The San Francisco call., 1906-08-19

l.
HI million dollars to
U0 the men whose
- ~ muscles work the
transformation. In
clearing away the
oeor1s for rebuilding to proceed, the
cry VIII pay IS million dollars to the
worker; in building beyond the point
which she had reached when she be-
came sacrifice to the god OF flame,
many, many millions will be expended
only seer might name the total
But these things are aside from the
consideration. The momentous fact
with which this article deals is that
IN reoonstructing her buildings-an
undertaking upon which she has al
ready set out with an avidity which
wins the applause of the world-San
FRANCISCO viii pay in wages to the
man who tolls with his hands the stu
pendous sum Of rs million dollars.
II IS as II the city had let contract
70 labor IN that sum. The work awaits
the worker, and the employer cries
Tor haste. Labor bends cheerfully to
Its task, for not in the history of the
world has labor met another oppor-
tunlty so vast in its extent and so
generous in its pay.
hirty thousand men are at work.
Other thousands will be added TO the
;payrolls. The ultra-conservative saw
the city will be ten years in rebuild
ing; the less conservative say five
years will consummate the task.
Whatever the period, labor has a
steady. job, with only such days of
> Id leEess as shortage of material and
p Unforeseen impediments may enforce.
A Rockefeller might dip into his
pocket and pay labor this huge wage,
but not even Rockefeller, from the
time OF Croesus to our own, has ever
fastened his financial abilities upon a
single undertaking of such magnitude.
And" while engaged IN rebuilding San
Francisco becomes the largest en-
p3oyer and the best paynaster, upon
: single piece of work, that labor has
c~z-.- tS1orrn
One hundred and seventy-fve mil
liens would mean less il the city
Building were spread over q period
ief halt century and two generations
of toilers divided the sum. But when
we consider that az most the recon
struction period will be confined
within decade labor attains a fnan-
cisl dignity which gives il a new
nsme-capitall
Forty Crafts Will Share.
The men in the building trades
who will reap the splendid harvest
Of rs millions IN the actual toll of
reconstruction represent forty crafts.
This total of their wage was not OBJ
tanned by random guess. In fact, to
arrive at the approximate sum re-
CURED careful and painstaking in
Vestigation into the cost of building
s-s.zs~r-f ~~I K
wages:
> Engineers, architects, contractors
and the experts of liability insurance.
companies assisted in estimating what
iabor's reward will be in the uprear-
ing of the city, which will cost 400
millions IN all.
Ordinarily the labor put into a
building averages about thirty-three
per cent OF the total cost In San
Francisco the average of wages for
the men Of all crafts and the unskilled
tcifer Is thirty per cent more than
the rates usually considered in esti-
mating cost of construction This will
give to San Francisco's toilers about
-forty-three per cent Of the total cost
OF reconstruction, or about rs mil
lions.
. This. great sum of money will be
poured INTO the pay envelopes OF Ia
borefS, masons, carpenters, plumbers,
electricians, hodcarriers, plasterers,
painters, structural iron workers,
cement workers, teamsters, lathers,
shingiers and the various forces of a
score OF other trades. In the build
ing of a skyscraper alone forty diff
ferent trades are represented, and
every time a towering building of
steel and brick costing $1,000 or ST.
100000 is reared to its monumental
height labor draws down a fortune
for its creating.
In estimating that labor will receive
Iz5.. millions IN the reconstruction
period, no reckoning is taken of the
cost Of clearing the ruin-piled area of
the burned district. This will amount
to near twenty-five millions, of which
sum laborers and derrick men will
get. more than fifteen millions, making
a grand total of reconstruction of 200
millions.
. Figures are not prosy when we con-
slider what they mean to great COM
muuity of working people. There are
some thirty thousand men of various
trades and crafts now employed in