The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-09-09
CREED OF COMBINES
IND ITS EFFECT UPON
THE VICE EARNER
Increased Cost of Living the Most Serious Question Affect
ing the American PopIe-Concrete Picture of Pros
perity Among the ToierS.

pense goes for bread and meat. Bread is
more expensive.
A loaf now weighs but fourteen ounces
and still costs five cents. The family gen
orally buys stale bread for three cents a
loaf
For meat the family eats sausage. cheap
stew meat, pork and the cheapest round
steak. The price seldom exceeds five
cents pound, quality according.
The family eats no chicken. II IS too
expensive. Fish is used considerably.
Half the year the family uses no eggs
and for four months no milk. Cheap
preserves often replace butter.
When butter is bought it is at the rate
of s cents for a quarter of a pound.
Ice is luxury beyond these families
The only Indulgence is tobacco at 70
cents a week
Have Miserable Homes.
The family lives in four miserable
rooms. paying about 81 a month The
house has no bathroom, nor running
water. and it is unsanitary. The water
has to be carried from a distance.
There is no privacy. The location is
undesirable and inconVenient. On ba-
sis of a third more than its assessed
valuation the rent ought TO be $50
| (Which would yield 10 per cent CROSSE
SO the poor family pays Al per cent
more for rent than the people who are
better off
After paying for food and rent and
| incidentals there is little left for
rather has no best suit" children are
so shabby they are ashamed to be sent
TO school; one boy had to be sent to the
| industrial home to save expenses; IA
theirs working clothes are so ragged
that he cannot exercise his ambition to
get a better job.
The only relief is from an occasional
contribution from relatives or charity.
The family makes no regular apprO-
priation for fuel Father picks up wood
about the contractors yard. gets some
81, 7 u1Ir= nd he
children forage for whatever will burn.
Cooking is done in summer over an oil
stove; in winter the kitchen range FUR
nishes heat and cooking also. Kerosene
is bought for cents quart and
cents a pint
often the family buys a pennys worth
| of kerosene to run the stove for
meal.
When coal is bought it is by the bushel
at the rate of $50 ton.
The InstaIIment ShyIock.
The family furnishes its house on the
inStailment plan.
1t is always making payments on some
installment purchase chair, bright rug.
stove bed or sewing machine. II is the
only way in which such things can be
purchased, and il matters not that the
sewing machine costs SO, when it could
be bought for cash for S35, and other
things in proportion
The family pays 10 cents a week for
industrial insurance and burial"
Enormous profits are made by the in
dustrisl insurance companies. It is also
paying on account of an old debt, in
CURED when the last baby came.
This debt which amounts to s45, IS
drawing interest at the rate of $50 per
cent.
For this is what is charged by the
shylOck loan companies with which the
poor people are forced to deal There
are fifty such companies doing business
in Washington, and proportionate in
other cities, in defiance of laws pro-
hibiting uSury.
They hang on the heels Of the poor.
in their daily journey, and fatten on
their troubles,
laneous' account of this family for any
of the following items: Postage, sta
tiOnery, newspapers. magazines. amuse-
ments, excursions, travel and toys.
Pay Highest Prices.
On account of being poor this family
is unable to practice such ordinary ecOnO-
mics as other people think most neces-
sary.
The wife buys one cake Of soap for
cents. when % cents would buy six cakes
she pays cents for a quarter of peck
of potatoes (S1.2S a busheD when 81 would
buy a bushel; she buys one can Of to-
matoes for 10 cents. when three cans
may be had for a quarter; she pays
cents for a quarter of pound of but
ter, cents for a half a pound OF sugar.
s cents for a half a pound Of coffee 8
cents for a small sack OF salt cents
for box of n atches and 1 cent for an
onion.
On all these purchase she has paid
more than the current market Tate-be-
cause of the small quantities-and has
lost from 10 to 80 per cent.
Hubby's earnings part. So IT is figured
the poor pay on an average 7 per cent
more on all food, as a result Of being
compelled to buy in small quantities.
The family, then, is seen to be under
God F.rnN tn Fr Il in
winter. huddled seven into four rooms,
without sanitation. weighed down with
debt, a prey to shylOcks. in wTetChed
surroundings, without pleasures OF the
beginnings of education. in a daily race
with starvation-and no way to get away
from the condition. And this is q tenn
perate. Industrious family IN AN ERA
OF WONDERFUL PROSPERITY
And it is the real condition of mil