Omaha daily bee., 1899-07-27
REGULATING uorns OF LABOR.
street Hallway Employees To Take
Their Case 90 the Courts.
RrnnLI.n I.nnln


The railroad employees who want the ten
hour labor law enforced are planning to take
their case to the courts. 4 suit involving
the point at issue was brought at the instance
Of the railroad corporations a long time ago,
but IL is still undecided. 1t is possible 10
get a decision in spite of an alleged indispo-
sition Of the railroad corporations to face a
jury. If the law is constitutional and en-
forceable It will be generally, though not
universally, admitted that it should be en-
forced. 1t provides that ten consecutive
hours labor. including one-half hour for
dinner, shall constitute a days labor on
street surface or elevated railroads.. and 1t
forbids the employment of any man for a
longer time than that. In case of accident
or unavoidable delay, however, extra labor
may be performed for extra compensation.
There are many men who believe that the
statute is so worded as to permit the practice
against which the motormen and conductors
have complained. The courts alone can de-
eide that point. But whether the act ac-
ccmplishes its purpose or not the practice
at which 1t was aimed ought to be abolished.
IT, is easy enough to say that supply and de-
mand regulate the price of labor. But when
by the operation of that law men do not
get a living wage the moral obligations of
the state are not fulfilled by an appeal to
the economic law. Supply and demand put
women and children in the mines in Eng
land. The children were born weak and
sickly because of the practice and the women
were demCralized. The statute law had TO
step in and say that the practice should stop
in the interest Of public health and morality.
When the race instinct of self preservation
came in contact with the economic law that
had to yield. The tendency OF all trade
is TO buy in the cheapest possible market.
When there are more laborers than posi-
lions the wages go dow till they reach
the starvation point. Then there is a pro-
test from the helpless poor who have ac-
copied the wages. The ten-hour law was
railroad employees for protection against
submitting to their own needs and for pre-
venting the railroad companies from profit
ing by their necessities. We must admit
that 1t is difficult to frame n law which can
these men while 1t does not interfere
with the freedom of contract. 1t may be
said that the ten-hour law is enforced as
stands, while a man works fourteen hours
under 1t. We believe that the men are paid
a fixed sum for each trip and the time table
is so arranged that within ten hours a man
may earn 81 IL he makes all the trips on his
schedule. But the S2-a-day wage is nominal
rather than real. The unit of measurement
is the trip. Now, II because Of delays the
man has been unable to make only $3.50
in ten hours the law permits him to work
time and receive pay for that time at
the same rate as within the legal day. So
he may have to work fourteen hours to earn
and the company may still be within the
law. This is the great evil of the trip pay
ment system. The attempt of the courts to
enforce the law would cnpn Shnu uhntbar
this evasion of its purpose was punishable
or not. But even If it is found that the law
is defective, and that it is not possible to
a statute which will reach the trouble,
every humane citizen will hope that such
an adjustment of the rate OF wages and the
hours of labor may be reached as will permit
the railroad men to get acquainted with
their families and send their children to |
school instead of putting them at work be-
they have received the elements of an |