The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1900-05-09
EIGHT HOUR LAW
Representative Gardner Ad-
vocates Shorter Work
ing Days.
HIS COMMITTEE REPORTS
Every Reduction of Hours
Has Resulted in Benefits
to the Laborer.

to the Laborer.
WASHINGTON, May 9, 19OO.-In view of
the recent eight hour movement through
out the country, the report made to the
House of Representatives today by Chair
man Gardner of the Committee on Labor
on the Gardner Eight-hour bill and the
general subject of eight-hour legislation,
has timely interest. The bill requires
clause in all Government contracts that
the labor under the contract shall not ex-
ceed eight hours daily The report says
in part
ut is contended by the advocates Of the
shorter day that the additional leisure
given to labor in every instance 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 re-
suited in a decrease of intemperance
among Iaborers, the requirement of bet
ter taste and new and better desires, re-
sulting in better homes, greater felicity
and higher degree of intelligence, with
an increase of laudable pride as to the
clothing of themselves and those depend
ent upon them. In a word, it has in
creased their interests in home and better
social relations, raising their moral status
and has made them much better consum-
ers of the products of labor, and, hence,
resulted in increased production.
The proposition that without variation
the elimination of intemperance, poverty,
pauperism, ignorance, crime and their ae-
companying evils move parallel with and
fo Of the social
opportunities of the laboring class stands
without impeachment of its historical ac-
curacy. No recognized authority today
combats the proposition that the condition
of the laborer has improved with every
reduction in the hours Of daily service
that has up to this time been made. No
body is disputing that he has become a
better consumer with each reduction. No
reasonable person would for a moment en-
tertain the proposition that the work-day
should again be heightened to fourteen or
twelve hours.
'sWhen the hours of work were so long
that workers had no social opportu-
mites they resorted to stimulants for sol
ace and the saloon for society, where they
encountered an iron law for spending
which could not be disregarded without
loss of caste in the only society which
| they had opportunity to enter. A gentle-
man of responsibility and exceptional op-
portunity for observation has borne testi-
nony that the shortening of the workday
has banished blue Monday
"A significant fact in connection with
the shortening of the work-day at various
times during the present century is the
entire silence of the older school of
economists with regard to the effect of
the shorter workday on society, business,
industrial conditions or the laborers
themselves. 1t is nowhere claimed, in so
far as your committee is aware, that any
reduction in the hours of labor has had
detrimental effect on business, or
manufacturers, on labor as a unit, or in
dividual laborers. The advocates of the
short hour theory, on the other hand,
trace the moral, social and financial i'm
provement of the laborer to this cause,
and allege that business was at no time
injured, but improved, if affected, and
that production was stimulated and con-
sumption increased.
Economists who advocate the eight
hour day contend with great plausibility
that the shorter day results in an in
crease of wages without an increase OF
price, as greater consumption enlarges
production, and the larger the scale OF
production the cheaper the given article
is produced; that the laborer. when he
has the leisure resulting from the shorter
hours. the new aspirations, ambitions and
greater personal self-respeet, and as be-
fore stated, wants a better house, bet
ter furniture. better clothes, better food,
and becomes a great deal better consum-
er: 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 pro-
ceeds of their labor do not satisfy their
normal wants: that therefore the social
status of the laborer controls the law of
wages of the laborer.
'fWhile there is still variance of opin-
ion on the general question whether mod |
ern machinery and methods 20 tighten the
physical drudgery of most occupations as
to have an equivalent effect to the short !
ening of hours in the conservation OF en- |
ergy, 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 is of opinion after what has
been said on both sides, that the higher |
tension of modern improvement is at least |
full offset to the saving accomplished |
in muscular force"
The report also present an elaborate re-
view of the eight-hour legislation in all |
the States. and the previous eight-hour
statutes enacted by the federal govern