The Gem worker and the Idaho labor herald. (Boise, Idaho) 1914-1917, 1916-02-10
RAILWAY WAGE RATE
Employees Have Gained Much by United Efforts
Through Organization
(By Marcus Day.

; more than their rights, why do the
railroads continually resort to subter-
fuge, deceit and downright lying in
/, order to present their side of the ar
gument against the proposed demand
for an eight-hour day. The first false
statement made in connection with
this subject, repeated by the New
York Sun, is that labor receives 45
cents of every dollar taken in from
the public. The writer was long,
long time an office clerk right at the
source OF figures regarding expenses
and profits, if you please, and knows
this to be downright lie-to use
the short and ugly word. Since
left railroad office work there has
been few small increases in wages
to men in the Brotherhoods but for
eight long years that | was a stenog-
rapher for the board of directors of
the entire Burlington system, wages
to train-service, amounted to less
than twelve per cent of the money
taken in from public and IS per cent
for labor of all kinds.
The railroad apologist never gives
the reader anything concerning inside
profits which are never booked and
he never gives the reading public any
thing il regard to the money which is
re-collccted from the employee who
gains this seemingly high wage thru
dcvia us ways, too numerous and too
well-kncwn to the intelligent to need
repetition
If the present railroad owners were
in TIE business of railroading solely
there might be a semblance of truth
to some of their figures but they are
the owners of banks. trust companies.
steel mills. and in fact in every ac-
tivity where profit is taken from the
consumer and the railroad employee
is a consumer who pays back gener-
ously to the very men who have made
tens of millions in private fortunes
thru their connection with railroads.
The real owners of railroads are the
docile, complacent apparently salts
fed multitude of shareholders, who
let their affairs be managed by the
ruthless manipulators who vote these
shareholders by proxy. When |
speak of railroad owners. as | have
done in this case. | have reference
to those who control the destinies OF
the roads and who reap the great re-
wards. There have been many mil
lions of dollars taken away from the
investing public and there is not to-
day any thing less stable or insecure
than railroad stocks and bonds unless
it be perhaps the bonds of the Euro
pean warning nations. AS long as the
present regime lasts in railroading, as
long as the small stockholder is con-
tent to remain the willing servant of
his master director in the railroad
business because he hopes to share
IN the loot of the public by high
freight and passenger rates. he de-
Serves no consideration at the hands
OF either the public or the railroad en-
ployee. The latter can be depended
upon not to overstep his bounds in
demanding wages, knowing that the
least semblance to unfariness would
lose him the support of the general
public in his fight against the power
ful manipulators who control the
destinies of banks and industries de-
pendent upon banks.
The case of the share holder who
may be injured by higher wages or
shorter hours is against the directors
who have mismanaged his affairs and
have milked the roads tens of millions
of dollars which they have sequester-
ed TO their own private accounts.
The public will protect the share
'holder against extortion from the
railroad employee when the latter be-
comes too exacting, but the holder of
securities, which have been watered
several times their value need not ex-
Pect the employee TO share his misery
with him There is no one more de-
serving than the man who labors on
the railroad and the only unfortunate
thing to be regretted in the question
Of wages and hours is the fact that
the million and half of employees
not included in the Brotherhoods will
probably gain nothing by the victory
Confined on page p