Another and not less important feature of the Illinois report is that it shows the number of members of labor organizations out of work at the time of the investigation—June and July, 1886.
The question of the number of weeks' work secured during the year might be sometimes loosely answered by the secretaries of labor unions; but as to the number at that time unemployed the answers would be almost as accurate as a census enumeration. The 634 labor organizations of Illinois had an enrolled membership in June, 1886, of 114,365. It was found that 17 per cent of these belonged to both the Knights of Labor and to a trade union, and had hence been duplicated. Deducting these, it was found that 103,843 persons were members of these bodies. Of these, 88,223, or 85 per cent, were employed, while 15,620, or 15 per cent, were idle. Applying this percentage to the entire number of persons engaged in the industries in which organizations were found, basing that number on the census of 1880, there must have been in the three grand divisions of industry—manufacturing, mining, and transportation—at least 50,000 men unemployed in Illinois in June, 1886. If that percentage could be applied to all occupations, this number would be swelled to 150,000. The Illinois Bureau found 15 per cent of all those engaged in manufacturing and mining industries idle in 1886.
Massachusetts finds the equivalent of 11 per cent of all her industrial population idle during the year 1885, and finds 69 per cent of this idleness in protected manufacturing industries.
So far as I can see, the result of the Illinois investigation strengthens and verifies that of Massachusetts, both resulting in the conclusion that for 1885 and 1886 the equivalent of at least 11 per cent of our industrial population was out of work. The Iowa Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1887 threw out the "raw material" of a report that would, if digested and tabulated, strengthen this position. Unfortunately, the report as printed is but the reproduction of individual returns, and the work of getting an average is too great for the time at command.
A brief computation, however, on the figures presented shows that, in a total of 1989 reports to that Bureau from workingmen in all industries, trades, and occupations, there was an average loss of time of 80 days per man per year; or, counting 300 working days per year, 26 per cent of the time of the workingmen of Iowa is unemployed.
After this survey of the field from the reports of three States, we turn to the report of the United States Bureau, at Washington, for 1885 (pages 65 and 66).
That report, from information gained by its agents and other sources of information at its hand, estimates that 7-1/2 per cent of the 255,000 manufacturing establishments of the country were absolutely idle during the year ending July 1, 1885, and that 168,750 factory hands were thus rendered idle. By applying the 7-1/2 per cent to all industries, that bureau stated that there "might be" 1,304,407 men out of employment that year, but again readjusts its estimate as being too large, and gives the number as 998,839. That same year 11 per cent of all the people engaged in all gainful pursuits in Massachusetts were idle; the next year 15 per cent of all those engaged in the three principal industries aside from agriculture were idle in Illinois. In Iowa, 26 per cent of the time of workingmen in all industries is spent in hunting work; and how, from this state of facts, the Federal Bureau could get at a 7-1/2 per cent estimate it is difficult to see. Massachusetts finds 29 per cent of her people idle one-third of the time, or 11 per cent all the time. If it is said that this percentage would be reduced in agricultural States, Iowa proves it to be not quite true, and at least the reduction would be slight. Allowing 4 per cent less of idleness for Western States than for Massachusetts is shown to be error by the reports of Illinois and Iowa. The first estimate of the Federal Bureau, 1,304,407, was not too high, but rather too low at that time. Applying the Massachusetts percentage to the entire country at that time, there must have been 1,913,130 persons out of work; and it should be remembered, too, that this is using as a base the number reported in the census of 1880, without allowing for the increase. Colonel Wright gives in his Massachusetts report for 1885, 816,470 persons engaged in all industries; the census of 1880 gives that State 720,774, showing an increase of 95,696, or a gain of over 13 per cent. Applying the Massachusetts gain to the entire class of productive industries, we find 19,753,071 as the number to which this percentage should be applied, instead of the Census number of 17,392,099.
I think no fair estimate of the number of unemployed in 1885 could be much under 1,900,000, and I believe no fair estimate of the present number of idle persons wishing employment and unable to find it, can be placed lower than 1,500,000. At least 6,000,000 of persons ordinarily employed are in enforced idleness from two to five months in the year, and thus forced to consume, while seeking work, the little it was possible to save during their six or eight months of employment.
It is not the purpose of this paper to consider the causes for this tremendous aggregate of enforced idleness. Doubtless much of it is due to the frantic attempts of combinations to control prices by limiting production. Protected by laws of Congress from competition with the industries of other nations, under the guise of "protection to American labor," the combined steel industries of the country pay the Vulcan Steel Works of St. Louis $400,000 to stand idle, thus throwing its workmen out of employ! The Waverly Stone Ring pays quarries thousands of dollars—in one instance, $4500 per year—to do nothing. The salt works along the Kanawha were bought up by the American Salt Manufacturers' Association, and have never employed a man since. Thus is American labor protected! The Standard Oil Company buys up competitors and dismantles their works. The tack manufacturers buy out a refractory fellow who would not join the pool, and not a wheel has turned since. The Western Lead and Shot Association buys the shot-tower at Dubuque, Iowa, to keep men from working there. A leading politician and prominent officeholder of Illinois goes to Washington to prevent the tariff reduction on jute bagging proposed by the Mills bill, and pleads manfully for the poor American workingman, though his own bagging mill has been idle for three years, while he draws a dividend from the pool for "limiting production," greater than he could realize by running his works. It doth not yet appear that his idle workmen have shared in the profits he derives from their idleness.
Sloan and Company stop as many coal-mines as is necessary to prevent the output from exceeding the limit agreed upon at the "annual meeting" of the combination. So with the coke-ovens.