The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1899-04-29
THE WAGE IMPROVEMENT.
Better Times Have Been Coming
Ever since the Republican
Victory of 1896.

The numerous announcements Of ad-
vances in wages, particularly for the
many thousands employed in the iron
and cotton industries, is but the natu-
raj movement toward better times for
wage-earners which set in soon after
| the election in November, 1896. AT that
time a 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 of
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,
| itCo anu dCihuSOS dlliCd w
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 week and the demand for
labor which had absorbed the million
of idle men, thus adding to the ag-
gregate weekly amount paid to wage
workers Is or 20 per cent, were as
much an advance of wages as if few
cents a day had been added. 1t is the
full employment of labor at fair
price which measures the general pros
| perity of the country, because such en-
! ployment gives to workers the largest
aggregate 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 natu-
rally after the absorption Of the un-
employed. The upward movement had
begun. In the past two weeks the
wages of more men were advanced ten
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 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 av-
erage of daily wages paid in 1S employ
ments in IL cities of the United States
was as follows: 1870, $2.20A; 1880.
$231h; in 1890, $2.4s; in 1898, S. 40; in
1896, $40; 1897. $40; 1898, $2.3SKla
But for the fall in the wages of brick
layers the wages of 1898 would have
shown a gain over the preceding year.
BY Bradstreet's index numbers it APP
pears that in October, 1890, given guam
titles of 107 staples cost 105.996, that
the same quantities could be pur-
chased during the entire year 1896 for
65.777. and that prices began to rise in
1897 and during 1898 the cost thereof
averaged 1887. This means that be-
tween 1890 and 1896 wages fell only 3,22
per cent, while prices fell 80 per cent,
and between 1890 and 1898 prices fell
26.s Per cent.
This means that if all wage-earners
could have had full employment be-
tween 1890 and 1895 at ten or fifteen per
cent. lower wages, the fall in prices
was so much greater that they would
have been quite as well off if not better
off. 1t was not the decline in wages
of the employed which caused the dis
tress during the period which followed
the Inauguration of Mr.. Cleveland in
1893. but the entire loss of pay by a
considerable per cent. of those who live
by wages and the partial loss by half
or two-thirds employment by others.
Indianapolis Journal.