Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 August 1877 — Machinery and Workingmen. [ARTICLE]

Machinery and Workingmen.

The orlncipal speakers at the so-called “ workingmen’s meetings" held-in varlous citiesTiave alluded frequently to the injury done the working classes by the wide use of labor-saving machinery. One spoke of the good old times when a man was able to earn an honorable livelihood for himself and his family by wheeling coal and elevating grain in a basket. Another said that machinery enabled the proprietors to control labor and reduce wages to starvation prices. Descending to epigram, he declared the machine to be the capitalists’ servant but the workingmen’s master. The argument between the advocates and opponents of labor-sav-ing processes and machinery is too full, too old and too tiresome to be reopened here. But if, as we believe is the case, a great many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of workingmen in Chicago believe the doctrines put out by the speakers al those meetings, it is worth while to place before them some of the evidence that they are wrong. All that is now said against machinery in general has been said specifically against every new invention. The steam-engine, the knitting-machine, the power-loom, the railroad, have all met with the bitterest opposition from unreflecting workingmen. The latest case is most interesting. The same arguments in almost the same words that have been used in all these other cases were directed against the sewing-machine. It would be employed to oppress the laboring classes, to lower wages. It would be the capitalist’s servant, the workingman’s master. How have the actual results compared with these theories ? Our workingmen can find the evidence on these points in a very interesting paper by Mr. John Plummer, in ths “ Companion to the Almanac,” published in England. Before the sewing-machine was invented, the wages of needlewomen were absolutely at starvation point. In the “ Bong of tlie Shirt” the poor sewing-woman, clad in unwomanly rags, cries to Heaven that “ Bread should be so dear and flesh and blood so cheap.” In the trades in which men had to use the needle—making shoes, harness and other manufactures of leather and of heavy sewn goods—a similar state of affairs prevailed, with the usual margin of superior wages in favor of the male workers. But the whole class, male and female, were the worst paid, hardest worked and most unhealthy working-peo-ple. Philanthropic efforts were made to better the situation, of the women especially. Kiud-hearted people, stirred by the cry of wrong and suffering that burst out in the “Song of the Shirt,” formed associations to help the needle-women. All these efforts were in vain. The needlewomen, the shoemakers, the harnessmakers and all that worked by the needle remained sunk in squalor, poverty and ili-health. About this time a new invention appeared. It was resisted by the workingmen. It was certain, this sewingmachine, to throw labor out of employment, and depress their already too low condition. But the new machine, with tlie vitality and persistence of such pests, forced its way into universal use. What was the result? The appearance of the sewing-machine changed for the better the condition of tlie operatives of every trade where it was introduced. Hours of labor of needlewomen decreased from eighteen to eleven and ten hours a day; their wages rose from three and four shillings a week in England, to eight, twelve, fourteen, and for the best workers, twenty and twentyfour shillings a week. The work became so attractive on account ot good wages and easy hours, that it drew young women from every direction. Domestic servants became scarce, and their wages rose greatly. The revolution produced in the boot and shoe manufacture by the sewingmachine was the same. In Northampton oqe-half the present employers have reached their position by the aid of the sewing-machine. As 'n the case of the needlewomen, machinery multiplied instead of diminishing the number of the employed. In the Town of Leicester, when the sewing-machine was first introduced and resisted by the Crispins, there were 1,375 operatives; in 1871 they had increased to 5,703. Generalizing all the results of his observations, Mr. Plummer says that, taking all the various industries in which the machine is used, the wages of the machinist may be estimated as being 50 to 100 per cent, higher than the wages received by hand-workers before the machine appeared. The physical and social condition of the workers, their health and their homes, have correspondingly improved. The cheapness and superiority of the new products enlarged the demand, so that it kept pace with the production, and the profits of the manufacture were divided between employers and employed in a far more equitable ratio than before the sewing-machine was introduced. These are facts, and they are not peculiar to the sewing-machine. The history of eveiy invention has been the same Let workingmen cease to accept and repeat mere declamation on this subject and investigate the facts. If the workingman, if he was a workingman, who spoke of “ the good old times when a man was able to earn an honorable livelihood for himself and family by wheeling coal and elevating grain in a basket” had been perfectly familiar with the facts, he would have had to confess that the condition of the workingman to-day is incomparably better than it was then, and if he had stopped to think he would see that if ho had worked for others with handbarrows, end rope, and baskets, others would be working for him with wagons instead of freight-cars, mules instead of locomotives, treadmills instead of steam-engines —that, in short, a great deal less would be produced, and consequently a great deal less distributed among the producers. Workingmen should see, also, that the march of machinery is irresistible, and that the part of wise men is to use it, 'and not throw themselves under its wheels.— Chicago Tribune. 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