Rural Retreat times. [volume] (Rural Retreat, Va.) 1892-1918, 1903-09-11
HIGH WAGES AND SMALL SAVINGS

ting three, four and even five dollars
for eight hours work are walking the
streets in idleness because some walk
ing delegate has commanded a strike.
In the face of big pay and short hours
there is evidently discomfort with con
itions which appear almost like wealth
and ease to the average farmer.
Yet few of the highly paid city work
men get ahead in the world. Most of
them live in rented houses, sometimes
in the slum districts, amid dirt, ugli-
ness and oyercrowding. Why do they
not acquire good homes and compe
tence? In the first place, a great city
is the most expensive place in the
world in which to live and support
| family. Two dollars there goes no far
| Their than one dollar in country town
for paying cost of rent, food, suitable
clothing and other necessities.
The cost of amusement is even higher
in proportion. The farmer who plans
a day of enjoyment can hitch up the
horse and drive to town with his
family, or get up picnic, or go fishing
or hunting, and can easily arrange for
no end of wholesale pleasure with
hardly a cent Of extra expense. But
the city man must pay heavily for
every item of enjoyment, from car
fares to holiday clothes for his family,
There are temptations to spend money
at almost every step of the way, and
little outing makes big hole in the
pay envelope. The saloon keepers get
more than they ought of the money.
The scarcity of natural pleasures
tempts to loafing, smoking and drink
ing in the saloons, which are crowded
nightly with the working classes.
Moreover, the pay is not SO very large
when reckoned on a long average
Trades like masonry, brick-laying,
stone-working, which command high
daily wages, are mostly trades in which
| employment is uncertain, being inter
lrupted by cold weather or storms and
lack of work during periods of dullness
in the business world. Some of the
highly paid work is very disagreeable,
severe of unhealthful, and shortens
the working life of the artisan and I'M
dermines his health.
Now and then during a period OF
prosperity and freedom from strikes
and other causes of idlenes some of the
more thrifty workers may lay aside a
little money. But here is another diff
ference compared with the farmer
Country life educates in caution, good
judgment, economy and other virtues
tending to thrift The farmer invests
his savings in more land, farm i'm
provements or the local bank. The city
workers is an easy victim Of the hun
dreds of schemes of which he reads in
4 his Sunday paper, and he finds his
savings even more uncertain than his
! employment
Occasionally workman has the
| courage to break away from his sur
| roundings and to move out where he
| has possible chance to save money
| enough for a home amid wholesome
4 conditions. But even then his state
lacks the substance and independence
of the successful farmer. His subur-
ban house, when paid for, costs ~
much as farm, but, unlike the farm,
is not a source of income or resource
against loss of employment or approach
Of old age.
| The city workman sometimes thinks
of considerations like these. Two out
of three of them have plans for retire
ment to farm at some future period,
which usually never arrives. The ad-
lvantages of change are nearly all in
the other direction.