W
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VOL.
No. 39.
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By Richad P. Appleton
Detroit Mich.,—Keep away from
Detroit, is the wise word to labor to
day.
War wages are things of the past.
War profiteering and ruinous rents
are very much things of the present.
The handwriting blazes upon the
wall. Those whose eyes are not blind
ed by glitter of gold already wrested
from a war-torn world or dazzled by
the will o' the wisp of hoped for future
gouging, have read and heeded the
warning.
The great merchant class of Detroit
sees nothing but past and prospective
gains. But two other classes hear
the cracking of the flimsy edifice erect
ed upon inflated war profits. Labor
knows and capital knows.
Labor was the first to know that
the orgy was over. Naturally the
first, for the pay envelope screamed
it aloud.
Capital, intelligent capital, reco
gnized the fact at the same time, but
hoping for a miracle to intervene,
p/ayed ostrich and whistled merrily,
if passing a graveyard
Capital no longer whistles. It
groans with apprehension. And some
of the groans are amusing, or would
be if their significance had not a
tragic side.
December 19 the mayor-elect of
Detroit, who takes office January 14,
pleaded with the business men and
manufacturers of the city to show a
spirit of unity with labor, to do their
utmost in taking up the "labor slack"
"Evryone must help," he said every
factory, every employer."
He predicted very serious labor con
ditions for Detroit this winter. He
pleaded for a spirit of humanity to
quell discontent and "prevent the
growth of anarchism and Bolshevism
in this country."
December 28 the Detroit Board of
Commerce pleads, not with the busi
ness men and manufacturers of the
city, but with the labor of the nation,
to help in tiding over the coming
iponths of leanness. The board made
8 special request to the Associated
Press to spread as broadcast as pos
sible a plea to returning soldiers to
stay away, at least until April, "when
practically all of the industries will
again be on a peace footing.'
Mf those who fought find bled for
their country are told to expect no jobs
in Detroit for many months, those
who never wore the khaki can readily
estimate the reception awaiting them
selves, should they seek the fortune
of Eldorado in the motor city, for
fopr years heralded as the fountain-
Reliable
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TCI I Rill
Stay Away From
Detroit.
IS WARNING TO LABOR MEN
War Wages Giving Way To Profiteering And High Rents.
Jobless Soldiers Urged To Shun Michigan City.
head of wealth, prosperity and happi
ness.
Stay away from Detroit is the wis
est word that can be spoken to labor
today.
It K
Five Hour Day
Brings Best Results, Declares
Prof. Hobhouse.
London, England—Prof. Hobhouse,
of the London School of Economics,
takes little stock in the claim of some
brainworkers that they labor eight
hours a day and longer. This claim
is often used by the opponents of the
eight-hour day for industrial work
ers. Prof. Hobhouse says:
"When asked my personal view of
the eight-hour question I begin with
my own experience.
"I have worked with my br^in as
hard as another for the best part of
a lifetime, but since boyhood I have
never done a regular eight-hour day.
The simple reason is that I get my
maximum output on a five-hour day
or thereabouts and you would find
many brainworkers who if they kept
careful count, could tell you the same
thing.
"There are, indeed, some very tough
subjects who can do a good deal more
I knew a legal luminary who told me
that he worked at least twelve hours
a day and then read metaphysics in
his armchair. But I never thought
his metaphysics were very good
Darwin, who could hardly be accused
of intellectual slackness or ineffi
ciency, did four hours a day regularly.
And I remember the late master of
Balliol saying that he considered five
(my figure) a good allowance for a
normal reading man. So when man
ual workers demand an eight-hour
day it is certainly not for the likes of
me to accuse them of slackness,"
n A Ha
JUDICIAL AUTOCRAT.
New York,—Ruling that a jury
award of $3,750 was excessive for the
life of a 6-year-old boy killed by a
motor truck, the appellate division
of the supreme court ordered a new
trial unless the lad's father agreed to
accept a payment of $2,500.
The decision sustained the argument
of the company's council that, since
the child never had attended school
and his father "never spent a cent on
medical men for him," the verdict
was excessive. The father, who is a
shoemaker, originally sued for $20,000
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THE WORKMAN'S STORE
We challenge the world to meet our qualities and these prices!
There is no secret about it—We are just simply satisfied with cash. Profit or value are not consid
this sale. Most of the merchandise is offered below cost and way below actual market val-
To make them move, quickly, that is what we are driving at.
King High Prices must take off his crown to these
Goods at Peace Prices.
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Washington,—Because of the injur
ious effects of night work on the work
man, the National War Labor Boai'd
is granting a wage scale five per cent
higher than day work in nearly all
cases coming before it
The argument for a punitive rate on
night work is graphically given in a
recent decision in the case of the Em
ployes vs. Worthington Pump & Ma
chinery Corporation, Cudahy, Wis.,
Docket No. 163, signed by Matthew
Hale, Umpire for the board. Mr. Hale
in declaring that night work should re
ceive a larger compensation because it
involves a greater strain in all ways
upon the employe, cites portions of a
brief prepared by Supreme Court Jus
tice Louis D. Brandeis in "The People
of the State of New York vs. C. S.
Press," in April 114, as follows.
CAUSES LACK OF SLEEP.
"The most serious physical injury
wrought by night-work is due to the
loss of sleep it entails. This is be
cause recuperation from fatigue and
exhaustion takes place only in sleep,
and takes place
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Red Trunk, The Workinpan's Store SI
only in sleep
at night.
"The degree of fatigue developed
was greater during the night shift
than during the day.
"They (the men) are to a great ex
tent victims of insomnia, being unable
to sleep in the daytime after night
work and can not enjoy a sound night's
sleep in the week of their day work
the men in consequence become ner
vous and depressed. The irregular
meals, hurriedly partaken of, disorder
the stomach and seriously affect all
the organs of digestion, and thus a
great deal of time is lost from illness.
"In the forefront of the effects of
night work upon health stands, to our
mind, the loss of night rest. Sleep at
night is certainly far preferable to
sleep by day. It is—as everyone
knows from his own experience
much deeper, neavier, more refreshing
in a word more restorative.
''The inadequacy of day sleep is ag
gravated for the men who work at
night, by special circumstances affect
ing both its quantity and its quality.
Consider first the case of the grown
men. We find from personal obser
vation and inquirey that living con
ditionsand family habits and occupa
tions all have their part in the result.
The laborers' dwellings are generally
small, noisy, and not well protected
from the weather and the laborer
has not the chance that the rich man
has to find out a cool and quiet room,
darkened for his mid-day nap, but has
THE BUTLER CO ITNTY PllESS.
Cites Brief Predared By Supreme
Court Justice Brandeis In
New York Case
PER CENT EXTRA FOR NIGHT WORK
Causes Lack Of Sleep, Is Injurious
To Eyesight, Lowers floral
Standards.
to put up often with one room the
family possesses— a room in which
all the regular activities of the home
are going on, and sometimes tenement
industries as well.
LACK OF SUNLIGHT.
"Workers who are employed at
night are inevitably deprived of sun
light. Scientific investigation has
proved that the loss of sunlight is in
jurious in two ways: First, it results
in serious physical damage, both to
human beings and to animals. Night
workers whose blood was examined
showed a marked decrease in the red
coloring matter, resulting in a state
of chronic blood impoverishment.
Second, the loss of sunlight favors
the growth of bacteria, such as the
germs of tuberculosis. Conversely,
the light destroys bacterial life. It
has been called the cheapest and most
universal disinfectant.
"It has also been shown that ani
mals kept in the dark without sun
light suffer a loss of t^ie red coloring
in the blood. The sair|k' is found true
of night workers who are deprived of
sunlight impoverished blood is one
of the main symptoms. This fact was
confirmed by an examination of 800
bakers by the investigators of the
commision, described in its Pre
liminary Report. Night work was
found to increase their morbidity and
mortality, as well as to upset all the
normal habits of social life.
INJURIOUS TO EYESIGHT.
"Night work often results in life
long injury to the eyes. The danger
of eye strains from close application
to work is intensified at night by in
sufficient and improper lighting of
work rooms. While it is true that
the more general use of electric light
ing has lessened the vitiation of the
air due to gas lighting, yet it has in
troduced new elements of injury. The
glare of excessive or unshaded lights
may be as injurious to the eyes as in
sufficient illumination. Moreover, ex
perience has shown that injuries to
the eyes affect general health disas
trously.
MORAL STANDARDS LOWERED.
"The workers detest night work, be
cause it is more exhausting. Day
sleep is less refreshing. The number
of meals necessary in the family bud
get is increased, extra cooking must
be done, and the family order and
system are disjointed. Night product
is inferior accidents are more num
erous machines suffer more damage
drunkenness increases, and a lower
moral standard is established by night
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SALE
work. Switzerland does not hesitate
to condemn it, and she has put a stop
to it even in many industries where
other countries regard it as indis
pensable.
"The baker sleeps little as a rule,
and the sleep he does get is a troubled
kind of sleep, broken by noises that
go on in the house and out doors.
He goes back to work in the evening
without having had the rest he needed.
Thus his body is often weakened, his
health is broken, his sirits are dulled
and he becomes defenseless against
the most dreaded diseases. His ner
vous weakness, too, makes him subject
to violent reactions from even the
slightest stimulation, since his inhibi
tory centers have, as it were, ceased
to function.
And all this is encouraged by the
fact that his manner of life makes it
difficult for him to have a family.
He is often driven to seek distraction
and forgetfulness of his abnormal life
in violent pleasures or he turns to
easier amours—as a substitute for
the comforts of family life.
DETRIMENTAL TO EDUCATION
"Nightwork and late overtime
hours prevent the workers from tak
ing advantage of the educational op
portunities offered by enlightened
ommunities suchas evening schools,
public lectures, libraries, etc.
For real cultivation of the mind
two things are chiefly requisite— the
one, incitement and guidance the
other intellectual companionship. And
how are these to be had when one's
evening and night are given up to
mechanical labor, and one's day to
sleep, to amusement, or, as often hap
pens, to some secondary trade? The
most stimulating club meetings and
other gatherings, the instructive lec
tures and courses, the reading of
newspapers and books—all these
things go on almost exclusively in the
evening and in the early part of the
night the night worker is therefore
cut off from them, and this alone
means an irreparable loss of oppor
tunity for a development that broad
ens the mind, enlivens the spirit, and
often makes for practical advance
ment also."
Low Wages And High Death
Rate of Babes Go Together.
Washington Every trade union
argument against low wages and
their effect upon society is packed
into a chart that is part of the annual
report of Miss Julia C. Lathrop, chief
of the children's bureau, Department
of Labor.
The chart shows that the death rate
for babies whose fathers earned less
than $450 was 167.8 per 1,000 births,
or more than one in every six. When
the fathers earned $1,250 or more
the death rate for their babies was
64.3 per 1,000 births, or one in 16.
v*v
HAMILTON, OHIO, FRIDAY, .JANUARY 17, 1919. 75 CENTS PER YEAR
The indictment against the evils
of low wages that affects not only
the family, but society as a whole
was made possible by an investigation
in eight cities. It is based upon inter
views with mothers of nearly 25,000
live-born babies.
The report says that since these
figures have been gathered wages are
probably increased, but—
"The figures recently published by
the Bureau of Labor Statistics of this
department, however, showing general
increases in the cost of living, afford
no indication that the advantage to
infant life can be at this time in pro
portion to the presumable increase in
fathers' cash earnings."
Jfe *3 1*
The manufacturers Council of New
Jersey, 200 manufacturers present
pledged to refrain from cutting
wages "until the purchasing power
of the dollar shall have increased
materially" Officials of the State
Federation of Labor attended the
Council meeting and gave some good
advice. Steadily the idea of what
the British call a "real" wage and
what some wise Americans call
"relative" wage, is getting a grip on
the minds of the workers and some
employer*
HAHH IIMP RF HAI
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S DEADLY AND DETRIMENTAL
By Richard P. Appleton
True to form, Henry Ford has again
confounded the prophets of pessimism
the Cassandras of commercialism.
In the face of predictions that cuts
in wages would be an inevitable re
sult of the transition from war con
ditions to those of peace, the Ford
Motor Company announces that the
minimum wage of every one of its
employes all over the world would be
raised from $5 to $6 per day. The
increase affects about 28,000 persons,
as 23,000 other Ford employes are
already receiving at least $6 for every
eight hours of work.
In asking approval of the proposed
increase at the meeting of the board
of directors, Henry Ford said:
This increase is only a just reward
to the men who remained with us dur
ing these hustling days. I hope the
time will come when every man in the
Ford employ will own his home. They
are entitled to a fair share of our
pi osperity."
This raise in the minimum wage
applies not only to the employes of
the automobile industry but also to
those of the Fordson Tractor Plant
located at Dearborn, Michigan, to
which Mr. Ford intends to devote a
large part of his time henceforth,
having resigned the presidency of the
Ford Motor Company to enable his
giving the new industry close atten
tion, as well as taking an active part
in the mnagement of the Dearborn
Weekly, popularly known as Ford's
Newspaper.
Henry Ford's $6 A Day
Wage Confounds
Prophets.
Incidently, the Ford employes are
Arkansas Unionists
Beat Corporations In War
On Constitution.
Fort Smith, Ark.,— Due to the op
position by trade unionists the pro
posed new State constitution has been
snowed under by a majority of approx
mately 20,000 votes. The fate of the
constitution serves the corporationists
of this State with the most object
lesson they ever received.
When the constitution convention
was in sesion organized labor asked
among other things for a graduated
land tax, a bank deposit guaranty
provisions and a more flexible initia
tive and referendum. Their demands
were ignored by the committees to
whom the propositions were referred
recommended their adoption.
An initiative and referendum pro
vision was embodied in the new con
stitution that was a farce. It required
that petitions bear signatures of eight
per cent of the legal voters for the
initiation of a law and ten per cent to
propose a constitutional amendment.
A referendum required signatures
of six per cent of the pualified electors
However, a joker was included requir
ing that not less than onehalf of the
designated percentage of the electors
in twenty counties must be obtained
In addition the initiators were com
pelled to pay the expense of publish
ing their proposals, whereas under the
present initiative and referendum the
State pays for the publication in at
least one newspaper in every county
in the state.
The publicity committee of the con
vention in its propaganda stated the
new initiative and referendum was a
vast improvement over the Oregon
form, but when Oregon's provisions
were investigated it was found that
the Arkansas proposal was one of the
most vicious ever proposed. It turn
ed the laborites against the constitu
tion more than the rejection of any of
their other propositions.
The constitution conveniently made
adequate provision for everything
capital proposed, whereas labor was
given no recognition. Organized la
bor is now engaged in circulating
petitions for a new initiative and re
ferendum to be voted on at the next
general election.
poi pm im
A© IN- CHICAGO PAPER.
Dog for Sale—Will eat anything
•ery fond of children.
not the only ones who will receive ad
ances due to the retirement from
active management of the elder Ford,
for his son, Edsel B. Ford, succeeds
him as president of the motor com
pany and is to draw an annual pay
check of $150,000.
Severe criticism of the action of
Henry Ford in granting higher pay to
his employes is already heard in De
troit. Much of it comes, of course,
from the other automobile manufac
turers, who had been hoping to reduce
wages instead of even keeping to war
tandards. But workmen other than
those in the employ of the Ford in
terests have been heard to say with
some bitteness that their condition
would be made worse by the improve
ment in the lot of the Ford workers.
Their argument is that landlords and
merchants of all kinds will take ad
antage of the opportunity to raise
prices, raise them still higher than
the scandalously high figures to which
they now rest.
Again the workers argue that the
advertisement Detroit will receive
from the Ford increase will attract to
this city thousands of men who other
wise would have been deterred by
the request of the Board of Commerce
that returning soldiers stay away from
the motor center
But whatever may be the immediate
effect of the improved wage of the
Ford employes upon other workers
and the community at large, it seems
hardly possible that the raising of
the minimum will be opposed for any
such reasons by the beneficiaries.
Meat Packers
To Present Their Side In
Chicago Case.
Chicago A case exciting interest
amogn all classes has been that of
the Stock Yards Arbitration Hearings
before Judge Samuel Alschuler in the
Federal Building.
The evidence of the butcher work
men has been completed and it now
only remains for the packers to put
in their side of the story. They have
already agreed, however, to granting
the fourteen points submitted to them
by their employes, these points hav
ing to do with wages, hours, over
time pay and shifts, the last clause
reading as follows:
"Employes who enter the employ
ment of the United States for war
service are entitled to be reinstated
in their former positions with all
right of seniority revived with the
same force and effect as if they had
not been away, and if necessary to
suspend, demote or dismiss any other
employe to effect this purpose, it
shall not constitute a grievance on
his part."
Hp Pis
Machinists
Machinists' Local, No. 241, held an
other rousing meeting Wednesday
night. The hall was packed and many
of the members had to stand. But
stand they did, until the rap of ad
journment was sounded.
Much routine business was trans
acted and several special matters of
importance were discussed. Reports
of the shop committees of the various
shops were made on conditions of the
machinists throughout the city. A
large class of candidates were initiat
ed and a number of new applications
were read.
Business Agent Ted Smith reported
that he has received several standing
requests for skilled machinists at high
wages from outside concerns and that
many members of the organizations
are leaving the city to take other posi
tions. -He stated that conditions of
fered by the outside concerns include
the flat eight-hour day.
ft
A POOR MENU.
The Salvation Army says they can
feed the poor on your waste paper.
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