South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1918-03-17
If Kaiser Wilhelm Should
Gemnanize Our Industries

/ grip on all business. its secret as
well as open manipulation Of cor
porations, its partnership in COM
binations, and its military domn-
ance of all industry and of all men.
would strangle us if she had the
chance over here.
We are lighting TO keep her out.
\ We must keep her out, and in do
/ ing so we fight our own war.
Not long after the beginning of
/ the war in 1914 I made some stud
| les Of European wages. 1t was too
| late then to get my data on the
/ spot. for Germany, Austria and
| France were on fire and all in
dustry was upset, but ! spent sew
eral weeks in digging through Of
| fetal European documents and in
/ getting facts from men who had
\ been managers of factories in Eu-
rope; also from wOrlImen who had
been employed in foreign plants. To
/ see these men personally I made
/ Journeys of hundreds of miles.
Just before the war the normal
wages in Chemnitz, Germany, were
/ approximately these:
From Sc to IS a week for ma
/ sons. plumbers, painters, and brick
layers; 81 to 50 for plasters; about
$3.50 for gas filters: Sc to 50 for
machinists; 81 to SIS for molders;
about the same for pattern makers;
SO for saddlers.
Transfers worked for about a
dollar a day. In the textile trade
wages ran from Sc to 81 a week,
and unskilled men generally re-
ceived less than 81 a week and sell
dom more than So. Municipal en-
ployes drew from their local gov
ernments "a to sc a week.
Wages in Berlin were about 90
per cent higher; also living expenses.
1t is something of a shock to the
American mechanic when he reads
such figures as these. Here in our
I glorious America the contrast was
amazing at that time-and would
be again i'm peace times But in war
all opportunities for comparison
are wiped out. T reproduce below
some New York wages in 1910. four
years before the beginning of the
war In 1914 some of these wages
were at least 10 percent higher.
gathered the facts from official
sources and they are correct.
You may compare New York
with Berlin. though OF course YOU
must heavily discount these Ameri-
can figures when YOU apply them to
smaller communities. You must also
take off similar percentages when
you compute German wages i'm the
smaller towns.
In New York, then. plasterers
were getting five dollars and a half
a day, and plasters' laborers got
three dollars and twenty-five cents:
cement and concrete masons, five
dollars. and their labOrers three;
granite cutters, five: boiler makers.
five. and their helpers three and a
half; electrical workers. four and a
half; steam filters. five, and their
helpers three: painters, four: as
/ bestos workers, four and a half. and
their helpers, two eighty; elevator
/ constructors. five: stationary engi-
/ neers. four and a half. portable and
! hosting engineers, five and a half;
I cabinet makers. five; decorators and
I gilders. four and a half; ironwork-
ers five: slate roofers. five
I In Chemnit2 about this time
/ newspaper compositors received
something like $13 a week. IN New
/ York the union scale at that time
\ on morning newspapers was s31 q
/ week. while bookwork paid S21 At
the time, my figures were gathered,
in 1915, newspaper compositors in
/ New York were getting from 50 to
SIS a day. according 70 the shift on
which they worked. Book compos-
itors drew from "a to So a day.
You must remember that the
New York wages I have cited were
paid for eight hours work, while in
Germany the day was usually from
eight 20 ten hours.
Among authoritative DAYS that
had been gathered in Germany in
1905 I found a canvass Of 5.046
workingmen's families, showing
that only 737 had incomes reaching
$40 a week. To arrive at a fair
estimate Of wage scales in 1915. add
one dollar a week. This is not my
estimate. but official
Now, we are apt 10 say in this
country that Germany lived as
we'll on her wages as We did on ours,
but anyone who studies the facts
finds that this is a fallacy. In 1910
two-thirds OF the people in Chem
nitz lived in apartments OF three
rooms or less Chemnitz had a
population Of $4,000.
7 found in the New York public