The Wahpeton times. [volume] (Wahpeton, Richland County, Dakota [N.D.]) 1879-1919, 1916-12-28
SOCIETY PAYS FOR
LoHa woRkpAY

SOCIETY PAYS FOR
LONG WoRkDAY
l hear and read the outgivings
of Many Eminent Minds about an
Eight Hour day and they all
seem to proceed uocn the theory
that eight hours for days work
is a recent invention, a leap in
the dark, daring experiment and
nobody knows what may come of
it.
AS matter of fact it is so old
it makes Bunker Hill monument
look like thing of yesterday. 1t
existed before the ten-hour day
the twelve hour day or the four
teen-hour day. Four hundred
years ago among our forefathers
an eight-hour day was the rule
and standard.
If there. had been no change in
the way we produce things, eight
hours would probably be the
standard today, and anybody that
wanted to shorten it would be look
ed up as demayogie and rcvolu-
zionist.
1t was only because we had an
enormous increase in the pres
sure for production, particularly
since the introduction of factor
les and steam, that he work ing
iay was ever heightened u ,:,.l
life came to mean for the worker
nothing but toll and sleep.
In modern times the increase
in labor saving machiery should
have offset all that. The aver
age factory hand or Transportation
worker now is 200 or 800 times
as efficient as the average worker
of IS years ago, but he is no bet-
ter off. The huge increase in his
output or effectiveness hasn't
shortened his hours.
This is plainly wrong. 1t is
rottenly and intolerably wrong.
1t is dangerously wrong
for the community. The eight
hour movement seeks to set it
right.
The eight-hour idea means
something to the worker, but a
lot more to the rest of society.
See how this is. Up to t847
women and children worked tG
hours day, or something like
that, in the Welsh coal mines.
Women, harnessed like cat'le
dragged from the mines great
baskets of coal. There was a
board in the center Of the run
away with cleats nailed upon it
Bent far over their heads almost
to the ground, the women brac-
ed their feet against these cleats
and tugged at their loads.
Most of them were unsexed by
| their toll. Nature mercifully
made them incapable of bearing
children. The rest. if they had
offspring. brough, forth idiots.
The little children that worked
in the mines were so injured oI
brutalized that they grew up
| either criminals of strange types
or ilnhcciles.
Society had to pay for all this
and pay appalling costs. Ii is
paying for them still.
Yet when it was proposed to dc
no more than to mitigate some OF
it's worst features. mine owners
violently protested and said they
would be ruined.
In this case of the Welsh coal
mines the government determin I'd
to risk the ruin and reduced the
hours of labor.
After time observers were
astonished to see that social con-
ditions improved, general intel
ligence rose. good order increa Sed
and the general welfare grew in
proportion as the working hours
were shortened.
There has been the same ex..
orience wherever the thing has
been tried.
In the olden days, when one
man made a pair of shoes, let US
say, he could exercise his mind
and please his taste in designing
and creating them.
In these davs to stand all day
turning a piece of metal back and
forth, or tending machine that
Gusts out leather heels is to flat
ten the mind. pervert the soul
and darken the life.
The more people you have
working these hours at these
deadly employments, the worse
for the average condition Of the
population. which is the only ma
tional strength.
II seems strange to be arguing
these things in America.
Sixty years have passed sine"
Australia adopted the eight hour
day April 2t. 1856. was the day.
In Australia it is celebrated now
as kind of Fourth of July-a
day of national freedom I'd
greatness.
In the United States we are
still talking about it, more or less.
The glorious spirit of American
progress" goes rather lame when