Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1919-12-03
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Why Stop at Ten Hours?

/
+. Omaha, Dec. Ito the Editor OF
The Bee: A few years ago, there
was a great deal of talk about eff
cheney and of doing things in an
efficient manner. but in later years
the aim for efficiency seems to have
have lost sight of, and now the great
effort seems to be to do as little work
| as possible and in as few hours as
/ can be, with the result of forcing
prices on all productions whether OF
| field or of shop to unheard of pro-
/ portions.
/ can consistently talk on the labor
question for l know personally what
! it is to work from ~ to 20 hours
not only mentally but physically,
and though l am now past so years
of age. have for more than 80 years
| put in from 10 to 20 hours every
one of the days of that time both
physically and mentally and in addi-
| ton l walk six miles every day of
the year and have done it for the
last 16 years.
The effort Of the so-called labor
| leaders for the last few years has
been to cut down the hours of work
and now some of the more crazy of
them are agitating for even a four
hour labor day.
The result Of the agitation for
/, shorter hours is seen in the country
| today, for the price Of every article
| Of use has arisen higher and higher
until lots of the most necessary pro-
/ ductiops are beyond the pocket
(, books of millions of people and will
be that way until the people Of the
United States wake up and get back
| to fashioned Americanism. In
stead of cutting down the hours of
| labor, it is my belief that the hours
should be put back to the 10-hour-a
day basis until there has been enough
produced in all lines of work in this
| country to bring things back to a
| normal condition of affairs.
1 think the employers and the
| employees Of this country owe it to
the country to restore the old time
1O-hour day until the high cost of
living is brought down by a greater
production than can ever be done
while the present eight-hour system
and less is in existence. l consider
1t unpatriotic in the extreme for any
one to want to cut down the hours
of labor whether by the employers
or by the employees until we get
DdCh LIlc SIdte VI tlldL
/, listed for so many years before the
world war upset affairs in every part
of the world The coal operators
should be compelled to allow their
employees more hours of work each
week and they should also be COM
PEELED to keep their production of
coal up in the summer as well as
in the winter, so that no such state
of affairs should exist in this coun-
try again as is the case today.
1t locks as if some one was guilty
of treason and they should be tried
for that cffense for allowing the
mines to lie idle for months in face
of cold winter coming upon us.
The mine owners should be COM
PEELED to keep their mines running
and the miners should be compelled
to keep at work to produce the coal
THAT is so badly needed in every part
of the 1Tnitd States today. Some one
has said that serious as the times are
now, they can be settled by work.
Instead of trying to see how few
hours they can put in each day 1t
should be the aim of every man who
works, whether mentally or physi-
cally to see how much he can pro-
duce in 10 hours of the "a and to
make that production an evidence OF
efficiency Let us get back to the old
time 10-hour day at least for a few
years FRANK, A. AGNEW.