The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-08-08
WR!GHT'S FIGURES
Are Disputed by Congressman Cow
herd of Missouri.

washington. Aug. s.-Chairman
Cowherd of the Democratic congress
sional campaign committee has is
sued a statement in REPUTATION of re-
Gently published tables from the bu-
reau of labor relative to the increase
in wages and the cost of living. Mr..
Cowherds conclusions are as follows:
I'm the bulletin on cost of living and
wages, recently issued by the bureau
of statistics, the methods adopted are
as remarkable as the conclusions
ways been the standard by which the
rise or fall of the cost of living has
been computed. Had Colonel Wright
followed the customary course of
using wholesale prices, he would have
been confronted with the excellent
tables issued by Dun and Bradstreet's.
both recognized as commercial author
tiles Dun's table of prices shows that
from July 1897, the low point, to
March, 1904, the highest point, the
cost of living increased 43 per cent.
The most skiliful juggler could not
show such a rise in wages. Party
necessities, therefore, would not per-
nit Mr.. Wright to use this table, and
he dare not refute it. So he adopts
the shining, uncertain and unknown
standard of retail prices. Wholesale
prices are fixed and stable, the same
in every community. with cost of
freight added. There is neither sta
bility nor uniformity in retail prices.
Coffee sells in the same city for from
10 to 40 cents, tea from 20 cents to
$3.50, and best creamery butter for
from Is to 80 cents per pound.
"A bright field agent selecting his
store and localities could find evidence
in retail prices to support any theory
This was the way in which the cost of
living was reduced. The methods en-
ployed to raise wages were equally as
questionable. Everyone knows that the
greatest increase in wages is to be
found in those industries where union
labor is strongest and where the
strength of the union mad been develop
ed during the period under inVeStiga-
ton. The conditions are peculiarly APP
plfcable to the building trades. Out of
the 3429 establishments selected by Mr..
Wright for comparison, 1,199, or more
than One-third, are in building trades.
Of the remainder 1,1S5 are likewise in
the unprotected industries. The great
est employers of labor in the country
are the railroads, and no other industry
is better barometer of the average
wage. The railroads employ all kinds
of labor, skilled and unSkilled, union
and non-union. In no other industry
are as complete and accurate statistics
available. Each railroad reports to the
interstate commerce commission the
total wages during each year and the
total number of workmen, on June &c.
of that year. The average wage is,
therefore, easily obtainable. Why were
no railroad wages included In MI.
Wrights report. The answer is appar-
ent. The last report of the interstate
commerce commission shows in
crease of railroad wages of only per
cent. The railroads employ more than
], 300. 900 men. Mr.. WrightS figures cover
176, S27. Miners, one of the next largest
bodies of laborers, also are omitted. Mr..
Wrights table does not show that any
one of these 1882 men received more
wages in 1908 than in 1902 or any other
year. 1t only claims to snow the hourly
wage for these particular men has in
creased.
I'm other wages, had a mill raised
the wages of its employers 10 per cent
and then shut down one-half the time,
this would have figured in Mr.. Wrights
table as an increase in wages. 1t would
have been just as easy to have selected
an equal number of estab lishments,
whose output, quality of work and
number of employees was decreasing
and shown a reduction instead of an
increase in wages.
Then too, by taking hourly wages.
Mr.. Wright would not have to consider
the SOC. 900 men now out of employment.
By carefully selecting his establish
ments, he did not have to consider the
1, 100000 men whose wages, the trades
journals tell us. were reduced in 1909
shall appeal from Colonel Wright and
his expert statisticians to one who fig
ures more skilfully and carefully than |
he-the housewife with the market bas- |
ket, who must make her husbands |
scanty wages cover the constantly in |
cost of the family's daily |
need -