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.