Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1900-05-09

WASHINGlON, May Oil View VI
the recent eight-hour movement
throughout the country the report
made to the House OF Representatives
to-day by Chairman Gardner, OF the
Committee on Labor, on the Gardner
eight-hour bill and the general sub
ject of eight-hour legislation, has a
timely interest The bill requires a
clause in all government contracts that
the labor under the contract shall not
exceed eight hours daily. The re-
port says in part:
1T is contended by the advocates of
the shorter day that the additional
leisure given to labor in every in
stance of the shortening of the work
day, as it has been shortened step by
step from sixteen hours to fourteen,
twelve, eleven, ten, nine and IN many
instances eight, has resulted in
Decrease of Intemperance
among laborers, the requirement of
better taste, and new and better se-
sires, resulting in better homes, great
er domestic felicity and a higher de-
gree of intelligence, with an increase
of laudable pride as to the clothing of
themselves and those dependent upon
them. In word, has increased their
interests in home and better social
relations, raising their normal status,
and has made them much better con-
sumers of the products of labor and
hence resulted in increased Croduc-
ton.
The proposition that without varia-
ton the elimination o. inuemperance,
poverty, pauperism, ignorance, crime
and their accompanying evils move
parallel with and proportionate to the
increase of the social opportunities Of
the laboring class stands without i'm
parchment of its historical accuracy.
NO recognized authority to-day COM
bats the proposition that the condition
of the laborer has improved with every
reduction in the --ours of daily service
that has up to this time been made.
Nobody is disputing that he has be-
come a better consumer with each re-
duction. No reasonable person
Would for a Moment
entertain the proposition that the work
day should again be heightened to
6ourteen or twelve hours. When the
hours of work were so long that work.
ers had no social opportunities they
Iesorted to stimulants for solace and
the saloon for society, where they en-
cOuntered an iron law for spending
which could not be disregarded with
out loss of caste in the only society
which they had opportunity to enter.
A gentleman of responsibility and
exceptional opportunity for observa-
ton has borne testimony that the
shortening of the work-day has ban
ished blue Monday
"A significant fact in connection with
the shortening of the work day at
various times during the present cen
fury is the entire silence of the older
Bchaol of economists with regard to the
effect of the shorter work day on soci-
ETY., business, Industrial conditions, or
the laborers themselves. 1t is no
where claimed, in so far as your COM
mittee is aware, that any reduction in
the hours of labor has had a detrimen-
sal effect on business, on manufacturers,
On labor as a unit, or individual labor
ers. The advocates of the short hour
thecVy on the other hand, trace the
moral, social and financial improve
ment of the laborer to this cause, and
Rllege that business was at no time
injured but improved, if affected, and
that production was stimulated and
consumption increased.
Economists who advocate the eight
hour day contend with great plaus-
ibility that the shorter day results in
an increase of wages
Without an Increase of Price,
as greater consumption enlarges pro-
duntiOn an5 coo1a Of
production the cheaper the given ar
ticle is produced; that the laborer,
when he has the leisure resulting from
the shorter hours has new aspirations,
ambitions and greater personal self
respect, and, as before stated, wants a
better house, better furniture, better
clothes, better food and becomes a
great deal better consumer; that the
scale of wages is controlled by the
wants of the laborer in any state OF
sociey rather than by the iron law OF
wages that modern men cease to
work under normal conditions if the
proceeds of their labor do not satisfy
their normal wants; that therefore the
social status of the laborer controls the
law of wages to as great an extent as
the law of wages controls the status of
the laborer.
while there is still
A Variance of Opinion
On the general question whether mod
ern machinery and methods so tighten
the physical drudgerd of most oceupa-
tiolS as to have an equivalent effect to
the shortening of hours in the conser-
walton of energy, or whether such ma
chinery and methods operate to so tax
the nervous powers as to be equivalent
in exhaustive effects to the lengthen-
ing of hours, your committee are OF
opinion after what has been said on
both sides, that the higher tension OF
modern employment is at least full
Offset to the saving accomplished in
muscular force"
The report also presents an elabor-
ate review of the eight-hour legisla-
ton in all the States, and the previous
eight hour statutes enacted by the
federal government.
Has u Long History.