Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1904-01-28
"a C~oMPEESATING WAGE"
walton in Many Lines of
Industry.

SSNOt III dOh1ON4aIN SOn6hOSS'ANh Ao'N
taken Congressman Hepburn, of Iowa,
TO task for his reckless and unfounded
assertions on November 10, that:
There is labor in every part of the
country for every man who wants a
place to work, and there is a compen-
Eating wage for every man who will
perform a days work"
But no other congressman has made
Mr.. Hepburn and his statements ap-
pear quite so ridiculous-to use mild
terms-as did Congressman Baker, OF
Brooklyn in his maiden speech in con-
gress. The following is a part OF the
column report of Mr.. Bakers speech as
it appeared in the New York Times OF
December Is:
is there any nan, even upon the re-
publican side," he asked, who, as we
see growing up gigantic fortunes al
most beyond calculation, and in our
great cities hundreds of thousands Of
individuals who scarcely know where
their breakfast is coming from in the
morning, will pretend that these hun
ireds of thousands of individuals who
have none of the wealth of the world
have received compromising wages for
their toll?
Compromising wages we are told,
exist for every man who desires to work,
and yet the evidence was brought out
before the coal strike commission that
under the system of slavery that ex-
listed in the anthracite coal regions of
Pennsylvania persons have worked for
IA years and never received one solitary
penny for wages.
Cardinal Gibbons says of the per-
sons employed in the clothing indus
try in Baltimore: They are living on
starvation wages. The result is that in
a few years they become incapacitated
for work When they become inca
pacitated for work where are they 60
ing to receive the compensating wages
that are to support them?
This condition is not unique. Right
in my W city of New York, for near
ly two years, men have come to my door
almost every day to ask me for what lit
tie influence l have to get them a job
in the city parks. That pays twodollars
a day, but a foreman in that department
tells me that on an average the men
only work four days a week.
These men are begging for an OPP
portunity to earn eight dollars a week
in the great city of New York, where
rents are SO high, where prices have
been increased in this period of pros
perity, where trusts have been able to
squeeze labor down and raise prices
up.
THE cost of living has gone up 81 per
cent. during this period of so-called
prosperous times, and at the best
wages have not gone up more than ten
per cent. A compromising wage. Is it
a compensating wage that gives to the
toiler one-fourth of the increase and
makes him pay the whole increased
cost of his commodities?
I'm the great state Of Iowa (Hep-
burns state), where VIZ are told every
man has his bank account" he contin-
ued, 1.-THE farm laborers do not receive
n wages as much as the mileage that is
paid to the gentleman from Iowa to
come to congress.
"a gentleman who at the time of the
great labor trouble at Homestead was
very careful to remain secluded at Ski.
BIO castle; who was very careful not tc
respond to cablegrams sent him asking
him to use his influence to see that the
struggle should be ended-Andrew Car
1egie-has a great deal to say about the
'benefGent system instituted by the
ULevru States Steel corporation, which
is called their bonus" for their en-
ployes.
Says Andrew Carnegie: In the
bonus granted to employees we have
proof Of regard for them which canno
but tell, and the distribution of shares
in the concern has an advantage which
SO far W. no partnership has en-
joyed.'
Yes; never before in any large way
on any large scale has an industrial cor.
poration been able to foist upon It'll
, workmen stock at S2k which sells to-
day in New York at 523s."