People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 August 1895 — Ten Hours' Work for Two Hoars’ Wages. [ARTICLE]

Ten Hours' Work for Two Hoars’ Wages.

Carroll D. Wright, national labor statistician, reports that the average wages in the United States, per capita are $347, and that the average product of each laborer is worth $1,888; that the employer gc-ts of that product 82.2 per cent leaving the labor only 17.8 per cent. In comparing these figures with statistics of other countries he finds that in no other nation does the employe get so small a per cent of what he produces. In Italy the employe gets 40 per cent of his earnings and the per cent ranges on down from that to 26 per cent in the United Kingdom. And yet they call this a grand glorious country, a government of, for and by the people, and the political parties that have made us worse off than the king ridden pauperized countries, point with pride to their history “without a stain.” Those who produce all that is produced are forced to work eight hours for legal thieves in order to get two hours work for themselves. This showing is official, and the plutocratic hireling press, pulpit and rostrum cannot explain it away. American labor getting less than a dollar a day! Yes, and the same parties that are responsible for such a condition still have the gall to expect these producers to continue them in power. Can it be that a majority of the laboring classes are fools enough to do It? Already worse olt than the worst paupers and still growing worse and have not manhood and intelligence enough to stop it! —lowa Tribune.