The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1900-05-09
Eight hours ENOUGH
For a Days Work, According
to the Report
UPON THE GARDNER BILL
Moral and Industrial Benefits
Contended For.
UPON THE GARDNER BILL

Washington, May SIN view Of the re-
cent eight-hour movement throughout the
country, the request made to the house
Gardner, of the committee on Labor, on
the Gardner eight-hour bill and the gen.
eral subject of eight-hour legislation, has
timely interest. The bill requires q
clause in all government contracts that
the labor under the contract shall got
exceed eight hours daily. The report says
in part:
1T is contended by the advocates of
the shorter day that the additional leis-
ure given to labor in every instance of
the shortening of the workday, as it has
been shortened step by step from sixteen
hours to fourteen, eleven. ten, nine, and
in many instances eight has resulted in
a decrease Of intemperance among labor
ers the requirement of better taste and
new and better desires. resulting in bet
ter homes, greater domestic felicity and
a highr degree of intelligence, with an
ing of themselves and those dependent
upon them. In a word it has increased
their interests in home and better social
relations, raising their moral status, and
has made them much better cons umers
of the products of labor and hence result
ed in increased production.
The proposition that the elimination of
intemperance, poverty, pauperism, ignor-
ance, crime and their accompanying evils
move parallel with and proportionate to
the increase of the social opportunities
of the laboring class stands without m
parchment of its historical accuracy. No
recognized authority today combats the
proposition that the condition of the ia
borer has improved with every reduction
in the hours of daily service that has
up to this time been made. Nobody is
disputing that he has become a better
consumer with each reduction. No Iea-
sonable person would for a moment enter
tain the proposition that the workday
should again be heightened to fourteen or
twelve hours. When the hours of work
were so long that workers had no social
opportunities they resorted to stimulants
for sOlace, and the saloon for society,
where they encountered an iron law for
spending which could not be disregarded
without lost of caste in the only society
which they had opportunity to enter. a
gentleman of responsibility and axcep-
tional opportunity for observation has
borne testimony that the shortening of
the workday has banished blue Monday
"A significant fact in connection with
the shortening Of the workday ut various
times during the present century is the
entire silence Of the oI6<r school of econo-
mists with regard TO the effect of the
shorter workday on society, business, in
dustrial conditions, or the laborers Them
selves. 1t is nowhere claimed, in so far
as your committee is aware, that any
reduction in the hours Of labor has had
a detrimental effect on business, on manu-
features, on labor as a unit, or individ-
ual laborers.
The advocates of the short-hour theory,
on the other hand, trace the moral. social
and financial improvement Of the laborer
TO this cause, and allege that business
was at no time injured, but improved, if
affected, and that production was stimu-
lated and consumption increased.
Economists who advocate the eight
hour day contend with great plausibility
that the shorter day results in an increase
of wages without an increase of price,
as greater consumption enlarges produc-
ton, and the larger the scale of produc-
ton the cheaper the given article as pro-
duced; that the laborer. when he has the
leisure, resulting from the shorter hours,
has new aspirations, ambitions and great
er personal self-resDect, and. as before
stated, rents a better house, better furni-
ture, better clothes, better food and be-
comes a great deal better consumer; that
the scale of wages is controlled by the
wants Of the laborer in any given state
of society. 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 thei 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 opin-
ion on the general question whether mod
ern machinery and methods so tighten
the physical drudgery of most occupations
as TO have an equivalent effect TO :hc
shortening Of hours in the conservation
of tnergy, or whether such machinery
and methods operate TO so tax the nervous
powers as to be equivalent in exhaustive
effects to the lengthening 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
fun offset to the saving accomplished
in muscular force"
The report also presents an elaborate
review of the eight-hour legislation in all
the states. and the previous eight-hour
statutes enacted by the federal govern
ment
SHARKEY WINS IN THE SECOND
Ung -