The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1918-07-05
Eight-HOur Day Was
Rule 400 Years Ago.


| hear and read the outgivings of
many eminent minds about an eight
hour day, and they all seem to pro-
ceed upon the theory that eight hours
for days work is recent invention,
a leap in the dark, daring expert
ment, and nobody knows what may
come of it. As matter of fact, it
is so old it makes Bunker Hill monu
ment look like thing of yesterday
1t existed before the ten-hour day,
the twelve-hour day or the fourteen
hour day. Four hundred years ago
among our forefathers an eight-hour
working day was the rule and stand
ard. If there hadd 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 looked upon as a
demagogue and revolutionist.
1t was only because we had an
enormous increase in the pressure for
production, particularly since the in
PRODUCTION of factories and steam, that
the working day was ever heightened
until life came to mean for the work
ers nothing but toll and sleep. In
modern times the increase of labor
/ saving machinery should have offset
all that. The average factory hand
or transportation worker now is 200
to 800 times as efficient but he is no
better off. The huge increase in his
output of effectiveness hasn't short
ened his hours. This is plainly wrong.
Il is dangerously wrong for the COM
munity. The eight-hour movement
seeks to set it right.
The eight-hour idea means some
thing to the worker, but lot more
to the rest of society. See how this
is. Up to 1847 women and children
worked sixteen hours day, or some
thing like that in the Welsh coal
mines Women, harnessed like cattle,
dragged from the mines great baskets
of coal There was board in the
center of the runway with cleats nail
ed upon it. Bent far over, their heads
almost to the ground, the women
braced their feet against these cleats
and tugged at their loads. More of
them were unsexed by their toll. Ma
ture mercifully made them incapable
of bearing children. The rest, if they
had offspring, brought forth idiots.
/ The little children that worked in the
mines were so injured or brutalized
that they grew up either criminals of
strange types or imbeciles.
Society had to pay for all this, and
pay appalling costs. 1t is paying for
them still. Yet when it was proposed
to do no more than to mitigate some
of the worst features, mine owners
violently protested and said they
would be ruined In this case of the
Welsh coal mines, the government de-
termined to risk the ruin and reduced
the hours of labor After a time OBJ
lservers were astonished to see that
lsocial conditions improved, general in
Iteligence rose, good order increased,
and the general welfare grew in pro-
Iportion as the working hours were
shortened.
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 days, to stand all day turn
ing piece of metal back and forth
tending a machine that cuts out leath-
er heels, is to fatten the mind, per
vert the soul and darken the life. The
more people you have working long
hours at these deadly emplpoyments
the worse for the average condition
of the population, which is the only
national strength Everything that
really counts comes out of the masses
the common people, the general run
of mankind.
All the inventions that amount tc
anything come from that source. Al
the ideas that really help come from
what the snobs call plebeian sources
! It's only the average that counts anc
there isn't much chance for as higl
average on intelligence where the
workers toll long hours. 1t seem:
strange to be arguing these things il
America.
Sixty years have passed since Aus
tralia adopted the eight-hour day
! April q, 1856, was the day In Aus
tralia it is celebrated now as kint
of Fourth of July-a day of nationa
freedom and greatness.
In the United States we are still
talking about it more or less. "Th'
1 Iglorious spirit of American progress
goes rather lame when you think o
that.-The Lather.