Next in importance to the traveling public come the human beings that work on the street railroad—the conductors, motormen, gatemen, gripmen, engineers, etc.
This newspaper fights constantly to improve within reason the pay and the hours of work of the street railroad employes.
This we do for the sake of the employes themselves, and for no other reason. We demand better pay for the men that they may lead decent American lives, feeding and clothing their wives and children, and educating their children properly. We demand short hours for them, that they may live part of the twenty-four hours WITH their families, knowing their own children and bringing a little pleasure and companionship into the lives of their patient wives.
We are proud of the fact that we have helped in a small way to increase the prosperity and happiness of many tens of thousands of honest families, that we have increased the OPPORTUNITIES of many thousands of children.
We want the merchants to remember that, while we have thus striven to protect those masses of the people whom we represent and whose ADVOCATE we are, we have also advanced enormously, although without premeditation, the fortune and quick success of every capable and legitimate merchant.
Who owns the stock in the street railroads? A few individuals—a Widener, an Elkins, a Yerkes, a Whitney, or some other energetic private individual.
One street railroad system, let us say, employs ten thousand men.
They struggle to add one dollar per day to their pay. We help them with moral support and publicity, and they succeed. TEN THOUSAND FAMILIES have each ONE DOLLAR a day more to spend, or ten thousand dollars a day in all.
What becomes of that ten thousand dollars added daily to the living-money of ten thousand families?