The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-03-21
..pLuck-ME-sroRE,, QUESTION.


Yesterday the state senate had
under discussion a very important
proposition, and one which the state
legislature some time in the future
will most probably be confronted with
again
1t came up in connection with the
miners wage bill, in which is a pro-
vision making it compulsory for an
employer of workirgmen in mines,
mills, and smelters to pay them in
lawful money of the United States.
and to protect said workmen in the
management and control of their own
earnings.
There was both a majority and
minority report on the bill presented
to the senate, the majority report,
strangely enough, recommending its
rejection, and the minority favoring
its passage.
We say strangely enough the ma
jority report recommended the rejec-
ton of the bill, for the bill originated
IN the senate, and it is not usual for
committee of either house of a legis-
lature to report bill and recommend
its rejection; the usual proceedings
being that the committee refuses to
report bill altogether.
The senate finally rejected the bill,
the considerations being, first, the con-
teption that the very existence Of some
manufacturing concerns in the state
would be endangered if compelled to
pay for their raw materials and the
wages of their employees in money;
and second, to enact the law in such
form as to make it apply to mines
alone would be to enact class legisla-
ton, a thing at once distasteful and
very probably unconstitutional
It is further contended that it would
be legislation leading to the abridg-
and the curtailment of the lib
erty of the individual in MAX
ing contracts, as the individual has a
right to agree to work for whatever
may suit him as wages.
AS to the first contention that some
be destroyed if required to pay money
instead of their product to their en-
ployees, we don't take so very much
stock in that, as in the main it would
be only a matter of adjusting their
affairs to a cash basis, a thing that
we are inclined to think is not now
impossible in Utah, however much so
49,
The other objections we recognize as
being possessed of some force.
However impracticable any legisla-
ton at present on this subject may
be, it is fact that the bill that was
killed in the senate yesterday was
leveled ait one of the greatest evils with
which labor has to contend; and if
legislative enactment cannot now be
made to reach it, then a wholesome
public opinion should at once be raised
against it that will condemn it.
Corporations and individuals en-
ploying men, for the sake of profit, in
sist upon paying men either in scrip
that compels them to trade with their
employers, or if the wages are paid
in money then an agreement is forced
that they shall trade at the company's
store or board at the company's
boarding house; and this, with a few
exceptions. to the very great advant-
age of the company and to the very
great injustice and disadvantage of
the employees.
Although it seems a reasonable
proposition to say that the company's
store or the company's boarding
house can do as we'll by their en-
ployees or even better than others en-
gagged in store keeping or boarding
house business, yet the instances are
rare where these company institu-
tons have not in the end become
engines of oppression to the en-
ployees.
AS fast as may be without injury to
struggling factories or other industries
our industrial establishments ought to
gravitate to a cash system of doing
business; and right now and always,
labor should be freed from the pluck
me-store' and company boarding
house infamy, that men might be free
to spend the money they earn where,
as we'll as how they choose; for when
they are not thus free, there is always
crushed in them something of the
better part of man.