The record-union., 1894-11-15
Total. 81 ,2o5.151 S1o7, $50, 694I I1o.65

The Rdi{3Cuy Age says: "On the fifteen
roads, therefore, there are lIO,657 officers
and employees of all grades. who receive
in the aggregate SlO7, $500 a year III
salaries and wages, or an average OF
SG32 10 each. The amount spent in large
salaries (of 8, $50 or more EACH is 81 ,2U5,-
l5l year. Now let us suppose that these
salaries were wiped out and the entire
amount paid in them were TO be distrib-
uted equally among ali employees. What
would De the result? The result would be
that it would increase each mans wages
by just - O6 a year, or Is cents week.
This is what the talk about high salaries
comes to as affecting the employees, when
the facts are reached that if on tie rail
way companies of the West the entire
stall of Presidents, General Managers
Vice Presidents, counsel, Superintend-
ents, engineers-or any one else who was
receiving $1,000 a year-were to be alb
solutely wiped away and their offices
abolished, the entire money so saved,
being distributed among all employees,
would raise the general level of wages by
just about cents dayW
On the question Of dividend payments
on watered capital our contemporary
says: "Of the fifteen companies referred
to above twelve earned some sort OF a
margin for dividends during the last fiS-
cal year. Three showed d deficit. The
aggregate net earnings applicable to divi-
dend payments OF ali the companies
Treating the roads as one system and de-
Quoting the three deficits from the twelve
balances of profit amounted to IS, 94l ,06S.
The total capital stock of all the COM
panies was almost exactly 81, 600, co., 600.
The dividend earned, therefore, on the
total stock was little over four-tifths of
per cent If half of all that stock was
watered, the dividend earning amounted
TO less than one and tOur-1ifthS of | per
cent. If three-quarLers of it was water
and only one-quarter represented actual
investment, the dividend was less than
p per cent.
''As matter of fact not three-quarters,
nor half, nor quarter Of the stock is
wafer. The best tby which we mean not
the most interested, but the most EXPERT
authorities unite in declaring that The
railways of the country to-day represent,
in one way and another, a cash invest
ment of a full one hundred cents for
every dollar of their stocks and bonds.
But let us go to the utmost length that
the most insane of agitators could expect:
let us suppose that not one-quarter, nor
one-half, nor three-quarters of the stock
is water, but that all of it is so. What
then?
There are l70,G5 employees, each ono
of whom wants his share of that net
earning-hiS portion of the SS.94l, COS.
- u
does he receive? He receives just So 80
Il year, or 81 a week. Suppose that all the
capital stock OF the " estern railways
wa wiped out; suppose that all the own
ers Of the properties-ali the investors in
and holders of those 81, 000 000, 600 of Sc
curities-were to get together and say:
That is all right! We do not want any
money for our investment. Let the men
take 1t all. Let them run the roads and
keep all the profits there are in it, We
waive our cIaim'-suppose, we say, that
this were 20 be done, the resultant profits
to the individual employe would be an
increase III pay Of less than 10 cents a
day.
when the labor agitator talks of div
idends and of nigh salaries as robbing
the laboring man Of his rightful wages.
he talks what is the merest nonsense: for
if all these Western railways, operated as
one company, whether under Government
ownership or otherwise. abolished all their
higher officers and devoted ali the ne,
earnings OF the aggregated lines TO in
creasing the wages of their men, the re-
sultiug increase would he less than II
cents day to every man. The employees
of these fifteen roads already receive in
payrolls over Sl07 zoo, 900. All the money
earned Tor dividends amounts to less than
50, 100000. For the employees to claim
That the stockholGer is getting the money
which ought TO come TO them is ridicu-
Ious."