The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1915-06-18


enue and commerce upon solid foun-
dation and inuring to the betterment
of every branch of busiess. The good
results of one year and months of
corrective legislation is beginning to
be felt throughout this country.
Many of our factories running day and
night with full force, the big trunk
line railroads putting on new trains,
and the wheels of industry generally
in the factory, in the mine and on the
farm may be heard to hum, thus her
aiding and announcing to the people
of this nation the pent up and mature
wisdom of the innumerable beneficial
measures advocated and enacted by
our present remarkable Administra-
ton.
In the great Southeast Missouri
Lead Belt, where is produced annually
thousands of tons of lead of the high
est quality and commanding the high
est prices, men labor for pittance,
comparatively speaking, being paid a
lower wage than in the Joplin district,
more dangerous to mine and more diff
ficult to mill.
Here the mining industry IS owned
by few great corporate companies
which, although having a weak be-
ginning as whole. have grown by
leaps and bounds until today they are
affiuent and powerful.
In the Joplin District large corpor-
ate companies of wealth and affiuence
are few, the mining industry being
principally owned and operated by
firms and individuals of very limited
wealth and extent, yet the wages paid
there are approximately so per cent
higher than here.
Why this great difference? The
cost to live there is very little in ex-
cess of the cost here, if any greater
The method of mining there is much
more wasteful and expensive, the dis
lance from market is greater, the
scale of work is not near so vast.
Weighing all the conditions and
circumstances in each case there APP
pears no legitimate reason why this
difference should exist between these
two districts in such close proximity.
Many who worked here and held a
lease upon which they dwelt have left
and gone to the Joplin district to la
Dor, on account of the uncertainty Of
of employment and the low wages
paid here, leaving their property,
which as a rule was encountered, to
be sold by the trustee for the bal
ance of their debt, toward the extin-
guishment of which they had applied
a goodly portion of their meagre earn
ings during the last or years of
their stay here also paying a nice
sum of their income to the lessor who,
practically bore the same relation to
the lessee, as the Feudal Lord bore to
the Vassal in the old days when Feud-
alism was in its cruder form.
If conditions and wages had justi-
fed it, or if Mr.. Lead Belt Miner had
known of no place where he could bet
ter his conditions and increase his
wages, he, perhaps, would have con-
tinued to live here and dwell upm his
Feudal footing and render to his land
lord the regular stipend which was the
material condition of his tenure.
There really would seem to be no
reason why the great mining compa-
MES here in this richest lead-produc-
ing district of the world should not
follow the example and precedent es-
tablished recently by great mining
company in the richest copper produc-
ing district in the world, if not exceed
its liberality and generosity to its EN-
ployes by announcing the distribution
of a bonus to its employees who wee
put on short time and suffered re-
duction in wages owing to the de-
pressed and unsettled condition Of the
lead market last fall, to be effective
at an early date.
On May 18th the great Calumet and
Hecla Mining Co of Haughtor, Mich.
which employs 10000 men announced
the distribution Of a 100000 bonus
to be divided among its 10000 EN-
ployes on last Saturday, June IL.
On account Of business depression,
the corporation, on Sept. /, 1914, pass-
ed its dividend, put employees on
three-quarters time and reduced wag-
es 10 per cent. Office employees, from
manager to office boys, received cut
Of Is per cent,
When the copper situation began
to improve and show q profit, the
men were put back on full time and
wares were advanced to the fomer