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WW A nBBWTa) 1171? o
TRADES SfcOUNCILW f- j'j V H '
VOL. 6
L.INCO.LN, NEBRASKA OCTOBER 9, 1909
8 PAGES
2fO. 27
A Nebraskan's Tribute
To Grand Young Nebraska
At the annual banquet of the St
Joseph, Mo., Ad Club. Will M. Maupin,
deputy labor commislsbner, represent
ing Governor Shallenberger, responded
to the toast, "Nebraska," as follows:
Mr. Toastmaster, Members of the St.
Joseph Ad Club, and all its guests
here assembled: Midway between
Plymouth Rock, upon which the Pil
grim Fathers landed, and the Golden
Gate, through whose portals Balboa
gazed out upon the broad bosom of
the Pacific, lies an empire greater
than the mind of mortal man can con
ceive. Once heralded as "The Great
American Desert," it was shunned by
all save the wandering nomads of the
plains, and tho Argonauts who crawled
slowly and in fear across Its bosom
towards the setting sun in chase of
phantom gold, little reckoned that be
neath the surface of this desert lay
potentialities that the future would
bring to light and make the output of
Golconda and Onhlr seem like the
childish dreams of pennies. Thous
ands dragged their weary way across
this seeming desert to delve in the
bowls of the mountains for the yellow
metal, little dreaming that at the very
grass roots over which they trod lay
greater stores of gold than mankind
has yet drawn from the fastnesses
of the piled up monuments of God's
architecture.
As the Israelites of old traveled
down into Egypt to secure the food
which they much needed, so now do
all the peoples of the earth turn to
wards this modern granary of the
world for its stores of food the bread
and butter and eggs and meat that
grace the tables of princes and poten
tates, and make glad the hearts of
artists and artisans. The attic geog
raphers of a now forgotten age drew
upon their vivid imaginations, and
with fingers that knew naught but to
follow the dictates ofign'orant minds,
wrote horrible stories of the Great
American Desert, and school children
of a recent generation shuddered to
think of the horrors that lurked
within its desolate confines. Today,
wherever the story of human progress
is told, wherever the song of human
triumph Is sung, one word is as famil
iar as the name of humanity's libera
tors, and that word is the name of
the giant young state I have the honor
and the pleasure to represent here
upon this auspicious occasion Ne
braska! The best brain and blood and brawn
of this republic, cf the nations of the
earth, have been drawn upon to make
possible the mighty achievements that
are now proudly recorded upon the
pages of Nebraska's history. From
the worked-out hills of New England
came the sturdy Puritans; from the
war-racked glades of the southland
came the stately cavalier; from the
middle west came the scions of the
hardy pioneer and surging out over
the billowing plains they wrested the
dessert from the grip of desolation
and have made it to bloom and blos
som as the rose. And among those
who have wrouglit so well within Ne
braska are many men and women
from Grand Old Missouri. The last
session of the Nebraska legislature,
the first democratic legislature the
state has had in a generation, and a
legislature which all honest democrats
say was the best, and some partisan
republicans say was the worst, the
state ever had, were several Missouri
ans. The democratic floor leader in
the senate was born in Buchanan
county and read his Coke and Black
stone in a St. Joseph law office. The
lower house contained more than one
native-born Mlssourlan, and these Mis
sourians, transplanted from the soil
of their native state to the fresher
and more vigorous soil of Nebraska,
reflected credit upon the state of their
nativity while adding fresh laurels to
those already won by the giant young
state from whence I hall. Incidentally
I might remark, and not without pride,
that I. too, am a native-born Mls
sourlan. I say 'not without pride,'
for when I selected the state in which
I should be born I selected Missouri,
knowing full well that at that time
no better state existed, and little
dreaming that the state which I now
as proudly call home would In the
future step gaily forward to the head
of the onward marching column of
tlie states of this glorious republic.
Had I known then what I know now
I might have selected Nebraska. Just
to show how rapidly Intelligence is
growing these days I point to the fact
that my seven children have all elect
ed to be born in Nebraska. But so
much did I think of Grand Old Mis
souri In the days' gone by that I se
lected it as the state in which my
father and mother should be born,
and in order to make assurance dou
bly sure I selected it as the state in
which my father's parents should be
born. The Kingdom of Callaway
doubtless fails to realize fully the
honor I have conferred upon it by
selecting it as the birthplace of three
generations bearing the name of
Maupin.
The ties that bind the middle west
together grow stronger with the pass
ing years. Not always has it been
so. Today we of Nebraska stand upon
the sundown side of the Missouri river
and welcome the sons and daughters
of Missouri to our hearts and our
homes. Within the memory of men
sitting around this banquet board Ne
braskans stood upon the river bank
and welcomed with sawed-off shot
guns and Sharp's rifles to shallow
graves in the fertile soil of Nebraska
the invading hosts of Missourians who
sought so strenuously to effect with
physical means mental political cures.
Only a generation ago Nebraska and
Kansas mothers frightened their chil
dren into obedience by stories of in
vading Missourians, even as the moth
ers of earlier centuries frightened
their children by threats of the ogre
and the bogy man. God be praised,
that day is past and we have lived
to see the full glory of the day when
men of the middle west, instead of
battling in a death grip, are engaged
In a friendly contest for supremacy in
the great work of building for the
welfare of our common heritage.
Standing upon the floor of the Ne
braska senate a few years ago a state
senator gave utterance to a mighty
truth, although couched in the lan
guage of that prince of lingual con
tortionists, Sir Boyle Roche. Said he,
'Every man should be proud of the
land of Ms nativity whether he was
born there or not." And so 1 love
Nebraska, the state of my adoption,
the choice of my maturer years. We
cannot boast of great coal mines and
steel mills, like Pennsylvania; neither
THE RAPIDLY INCREASING COST
A few weeks ago the Central Labor Union of Lincoln appointed
a committee to inquire into the cost of living, this being a part of
the educational campaign marked out by that body. The work of
conducting the inquiry was given to Rev. Mr. Zenor, pastor of the
East Lincoln Christian church and fraternal delegate to the central
body from the Ministerial Union. Rev. Mr. Zenor devoted consid
erable time to the inquiry, visiting and talking with craftsmen and
laborers in various parts of the city, and the following report is
the result of his investigations. He says: I
"If you turn to the daily press, or to those who depend upon it
for information, you will read or hear words to the effect that
'these are the best times we ever saw good prices for everything
and good wages for everybody.'
"The writer can remember a few years ago, when we were told
that we had the worst times that the American people ever saw ;
and I am still inclined to believe most of it because there are so
many people out of work, or did not find work at any price, and
we were told that they could not find it. We were then told that
the cause of that hard pressure was due to over-production, to not
having sufficient money with which to transact the business of the
country, to 'political inefficiency,' to 'the extravagance of the labor
classes,' to 'too high living, domestic incompetency' and, in fact,
almost any man you would chance to meet knew just what was the
matter, and also had just the remedy that would bring about the
desired results, and that speedily.
"It was in this year that it was said,' 'we have noteless than a
million of idle men and they are on the road; and we by our indis
criminate charity have made a million tramps.' Who does not recall
General Coxey's or General Kelley's army, or the terse expression,
'keep off the grass,' but now worn out and trite, although seen every
day upon some sward. Who cannot recall the hot times in which
men standing on the street engaged in discussion of the 'hard
times,' the hue and cry of politics, the 'full dinner pail,' or the one
more terse, 'Washington was the father of our country, Lincoln
freed the slave and Grover Cleveland gave the laboring man a rest.'
"Those were hard times indeed; for the man who was able to
find work accounted himself fortunate; but the wages oh, what
were they? I myself was then working on a salary of just one-half
of what I am now receiving. But was that one-half quite as effi
cient with which to purchase the necessaries of life as the double
amount now is! True, wages have advanced a great deal since
then, but have they kept pace with the advance of the cost of liv
ing, with rents and taxes and other items?
"At the time used as a short introduction to this paper I was
living in the commonwealth of Nebraska, and a few of the then
living prices will certainly not be out of order. I copy the prices
from my day-book kept at that time. I paid for the best flour 90
do we have to bear the odium of
purse-proud millionaires whose naugh
tiness and dementia Americana make
copy for the Associated Press. We
cannot boats of giant cotton factories
like Massachusetts, but in the even
ings we can sit around while the grow
ing corn is singing its song of pros
perity in a rustling chorus and count
the interest money that Massachu-
chusetts Is pouring into the perman
ent school fund of our state for the
benefit of the children of Nebraska,
for the Old Bay State owes our school
children a round millicn of borrowed
money. We cannot boast of Carnegies
and Morgans and Rockefellers, with
their feudal estates and giant trusts,
but in their places we point with pride
to 325,000 happy school children who
daily wend their way to 11,000 school
houses within our borders, each child
with a warm breakfast inside and com
fortable clothing outside. We cannot
boast of any Four Hundred; neither
are we compelled to watch a bread
line made up of hopeless and jobless
men forced to eat the bitter bread
of charity. We cannot boast of giant
trusts feeding and fattening upon the
necessities of the people, but we can
and do boast of a state without a
dollar of bonded debt, with $9,000,000
in cash in its permanent scholo fund
and $27,000,000 worth of school lands
yearly furnishing the fuel for the edu
cational machine that has made Ne
braska the least illiterate state in the
Union. We bast no mines of precious
metals, but we boast of hens whose
industry yearly provides us with an
egg crop that sells for more in the
open market than the total output
of Colorado's mines of gold and silver.
Nebraskans do not dig with pick and
shovel the yellow gold from Nebras
ka soil, but every year Nebraska dairy
cows mint Nebraska grains and grasses
into $35,000,000 worth of golden butter.
Loaded into standard freight cars one
year's crop of Nebraska corn would
make a freight train long enough to
reach from Omaha to San Francisco.
One year's crop of Nebraska wheat
would fill freight cars enough to make
a train reaching from Sidney, Ne
braska, 412 miles west of the Mis
souri river, to Chicago, Illinois, 500
miles east of the Missouri river. One
year's output of the industrious Ne
braska hen would lay a solid girdle
of eggs once and a half times around
the "-globe. The New Englander who
orders his dinner in Rhode Island,
eats it in Connecticut and tips the
waiter in New York, little dreams of
the vastnesa of our Nebraska dcmain.
The overland traveler who leaves the
Union Pacific depot at Omaha as the
sun is just peeping above the hills on
the! Iowa side of the Missouri river,
eats his lunch in Grand Island, Ne
braska, his dinner at North Platte,
Nebraska, and is in bed and sound
asleep as his train arrives at Sidney,
Nebraska, and then he has a good
two hours' ride ahead of him before
his limited train rushes across the line
Which separates Nebraska from Wy
oming. A big state? God bless your
souls, good friends, we have one
covmty in Nebraska from which might
be carved a Delaware, a Rhode Island
and thirty-six' Districts of Columbia,
and then have a few good farms to
spare. In that single county all the
peoples of the world, civilized and un
civilized, might be placed, .and each
one given enough room in which to
swing in a comfortable rocking chair.
"Our dairy products in a single year
are worth more than the total output
of the gold and silver mines of the
United States, including Alaska. The
boasted roast beef of Old England is
fed and fattened upon the succulent
grains and grasses that grow upon
Nebraska's fertile soil. Our corn crop
is worth more than the total tobacco
crop of the nation. Our yearly live
stock production is worth more than
the yearly output of the nation's cop
per mines. Our annual hay crop would
build a single track railroad from Ne
braska's capital city to Manhattan Isl
and. . Our annual potato crop would
pay the interest on the national debt
for thirty days. Our annual produc
tion of poultry is more than 10 per
cent of the nation's receipts from in
ternal revenue taxes. We raise more
corn and wheat per capita than any
other state in the union. We have
more and better school houses per
thousand of population than any other
state in the union. We have the
fourth largest state university, and we
are, so proud of what we have made
It lhat we refused to make it the
appendage of a millionaire who sought
to advertise his philanthropy by mak
ing it the recipient of his bounty.
Come with me to a modest 'little cot
tage in Lincoln and I will give you
ocular proof of our proud claim that
in Nebraska that we have the sweet
est women, the noblest wives and the
handsomest and sweetest children in
all the wide, wide world.
(Continued on Page 4.)
cents per 100 pounds. The other day I paid $1.80 for a sack of 48
pounds, or practically four times as much as in the hard times. I
then paid 10 cents for just as good butter as I can now get for 30
cents per pound. I pay here from 8 to 22 cents for meat no better
than I got for from 3 to 10 cents per pound, and the same com
parisons hold good through the entire grocery line. The same is
also true of vegetables of all kinds, of clothing, of furniture and
household goods. In fact, of everything except coal and wood.
"But let us stop this generalizing, and get down to real specific
statements of the cost of living today in the city of Lincoln. Let
us take the average family of six persons. By actual investigation
I find the cost of living right here in the city to be as, follows. In
the following table I have reduced
House rent $ .50
Flour 10
Meat 32
Canned goods 15
Lard
Soap
Clothes . .
.05
.03
.10
.05
.05
.10
.10
Cullinary
Ice
Gas .....
Coal
' ' You will observe that I have put in absolutely no luxuries ;
not that we are not entitled to it, but that we just cannot afford it.
You will observe that the butter allowance is only one and one
third ounces per day per person, and that the meat is estimated
upon the basis of two pounds per day for six persons, or five and
two-fifths ounces per person per day. And it will be further ob
served, out of this abundance, I have estimated one $18 suit of
clothes, and for everyday clothes, hats, caps, underwear, etc., we
have left the magnificent sum of $18.60 for each person. Allowing
two pairs of shoes to the person at an average price of $3 per pair.
But let us stop and study the wages paid by the poor corporations,
as stated to me by the men themselves who are doing the work.
The Missouri Pacific is paying its section men here in: the city $1.35
per day. Magnificent sum! All the other railroads are paying the
same class of labor $1.50 per day, while the Lincoln Traction Co. is
paying the same class of laborers $1.75. After all the information
I am able to gether, with briekmasons at $4 and carpenters ranging
from $2 to $3.20 per day, and then at the expense of the loss of all
the time when the material is short, and wet days or days unfit to
work on the outdoor work, to say
to work short hours, lose all the
looking for places where one can
on expense, I am astonished that anyone should have the audacity
to speak of 'the good times' of any one but the speculator, banker
or loan agent, or the grafter."
Deputy Commissioner's
Report on Omaha Strike
On Saturday, October 2, Deputy j
Labor Commissioner Maupin submit
ted to Governor Shallenberger his re
port of an investigation into the street
car strike in Omaha. , Mr. Maupin
spent three days in Omaha trying to
bring about an amicable adjustment
of the struggle in that city. His re
port of his efforts and of the condi
tions as he found them is submitted
by Mr.' Maupin to The Wageworker
readers without comment at this
time. It is as follows : '
To His Excellency, the Governor,
State of Nebraska, Lincoln. Hon.
Ashton C. Shallenberger: In the mat
ter of the present strike of the motor
men and conductors of Omaha against
the Omaha & Council Bluffs Street
Railway Co., I have the honor to sub
mit the following report:
The present difficulty had its incep
tion some four or five years ago when
the motormen and conductors in the
employ of the above named company
perfected an organization to promote
their interests. After careful investi
gation, it appears that there is also in
Omaha an organization of business
men whose purpose is to enforce the
"open shop" policy and to refuse to
recognize unions of employes. Since
the organization of the street railway
employes there has been considerable
friction, the men asking that their
grievances be presented to the com
pany through a committee selected
from among their number, and this
request being refused when presented.
The influence of the organization of
business men is very powerful in the
business world. The employes of the
street railway company declare that
the members of their union have been
discriminated against. ' As evidence of
tihs they claim that of approximately
650 motormen and conductors em
Dloved last year, not less than 450
were discharged or forced to resign
because of this alleged discrimination.
About, six weeks ago the employes
appointed a committee to wait upon
President Wattles of the comapny
with a statement of what they wanted-.
This demand I attach to this report
and mark it "Exhibit A."
President Wattles refused to agree
to any of these requests. A number
,of conferences were held between the
OF LIVING
items to cost per day
Reading matter $ .05
Potatoes 10
Fruit , .10
Books 10
Street car fare 15
Medical aids 10
Benevolences .. .05
Shoes v .10
Household incidentals .10
Total '. $2.50
nothing of the persons who have
odd time, and an hundred others
better his condition, all the while
committee representing the employes
and President Wattles. To the ha.
mands of the men he offered to in
crease wages as soon as the financial '
conditions of the company permitted,
and to increase them one cent an hour
inside of one year. President Wattles
refused to recognize a grievance com
mittee representing, the union or to
consent to arbitration of grievances.
He stated that there was no need of a
committee and no necssity to make
provisions for arbitration..
As before stated, several confer
ences were held between the em
ployes and President Wattles, but
without avail, and then the union sent
for two of its internatioal officers.
These officers arrived and assumed
the. duty of trying to reach an agree
ment. President Wattles agreed to
meet Chairman Pratt befora a meeting
of the business men's association. Mr.
Pratt told what the men wanted, and
Mr. Wattles told what he was willing
to write and send to each individual
employe. Mr. Pratt took President
Wattles' statement back to the em
ployes and submitted it without com
ment. The employes thereupon de
cided to strike, and the strike began
on Saturday morning, September 25.
President Wattles insisted that the
company was plunged into this strike
without notice, and taken unawares.
The striking employes claim that be
fore the strike was twelve hours old
professional strike-breakers, many A
them armed, were being imported into
the state and used to man the cars.-
The Monday following the strike I
went to Omaha with a view to ac
quainting myself with the facts. Be
fore making any effort to seek an ad-
justment of the difficulty, I thought"
it best to await the result of efforts
then being put forth by Omaha parties.
A councilmanic hearing was held at
which President Wattles and the com
mittee from the striking employes
aired their grievances. Nothing re
sulted. A little later the mayors of
Omaha, South Omaha, Florence, Ben
son and Council Bluffs undertook to
reach a settlement. They met from
day to day, and finally, on Sunday af
ternoon, September 26, they evolved a
plan of settlement which was endorsed
by President Wattles. This plan I
hereby submit as "Exhibit B." This,"
however, was not officially presented
to the striking employes but was put
into sealed envelopes and given to the ;
daily newspapers with the . under
standing that the envelopes were not
to be opened until 10 o'clock that
night, and no extras issued. Up to
Tuesday, - September 28, the striking
employes had no official knowledge of '
this, and then I was empowered by
President Wattles to present It to
them, which I did. The men refused
to accept any plan of settlement that
would deprive they of the right to
join any lawful organization or so
ciety that might appeal to them.
On Monday, September 27, I pro
ceeded again to Omaha for the pur
pose of using my best efforts to ad
just the differences between the strik
ing employes and the company. I
first sought to ascertain what the men
wanted, and after having informed
myself as to that, I proceeded to con
fer with President Wattles. President
Wattles met me fairly and frankly and
we went over the situation thoroughly.
Upon the main contentions of the men
he would not concede anything. He
refused to deal with a committee of
the employes, after the question of
the union had been eliminated from
the discussion. 'He- refused to sub
mit any point of difference whatever
to arbitration. Finally, he declared
against employment in the future of v
any man who would not agree to re
main outside of any union of street
railway men. He did agree to take '
back 90 per cent of the striking em
ployes, but under no consideration
would he agree to taking them all
back. He also declared to me that It
was his intention and the intention of
the executive committee of the com- .
pany to "punish somebody", for call
ing this strike. '' The employes would
not listen to a proposition of settle-
Nnent based upon the possible punish
ment of the men who had transacted
their business for them. It was upon
this that the final split came. Presi
dent Wattles insisted that only 90 per
cent of the strikers would be re-employed.
I suggested to the men that
they agree that in case all were taken
(Continued on Page 5.)
