The increasing dependence of middleman and petty manufacturer has
already been considered. The same pressure which bears upon these bears
also upon farmer and wage-earner. The editorials and the oratory of
election years, it is true, supply us with recurring pæans over the
independence, the self-reliance and the prosperity of these classes,
and such graphic tropes as “the full dinner pail” and “the overflowing
barn,” become the party shibboleths of political campaigns. Plain
facts, however, accord but ill with this exultant strain.
I
In most ages the working farmer has been the dupe and prey of the rest
of mankind. Now by force and now by cajolery, as social customs and
political institutions change, he has been made to produce the food
by which the race lives, and the share of his product which he has
been permitted to keep for himself has always been pitifully small.
Whether Roman slave, Frankish serf, or English villein; whether the
so-called “independent” farmer of a free democracy or the _ryot_ of
a Hindu prince, the general rule holds good. Occasionally, by one
means or another, he gains some transitory betterment of condition;
the Plague of 1349 and the Peasants’ Rebellion of 1381 won for his
class advantages which were retained during three generations. But in
the long run he is the race’s martyr. Under a military autocracy his
exploitation was inevitable. There is no reason for it now, for the
lives and well-being of the rest of mankind are in his hands: were
the working farmers organized as the manufacturers and the skilled
artisans are organized, and could they lay by for themselves a year’s
necessities, they could starve the race into submission to their
demands. But the thing is not to be; nor, indeed, is any marked change
to their advantage likely to happen, for, so far as current tendencies
point, the future is to repeat the past.
In our day and in our land both force and cajolery conspire to keep
the peasant farmer securely in his traces. He cannot break through
the cordon which the trusts and the railroads put about him; and even
if he could he would not, since the influences showered upon him are
specifically directed to the end of keeping him passive and contented.
Our statisticians assure him of his prosperity; our politicians and
our moulders of opinion warn him of the pernicious influence of
unions like the Farmers’ Alliance, and further preach to him the
comforting doctrine that by “raising more corn and less politics”
he will ultimately work out a blissful salvation. Sometimes he must
burn his corn for fuel; often he cannot sell his grain for the cost
of production, even though many thousands of persons in the great
cities may be hungering for it; frequently he cannot afford to send
his children to school, and in a steadily increasing number of cases
he is forced to abandon his farm and become a tenant or a wanderer. He
is puzzled, no doubt, by these things; but they are all carefully and
neatly explained to him from the writings and preachments of profound
scholars, as “natural” and “inevitable” phenomena. His ethical sense
may be somewhat disturbed by the explanations, but he learns that it is
useless to protest, and he thereupon acquiesces.
A sort of symposium on the joys of the farmer is to be found in the
September number of the _American Review of Reviews_. Mr. Clarence
H. Matson writes of improved conditions due to rural free delivery
of mails and a few other reforms; Mr. William R. Draper dilates upon
the enormous revenues which have flowed to the farmers during the
current year, and Professor Henry C. Adams contributes a symphony
on the diffusion of agricultural prosperity. A fourth article, by
Mr. Cy Warman, furnishes a rather discordant note to the general
harmony, since it shows a large and increasing immigration of our
prosperous farmers into Canada. Some 20,000 crossed the border last
year, according to Mr. Warman, while during the first four months of
1902, 11,480 followed, and indications pointed to a total of 40,000
emigrants for the present year. The official figures of the Canadian
Government, since published, partly confirm these estimates. The
number of immigrants from the United States for the year ended June
30, 1902, was 22,000. The number for the current year will probably
be larger, for according to a Montreal press despatch of September
17th: “The immigration from the American to the Canadian Northwest has
assumed much greater proportions this year than ever before, and land
sales to Americans are daily reported. The latest large sale is by
the Saskatchewan Valley Land Company, which has sold 100,000 acres in
Saskatchewan to an American syndicate for $500,000.”
“The American farmer,” sententiously and truthfully remarks Professor
Adams, “does not hoard his cash.” He gives no reason for the fact, and
the determination must be left to the reader. “The American farmer,”
he further remarks, “is, as a rule, his own landlord.” This statement
reveals a very serious misapprehension of the facts. Something more
than every third farm in the United States, according to the recent
census, is operated by a tenant. Moreover, the proportion of tenants
is constantly rising. For the whole country, tenants operated 25.5 per
cent of all farms in 1880, 28.4 per cent in 1890, and 35.3 per cent in
1900. Further, the tendency is not confined to particular sections,
but is common to the whole country. During the last decade the number
of tenant-operated farms increased relatively to the whole number of
farms in every State and Territory except Maine, Vermont, and New
Hampshire. In Maine tenantry decreased seven-tenths of 1 per cent, in
New Hampshire five-tenths of 1 per cent, and in Vermont one-tenth of 1
per cent. For the twenty-year period, as was pointed out in Chapter II,
the only exceptions to the general increase are Arizona, Florida, and
New Hampshire.
The recent census, out of its abundant optimism, does not segregate
these facts, and makes no general comment other than that tenantry has
increased and that salaried management is believed to be “constantly
increasing.” The bulletin on “Agriculture: The United States” does not
even furnish a general classified summary of the data on tenantry. But
the separate reports give the statistics, and out of them the following
table is compiled:--
INCREASE OF FARM TENANTRY
==========================+========+========+=======+=======+
|
STATES AND TERRITORIES | PER CENT OF FARMS OPERATED
| BY TENANTS
--------------------------+----------+--------+-------------+
| 1880 | 1890 | 1900
| | |
1. Alabama | 46.8 | 48.6 | 57.7
2. Arizona | 13.2 | 7.9 | _a._ 8.4[1]
| | | _b._ 11.9[2]
3. Arkansas | 30.9 | 32.1 | 45.4
4. California | 19.8 | 17.8 | 23.1
5. Colorado | 13.0 | 11.3 | 22.6
6. Connecticut | 10.2 | 11.5 | 12.9
7. Delaware | 42.4 | 46.9 | 50.3
8. District of Columbia | 38.2 | 36.7 | 43.1
9. Florida | 30.9 | 23.6 | 26.5
10. Georgia | 44.9 | 53.5 | 59.9
11. Idaho | 4.7 | 4.6 | 8.7
12. Illinois | 21.4 | 24.0 | 29.3
13. Indiana | 23.7 | 25.4 | 28.6
14. Iowa | 23.8 | 28.1 | 34.9
15. Kansas | 16.3 | 28.2 | 33.2
16. Kentucky | 26.4 | 24.9 | 32.8
17. Louisiana | 35.2 | 44.4 | 58.0
18. Maine | 4.3 | 5.4 | 4.7
19. Maryland | 31.0 | 31.0 | 33.6
20. Massachusetts | 8.2 | 9.3 | 9.6
21. Michigan | 10.0 | 14.0 | 15.9
22. Minnesota | 9.2 | 12.9 | 17.3
23. Mississippi | 43.8 | 52.8 | 62.4
24. Missouri | 27.3 | 26.8 | 30.5
25. Montana | 5.3 | 4.8 | 9.2
26. Nebraska | 18.0 | 24.7 | 36.9
27. Nevada | 9.7 | 7.5 | 11.4
28. New Hampshire | 8.1 | 8.0 | 7.5
29. New Jersey | 24.6 | 27.2 | 36.9
30. New Mexico | 8.1 | 4.5 | 9.4
31. New York | 16.5 | 20.2 | 23.9
32. North Carolina | 33.5 | 34.1 | 41.4
33. North Dakota | 3.9[3] | 6.9 | 8.5
34. Ohio | 19.3 | 22.9 | 27.5
35. Oklahoma | | 0.7 | 21.0
36. Oregon | 14.1 | 12.5 | 17.8
37. Pennsylvania | 21.2 | 23.3 | 26.0
38. Rhode Island | 19.9 | 18.7 | 20.1
39. South Carolina | 50.3 | 55.3 | 61.0
40. South Dakota | 3.9[3] | 13.2 | 21.8
41. Tennessee | 34.5 | 30.8 | 40.5
42. Texas | 37.6 | 41.9 | 49.7
43. Utah | 4.6 | 5.2 | 8.8
44. Vermont | 13.4 | 14.6 | 14.5
45. Virginia | 29.5 | 26.9 | 30.7
46. Washington | 7.2 | 8.5 | 14.4
47. West Virginia | 19.1 | 17.8 | 21.8
48. Wisconsin | 9.1 | 11.4 | 13.5
49. Wyoming | 2.8 | 4.2 | 7.6
--------------------------+----------+--------+-------------+
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Including Indian farms.
[2] Excluding Indian farms.
[3] Dakota Territory.
There were 2,026,286 tenants in 1900, an increase in twenty years of
97.7 per cent. There were 3,713,371 owners, part owners, “owners and
tenants,” and managers, an increase in twenty years of 24.4 per cent.
During the twenty-year period owners in Washington increased less
than fivefold, tenants tenfold. Utah shows a doubling of the number
of owners, and a quadrupling of the number of tenants. South Dakota,
compared with Dakota Territory in 1880, reveals an increase of owners
of two and one-half times; of tenants, eighteen times. There are 28,669
fewer owners in New York State than in 1880, and 14,331 more tenants.
Ownership has declined and tenantry advanced, both absolutely and
relatively, in New Jersey. The great farming State of Illinois has
15,044 fewer owners and 23,454 more tenants than in 1880, and even
the young Territory of Oklahoma, wherein one might expect to find
evidences of increased ownership, reveals, for the ten-year period, a
two-hundred-fold increase of tenantry and only a sixfold increase of
ownership.
From the foregoing table it will be seen that while during the previous
decade relative tenantry declined slightly in several States, the
tide has since turned. Though the Southern States generally show the
greatest proportion of tenants, the greatest percentage of increase is
revealed in the Border, Northern, and Western States. Tenants operate
62.4 per cent of all the farms of Mississippi, 61 per cent of those of
South Carolina. But while the former is a growth since 1880 from 43.8
per cent, and the latter from 50.3 per cent, Oklahoma (the comparison
in this single instance is with 1890) increased the percentage of its
tenant-operated farms from seven-tenths of 1 per cent to 21 per cent.
Washington doubled its percentage, Montana and Utah very nearly so.
Nearly one-third of the farms of New Jersey are tenant farms, and
more than one-third of those of Kansas and Nebraska. Each of these
three States doubled its relative percentage of tenant farmers for the
twenty-year period. Even in New York the proportion has grown since
1880 from 16.5 to 23.9 per cent. As marked as is the showing, the whole
situation is not revealed by the figures, for the term “owners” in the
reports includes “farms operated by individuals who own a part of the
land and rent the remainder from others,” and “farms operated under the
joint direction and by the united labor of two or more individuals, one
owning the farm or a part of it, and the other or others owning no part
but receiving for supervision or labor a share of the products.”
This remarkable growth of tenantry would be considered, in any other
than our own complacent days, as an alarming, even an appalling fact.
So blithely and for so long a time have the changes been rung upon
the alleged fact of independent ownership that everybody, including
professors of political economy, assumes its truth. But even when its
baselessness is clearly shown we shall hear little of an alarmist
nature from our publicists and teachers. Rather it may be expected
that their pronouncements will change with the changing times, and
that we shall soon hear reiterated gratulations on the development
of tenantry. Is not the humble tenant’s security greater, are not
his troubles less? Need he worry over taxes, foreclosures, and the
like? Not at all; and besides--not the least of considerations to
our paternalistic moulders of opinion--there is much reason for
satisfaction in the fact that, having no land to mortgage, he will not
be led into wildly prodigal habits of life by a too ready recourse to
the money-lender.
Considering the growth of tenantry, the increasing migration to Canada,
the flocking of rural residents into the cities, and the frequent
outright abandonment of farms in several sections of the country,
the unsophisticated onlooker may naturally wonder at the tales of
agricultural prosperity which from time to time appear in public print.
Mr. Draper, in the article previously mentioned, speculates somewhat
ingeniously over the financial returns due the farmer for his crop for
the present year. The figures are certainly imposing when looked at as
totals. The wheat crop will sum up 700,500,000 bushels, and each bushel
will sell for 60 cents, making the net value $580,100,000--a rather
curious result, by the way, not obtainable by any of the ordinary
processes of mathematics. The corn crop is to bring $776,985,300, and
the remaining crops follow, with large values attached.
But reduced to individual earnings, values of farm products (according
to the census, products other than those fed to live stock) reveal a
rather meagre diffusion of prosperity. Of the 5,739,657 farms in the
United States, 1,319,856 are listed in the census as hay and grain
farms, for the reason that hay and grain comprise 40 per cent of
their total products. The average size of these hay and grain farms
is 159.3 acres, and the average value of this product per acre in
1899 was $4.77. The number of miscellaneous farms is 1,059,416, with
an average acreage of 106.8, and a product value of $4.12. Live-stock
farms number 1,564,714, with an average acreage of 226.9 and a product
value of $3.47. Thus the average productive yield of 70 per cent of all
the farms and 80 per cent of all the farm land in the nation ranges
from $3.47 to $4.77 per acre. Flowers and plants, it may be noted for
comparison, yield the comfortable return of $431.83 per acre; but their
effect on the general census is but slight, since the average product
value of all farms is but $4.47 per acre. But let no one suppose that
all this munificent sum goes to the farmer. He pays 43 cents per acre
for labor and nearly 7 cents per acre for fertilizers. The net income
is thus $3.97 per acre.
The size of farms is increasing, though actual agriculture is probably
confined to smaller holdings. The average was 136.5 acres in 1890;
it is now 146.6 acres. The tendency varies in different parts of the
country. Nebraska increases her average from 190.1 acres in 1890 to
246.1 acres in 1900. Kansas shows almost identical figures, while
the New England States show little change, and the Southern States
generally show reduced averages. The relation of size of farm to kind
of tenure is, however, the main point, and here one discovers matter
for reflection. Farms operated by cash tenants have 102.7 acres apiece,
by owners 134.1, by managers 1514.3. The growth of manorial estates
is dimly revealed in these figures, and there is no need to doubt the
census bulletin’s reserved admission that farms operated by managers
are believed to be constantly increasing.
The subject of the changing status of the farmer--a change which
involves his ultimate reduction to a sixteenth-century level--is
too large to receive adequate treatment in these pages. By all
considerations it deserves the space of a generous volume. For present
purposes there remains to be said that even where apparent ownership is
retained by the working farmer, effective ownership is determined in
other quarters. He is the joint tenant of the farm implement trusts,
of the new harvester trust, of the produce trusts which fix the
value of his products, of the railroad trusts which fix the rate of
transportation to the market, and in the arid West of the water trusts.
Thus, even though he boasts the possession of a title-deed to his land,
the holding is in reality of the nature of a fief, held at the mercy of
several superiors; and the tithes which he pays, though less formally
levied and exacted than were the _redevances_ of the mediæval peasant,
are as many and well-nigh as burdensome. And he must pay or go; for
there is no remission from his superiors, as in olden days, on account
of drouth, floods, locusts, or murrain.
II
With the decline of the petty trades, the growth of the combinations,
and the concentration in fewer hands of the machinery of production,
the subordination of the wage-earner becomes more certain and more
fixed. If ever he were a free agent,--in the sense and to the degree
that any one in human society can be free,--the day is passed. Through
agencies constantly augmenting and extending, he is “cabin’d, cribb’d,
confin’d, bound in,” to a narrowing circle of possible efforts.
Divorced from the land and from the tools of production, he can live
only by accepting such wages and conditions as are offered him; and
the terms are always such that the kernel of his product goes to some
other man, while the husks and the tares remain his own portion. The
patronizing orators of Labor Day and of campaign times sometimes
delight to symbolize him as a sturdy Gulliver, though it needs little
reflection to see that it is the Gulliver of Brobdingnag, and not that
of Lilliput, that more correctly figures his present status. The mass
of current tendencies tends to fix him as a dependent--a unit of a
lower order in a series of gradations running up to the Big Men. “The
corporation,” writes Mr. Richmond,[4] “holds of the State, and its
officers hold of the corporation, and their retainers, managers, and
servants all hold the tenure of their employment from their superiors
in office, from the highest to the lowest.” But whether corporation, or
partnership, or individual, employs the laborer’s services, his status
is practically the same. Trade-unions and other labor societies tend to
modify that dependence; and occasionally social legislation, when it
runs the fierce gantlet of the courts, exerts a further modification.
But it is coming to be recognized that there is a limit, perhaps
now nearly attained, beyond which the labor societies can exert no
influence; and as for social legislation, as will be shown farther
along, it has certainly reached its culmination.
To the natural causes making for the laborer’s subordination have been
added in recent years certain conscious and deliberate forces. There
is a collective pressure brought to bear upon his wages; there is a
collective antagonism maintained against his unions; there is a growing
movement in the direction of holding him for the term of his profitable
service to the company or corporation by which he is employed, and
there is a judicial tendency to pretend still to regard him, despite
his changing status, as an economically free agent, able to do what he
wills, and to protect himself from all injustice.
III
The assurance of villein fidelity is a prime need of a feudal order.
The fidelity need not be personal, as in the old days; instead, the
altered ceremony of “homage” may take in whole regiments by a single
rite. Recent acts of the great employers make strongly for creating
inducements for this fidelity. In spite of instances of conduct like
that of the coal magnates of Pennsylvania, there is a growing tendency
to unite for life-long service the careers of the more faithful workers
with the corporations by whom they are employed. “Model workshops,”
and even “model villages,” are unquestionably increasing in numbers.
Their character is almost pure paternalism--“enlightened absolutism,”
Professor Ely calls it. Rarely have the workers themselves the
slightest word to say as to their construction or conduct. What is
thought to be good for them, what is thought will win their devotion,
is given them. Whether at Pullman, Ill., at Dayton or Cleveland,
Ohio, or at Pelzer, S.C., the general spirit manifested is the same.
The perfervid chapter on “American Liberality to Workmen,” which
Mr. Nicholas Paine Gilman gives us in his volume, “A Dividend to
Labor,” contains dozens of instances wherein employers have indulged
their benevolence by the gift of flower-pots, wash-basins, and other
cultural paraphernalia to their employees. Mr. Victor H. Olmsted,
in the _Bulletin_ of the Department of Labor for November, 1900,
gives another, though somewhat duplicated, list; and the Rev. Josiah
Strong’s monthly journal, _Social Service_, furnishes a current record
of such benevolences. The providences of the Colorado Fuel and Iron
Company alone make a remarkable showing. This corporation has even a
“sociological department,” and it is at present building a $10,000
mission at Bessemer, near Pueblo. The plan of the mission, we read,
is to have a refuge, with all modern improvements, for “floaters,” or
the unemployed. These wayfarers may make a temporary living by working
in an attached woodyard. In all its camps in Colorado this company has
established kindergartens, libraries, and, in remote places, grade
schools for the children of its employees. Its hospital at the Pueblo
works is said to be the best equipped in the West. “It is the announced
purpose of this corporation,” we read, “to solve the social problem.”
Model workshops and the distribution of relief are but a small part
of the tendency. The giving of old-age pensions, particularly by
railroad companies, has recently taken on the dimensions of a national
movement. The pension system is not a conspicuously expensive one,
for the numbers of workmen who live long enough to avail themselves
of its benefits are but scant. The sums paid out for pensions by the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Relief Department in eighteen years average
$31,185.85 yearly--about the salary of a first vice-president--and the
employees themselves have borne a considerable part of the expense. A
total of 697 pensions has been granted during this time, but 365 of the
beneficiaries have considerately died, and thus reduced the expenses.
The pension system as it obtains among railroads is more or less an
outgrowth of the relief association begun by the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad Company on May 1, 1880. Prototypes can possibly be found,
but this instance is the first of any consequence. The State of
Maryland revoked the charter of the association in 1888. This was an
embarrassing interruption, but by no means a fatal one, for the society
was immediately reorganized as a department of the company. The plan
was to pay accident, sick, and death benefits and old-age pensions,
the company contributing $33,500 yearly, and the employees paying
monthly dues based on their wages. Section 100 of the regulations
for 1889 declares that “the fund for the payment of pensions will be
derived wholly from the contributions of the company,” a change from
the earlier method in the direction of pure paternalism. The usual age
for pensioning is sixty-five years, and the president and directors
determine the roll.
The Pennsylvania Railroad Voluntary Relief Department was begun in
1886. In a number of respects it followed the details of the earlier
association. As to pensions, however, it put the matter forward by
arranging for the gradual growth of a superannuation fund out of
the department’s surplus. There were six companies, according to
Mr. William Franklin Willoughby’s “Workingmen’s Insurance,” that
before 1898 had created regular insurance departments. These were
the Baltimore and Ohio, the Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania west of
Pittsburg, the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy, the Philadelphia and
Reading, and the Plant System. Though in two or three instances the
plans have been altered, all these companies founded their pension
systems on employees’ contributions.
The Pennsylvania’s fund reached the figure set for it January 1, 1900,
and the pension system was proclaimed. On the first day of 1901 the
Chicago and Northwestern put in operation a gratuitous pension system,
appropriating $200,000 for the purpose. The beneficiaries, all of whom
must have been thirty years with the company, were divided into two
classes: first, those seventy years old, who were to be retired and
pensioned at once; and second, those from sixty-five to sixty-nine
years inclusive, who were to be retired and pensioned at the discretion
of the pension board. The rate fixed is one per cent per year of
service of the average monthly pay for the preceding ten years. An
employee whose average wages were $55 per month, and who had been with
the company for thirty years, would thus receive $16.50 a month.
The Illinois Central proclaimed its pension system July 1, 1901. On
March 1, 1902, the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western took the same
course, appropriating $50,000. The terms are somewhat more liberal,
in that only twenty-five years’ service is required, and that some
employees may be retired between the ages of sixty and sixty-five. The
Metropolitan Street Railway Company followed on March 6th, and the
Philadelphia and Reading Company on May 21. The details, while varying
somewhat, are in the main alike for all of these companies.
Though the experiment is a comparatively frugal one, there is no doubt
that it brings compensatory returns; for it serves to keep quiescent
and faithful large bodies of men, and perhaps to loosen the bonds of
the labor-union. It holds in servicemen above thirty-five or forty-five
years of age, for they know the difficulty of securing work elsewhere;
and it feeds them with a more or less illusory hope of an ultimate
pension. Indeed, the motive of inducing a closer dependence of the
laborer upon the employer is more or less frankly confessed. “Under
it” (the pension system), reads the Lackawanna’s advertisement to the
public, “the road and its employees are to be more closely knit by
substantial ties.” The president of the Metropolitan Street Railway
Company, however, sounds a more altruistic and benevolent note. “My
object in establishing this department,” he is quoted as saying, “is
to preserve the future welfare of aged and infirm employees and to
recognize efficient and loyal service.”
Despite such benevolent professions there are grave grounds for
scepticism regarding the tangible benefit of the system to the
employees. If Hope lingers with them, it must be because, as Mr.
William Watson sings, “airiest cheer suffices for her food.” For both
the ascertained results of an eighteen years’ operation of the system,
and a moment’s glance at conditions surrounding the new applications of
it, point to a most rigorous limitation of its benefits. In the first
place, there is a growing disinclination to employ in any industry men
past forty-five years of age. The new regulations of the Philadelphia
and Reading reduce even this limit ten years, prohibiting the taking
on of employees past thirty-five years of age, except by the approval
of the board of directors of the company, although in special cases
where unusual qualifications are desired the age limit may be waived.
So general is this attitude of employers that the Chicago Federation
of Labor was recently moved to the passing of a resolution proposing
that “every unemployed man forty-five years of age who cannot show
what the charity authorities call ‘visible means of support’ shall
be mercifully shot in a lawful and orderly manner.” Moreover, the
chances of a railroad employee reaching the age of sixty-five or
seventy years are about equal to the chances of winning a large sum at
policy. Discharges are frequent and arbitrary, and usually there is no
appeal. Aside from this, the casualties are enormous. Of the 191,198
railroad workers classed as trainmen employed throughout the country
in 1900, 1396 (or one in every 138) were killed, and 17,571 (or one
in every 10.8) injured. The corrected figures for 1901 (given to the
public in August of the present year) show about the same percentages.
Of the 209,043 trainmen, 1537 (or one in every 136) were killed, and
16,715 (or one in every 12.5) were injured. Thanks to the new safety
appliances, casualties caused by coupling and uncoupling cars declined
by 84 killed and 2461 injured; but in other classes of accidents the
percentages brought the averages to near the previous figures. At best,
the chances of maiming or death constantly increase with every one of
the twenty-five or thirty years’ service required for the earning of a
pension. In the Metropolitan (now Interurban) Street Railway service,
where accidents are few but discharges many, the benevolent instincts
of the president will prove difficult of realization. This official
admitted that discharges had at one time reached an average of 300 a
month. An employee informed the author that he knew of but two or
three men in the entire service whom the published terms entitled to
pensions, while another employee conceded a possible dozen.
IV
The new Feudalism evidently requires a tempering--let us say, a
conservative adjustment--of the wage-scale. Those whom the gods dower
with plenty may for the present give freely of their store, while those
who feel the parsimony of Providence must withhold. The recent increase
of 10 per cent in wages given by the steel corporation, and the refusal
of the anthracite magnates to increase the average, according to
the Pennsylvania Bureau of Mines, of 79-1/2 cents a day which their
operatives now receive, are but examples of the contrasts which may be
expected during the transition period. The collective feudal policy
will avoid both extremes. It will pay something better than that which
breeds discontent, something less than that which breeds luxury and
pride. It will provide not exactly what the workers desire, but what is
good for them.
Already the more or less collective pressure upon the wage-scale shows
its effects. Hon. Carroll D. Wright’s 250 wage-quotations for 25
selected occupations (_Bulletin_ of the Department of Labor, September,
1898) reveal for the years 1895-98 a steady decline from the wages paid
in the panic years, 1893-94, to about the same wages as were paid in
1882. The figures in the _Bulletin_ for September, 1900, pertain to
148 establishments, representing 26 industries and 192 occupations.
They show a slight increase for 1899 and another for 1900. This slight
increase, however, is resolved into a marked decrease by the rise in
the price of commodities necessary for the average life. From July,
1897, to July, 1901, according to the careful index-figures published
in _Dun’s Review_, the price of commodities advanced 27 per cent; and
from July 1 to December 1, of the latter year, an almost steady advance
was recorded. Comparing January 1, 1896, with January 1, 1902, the
_Wall Street Journal_ finds an increase of 36 per cent.
The wage-quotations used by Col. Wright in his table of 1898 are
from the larger cities, and pertain to trades the workmen in which
are organized. Here, if anywhere, one would expect evidences of
increased wages. Generally, however, the figures for 1897-98 show
a parity with the figures for 1881-82. Compositors, for instance,
received $2.81-1/2 daily in 1898, $2.81 in 1882. Carpenters received
$2.52-3/4 in 1898, $2.55 in 1882. Often the figures for the latter
year show a considerable decline; but the averages are maintained
through the advances gained by those affluent mechanics, the plumbers;
by the stone-cutters, and by the better-paid wage-earners of the
railroads,--conductors, engineers, and firemen. With the increase
of railroad traffic the hours of labor have been extended; and the
increase of wages follows, at least for the engineers and firemen, as
a consequence of longer hours. As for the common laborer, he is being
left behind in the race. His wages were less in 1898 than in 1882 in
six of the ten cites quoted, and in four of them there was no change.
All wage-statistics are questionable, and particularly the more
generalized wage-statements which proceed from Washington, during the
fall months of election years. A look into the figures themselves is
usually fatal to the optimism voiced in the generalizations. From
other sources the conflict of figures is puzzling and irritating. It
may be shown by selections from these that wages are rising, that they
are falling, or that they are stationary. There is always a disparity
between the figures of the State bureaus, the National bureau, and the
census, and usually it is a disparity that cannot be harmonized.
The national census figures ought to be, as most persons will declare,
a sufficiently correct guide. According to the last census, the
number of wage-earners in manufacturing pursuits has increased in ten
years 25.2 per cent, wages have increased 23.2 per cent. Despite the
acknowledged increase in the country’s wealth, wages, if the census
is correct, have declined. It is officially explained, however, that
these figures are not to be taken too literally. The schedules for
1890 included among wage-earners, “overseers, foremen, and certain
superintendents (not general superintendents or managers), while the
census of 1900 separates from the wage-earning class such salaried
employees as general superintendents, clerks, and salesmen.” “It is
possible and probable,” says each of the reports on manufactures, “that
this change in the form of the question has resulted in eliminating
from the wage-earners, as reported by the present census, many
high-salaried employees included in that group for the census of 1890.”
Possibly and probably. But aside from the fact that the elimination
of the comparatively few overseers and foremen, with their somewhat
higher salaries, could make but slight influence on averages in the
tremendous total of 5,321,087 wage-earners, with $2,330,275,021 of
wages, there is another point or two to consider. According to Part
I (page 14 _et seq._) of the Report of Manufacturing Industries for
the census of 1890, it appears that wages underwent a considerable
inflation in that record. The questions asked in 1880, it would appear,
resulted in reporting more wage-earners than there really were. The
questions for 1890, it is declared, produced the real number. It is
further stated that “the questions for 1890 also tended to obtain a
large amount of wages as compared with 1880.” It would seem so, indeed,
even to a neophyte in the ingenious art of figuring; for while the
wage-increase of the decade 1870-80 could show but 22.2 per cent, that
for the following decade revealed the astonishing figure of a fraction
less than 100 per cent. When, therefore, one seeks to compare the
averages of 1890 with those of 1900 he may not unreasonably infer that
the elimination of overseers and foremen in the later census is no more
than a set-off to the ample generosity given to the wage-figures in
the earlier census. There is no telling for a certainty, but it is not
unlikely that the present census figures give a result approximately
near the truth.
It is not an extravagant hope that some day we shall have two
successive censuses carried out on identical schedules, so that
comparisons may be accurately made between two decades. As it is, we
must take what the powers give us, and be thankful. We must take it
on trust, moreover, for there is no going behind the returns; and any
captious questioning of the figures can be met only in the spirit with
which Telemachus answered the fair Helen’s inquiry if he were a true
son of Ulysses. It is a matter of faith--there is no proof.
In the faith, then, that there is reasonable accuracy in the reports,
and a reasonable basis of comparison with previous reports, it is
interesting to note what is revealed. First in point of interest is
the relation of the value of the manufactured product to the amount
of wages paid. A comparison will show whether labor is receiving an
increasing or decreasing share of the wealth created. The census
totals under the former heading are confessedly crude, since “a
constant duplication of products appears, ... owing to the fact that
the finished products of many manufacturing establishments become the
materials of other establishments, in which they are further utilized
and again included in the value of products.” The new census has
therefore made a separate classification of materials purchased in a
partially manufactured form. Nevertheless, the gross total, including
products from both raw materials and partly manufactured products, is
reached by the same means as were employed in previous censuses, and
is therefore comparable with the gross totals of previous decades.
Whatever the duplications, they are similar to those of preceding
reports.
There are nineteen States wherein the average number of wage-earners
in manufacturing pursuits constitutes more than 6 per cent of the
population. Rhode Island heads the list with 22.5 per cent. It is
followed by Connecticut with 19.5; Massachusetts, 17.7; New Hampshire,
17.1; New Jersey, 12.8; Delaware, 12; New York, 11.7; Pennsylvania,
11.6; Maine, 10.8; Maryland, 9.1; Vermont, 8.6; Ohio, 8.3; Illinois,
8.2; Florida, 7; Wisconsin, 6.9; Michigan, 6.7; Washington, 6.6;
Indiana, 6.2; California, 6.1.
In each of these States the value of the manufactured product has
increased, Florida leading with a gain of 109.6 per cent; Washington
following with 107.8 per cent; New Jersey with 72.5; Indiana, 66.7;
Vermont, 50.4; Wisconsin, 45.2, and so on, Massachusetts showing the
slightest increase, 16.6 per cent. The value of the manufactured
product is of course affected by the two items, cost of material and
miscellaneous expenses, though in turn these are almost invariably
reflected to some extent in the increase or decrease of the value
of the product. When his material and his expenses increase, the
manufacturer, if he can, puts up the price of his product. It would be
wholly impossible to find a ratio, for the figures show an astonishing
variety. In Massachusetts, for instance,--that classic State for the
observation and study of industrial phenomena, the State wherein
statistics are gathered with some approach to accuracy,--the increase
of miscellaneous expenses is put at 16.1 per cent; of cost of material,
at 16.8 per cent; of value of product, 16.6 per cent. But against
this reasonable showing New York confesses to an increase of 81.8
per cent in miscellaneous expenses, with an increased product of but
27.1 per cent. Miscellaneous expenses increased 131 per cent in New
Jersey, while the product increased but 72.5 per cent, and Pennsylvania
and Indiana follow hard in the tracks of the two former States.
Perhaps a key to the mystery is furnished in the enormous increase of
miscellaneous expenses in certain industries which require favorable
legislation. Gas, for instance, which is generally considered the
rightful prey of certain kinds of aldermen and legislators, shows a
payment of $8,635,399 for “advertising, interest, insurance, repairs,
and other sundry expenses,” an increase of 74.8 per cent against an
increase in the value of the product of but 32.9 per cent.
In each of these nineteen factory States the value of the product
increased. In all but one it increased more than 25 per cent, in two
more than 100 per cent. But in ten of these States total wages have
declined, and in three of the remainder the gain is insignificant.
Wages of men workers have declined in eleven of these States, with
a fractional gain in two States. Florida, which shows the greatest
percentage of increase in the number of wage-earners, shows the
greatest relative loss in wages. Maine, which gives the smallest
percentage of increase in number of wage-earners, gives the largest
relative percentage of increase in wages. The four States having
the greatest absolute number of wage-earners all show decreases of
wages. New York, with 849,092 workers, shows a wage-loss of 2.2 per
cent; Pennsylvania, with 733,834 workers, a loss of 2 per cent;
Massachusetts, with 497,448, a fractional loss; and Illinois, with
395,110, 5 per cent.
The specific industries for the whole nation show similar results.
Relative wages have increased in refining petroleum, in manufacturing
ice and salt, and in a few other industries. But they have decreased
in the great majority of the industries so far reported. There is
a wage-loss in the making of bicycles, leather gloves and mittens,
watches, watch-cases, buttons, gas, oleomargarine, boots and shoes,
paper and pulp, coke, needles and pins, cigars and cigarettes,
pocket-books, trunks and valises, leather belting and hose, in canning
and preserving fruits and vegetables, in the tanning and finishing of
leather, the slaughtering and packing of meat, the smelting of zinc,
ship-building, car-building, the weaving of flax, hemp, and jute, and
cotton products, the brewing of malt liquors, and newspaper publishing.
All along the monotonous rows of figures the same lesson is generally
revealed,--the productivity of the laborer increases, the value of the
product increases, the wages, except in occasional instances, decline
or remain stationary.
The important point of the purchasing power of the dollar in 1890
as compared with 1900 needs also to be considered. According to the
exhaustive compilation of wholesale prices published in the _Bulletin_
of the Department of Labor for March, 1902, the dollar would purchase
in 1890 a greater quantity of beef, bacon, ham, corn meal, beans,
cheese, eggs, pepper, American salt, Formosa tea, hard and soft coal,
petroleum, earthenware, furniture, and glassware than in 1900. In the
latter year it would purchase more butter, Rio coffee, dried fruits
(except currants), rice, sugar, onions, potatoes, mutton, and fish.
Wheat flour cheapened, but the price of bread remained the same.
A comparison of the two lists on the basis of relative quantities
consumed in the average family will show the dollar to have had
considerably less purchasing power in 1900 than in 1890, though the
exact percentage is hardly computable.
V
The new Feudalism involves not only the moderating of the present rates
of pay for men workers, but an increase in the quantity of defenceless
labor--the labor of women and children. Census Bulletin No. 150 gives
the increase in the number of men working in manufacturing pursuits at
23.9 per cent; of women, at 28.4 per cent; of children, at 39.5 per
cent. The wages of women have slightly increased; that is, the increase
in total wages is 30.8 per cent against an increase in numbers of
wage-earners of 28.4 per cent. The figures are better for the children;
their wages are stated to have increased 54.4 per cent. There are ample
reasons why this should be so. Popular agitation in behalf of the
little ones may be guessed to have had some effect in the betterment
of their pay; and a still greater effect has been wrought by their
vastly increasing productivity. The perfecting of the instruments of
production has been carried to such a degree that many a machine may be
operated by a nursling; and it is well-nigh inevitable that some part
of this increased productivity should be compensated for by increased
pay of the operatives.
The number of women in factory work in the United States is 1,031,747,
nearly one-fifth of the total. There are 230,199 in New York, 143,109
in Massachusetts, 126,093 in Pennsylvania, 58,978 in Illinois, 53,711
in Ohio. Eighteen of the nineteen factory States show an increase,
Maine being the exception; and in thirteen of these States the
percentage of gain is considerably in excess of that of men workers.
Washington leads with a gain of 151.8 per cent; Michigan and Illinois
show gains of 79 per cent each; Vermont, of 63.1; Indiana, 56.4;
California, 46.8; Pennsylvania, 44.9; New Jersey, 39.3. In States
outside the factory list still greater increases are shown. The figures
for South Carolina are 158.3 percent; for North Carolina, 151.2; West
Virginia, 130.2; Alabama, 109.1; Georgia, 82.2.
In specific industries the gains are sometimes enormous. There are
no women reported for coke-making, and the number employed in making
agricultural implements has declined 25.7 per cent. Car-building, too,
shows a decline. But in refining petroleum the 60 women wage-earners
represent a gain of 3200 per cent, and in bicycle and tricycle making
the 517 women represent a gain of 3346.7 per cent. An increase of
2600 per cent is shown for distilled liquors, although men workers
decreased 23.8 per cent. A decrease of men workers and an increase
of women workers are also shown for clay products, flouring and
grist-mill products, chewing and smoking tobacco and snuff, starch,
cheese, butter, and condensed milk, watches, and watch-cases.
The percentage of increase is in excess of that of men workers in
oleomargarine, pocket-books, trunks and valises, tanned, curried, and
finished leather, and needles and pins. There are six and one-half
times as many women as men in collar and cuff making, and more than
twice as many in the leather glove and mitten industry; in the latter,
moreover, the percentage of increase for women is double that for men.
There are 37,762 women making cigars and cigarettes, a gain of 56 per
cent, against a gain of but 4.6 per cent for men. Malt liquors show an
increase of 101.6 per cent of women workers against an increase of 30.2
per cent of men workers. Women have also increased in number in the
cotton goods, flax, hemp, and jute, rubber boot and shoe, glass-making,
slaughtering, and meat-packing, and boot and shoe industries, and in
newspaper publishing.
VI
There are 168,624 children employed in manufactures throughout the
country, a gain of 39.5 per cent. Child labor has increased in twelve
of the factory States, remained practically stationary in two (Michigan
and New Hampshire), and decreased in five States. The reasons for
a decrease, where it is observed, are not hard to find; in certain
industries child labor has been demonstrated to be unprofitable.
But wherever it has been found profitable it seems to have been
increasingly utilized. The increase in Wisconsin is 193.5 per cent;
in Washington, 103.8; in Illinois, 92; in New Jersey, 51.4; in
Pennsylvania, 47.8; and in Massachusetts, 44.9. In States outside of
the foregoing list the same tendency is shown. South Carolina increased
its child laborers by 270.7 per cent; Alabama, by 143.8; North
Carolina, 119.2; Georgia, 81.
Children number 17.5 per cent of all the factory wage-earners of
South Carolina, and 14.6 per cent of all those of North Carolina. In
five other Southern States (including Maryland) the percentages range
from 4.3 to 7.6, while among Northern States Rhode Island children
form 5.2 per cent of the factory wage-earners, and Pennsylvania and
Wisconsin children 4.5 and 4 per cent, respectively. If Pennsylvania is
comparatively low in percentage, it is because of the great mass of its
adult workers; for in absolute numbers of child workers it heads the
list of commonwealths. No less than 33,135 children are employed in its
factories, a figure which puts to shame the puny showing of New York,
with 13,199, and of Massachusetts, with 12,556.
In certain industries children form more than one-fourth of all
the operatives for a particular locality. In the making of cotton
goods in Alabama 29.2 per cent of the workers are children, and in
South Carolina 26.8 per cent. The figures for this industry in North
Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, and Maryland are nearly identical. In
Pennsylvania, for the making of jute goods the figures are 26.2, and
for silk and silk goods, 20.2. Slightly more than one-fourth of the
hosiery and knit-goods workers of Georgia are children and slightly
less than one-fourth of the tobacco workers (chewing, smoking, and
snuff) of North Carolina. Massachusetts, with its factory law, can make
but the humble showing of 6.4 per cent of children in its cotton-goods
factories, and Rhode Island but 10.3 per cent. Glass-making is an
industry which has made a most literal adaptation of Jesus’ invitation
to little children; though, if the words of reputable eye-witnesses
are to be accepted, it is not exactly a heaven into which they are
welcomed. Of the operatives in Pennsylvania glass works, children
number 14 per cent, and of those in New Jersey glass works, 15.7 per
cent.
In the cotton-goods industry there are 39,866 children, a gain of 70.1
per cent. It is interesting to learn that there are 1003 children
employed in ship-building, and that this number is a gain of 476.4 per
cent over 1890. There are 4521 in boot and shoe making, an increase of
85 per cent. There are 2259 in flax, hemp, and jute weaving, nearly
twice as many as ten years ago. There are 316 in turpentine and rosin
making, a gain of 236.2 per cent. The number has decreased for some
reason in the making of clay products, as has also the number of men
workers, women having now a growing preference in the potteries. There
are also fewer children in petroleum refining, but in button-making
an increase of 321.6 per cent, in leather-glove making of 185.7 per
cent, and in slaughtering and meat-packing of 138.1 per cent is shown.
Watch-making shows a gain of 30 per cent, bicycle-making of 780 per
cent. Children have been found comparatively unadaptable in the liquor
industry. Only 643 are employed in brewing and 18 in distilling. For
all that, these figures represent an increase--in the former case of
24.6 per cent, in the latter of 200 per cent.
Children, according to the census, are persons below the age of
sixteen. Testimony outside of the census reports shows the extreme
youth of many of these operatives. Investigations among the glass works
of southern New Jersey reveal a number of cases of child workers of
eight, nine, and ten years of age. Mr. J. W. Sullivan, a careful and
accurate observer, who visited this district in July of the present
year, confirms these statements. Miss Jane Addams, of Hull House,
found a child of five working at night in a South Carolina mill.
Mrs. Irene Ashby-Macfadyen, who has carefully studied conditions in
the Southern mills, gives many instances of extremely young children
working incredibly long hours. Professor George Clinton Edwards, in
the New York _Evening Post_ for August 13th, gives other instances
relating to the mills of Dallas, Tex. In a later communication to the
same journal he quotes the statement of a mill superintendent to the
effect that of sixty boys and seventy-six girls employed, “there are
two in their tenth year, nine in their eleventh year, thirteen in their
twelfth year, and seventeen in their fourteenth year.” “This list,
from the pay-roll,” writes Professor Edwards, “does not include the
little children, who, with the mills’ knowledge, worked at the mills’
work, who earned the mills’ pay in the 10 or 20 per cent increase
received by the relatives they assisted at piece work, and who were,
therefore, in fact, the mills’ employees.” Labor Commissioner Lacey,
of North Carolina, reports 7605 children under fourteen in 261 mills.
A correspondent of the Cincinnati _Post_ estimated 400 of the 1000
children employed in five mills in Columbia, S.C., to be under twelve
years of age. Testimony by mill officials before a Southern legislature
acknowledged in one instance 30 per cent of child workers under twelve
years in a spinning room, and in another 25 per cent.
The census reports bear amiable testimony to the providence of the
mill-owners. “Many of the mills,” says the South Carolina report,
“have reading rooms and libraries for their employees, and nearly
all contribute regularly to the support of the local schools.” “In
the absence of legislation regulating child labor,” says the Georgia
report, “all the cotton manufacturers in the State have signed an
agreement to exclude from the mills children under ten years of age,
and those under twelve who cannot show a certificate of four months’
attendance at school.” In the North Carolina report we find, “In the
absence of legislation nearly all the mill-owners have agreed to
discontinue the employment of children under twelve years of age.”
A correspondent of the New York _World_ found a like benevolence
among the glass employers in southern New Jersey. “I need the boys,”
said one, “all I can do is to treat the boys as well as I can.” The
mill-owners, one and all, demand that the State keep its hands off,
and trust to their own benevolence for remedies. So far, in the South,
despite a three years’ agitation, the matter is still left entirely in
their control.
Criticism of the mill-owners has been made to the effect that despite
their benevolent professions, the children are poorly paid and that
they remain uneducated. Some of them work long hours for 10 cents a
day, others for 12-1/2, 15, and 18 cents. A newspaper correspondent
tells of a certain spinning room in a Southern mill wherein the average
daily pay for all children is 23-8/10 cents. “I know of babies,” writes
Mrs. Macfadyen, “working for 5 and 6 cents a day.” The schooling which
a child working seventy-two hours a week can get may be roughly guessed
at. Mrs. Macfadyen found 567 children under twelve years working
in eight mills. Only 122 of these children could read or write. In
a school in a mill-town of between 6000 and 8000 persons, the same
investigator found an enrolment of 90 pupils divided into two classes.
A visit to one of these classes disclosed 22 children, only 12 of whom
were mill-workers’ children, and 10 had worked in the mills from one to
three years.
Criticisms based on these data are, however, generally held to be
sentimental and irrelevant. Glass-blowing or textile-weaving, like
anthracite mining, is, in the sententious phrase of President George F.
Baer, of the Philadelphia and Reading Railway Company, “a business, and
not a religious, sentimental, or academic proposition.” It is conducted
for the making of money, and not for the spiritual or hygienic welfare
of the operatives. It would be well, say the employers, if things could
be better. But for the present they are making all the contribution
to that end that they feel can conveniently be made. Moreover, they
contend--and they are supported generally by the local ministers, who
have in charge the spiritual affairs of the populace; by the local
editors, lawyers, and solid men of “business”--it is better that
children should work in the mills and factories than “run about the
streets.” As for education, the contributing employers point to the
schools, as though to say, “Here are the opportunities; why do you not
take advantage of them?” It is quite enough to provide a balky horse
with water, without being morally obliged to make him drink.
FOOTNOTE:
[4] Since the publication of the _Independent_ article the author’s
attention has been called to an address entitled “The New Feudalism,”
delivered by Mr. Benjamin A. Richmond, of Cumberland, Md., before the
Maryland Bar Association in July, 1898. The author had never seen or
heard of this address. It is written from a legal standpoint, and both
the matter and the treatment are widely different from the matter and
manner of the _Independent_ article. But whatever the differences, the
same general idea is to be found in both papers, and it is only just
that acknowledgment should be made of Mr. Richmond’s priority.