Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1915-10-30
THE WORLDWIDE WAR
TRUST AND ITS ACTS
From Speech Of Clyde Taven.
ner Taken From Congress
SiOnal RcOrd

ring are notorious as being among the
most bitter enemies of organized labor
in the United States, and reports fol-
lowing investigations of conditions in
the plants reveal that they are cruel
and inhuman in their treatment of un-
organized labor Is this language too
sTongY The findings of the investi-
eating committees themselves will af-
ford the best answer to this query.
A survey of living conditions in
Pittsburgh was made in 1909 by the
Sage Foundation under the direction of
especially qualified investigators, who
collected their material at first hand
in the mill and in the home. 1t had
from first to last the hearty support of
such prominent citizens of Pittsburgh
as Mayor George W. Guthrie; President
II. D. w. English, of the Civic Improve
ment Commission; Judge Joseph Buff
fington, of the United States circuit
court; and w. II. Matthews, of the
famous Kingsley House.
Edwin Bjorkman, a magazine writer,
was furnished with the material
gathered by the foundation and pre-
sented its findings in condensed form
in the World g Work for April, 1909. |
quote the following from Mr.. Bjork-
man s resume of the Sage Foundation
report:
1.-THE Carnegie Steel Company en-
ploys about $4,000 workers within the
district. Concerning the foreign born
among these, some very instructive
statistics are available. They number
in all 1890, or three workers out of
four in the whole force. Together they
represent more than 20 distinct nation
alities, most of which in turn EN-,
brace from to 20 racial or lingual
subdivisions. Considering only the
predominant elements, we find 4"
$4,000 Austrians, Hungarians, Italians
and 10 semi-skilled, and only skilled
workers.
Mentally they rank low. Education
or training they have none. But
morally they can hardly be called un.
desirable. They prove submissive, de-
pendable, willing workers, who never
dream of questioning the desirability
or the dignity of the task assigned to
them, and who are rendered oblivious
to danger by their ignorance. Having
worked IA and l6 hours day in their
native countries, and having been paid
from % to so cents for such slavery
they think little of working IL hours
day and find fortune in So thus
earned.
"To the English-speaking people,
these men with unpronounceable names
and strange ways are just Hunkies =
dumb, dull, driven brutes, so utterly
beneath contempt that even competi-
tion with them is out of the question.
Wherever they get in, the natives and
the northerners withdraw. Wherever
the latter find conditions too hard or
wages too low, the 'Hunkies' apply
eagerly. Everywhere they have been
kept at the bottom so far. The worst
jobs, and only these, are for them. But
still they are coming in ever greater
numbers, and by slow degrees they are
pushing upward-steadily, inevitably
as fate itself. Amid the clatter of
their unintelligible tongues the few
and ever fewer, Engish.speaking fore.
men and skilled workers feel as lone.
some as lighthouses. And this chasm
between hostile castes of workers
serves, by the by, to make unionism
additionally impossible.
"There used to be big money for the
lnl a. -
There is still fairly good money to be
made by very few Of them. But for
Is years the cutting Of wages has been
going on until today in many cases
the best workers make less than halt
of what they used to earn. IL has been
figured out that every hundred work
crs in the steel mills and blast fur
naces includes 60 men who make less
than So a day and only two who make
more than 50 in the same time. The
average daily wages of Allegheny
county's 5000 blast.furnace men were
found to be below $3.50 in 1907. Ii
October Of that year the entire force
Of l2.hour men in the open hearth de
partment Of the Homestead Stee
Works was averaging $l2.76 a day
The highest paid skilled workers il
some Of the most important brauche,
Of the steel industry are incapable OF
earning more than 1915 day.
"rhe main thing asked Of the work
or is speed, or maybe one ought tC
4 say, speed without waste. To tn,
achievement of this result everything
is adapted, but, above all, the wag,
schedules The underlying idea of tn,
whole system is to get more out of {
man by paying him less Its fuuda
mental rule is that If the man drives
the machine he is paid by the piece; Il
the machine drives him he is paid foi
time. A trick constantly praeticed Il
to urge the workers into exceeding
their previous capacity for the pur
pose Of earning more and then to adap
the wage rate 20 the now record il
order that they may work still harde,
to retain their old earnings, This ha,
proved one of the most effective mean
Of increasing the output.
"Among 10000 men employed in tn,
three largest plants Of the United
States steel Corporation in 1907 ther,
were 100 men working only eight hour
a day. Among the steel and iron work
ers the l9hour day is practically Law
now, so that, for instance, there wer,
only niuety.thrce lO-hour men TO on,
thousand five hundred and seventeen
l2.hour men at the Homestead Stee
Works in 1907,