Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 May 1887 — WORK AND WORKERS. [ARTICLE]

WORK AND WORKERS.

Items of Interest for Employers and Employed. The rush of immigration from abroad has been stimulated by great activity in railroad building and by the demand for labor in mills, factories and shops of all kinds. Mechanical labor is coming over in abundance, while comparatively few miners are changing their abode. The inducements to miners of Europe or Great Britain to•change their homes is not so strong as to workmen in other branches. Common labor has extraordinary inducements offered. There will be railroad mileage laid this year double that of last year. House building will be at least 25 per cent, greater. Shop labor of all kinds is in demand, and there is therefore an opportunity for a great influx of common labor. Even, in the lumber camps in the Northwest men are paid from $1.75 to $2 per day, but they are skilled woodsmen. Mining labor iswanted in the gold and silver mines all along the Rocky Mountain range, from Northern Montana to the City of Mexico. Manufacturers of mining machinery in St. Louis, Chicago and New York have lately received orders for an unusually large quantity of special machinery, and a long list of mining companies have recently announced themselves, to operate all through the mineral regions from the lakes down into Mexico. One company has been organized with a capital of $12,000,000, two in St. Louis with a capital of $5,000,000, one in Chicago with $5,000,000, to say nothing of the long string of smaller companies, all of which seem to be well backed with capital and prepared to enter upon active work. At the spring meetings of the Western lumber men the opinions were generally’ expressed that prices for lumber must be stronger under the extraordinary Eastern and Western demand. Stocks in all sections of the country are showh to be much lower than a year ago. The decrease in six Western lumber States is given at 928,9’82,891 feet. In Minnesota there is a decrease of 101X000,000 feet.