The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1920-02-21
MINISTERS COST
LESS THAN AUTOS
World Survey Figures Reveal
How Badly United States Is
Paying Its Pastors.
MANY LIVING ON $500 A YEAR.
One of the Aims of Present Protestant
Cooperation Is to End Disgrace :.
of Underpaid Preacher-Pen-
sions Also to Be Provided.

What are the chances Of a yong
man who intends to be a lawyer OF
making $1,000 a year? What are the
DOCTORS chance? What of the minister
or the manufacturer?
The lawyer has exactly one chance
n five. The doctors chances are one
in seven. 1t is ten TO one against the
manufacturer. The modern minister,
however, who formerly ranked with the
doctor and lawyer as a member of the
Learned professions" has fallen hope
lessly behind. He is a 100 to l shot.
These figures are part of a mass of
astonishing facts brought to light by
the world. survey being made by the
Interchurch World Movement and
whose sources of information are such
that many economists and statisticiang
are availing themselves of the results.
This survey puts Americas minister
at the bottom of the ladder of the ma
TONS income receivers-and with re-
sponsibilities which equal those of any
captain of industry.
A worker in a silk mill, a laborer in
a rubber plant, a paper maker, a work
er in a shoe factory-all are getting
higher average wages, the survey
shows, than does Americas minister,
city or country. Nor does the city
man receive the luxurious salary that
many persons, including many country
parsons, believe he does. Not four
ministers in a thousand, according to
the survey, receive $1,000 a year. In
no instance, whatever the denomina-
ton, does a majority receive $1,000.
Cotton Pickers Better off.
Are you a COngregationalist? In
2,7S3 churches the yearly pay to your
ministers has been less than S $1,000.
Are you a Presbyterian? You are then
on the less than $1,000 list with GALS
ministers. In the event that you are q
Methodist the charge is hat 4,719 pas
tors are trying to exist on the $40 a
week that you pay them. E~piscopalians
do a little better, yet half Of their rec
tors receive less than the $500 a year
which government economists regard
as the minimum on which a family can
be decently maintained.
The initial cost of the cheapest "fliv-
YER" on the market is less than 5000,
but a very good, conscientious pastor,
it is shown, can be hired for a year for
that sun.
Ministers in the South are preaching
TO fifty or more cotton pickers who in
dividually are paid more for picking
cotton than their entire neighborhood
pays to the preacher in a year
One of the aims of the present co.
operation of the worlds Protestant de
nominations is to end this disgrace of
the underpaid minister. With univer-
stiles, business houses and municipal
ties daily taking action to provide for
the comfort of their workers, the
church is to keep pace with the times,
and to arrange not only for adequate
pay for its workers, but to provide pen-
sions for those no longer able to work.
1t is to move the public TO prevent
d~nfavorable comparison of pastors and
puddlers. Until then, as for a puddler
swapping Jobs with a pastor drawing
an. Ordinary salary-neverl The
lowest salary paid to pastors is lower
than any wages paid in ths entire steel
Industry.