Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 220, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 September 1916 — Men Have Been Made" Better Citizens by Cutting Down Their Working Hours [ARTICLE]

Men Have Been Made" Better Citizens by Cutting Down Their Working Hours

By REPRESENTATIVE FRANK BUCHANAN

of Illinois

At the present stage of the discussion of reducing the hours of the workday it is no longer necessary to set out to prove the benefits to mankind gained everywhere in industrial life through cutting off all the hours of employment above Jen. On the shelves of every public library in our cities are books and ’TejJ&rts by the score telling of communities made -more healthy, more sober, more happy,-more enlightened by removing the burden of the intolerably excessive labor to which the workers generally were formerly driven. To lop off two, three, and even four hours above eight was a long step toward substituting humanity for brutality. More than that, economically nothing was lost. At the end of the year the worker, on the average, yielded as much output at eight hours as at the longer day. He worked more days, he applied more muscle to his task, and he rose from an automaton drudge to an intelligent mechanic. It is also to be noted that every reduction in the hours of daily labor has been followed by new and better tools and devices by which the productivity of the workers working under an eight-hour day has been vastly increased over the former long-hour workday. The laborer’s strength diminishes gradually in the course of the day. The last hours count against him most. Bodily ailments then develop in his weak spots. The quality of his work then falls off. His aversion, born of weakness and exhaustion, then takes root toward the natural avocations of a healthy nature in the hours off from the daily grind. It is then that, with a certain percentage of the worn-out toilers, a craving for stimulant arises, foreshadowing the deplorable consequence of indulgence in drink. It is then that the workman is unfitted to take part during the evenings in the various-duties of his life; hence he is the less worthy as a citizen, the less helpful to the constructive institutions of society, the less a watchful, patient and competent father of a family.