Hot Springs weekly star. (Hot Springs, S.D.) 1892-1917, 1899-04-07
ADVANCE IN WAGES.
MARKED INCREASE. IN NEARLY
ALL INDUSTRIES.
Improvement of Wage. Is But the
Natural Movement Toward Better
Times for roiiers, Which Set IA Soon
After the 1895 Election.

NATURAL movement toward better
Timcs for roilcrs, Which Set la Soon
After the 1896 Election.
The numerous announcements of adj
vances in wages, particularly for the
many thousands employed in the iron
and cotton industries, is but the natural
movement toward better times for
wage which set in soon after
the election in November, 1896. AT that
time n million would-be workers We're
out of employment, and those who had
employment We're not fully occupied.
The improvement from the date of the
recovery in December, 1896, was slow
but progressive. Industries began to
work full hours and then they began to
employ more men as prospects i'm
proved. Two years this improvement
wen OH silently until the mass of men
who were idle in 1896 were taken off
the streets into the workshops, and the
hours on half the days were operating
on full time and some of them day and
night.
All this time there was no apparent
improvement in wages. Agitators,
calnmityites and demagOgues allied to
disaster declared that there could be
no better times until there should be
an advance in wages. The regular en-
plOyment which succeeded three Or
four days a week and the demand for
labor which had absorbed the million
Of idle men, thus adding to the aggre-
gate weekly amount paid to wage
workers 10 or 20 per cent, were as
much an advance of wages as if a few
cents a day had been added. 1t is the
full employment of labor Mt a fair price
which measures the general prosperity
of the country, because such employ
ment gives to workers the largest ag-
gregate of wages.
AS the year opened the improvement
m demand and prices made it possible
to take the neXt step in 1--WE or three of
the larger industries, which vas the
advance of wages. This followed nat
urally after the absorption of the un
employed. The upward movement had
begun. In the past two weeks the
wages of more men were advanced 10
per cent. than during any similar time
In our industrial period. And the re-
markable fact about this advance is
that 1t has been made without n strike,
without a demand, but by the free act
Of employers. In this connection the
returns of wages by the recent bulletin
Of the Massachusetts, Bureau of Labor
shows some interesting facts. The
average of daily wages paid in eighteen
employments in twelve cities of the
United States was as follows: 1870,
$2.2OA; 1880, $2311a; in 1890, $o.4S; in
1893, $40; in 1896, S2.AO; 1897, $40;
1893, $2.3S11aa. But for the fall in the
wages of bricklayers the wages of 1898
would have shown n gain over the pre-
ceding year. By Bradstreet's index
numbers it appears that in October,
1890. given quantities of 1O7 staples
cost 1O5.906, that the same quantities
could be purchased during the entire
year 1896 for 65.777 and that prices be-
gan to rise in 1897, and during 1898 the
cost thereof averaged 75.527. This
means that between 1890 and 1896
wages fell only 3.22 per cent, Willie
prices fell IS per cent, and between
1880 and 1898 prices fell 26.S per cent.
This means that If all wage earncrs
could have had full employment be-
tween 1880 md 1896 at 10 or Is per
cent. lower wages, the fall in prices
was so much greater that they would
have been quite as well if not better off.
1t was not the decline in wages of the
employed which caused the distress
during the period which followed the
Inauguration of Mr.. Cleveland in 1893.
but the entire loss of pay by a consider
able per cent. of those who live by
wages and the partial loss by half or
two-thirds employment by others.
Farm Labor P~rosperinS, Too.
Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota
farmers are not worrying about get
ting their notes extended this spring.
They have plenty of seed on hand. The
ground ia getting nicn1v irri0ofod Gov