The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-08-16
LABOR PROBLEMS.
Complications Caused by Machinery
and Competition of Women.

To the Editor OF the Indianapolis Journal:
We count him lucky who comes into pos
session of a good thing. while others equal
~ entitled TO it do not; these are called
unlucky. Governor Mount is right when he
says that, finding a human being in want,
it is the duty of those who can to help
him without stopping to inquire how he
came to want. The coal miners are in want,
and they have been helped, and they need
more help with indications that they viii
need help right along for an indefinitely
protracted period. long enough, at least,
for us to inquire why they are thus. and
then ask. can we afford TO provide for
permanently relieving them. seeing that ev-
erybody else with few exceptions is in
precisely the same condition. a candid
study of the situation reveals the fact that
coal miners are suffering from the same
economic conditions that have disturbed
farmers, mechanics, merchants and every
body else. 1t must be remembered that the
gravamen of their plant is want of con-
slant employment-they can work only
about two days in a week and chiefly,
therefore, the rate of wages should be in
creased, so that they may live on the pro-
ceeds of these two days. Now, who is to
blame for this condition? Certainly the ops
orators are not, for it is to their interest
to handle all the coal possible. The bottom
fact is there is not a sufficient demand for
the output OF the mines when worked full
time with the improved machinery and
vast army or men who take to the mines
rather than to other overcrowded indus
tries Even at greatly reduced rates the
world cannot use the volume of coal that
can be taken out of the mines of the world.
with the men and machinery employed or
seeking employment, In mining. But what
industry has not been equally disturbed by
the Introduction of labor-saving machin-
cry? Not one-fourth the manual labor is
required In farming to-day that was sixty
years ago when the sickle and the fail
and long days of cartage took ii TO mar
ket in. OK wagons, and the clothes the farm
er and his wife wore We're made of flax
raised by the farmer, and which was brok-
en- and scutched and hacked and spun and
woven by the women and made into gar
ments by the same hands. Labor-saVing
machinery has turned fully three-fourths
of the farm force cut of employment. The
same is true of every industry. We have
Once they made the axes, the chains the
plows-eVerything. These are all made by
machinery now; Even the horse is more
than half shod by machinery and the chill
dren too. No shoemakers any more. only
cobblers. and carpenter of the old style
is unknown. few men find employment
in putting together what the planning mill
has prepared to their hands. Not one-fourth
the manual labor is bestowed in any oc-
ago, and coal miners are only
in the same boat with others: why should
they alone be singled out as objects of
charity? What has become of the surplus
the like?
But labor-savng machinery is not the
only disturbing element in the labor ques-
ton. Women are in it, almost if not
quite as potentially. Look at the army of
liable and honorable profession of school
teaching. Fifty years ago only a prodigy
like Mrs. Dumont or the Axtells was toer-
ated as teachers. How is it now? The
masculine teacher is the exception, not in
the common school only, but in the high
schools, and they are alarmingly invading
colleges. Once the boy, driven from the
farm or the shop could find situation in
some store. Not so now; women are there,
working cheaper, probably, but working
well; and the department stores-only a
modified form of labor-saying machinery
have swallowed up the smaller stores
which gave employment to thousands Of
men, as the consolidation of railroads and
other interests have done the same thing.
Once a man could find employment as a
copyist in a lawyers office or as bookkeep-
er in some business office That is all gone
The ubiquitous girl is there with her type
man is out of job. She even invades the
editors sanctum and culls the exchanges
and writes his best editorials, sometimes.
Once boy driven from the farm or shop,
could take refuge in the profession of law
or medicine or theology, but how is 1T
now? Women lawyers. women doctors
and women preachers galore. and they
evidently have designs upon politics, and,
judging from the past it is only a ques-
ZION OF time I'LL tney get tneTe. therefore,
in considering the forces which have en-
tered into the arrangement of the labor
question women must be recognized as
among the chief and we may no more call
culate upon restoring the status quo as to
her than as to the other disturbing ele-
ment-improved machinery. Electricity
and steam have come to stay, and so have
the women, and the labor problem of the
hour is how to adjust ourselves to these
stubborn facts. Evidently it cannot be
done by consenting to"provide for the sur
plus men who cannot find employment in
any given occupation and who refuse to
seek any other employment. Equally evil
dent the remedy is not in labor COM
binations, which are intended to limit the
number who may work in a given industry.
and to arbitrarily fix the price of labor;
nor in strikes and the like. Ii is a COM
plicated question, not to be solved in the
schoolroom or by lectures or editorials, or
by legislation. Legislation can do nothing
to help except to see that every man has
an equal chance in the struggle. 1t will
some day provide that man or set of
men shall keep any other man or set OF
men from working. Meantime, the miners
are lucky in receiving help to which tens
of thousands equally entitled, because
they cannot get work at remunerative
prices. at any price, in many cases, and
for the same reason. Only the logic OF
events will solve the labor problem but
may later on, suggest the logical method.