The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1904-10-09
A Subm erged Tenth.

Submerged Tenth.
The number of those in the United
States reported by the census of 1900
as engaged in gainful occupations
| is approximately 100000. While it
Is impossible to select from these with
absolute accuracy the number of a
special group incapable Of organization
into such bodies as those through which
special trades and general laborers
effect an increase in wages and a short
ening Of hours Of labor, it is entirely
safe to estimate them at not less than
100000.
This group would include clerks in
stores in both city and country, book
keepers and accountants, store porters,
stenographers and typewriters, fore
men and overseers, and others whose
places in the commercial and profess
sional world are so easily filed that
organization for an improvement Of
their condition is practically out of the
question.
Yet it is upon these, so many Of whom
are the earners of only meagre salaries,
that the conditions Of to-day bear most
heavily. Not only has the actual cost
of living been materially increased
within recent years, but there has also
been an elevation OF the standards of
life with which such must comply. The
clerk and the typewriter, the salesman
and the bookkeeper, must present at
least respectable appearance and
live under conditions of responsibility
This large and important group suffers
most heavily as result Of present con-
ditions, and undoubtedly receives the
least consideration.
The statistics of the census of 1900
showing the average annual income
of American wage earners as $43s are
accurate but entirely misleading when
used in illustration of the meagre earn
ings of the "laboring classes" or for
the purpose of showing the impossi-
bility of social decency on such an in
come. There is an endless number of
modifying conditions, and the fact stands
that, taken as mass, our wage earn
ers, compared with those of other lands,
are far from being objects of pity. They
have, moreover, in their possibility of
organization, lever by which, if it
be rightly and wisely used, they may
raise the general standard of their eco
nomic we'll being. This, due in part to
their organized effort, has already been
done. The average wage shown by
the census of 1880 is $347. as compared
with $4ss in 1900.
No such tabulation of averages is
possible with those millions whose means
of livelihood brings them into group
which is sometimes classed as salary
earners, in distinction from the wage
earners of mills, factories, shops, con-
struction work and similar enterprises.
They constitute, in general, clerical
force, and for the purpose Of this con-
sideration there may be grouped with
them some hundreds of thousands of
small shopkeepers and professional men,
clergymen, lawyers and others, whose
income, whether fixed or variable, is
the equivalent Of often no more than
a meagre salary. A large percentage
of this group is doubtless represented
by the store clerks, both male and female.
in our large cities. Yet the number of
small proprietors, of clergymen and
even of lawyers, whose annual income
is less than that OF the average street
cleaner 1884 per year., or the average
horseshoer ($93s per year., and no higher
than that Of the average laundry worker
(s4se per year, is very considerable.
This entire group appears to be for
gotten, both by society in general and
by that labor unionism which insists
so strongly that its primary object is
the improvement of the social and moral
condition of toiling humanity. The
girl at the ribbon counter Of a depart
ment store, the poorly paid bockkeeper
at his desk, the country clergyman with
his meagre salary and family to edu-
cate, and the small proprietor struggling
for bare living out Of the profits of his
limited sales, are all as much a part Of
that "toiling humanity" as the New
York bricklayer who demands that
after the first Of next month his wages
shall be 10 cents an hour, and who is to
get it because he can and will strike and
paralyze industry it is refused him.
In the increased cost of his own living
the wage earnor pays part of the in
crease which he secures by his demands
under threat Of strike, by strike,
OF through the sense of fairness on the
part OF an employed who voluntarily
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