis and beds, and is u x Is feet, "a cents
per day; 5-pound loaf of bread, made
of rye and barley, 1872 cents; a quart
and half of SKINNED milk, LIZ cents;
half peck of potatoes, SO cents;
quarter of a peck of flour, AZ cents;
salt 0.S cent; kerosene, 1 cent; butter
L2ecents; total, 27.6 cents This does
not leave much leeway for meat and
coal and clothes. The weaver buys
every two or three weeks half pound
meat with bones and pays about seven
cents for it In winter he buys hun
dredweight of coal, for which he pay 26
cents and which lasts him ten days.
THE American workmen is in the
habit of living somewhat better than
this, and would not care to drop down I
to this frugal fare. But he will have to
if his democratic friends force him to
enter into competition with men who
live as these German weavers do. Is ne
quite ready to take all duties of com
petitive goods and to go into manu-
featuring war, to be victor in which he
must initiate the style of living of his
opponent?"
A Free Trader on Improved Conditions
The bakers had their turn; the hair dressers,
the grocers, the shoemakers all manifested dis
content; and the wOrkmen in the sewers joined
In the demand for improved conditions-The
Nation
If there is any thing in this world
that will make the editor of free trade
newspaper weary to the point of exas-
peration. it is an effort by hair-dressers,
shoemakers, workIhen, and such, for
improved conditions" and we find the
editor saying:
The French government having soWn the
wind by refusing to protect the omnibus drivers
who wished 20 work. against the assaults Of the
strikers AID the mob that sympathized with
them. Is now reapihE he Wnirluind in a1
ePidsmic q strikes