The Commonwealth. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1911-1914, 1914-02-05
MrNr Or MAGEs no MINIMuM

ICOST or LIVING, "Can n girl live
on $500 week." This was the ques-
ton under discussion, not how much
the company in the goodness of its
great heart, could afford" to pay out
of the workers surplus product.
/ All concerned, bosses and investi-
gators. agreed that wages should be
sufficient to cover the cost of living,
the price of labor-power, the dispute
being over the amount of wages neces-
sary to maintain the wage-slave, The
Retailers Association put this amount
at $500 per week, and brought forward
statistics purporting to have been fur
nished by contented, prosperous en-
ployes. Here they are:
Room and board, $3.50; laundry, 20
cents; car fare, 20 cents; clothing and
incidentals, $3.50; SAVINGS PER
WEEK (God save the markD, 80
cents. zone hundred and fifty-six
dollars and ten cents in ten yearsD
Another example of unparalleled
prosperity" was furnished as follows:
Coffee and rolls for breakfast, 40
cents; luncheons, 80 cents; room rent,
49, dinners. $1.40; car fare, so cents;
clothing and incidentals, $40.
Some members of the commission
seemed to feel that the amounts enum-
Grated above did not really allow
enough to cover the cost of living" at
current prices. Five-cent breakfasts
left some of the members of the COM
mission with a sort of all-gone feel
ing; others felt that so light break
fast should be followed at noon with
something more substantial and less
abstemious than a 17-cent lunch, espe-
cially for girls, who are not eligible to
the free-lunch counters. The commits
sioners who were accustomed to spend
20 cents each evening for an appetizer
before their $1.00 dinner thought that
20-cent dinners, while they called for
no previous appetizers, were a little
y
ly when this self-control at the table
would be rewarded, if at all, by only
S15610 at the end of ten years, if the
provident one had not by that time
placed her savings in the hands of the
funeral director
If the happy employees were to be
allowed but 20 cents for the laundry
trust, where was the allowance for
formaldehyde, to serve in lieu Of clean
clothes? And what about doctors and
dentists bills? On such food allow
ance the latter would scarcely be
needed; but the doctor and medicine
would naturally follow such a regime.
Among other items of twentieth cen
fury life not allowed for were news
papers, magazines, theaters, Sunday
picnics, union dues, accident insur-
ance, aiding aged parents or invalid
members of the family, out-of-work
fund, and a number of other items
which readily occur to civilized beings
living in the richest country in the
world"
One of the Illinois commissioners
produced a table showing the cost of
living for the average girl wage-slave
to be 1925 a week, and the states in
vestigators found 10000 girls who
were receiving IS a week or less.
Meanwhile, in the last eight years
1900 women, all young, have killed
themselves in Chicago hotels.
Some of them had been drugged or
intoxicated and ruined. Others had
seen the hopelessness of their lives.
Nearly 200 a year take their lives. In
practically every case they were des-
titute. No money or valuables being
found on them, they are sent to Pot
ter's Field.
Yet there are those who claim that
prostitution is not an economic ques-
ton.
Chicago is similar to all other big
cities. New York, Boston, Philadel-
phia, st. Louis and others likewise
have their suicide lists. They likewise
have their lists of sudden deaths that
are not set down as suicides.
Houses of prostitution are the last
resort of women who cannot other
wise make their earnings equal their
cost Of living. Jails and penitentiaries
claim the men who fail in the awful
struggle for a living wage under capt
taIism's hellish economic warfare. Ten
thousand victims of the system yearly
take their own lives, while another
ten thousand take the lives Of others.
Thousands find their way at last to
the mad-house; other thousands to
Potter's Field.
Great is capitalism. Wonderful is
Christian civilization. Very wonder
full!