The Sentinel=record., 1915-04-06
START PROBE OF
 PULLMAN COMPANY
PORTERS RECEIVE $27.5O PER MONTH FOR TBE FIRST
 FIFTEEN YEARS.
After Serving For Fifteen Years Their Wages Are Advanced Per Cent, Making Their Salaries $28.97 Per Month.

Chicago. April a.-Tbe first govern. mcnt inquiry into wages and condl- tions of employment or sleeping car poIters and conductors was made here today by the United States com mission on industrial relations. L. s. Hungerford, general manager of the Pullman Company, was on the stand most of the day and was questioned by Frank r. Walsh, chairman of the commission.
 In the first fifteen years of a sleep ing car porters service, Mir. Hunger. ford said, he receives $2750 a month il wages Al the end or fifteen years he, like other service employees, auto matically receives an advance of ] per cent, which makes his pay $2S.87 d month. In the first ten years of service he buys his uniforms, but thereafter the company takes on this burden. A bonus system gives men with good records an extra months pay for the year. In 1914 eighty-fiye per cent of the conductors and sev. entyfour per cent of the porters earned the bonus, the witness said They are eligible to relief fund after five years and to the pension list after twenty years. Mr. Walsh read many communications, with holding the writer's names. complain, ing of conditions of employment and low compensation one writer re marked that a porters wages would not buy his meals on some runs.
 There were a number of porters in the audience and they pricked ul their ears when MT Walsh brought mp the subject of tips.
 Do you expect the puOuc 10 pay the difference between these wages | and a living wage?" he asked the witness.
 No; 1 don't think that was consid | cred, the latter replied.
 You thought them satisfied with these salaries?'
 No, l wouldn't say that: we re- ceiycd mo expressions of dissatisfac tion regarding them replied Mr Iiungerford.
 ''Is $27.50 enough to pay any man for a months work?' continued Mr. Walsh. Minimum wage investiga. tions of the employment of women show that they cannot subsist on less | than $8 week"
 We can get all the men We want at that rate vas the reply.
 Have you considered the social effect of such a wage which cumpels men but recently removed from bond age to subsist on gratuities from an other race?"
 'I am not competent to answer that. Well, can a man live on $2750?"
 "l don't know, but it probably de. bends on his prerequisites"
 The witness was asked as to the history of the tipping system and re- piled that it did not originate with the Pullman company.
 Tt seems always to have been a general condition It did not origi. nate with us. However. if anybody is deserving of tips it is the sleeping car porter; some of them are artists
 Are the porters required to polish the shoes of passengers?" asked the cha rman
 No; they are permitted to- an- swered Mir. HungerrUrd
 Mr. Walsh read from a book Of rules by P, C. Johnson, distdict super. intendent of the Pullman Company at Omaha, entitled, What to Do anu What Not to Do.' In this compilation it appeared that porters were re. quired to shine shoes, and the wit ness said they bought their own polish. The porter standing at the steps receiving passengers musI stand straight must not lean indo- lently against the car Look pleas ant says the ruh: Don't give the impression that it IS mere conde. scension on your part that he is all lowed to ride al all
 R. w. Bell, secretary of the Fedora ton of Pullman Conductors and Por- ters, was called to the stand just be- fore adjournment and will resume to- morrow MT Hungerford testified that outsiders had attempted to unionize the employees but the move. ment had been left, he said, to die of It's OBn weight. Nit. Bell is expected to go into detail on the subject.