A great many small men draw large salaries, and a great many large men
draw small salaries. Of course we measure men by their ability to do
something of value to their race. It is a sorry fact that one person is
paid ten thousand dollars a year for playing base ball or riding a
race-horse, and that another person in unable to earn seven hundred and
fifty dollars for the same length of time by performing some useful labor.
A mechanic, who actually adds to the wealth of the nation, who produces
something of value, is paid less than a jockey or a base ball pitcher
whose business (?) is chiefly maintained for purposes of gambling.
But there are other phases of this question that present equally
disproportionate features. An actor, who merely repeats the words of
another, receives one thousand dollars a night for his performance, while
a lecturer who imparts original knowledge to his hearers, is paid twenty
dollars and his expenses for his thought and labor. A singer is given five
thousand dollars for appearing three nights of a week upon the stage, and
a reformer is allowed what her audience will drop into the contribution
box. One explanation of this is: “There is only one Caruso.”
There is another explanation, and that is: People will pay more to be
entertained, to be pleased, than to be instructed, to be enlightened or to
be told what is right and best.
It is a sad fact that many are paid too little for what they do. As a rule
the actual laborers, the real workers of the world, both male and female,
do not receive fair compensation for their work, while thousands of people
who merely hold an office are paid far more than they are worth. Teachers,
writers and professors are all underpaid. The highest work that man or
woman is doing is the work of education, training the human mind to think
truly, to act nobly, and yet a lawyer receives more in a day than a
teacher in a year.
The world that will pay one thousand dollars an hour to hear the voice of
Melba, will grumble at paying ten cents an hour to a washerwoman. The
world that will give a person ten thousand dollars a year for pitching
base ball will object to raising the wages of our mill operatives five per
cent. The world that will pay ten thousand dollars a year for riding a
horse, wants a woman to teach school for fifty dollars a month.
We say, pay talent well and genius generously, but pay well also the arm
that toils; pay the needle, the saw, the spade, the hoe, the mop.
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Every man who claims the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness,” is bound to show that he deserves this right.