Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1896-10-15

est silver shelters in the two countries.
Each gives employment to about 4OO
men. No one will traverse the great
plant at Monterey and doubt that the
Mexican workman in the industry rem
ders equal labor man for man, with the
American employed in the Omaha smelt-
er. At Omaha there is little labor given
at 81 80 a day. The wages in the various
grades of the smelter range as high as
SO day. 1t will not place the average
too high to make it 81 per day. That is
American money-gold. Here the com
mon labor unloads the cars and heaps the
ore by the thousands of tons in the yards.
This same labor loads the ore into the
little iron tramcars and wheels it under
the sheds, where the more skilled work
men DO the mixing of the ores in great
beds. This common labor shovels and
htts and pushes as hard as the S1.0O
gold labor at Omaha and does it for 6212
cents a day Mexican silver, or 3112
cents gold. This labor works ten hours
DAY for that price, Then there
is the twelve hours labor, so divided
to keep the smelter running night and
day. Here something besides muscle en-
tiers in. The iron barrows must be
wheeled upon the scales, and one kind
OF ore follows another in, as beam after
beam tips, until the barrow is full of
just the right proportions of lead and
iron and lime and various ores TO take
out all of the silver in the smelling
The Mexicans who do this are paid 70
cents day, worth 371a cents American
money. Then come the feeders and the
furnace men, who know just when to
dump in the barrow loads at the top
and just when to tap at the bottom to
draw off the bullion. This is labor that
receives 81 a day in Mexican silver. or
% cents day in gold. The Stag pullers
get 10 cents day in silver. The fore
men OF the yards, who moves about over
TO 30 day. They are few in number.
Still fewer are the furnace foremen of
that ripe experience which is responsible
for the results. These get 5000 a month
the equivalent of 500 in gold
The pay at the Omaha smelter aver
ages 81 n day, or $500 for the 100 la
borers, the equivalent of $1,000 in Mexi-
can money. The pay at the Monterey
smelter averages 81 day in Mexican
money, or $500 for the 400 employees.
Here is a difference of $1,000 Mexican
money or $500 gold in the daily pay
rolls. The Mexican silver smelters are
said to be making SO in Mexican money
where the American shelters are profit
ing 81 in American money. Whether
free silver in the United States would
raise the Mexican money to the Ameri-
Mexican it would require the American
smelters to pay only twice as much for
labor where now they pay four times as
much as the Mexican smelters do. The
wages paid at the smelters here COM
mand the best of Mexican labor. The
lowest, rate, 621ac, is nearly double that
pald Tor ordinary common labor. 1t
brings to the works brown men with
muscles like steel. who trOt along with
800 pounds of ore in barrow. These
MeXicans shed all clothing but sandals,
straWhat and cotton drawers as they
push and pull the ore down the incline
OF the long roasting ovens. They have
only one bad habit. They will come to
work before breakfast You can teach
Mexican labor to smelt ores to perfection
but you can not teach the Mexican wom-
an to get up and prepare breakfast, sim
pie as it is, before the whistle blows ~
the change of shifts from night to day
a WNgl