Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 November 1890 — THE FALL OF WAGES. [ARTICLE]

THE FALL OF WAGES.

One of the largest of increases of duty made by the McKinley tariff was for the benefit of the plush m anufacturers. A few days after the bill was passed wages were reduced in a plush factory in Catasaqua, Pa., and 500 operatives struck. The general average of duties on silks wae slightly raised, and in the middle of October one of the silk mills inPatereon, N. J., reduced wages 25 per cent The duties on woollens and worsteds were increased and near the end of October the Valley Falls Manufacturing Company of Rhode Island reduced the wages of the girls in its employ from $4.50 to $4.25 per week. On October 20, the cappers in a canning establishment in Indianapolis had their wages reduced on the ground of the increase in the price of tin cans since the enactment of the McKinley bill. A dispatch from Cleveland, Ohio, November 3, says: “The carpenters of the city were to-day reduced from 27|c to 250 per hour. The contractors say they have to pay higher prices for lumber owing to the tariff bill and must retrench. * The new tariff law does not justify the increase that has occurred in the price of lumber, but workingmen will do well to ponder on this illustration of the general law, that as the price of material advances the price of labor falls off, and the new tariff law does increase many varieties of material. A dispatch from Lowell, Mass., Nov. 3, says that “the spoolers in the Merrimac mills have had their pay reduced 15 cents per day, and the wages of the drawing in girls have been cut. It is thought among the operatives that a general cut down will follow.” A dispatch from Lynn, Mass., Nov. 3, says: “The armature winders of the Thompson-Houston Electric Company have struck to resist a reduction of wages.” A dispatch from Ashland, Penn., Nov. 3, in the Philadelphia Inquirer reports a strike of seventy girls in an under garment factory against regulations that would involve them in expense end amount by indirection to a reduction of waqes. On November 4 the cotton weavers in Lonsdale, R. 1., received notice of a outdown. They were getting 53 cents oil a 50 yard long cut. but they are to run a finer grade of goods with five yaras additional on the length, and will receive but 38 cents a cut. The Valley Falls and Ashton weavers’ wages have been reduced about as much. A dispatch from Jeffersonville, Ind., November 6, says: On account of the McKinley bill increasing the price of materials the Ohio Falls Gar Company has lowered the pay of body men on coaches sl4per coach.” ’ Two years ago many reductions of wages were made soon after the election. Now that the votes are all cast we shall probably hear of many cuts in the pay roll.