Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1899-03-30
ADVANCE IN WAGES.
MARKED INCREASE IN NEARLY
ALL INDUSTRIES.
Improvement of Wages Is But the
Natural Movement Toward Better
Times for roi1ers, Which Set In Soon
After the 1896 Election.

Times for Toi1ers, Which Set In Soon
After the 1896 Election.
The numerous announcements of ad-
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 earners which set in soon after
the election in November, 1896. AT that
time million would-be workers were
out of employment, and those who had
employment were 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
went on silently until the mass of men
who were idle in 1896 were taken Off
the streets into the workshops, and the
factories which had been working ten
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,
calamityites 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 Is or 20 per cent, were as
much an advance of wages as if few
cents day had been added. 1t is the
full employment of labor at 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
In demand and prices made it possible
to take the next step in two or three of
the larger industries, which was the
advance of wages. This followed nat
urally after the absorption of the I'M
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 it has been made without strike,
without a demand, but by the free act
of employers. In this connection the
returns of wages by therecent bulletin
of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor
shows some interesting facts. The
emplOyments in twelve cities of the
United States was as follows: 1870,
$2.2O1A; 1880, $2.3112; in 1890, $2.48; in
$685. $2.49; in 1896, $2.4O; 1897, $40;
1898, $2.3Sh. But for the fall in the
wages of bricklayers the wages of 1898
would have shown gain over the pre-
ceding year. By Bradstreet's index
numbers it appears that in October,
1890, giTen quantities of 1O7 staples
cost 1885, 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 1857. This
wages fell only 1922 per cent, while
prices fell 3S per cent, and between
1890 and 1893 prices fell 26S per cent.
This means that if all wage earners
could have had full employment be-
tween 1890 and 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 consider
able per cent. of those who live by
wages and the partial loss by half or
two-thirds employment by Others