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About The Wageworker. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1904-???? | View Entire Issue (Sept. 28, 1906)
NEWS OF TRADE AND LABOR Ceneral Information Concerning Thoss Who Are Doing the Work of the World. ' Child Labor. A creature wan, of dwarfed physique. iri'k-lMHter eye. and tttiruiikm limb. With frame bowed prematurely down, ARe counterfeited in its frown. m wrinKieu orow ana HunKen cueeK. Oouied tho freedom of the sun. Kobbed of freKh air and wholesome food; 1I:iii1h ir lei n turally deft. That dainty fabrics may be spun. In Htature and In years a child, . ;3n ain, e.xperienee aenile. IIh heritage, of childhood sold Tlml Its employer gather Kold; Jla thought the cunning of the wild. The tiling that might have been a man Or woman, bleHHintr all the race, '! Thado a criminal or bawd i'o mock creation's nobler tilaii. ,JiS(.wccn Xlie thing that might have been Arid this the thing that greed has made riier Mrs tho evil profit which Makes nations poor, and persons rich. The product of a gilded sin. Iook on this creature, dour and s-rim. The. winner of your luxury. Smug Idler and your lady fair; This hoMlage God left to your care luiiold your work and answer him! Hut ere he calls you to the bar You will be tried by fellow men. And no atone to them, that then You will not fear the threat of hell. 7-St. Louis Qlobe-Uemocrat. It is estimated tliat 6,000,000 women are earning wages In the British Isles. Ten women sorters employed in the government paper mill in Pittsfield, Mass., which supplies the treasury de partment with banknote paper, went on strike for an Increase or from $1.20 to $1.25 a clay. ' The New Zealand parliament, now 'in session, Is considering favorably a proposal to increase the amount of pensions payable under the statute, which lias now been some years in force, conferring pensions on old set tlers. The pout-it clerks of the country are 'rapidly organizing. At a conference in Chicago recently, which was en gaged in by delegates from nearly all the principal cities. J. B. Gotha, of Chi cago, was elected national president, and J. F.-1 Heifer, of Milwaukee, secre tary. The clerks are ambitions to 1 have as strong an organization as the letter' carriers. The latter have the faight-hour day, but the former com plain that they are compelled to work longer hours. The clerks have at tempted to secure relief from con gress, but President Roosevelt issued an order prohibiting them from peti tioning the lawmakers for better treat ''inent. In the "bill of grievances" pre sented to tho president, the American " Moderation of Labor made an issue of the question, demanding that the right of petition be guaranteed. Many con gressmen have been sounded as to their attitude on this proposition and all recognize the right of the clerks to organize and ask -for ' improved work ing conditions. . This matter, doubt less, will come up in congress this winter. Anton Johannsen, who recently was elected business agent of the Amalga mated Woodworkers' council, has been prominent In tho affairs of the Chi- cago Federation of Labor for the last two or three vears. Jnlinnnen was born in Germany In 1872, and came to this country when a boy. He learned i n.noitmn.l.AH,' , J I 1 1 ." A T .. iuv nuuunuincio uauv III V. illLLUIi, lit., ' and came to Chicago in 1899. Soon he ('began to take an active part in the t nunuo i nit? uiiiuii. no was lltsal dent of the woodworkers' council for two yoars, and one year ago he repre i sented the Chicago Federation of La bor In the convention of the Ameri can Federation at Pittsburg. -, The sixteenth annual convention of the Nattonnl Brotherhood of Operative ' "Potters, held in Akron, 0 July 9-14, ' marked an epoch in the history of -that organization. Beginning with a membership of less than 500, it to-day " has on its roster almost every worker in the pottery trade, and reports a financial strength sufficient to carry the organization through a strike, should such event arise, and pay each member benefits for 18 months. . The sessions of the convention were marked by the degree of harmony pre vailing and considerable legislation along advanced union lines was en acted. '"'. If the labor unions owned the fac tories In which they work, would they Insist on an eight-hour day? There is a town In Spain in Which 4,000 labor ers have for the last six years been their own employers, but their hours of labor are 11 a day! comments the New York Post. The name of this town Is Cibar; it is a station on the railway lino between San Sebas Man and Bilboa. From time tmme 1 morial the manufacture of weapons has been Its specialty. Of the 7,500 inhabitants, more than one-half belong to a socialistic uuion, formed in 1900, Industrial wages paid in the United States for 1905 were 1.6 per cent higher tnan for the preceding year, ac cording to official figures. The cost j of food increased by 0.6 per cent., which left the worklngman 1 per cent additional revenue. Of 699 vnions with a membership of 63,500 making returns on the state of employment' of the American Federa tion of Labor for the month of July, 1.4 ner cent, of the members were without employment. In tho preced lng month 937 unions with a member ship of 85,300 reported 1.6 ter cent unemployed. Herbert N. Cassou says: "Let us look at a few things that have been done by organized labor." He pro ceeds to enumerate a few: "A hun dred years ago men, women and chil dren toiled from 78 to S-t hours a week 13 to 14 hours a day. This was the average, but many employers ground 16 hours a day out of their jaded wage slaves. In 1800 every laboring man and mechanic was at work at 4 a. m. At 10 they had an hour for lunch, at 3 an hour for dinner, and then on till dark. As late as 1836 men and women began work in some factories at 4:30 a. in. and in New England it was the custom to light the lamps and work an hour before dawn as well as an hour after, thus stealing two hours a day from rest. The average laborer 100 years ago had fewer comforts and less consideration than the horse or dog has to-day. There was no society for the prevention of cruelty to wage workers. The laborer lived in a house of unpalnted boards.' He had sand on the floor instead of carpet, and his dishes were made of pewter instead of china. If he had fresh meat once a week he thought himself lucky. A good share of his wages was paid in rum and gin. Then when he got drunk his employer had him arrested. Jef ferson tells us that the topic of conver sation at a large dinner party given by President John Adams was the 'enor mous price of labor.' President Adams declared that he had hired men ten years before for f 50 a year and board, while now he was obliged to pay the enormous sum of $150 a year. The city of Washington was built by work ers who got not more than 50 cents a day. The diggers, choppers, hodcar riers, etc., got ?70 a year, and worked, as all laborers did,, from sunrise to sunset. When ' this century began wages in New York were 40 cents a day and in Baltimore 36 cents.. The average rate all over the country was 65 a year, with board and perhaps lodging. As late as 1835 the Balti more weavers were working 12 hours a day for G5 cents. At Great Falls, N. H., in 1844, the factory girls labored from 5 a. m. until 7 p. m., with only 15 minutes for breakfast and 30 min utes for dinner. What they earned we do not know, but all they received was ?1.25 to $2 a week." For the last three or four years the manufacturers in the metal industry have been waging a fight on the unions and in some districts they have been successful in establishing the open shop. The National Metal Trades association two years ago ceased to make agreements with the unions and this year the National Founders' asso ciation has adopted the same policy. Whether the latter is to be successful depends on the final outcome of the strike of iron molders which has been In progress in a number of cities since May 1. The strike of the Freight Handlers' union at Duluth and Superior has been settled by President D. J. Keefe of the International Longshoremen, Marine, and Transport Workers' association in negotiation with the Northern Pacific railway. All of the old employes are to be reinstated without discrimina tion regardless of what part they had taken in the recent strike. The wages are to be 35 cents per hour for the entire navigation season of 1906. An endeavor is to be made to amal gamate the various unions in the West Australian timber industry, so that they will better be able to resist any attempt to reduce wages when the present agreement expires. The first family strike recorded in Chicago was ordered recently when 2G0 female janitors voted to go to the aid of their husbands to win an in crease in wages demanded by window washers in large buildings down town. The labor agitations in recent years in France are said to have had an im portant effect in leading to a "concen tration of industries." In 1896 there were 2,334,471 independent establish ments in France; in 1901 the total number of such establishments was 2,245,356, a diminution in five years of nearly 100,000 establishments. The number now is said to be very much smaller. The small establishments are reported to have been the ones which have largely gone out of busi ness. During the period of 1896 to 1901 no less than 102,355 small firms disappeared, while establishments em ploying from 21 to 100 workmen in creased by 2,535, and the number of large firms, employing more than 100 workmen each, increased from 3,918 in 1896 to 4,623 in 1901. The present agitation, with a demand for shorter hours and increased wages, is said to have added greatly to this concentra tion of business in certain lines to the large firms. The exact date of the origin of trade unions in America is unknown. There have been no mediaeval conditions, and it is believed that there were no labor unions in the colonies, but a strike of Journeymen bakers, it is said, occurred in New York city as early as 1741. The International Association of Photo-Engravei a at their annual con vention held in Detroit, rescinded the open shop resolution passed at their last convention in Buffalo, and adopted a substitute, declaring that they will be absolutely neutral in relations with labor. ' ONE GREAT ROUTE. 5,000-MILE PAN-AMERICAN RAIL ROAD IN SIGHT. Immense Project Long Planned Has Now Actually Been Commenced Money to Complete It Is Arranged For. Another link is in sight for the 5,000-mile Pan-American railroad which will some day enable a citizen of Alaska to make a continuous train journey through zones temperate, tropic and again temperate, and at the Straits of Magellan to dip his hands in antarctic chilled water a scenic railway crossing the Panama canal, with a grade rising from below sea level to 12,000 feet above on the majestic plateaus of the Andes! Is it a dream of enthusiasm? Then must hard-headed bankers of New York have suddenly become overen- thusiastic in supplying $15,000,000 of capital, and the president of Bolivia quite lost his wits when the other day he started with so much pomp the building of the new railway lines in his country, says the New York Trib une. Speyer & Co. and the National City bank, never accused of overen- thusiasm before, are the capitalists. They agree to supply 'another $10,000, 000, if necessary, and the Bolivian government promises to make repay ment within 25 years from date. More than $10,000,000 is to be provided for railways by the people who name themselves after El Libertador Simon Bolivar, making the total about $37 500,000. It is true that this money will be largely used on the lines of a general system of internal railway develop ment, yet Bolivia will be bisected by a trunk road from Peru, on the north. to Argentina on the south, following the surveyed route of the Pan-Amer ican" scheme. The main line of this trunk will be 459 miles long, adding 264 miles to the existing but inade quate and probably to be superseded route 'of the narrow gauge Antofagasta railroad. All internal lines projected total a distance of nearly 1,000 miles. about five times the length of those existing. They include Viacha to Porto Pando, 201 miles; Viacha to Oruro, 138 miles; Oruro to Potosi, 165 miles: Oruro to Cochabamba, 129 miles, and Oyuni to Tupiza, 126 miles From two to ten years is estimated as the time necessary to complete the various sections. Of the 15 republics that are coop erating to startle with the locomotive whistle the condor sailing over An dean abysses and to compete with llama, donkey and Indian as freight carriers, Bolivia and Peru are now showing the greatest activity. The dizzy engineering feats of climbin'g the higher mountains of the world, en larging the gold bearing Inca's trail along precipices, tunneling t through impassable rock walls and shuttling back and forth on steel spans across tortuous chasms never passed by man, have already been accomplished with large success in Peru. The pioneer genius of Henry Meiggs has its mon uments. It inspires a poet to think of the snow-clad peaks rising four miles in air. It makes a railway traffic man ager rub his hands when he considers the present llama-donkey-Indian style of transportation at a minimum cost of 20 cents a ton a mile. Moreover, a railway runs at the same speed and at equal cost in both directions. What will happen to the old-established wa ter routes of South America, that take twice as long and double 'cost to go upstream? It takes two weeks to float a cargo of rubber, gold or cof fee 1.310 miles down the Madeira river, but a month for boats to go up And in the dry season, when the river runs low, traffic is at a standstill. The Pan-American line, as starting from the present Mexican railroad ter minus at Ayutla, the northern bound ary of Guatemala, and extending to the river Quiaca, of the boundary be tween Bolivia and Argentina (whence existing lines run south and east), it is estimated will cost $200,000,000. Mileage and cost are surpassed by single systems in this country, it is pointed out. Some engineers, think ing of gulfs and heights to conquer, have deemed the average estimate of $40,000 a mile optimistic. Yet the actual cost of a road from Lake Titi- caca, the inland sea of South America, corresponding to Baikal in Siberia, to Bolivia's capital city, La' Paz, has proved to be only $18,000 a mile. This line begins to run along the great cen tral plateau of Bolivia, a prairie 12, 000 feet above the sea, and misty with clouds, yet surmounted by the lordly peaks, more than four miles high, of the Illampu Cordilleras. On this majestic plain the present main line is to be built. Here the engi neering difficulties are practically nil and there is no fear of encountering such a chimera as the moving moun tain that lately baffled the builders of an Argentine railroad. The mountain is a great cone of mud, that changes its shape when the river Medio frets in the rainy season. A steel span 820 feet long is believed to have con quered the unstable foe. When "Booking" Meant "Booking." A railway clerk will nowadays "book" 800 passengers an hour; for merly when he had really to book them, to write their names in a hook he would have thought the 800 good day's work. The saving of labor has been enormous, and, unlike most inventions, the ticket remains much as li was at first. It is still numbered and dated, as it was then, and Its only changes have been in color and the words printed on it. London An swers. LAUGHS AT ALL BARRIERS Nothing Stops the Triumphant March of the Locomotive. The completion and opening for traffic of a railroad 14,000 feet above the sea level is an event of moment in that kind of building and the one just finished leading from the Colo rado & Southern line to the summit of Mount McClellan, on Gray's peak. Is the sscond in the world to reach that altitude. The other is in Peru, leading through the passes of the An des. Both lines carry the locomotive. with its proud and conquering plume and its piercing note of triumph, half as high as the highest peaks in the world with something to spare. No longer need it be said that "moun tains interposed makes enemies of nations," though it may have been true enough when the poet wrote it. There are high mountain passes yet left in the world for the railway to cleave through, though it may b doubted if many of them will ever much exceed those named in altitude. The Himalayas, their peaks upholding the roof of the world, are yet to be gridironed. So are the Thian Shan ranges and in general the whole mountain system of China; our inter continental lines, going on apace and soon to join their links, sometime will in the nature of things have some pretty high places to cover, but if they climb anywhere so loftily as the one just finished and its Peruvian predecessor, it will be time to fire off cannon and hold celebrations ol exultation over the performance. It is only the rail which has per- mitted the wonders of the world to be reached and we have only begun to penetrate into their walled-in do minions. The train which spins over the torrent of Zambesi's fall across its high and slender steel arch re veals one of the most majestic views .ever presented to mankind, but there are many more yet to be found and linked into the chain binding the accessible together which is reticu lated v with meshes growing smaller and smaller all over the world. It will indeed be like braiding a new world into the pattern of the old, te the enrichment of its embroidery be yond ail the dreams .which fancy can feign or the most glowing imagination picture. OLD BUT ACTIVE MACHINIST. Charles C. Aspinwall, of Concord, N H., Still Works at His Trade. In years of service, Charles C. As pinwail is the oldest active machinist employed by the Boston & Maine rail road in Concord, N. H., and one of the eldest in New England. He be gan his service in the old Northern shops at Concord in 1853, and has since continued in the service under the management of tfc3 Boston & Lowell, and later with the Boston & Maine, in "whose Concord, N. II., re pair shops he is now employed as a ang boss. He was at one time mas ter mechanic of the Concord, N. H., plant of the Boston & Maine, and previous to its acquirement of the plant was practically master mechan ic for a " period of nearly 20 years. He is a popular man at the shops, and though 75 years old, does a good measure of work each day. He walks to and from the railroad shops, a distance of a mile and a quarter, from his home. There is probably not a man on the system who knows every part of an engine better than Mr. Aspinwall, and few can equal him in practical knowledge and workman ship. He is a native of Lebanon, N. H., his ancestors having been prominent In founding the town. His father lived to be 92 years old, and he has a brother living who is one year old er than himself. His grandfather was at the battle of Bunker Hill. Italian Train Brigand. One of the most remarkable fea tures of the widely organized system of train robberies in Italy has been the impunity with which they have ; long been committed. The police, however, have at last succeeded in striking a blow which, if properly fol lowed up, may for a time cripple the brigands. - On no line of railway has the pil laging of passengers' baggage been more persistent than on the Rome Naples line in the touring season. At last, however, the head center and organizer of the band has been ar rested. He is a Sicilian known among his confederates as "La China."' He is a Sicilian, keen and daring, and his band has even had the audacity and the address to rob the prefect of Reggio, di Calabria himself during his railway traveling. "La China" is a man with many aliases, and has had many convictions recorded against him. Few Railway Insolvencies. The number of railways in the hands of receivers continue to. de crease, the few that have been added to the list in recent years being more than offset by the number of receiver ships that were ended by foreclosure or by friendly reorganization without sale, says the Railway Age. In the first six months of this year only five short roads, with a total of 184 miles of lines, were placed in charge of the courts, while five roads with 175 miles, were restored to their owners by sale, and another, having 34 miles completed, was found sol vent and returned to the original com pany. No receivership has been es tablished this year as a result of finan cial difficulties of recent origin, and no new insolvencies are In sight or apprehended at the present time. Union Men Of Lincoln Wear Kohn Bros. Unionmade Fine Clothing Extzemely Fine Reasonably Pziced Sold Exclusively in Lincoln by . f ri;sru it rare. MlllllUtU 4 J Round Trip Tickets on sale June 31st; to following points: Chicago $20.00 Denver 16.75 St. Louis 17.20 Deadwood 17.85 Lead, S. D 17.85 Custer, S. D 16.65 Hot Springs, S. D 15.50 Colorado Springs . . . 17.35 Sheridan, Wyo . 23.35 Mackinaw City . 25.05 Mackinac Island 25.05 On Sale June 1 to Sept. 15. Lim Portland . 60.00 Seattle 60.00 Tacoma 60.00 Spokane 55.00 Helena 50.00 Yellowstone National Park $75.00, days. G. W. BONNELL, C. P. A. -.- Cor. 13th and O Sts. Lincoln, Nebraska Best Values lor The Best Money Cash or easy terms are found at the Star Turniture Zfye Wage'Gamer's Tiiniitert Supply Bouse , 08 South eleventh Street. . Uiueoln, Hebiask f J "na UNION MADE SHOES I carry nothing but union made shoes, and have a full line of thein. I manufacture shoes and shoe uppers. A share of union patronage is respectfully solicited. S.LMcCOY . 1529 OStreet Summer Excursions ; via The Burlington Route 1st to Sept. 30th; return limit, Oct. ' i Madison .....$22.20 Milwaukee 0. ............... . 22.20 Waukesha 22.20 Pueblo 17.50. Cody, Wyo. 30.10 Mexico City, Mex. 60.25 Salt Lake 3050 Ogden 30.50 St. Paul 14.70 Minneapolis 14.70 it Oct. 31, 1906.. San Francisco . . 60.00 Los Angeles ; 60.00 San Diego 60.00 Butte 50.00 Anaconda 50.00 on sale daily to Sept. 17; limit ninety