Cornell University Library HD6983.S8 The standard of living among the industr lllllillliWnili ill ill mil I 3 1924 002 694 911 THE LIBRARY OF THE NEW YORK STATE SCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY Digitized by Microsoft® This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in cooperation with Corneii University Libraries, 2007. You may use and print this copy in iimited quantity for your personai purposes, but may not distribute or provide access to it (or modified or partiai versions of it) for revenue-generating or other commerciai purposes. Digitized by Microsoft® Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive..o.ra/details/cu31 924002694911 •^ [Digitizes by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® |)n|e (Stonontic dEcictaps THE CAUSE AND EXTENT OF THE RECENT INDUS- TRIAL PROGRESS OF GERMANY. By Earl D. Howard. THE CAUSES OF THE PANIC OF 1893. By WUliam J. Lauck. INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. By Harlow Stafford Person, Ph.D. FEDERAL REGULATION OF RAILWAY RATES. By Al- bert N. Merritt, Ph.D. SHIP SUBSIDIES. AnEconomicStudyof the Policy of Sub- sidizing Merchant Marines. By Walter T. Dunmore. SOCIALISM: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS. By O. D. Skelton. INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS AND THEIR COMPENSATION. By Gilbert L. Campbell, B. S. THE STANDARD OF LIVING AMONG THE INDUSTRIAL PEOPLE OF AMERICA. By Frank H. StreightofE. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BosTOH AND New York Digitized by Microsoft® ^att, ^c^affnet & (JUatx ^vv^t ^esa'^s VIII THE STANDARD OF LIVING AMONG THE INDUSTRIAL PEOPLE OF AMERICA Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® THE STANDAKD OF LIVING AMONG THE INDUSTRIAL PEOPLE OF AMERICA BY FRANK HATCH STREIGHTOFF BOSTON AND NEW TOEK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY (S{ie miber^ibe ^rt^$ Camlintrge 1911 m Digitized by Microsoft® COPYRIGHT, 191 1, BY HART, SCHAFrNER * MARX ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published March iqit Digitized by Microsoft® To Professor Willard C. Fister of Wesleyan University the writer is indebted for invaluable aid in the preparation of this essay. Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® PEEFACE This series of books owes its existence to the generosity of Messrs. Hart, Schaffner, and Marx of Chicago, who have shown a special interest in trying to draw the attention of American youth to the study of economic and commercial subjects, and to encourage the best thinking of the country to investigate the problems which vitally afEect the busi- ness world of to-day. For this purpose they have dele- gated to the undersigned Committee the task of selecting or approving of topics, making all announcements, and awarding prizes annually for those who wish to compete. For the year ending June 1, 1909, there were offered: — In Class A, which included any American without re- striction, a First Prize of SixHimdred Dollars and a Second Prize of Four Hundred Dollars; In Class B, which included only those who were at the time imdergraduates of any American college, a First Prize of Three Himdred Dollars and a Second Prize of Two Hundred Dollars; In Class C, which included any who had not had aca- demic training, a First Prize of Five Hmvdred Dollars. Any essay submitted in Class B or Class C, if deemed of suflScient merit, could receive a prize in Class A. Digitized by Microsoft® yiii PREFACE The present volume, submitted in Class B, was deemed of sufficient merit for consideration in Class A, and was awarded the First Prize in that class. J. Laubencb Latjghlin, Chairman, University of Chicago. J. B. Clabe, Columbia University. Henbt C. Adams, University of Michigan. Horace White, New York City. Edwin F. Gat, Harvard UnvoersUy. Digitized by Microsoft® CONTENTS BlBLIOGRAPHT XV Chapter I. The Standakd of Living. a. Definition 2 b. Inclusion of wants as well as of satisfactions in the ideal standard 3 c. Determinants of the standard of living .... 3 1. Class 3 S. Income 4 3. Progress of civilization 4 d. High vs. low standards of living 5 e. Content of the normal standard of living .... 5 /. The money equivalent of a normal standard of living 6 g. Significance of the standard of living 7 Chapter II. Family Expendititres o. The object of studying family budgets 9 h. Recent studies of family budgets ....... 9 1. Mrs. More 9 2. Bureau of Labor, 1901 10 3. Chapin, 1907 11 c. Distribution of expenditures 12' 1. Engel 12 2. Massachusetts, 1885 and 1901 13 3. The three recent studies 14 4. Modification of Engel's law 20 5. Relation of number of children to distribution of expenditures 22 d. Insufficiency of incomes 24 e. Summary 26 Digitized by Microsoft® X CONTENTS Chapter III. IlNEMPLoyMENT a. Extent in years of panic , ... 39 h. Persistence of unemployment 30 c. General data 34 1. Eighteenth Annual Report of the United States CtHomissioner d Labor 34 2. Census [35 d. Causes of onemployment 36 1. Impearscaial 36 (a) Ee^rve force ol labcH- 36 (6) Seasonal Euctuations ........ 37 (c) SkiU or lack of skill 40 2. Personal 42 e. Effects of unemployment 42 Chapter IV. Incomes a. The theory of wages 44 b. The wage-earners ............ 50 1. ChUd labor 52 2. Labor of women 52 3. Men 5» c. Earnings of men 59 1. Railroads ..60 2. Goal-mines 61 3. Garment trades 62 4. New York organized trades 62 5. Immigrants 63 6. Textiles 63 7. Wage groups 64 8. Estimate of men receiving under $600 per year 65 d. Family income 67 Chapter V. Housing a. Importance of good housing 69 b. The tenement house 70 1. Iq New York City 70 Digitized by Microsoft® CONTENTS XI (o) Rents 71 (6) Sanitation 71 (c) Moral influences 72 (d) Present status 73 2. In other cities 73 c. The housing problems of other cities 74 1. Chicago 74 2. Other large cities 75 3. Pittsburg 75 d. Housing in small communities 77 e. The boarder and the lodger 78 /. Home tenure 79 g. Effects of bad housing 81 1. Health 81 2. Use of intoxicants 82 3. Psychological effects 83 (a) Home tenure 83 (6) Boarding and lodging 84 h. Sununary 84 Chaptek VI. Food a. Functions of food 86 b. Measurement of nutritive value of diet 87 1. Importance of preparation 88 c. Expenditures for food by American families ... 89 d. Some dietaries 91 1. Coal communities 91 2. Pittsburg factory people 91 3. Southern textile workers 92 4. The importance of bread to the poor .... 93 5. Chicago Italians 94 e. Dietary computations 95 1. New York City 95 2. Bureau of Labor results 96 3. Insufliciency of this diet 98 /. Criticisms of American dietaries 98 Digitized by Microsoft® xii CONTENTS 1. Tea 99 2. Sweets 100 3. Economies 100 4. Opinion of Professor Atwater 101 g. Effects of faulty nutrition 101 h. Summary 102 Chapter VII. Clothing a. Functions of clothes 103 6. Customs in clothing 104 c. Cost of clothing 105 1. Minimum cost 106 d. Effects of faulty clothing 107 1. Criticism 107 e. Summary 109 Chapter VIII. Thrift a. Practical diflBculties of saving 110 1. Disposition of surplus Ill b. Savings banks 113 1. Statistics and theory of saving 114 2. The character of savings banks 114 c. Building and loan associations 115 d. Industrial insurance 116 1. Character and advantages 118 2. Evils of industrial insurance 119 (a) High cost 119 (6) Moral evils 119 e. Summary 120 Chapter IX. Health o. Summary of the conditions of life of the industrial people detrimental to health 121 b. Large r61e of disease in life 122 c. Hours of labor 123 1. Possibility of a shorter day _ . 124 Digitized by Microsoft® CONTENTS xui d. Shortening of trade life 126 e. Accidents 127 /. Disease 129 1. Women sufferers 130 2. Venereal diseases 131 3. Children 132 4. Influence of occupations 134 g. Summary 134 Chapter X. iNTEUiECTUAL and Social Life a. Sensuality 137 b. Home life 138 1. Routine of women 139 2. Importance of woman 140 c. The spirit of charity 140 d. Conversation 141 e. Amusements 141 1. Dancing 142 2. Theatres 143 ' 3. Other amusements 143 4. The saloon 144 (a) Extent and cost of the use of intoxicants 144 (6) Part in social life 146 (c) Evil effects 147 /. Education 148 g. Miscellaneous phases of thought 148 k. Views on the labor problem 149 i. The church and the masses 150 j. Summary 152 Chapter XI. The Living Wage a. Commercial position of the poor — losses .... 154 1. Rents 155 2. Marketing 155 3. Installment buying 167 4. Borrowing 158 Digitized by Microsoft® riv CONTENTS 6. The living wage 159 1. Definition 159 2. Estimate 161 ClHAPTEK XII. Possibilities a. Summary of presentation of facts 163 b. Unemployment 164 1. Public works 164 2. Factory and compensation laws 165 3. Free public employment bureaus 165 c. Wages 166 1. Unionism 166 2. Restriction of immigration 166 3. Minimum wage boards 167 d. Housing 167 1. Private reform 168 2. Legal measures 169 3. Boarders and lodgers 170 e. Food 171 /. Thrift 172 g. Health 172 1. Welfare work 173 2. Medical inspection in the schools 173 3. Shorter hours of labor 173 h. Education for efficiency 174 i. Summary and conclusion 178 Appendix 181 Index 189 Digitized by Microsoft® BIBLIOGRAPHY I. Books on the Standabd of Living The Cost of Living and Retail Prices of Food. Eighteenth Annual Report of the United States Commissioner of Labor. 1903. The best general work on the subject. The Standard of Life. Mrs. Bernard Bosanquet. MacmUIan & Co., London, 1899. The Standard of Living in New York City. Robert Coit Chapin. Charities Publication Committee, New York, 1909. The most recent and thorough work, confined to New York City. Family Monographs, the History of Twenty-four Families Living in the Middle Westside of New York City. Elsa G. Herzfeld. The James Kempster Printing Co., New York, 1905. Excellent, especially for the mental life. Wage-Earners' Budgets. Louise Bolard More (Mrs.). Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1907. Very good, two hundred New York families intensively studied. n. Books on the Distbibution of Wealth Our brational Distribution of Wealth. Byron C. Mathews. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1908. Riches and Poverty. Leone George Chiozza-Money, M. P. Methuen & Co., London, 1905. The Present Distribution of Wealth in the United States. Charles B. Spahr. Thos. Y. Crowell & Co., New York, 1896. An estimate. HE. Books on Housing The Tenement House Problem. R. W. De Forest and Lawrence Veiller, ed. Macmillan & Co., New York, 1903. ' The best and most complete work in the field. Digitized by Microsoft® xvi BIBLIOGRAPHY Eighth Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor. E. R. L. Gould. A most thorough and extensive work. IV. Works on Food Methods and Results of Investigations on the Chemistry and Economy of Food. Wilbur O. Atwater. Bulletin no. 21, United States Department of Agriculture, 1895. Foods; Nutritive Value and Cost. Farmers' Bulletin, no. 23. Principles of Nutrition and Nutritive Value of Food. W. O. Atwater. Farmers' Bulletin no. 142. U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1902. Excellent. The Cost of Food. Ellen H. Richards (Mrs.). J. Wiley & Sons, New York, 1901. The Cost of Living. Ellen H. Richards (Mrs.). Both contain valuable practicable advice on diet. V. Books on Employment The Unemployed. Geofifery Drage. Macmillan & Co., New York, 1894. Eight Hours for Work. John Rae. Macmillan & Co., London, 1894. VI. Books on Thbipt The Development of Thrift. Mary Wilcox Brown. Macmillan & Co., New York, 1899. Narrative rather than critical. Savings and Savings Institutions. James Henry Hamilton. Macmillan & Co., New York, 1902. Excellent. The Business of Insurance. Alexander Johnstone Wilson. Methuen & Co., London, 1904. Testimony Taken by the Legislative Insurance Investigation , Committee. New York State, 1905. Vn. Books on Social Pstchologt Fundamentals of Child Study. E. A. Kirkpatrick. Macmillan Co., New York, 1908. Digitized by Microsoft® BIBUOGRAPHY xvii Youth, Its Education, Regimen and Hygiene. G. Stanley Hall. Appleton & Co., New York, 1907. Social Psychology. Edward Alsworth Ross. Macmillan Co., New York, 1908. A unique and valuable work. Outlines of Social Psychology. Josiah Royce. Macmillan Co., New York, 1903. Vm. The Liquor Problem Economic Aspects of the Liquor Problem. Twelfth Annual Report of the United States Commissioner of Labor. 1897- 1898. Substitutes for the Saloon. Raymond Calkins, for the Committee of Fifty. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., New York, 1901. Thorough and suggestive. Economic Aspects of the Liquor Problem. John Koren for the Conmuttee of Fifty. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., New York, 1899. Excellent. The Economics of Prohibition. James C. Fernald. Funk & WagnaUs, New York City, 1890. The Social Evil. Prepared under the direction of the Committee of Fifteen. G. P. Putnam's Sons. New York, 1902. IX. Works on the Labor Problem Labor Problems. Thomas Sewall Adams and Helen L. Sumner. Macmillan Co., New York, 1905. Letters from a Workingman. Anonymous. Revell, New York, 1908. The Long Day. The story of a New York working girl as told by herself. Centiu-y Co., New York, 1905. Getting A Living. George L. Bolen. Macmillan Co., New York, 1903. The Social Unrest. John Graham Brooks. Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1903, The Industrial Army. F. S. Giles. Baker & Taylor Co., New York, 1896. Hull-House Maps and Papers. By Residents of Hull-House. Thos. Y. Crowell & Co., New York, 1895. Digitized by Microsoft® xviii BIBLIOGRAPHY Poverty. Robert Hunter. Macmillan Co., New York, 1904. Industrial America. J. Laurence Laughlin. Chas. Scribners' Sons, New York, 1906. Organized Labor. John Mitchell. American Book and Bible House. Philadelphia, Pa., 1903. Modern Man and his Fellow Men. Henry C. Potter. Geo. W. Jacobs & Co., Philadelphia, 1903. Anthracite Coal Communities. Peter Roberts. MacmiUan Co., New York, 1904. rt An excellent study of the Coal Communities. A Living Wage. John A. Ryan. Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1906. A strong plea for the living wage. Higher Life for the Working People. W. W. Stephens. Long- mans, Green & Co., London, 1899. The Woman Who Toils, Being the Experiences of Two Ladies as Factory Girls. Mrs. John Van Vorst and Miss Marie Van Vorst. Doubleday, Page & Co., New York, 1903. A sympathetic study of the working girls. Industrial Democracy. Sidney and Beatrice Webb. Longmans, Green and Co., New York and London, 1897. The best book ever written on trades unions. The City WUdemess. Robert A. Woods, ed. Houghton, MifiSin & Co., Cambridge, 1899. X. Miscellaneous Books The Industrial Progress of the Nation. Edward Atkinson. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1889. Laggards in Our Schools, Leonard P. Ayres. Charities Publication Committee, N. Y., 1909. Introduction to the Study of Economics. Charles Jessie Bullock. Silver, Burdett & Co., New York, 1900. Medical Inspection in the Schools. Luther H. Gulick and Leon- ard P. Ayres. Charities Publication Conunittee, New York, 1908. The Elements of Vital Statistics. Arthur Newsholme. Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., London, 1889. An Introduction to the Theory of Value. William Smart. Mac- . millan & Co., London, 1890. Digitized by Microsoft® BIBLIOGRAPHY xix The New Era. Josiah Strong. Baker, Taylor Co., New York, 1893. American Charities. Amos G. Warner. Thos. Y. Crowell & Co., New York, 1898. XI. Pttblications of the United States Goveknment The Report of the Industrial Commission. The Reports and Bulletins of the Census Bureau. The Annual and Special Reports of the Commissioner of Labor. Bulletins of the Bureau of Labor. Xn. Publications of State Labor Btibbaus The Reports of the Labor Bureaus of Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York are the best. N. B. In 1902 the United States Department of Labor pub- lished an Index of Labor Reports. This volume is an excel- lent guide for the investigation of any labor subject in the state and federal publications. Xm. Files of Periodicals American Journal of Sociology. American Statistical Association. Ajinals of the American Academy. Charities and the Commons (now The Survey). Economic Studies. The Independent. Journal of Political Economy. Journal of Political Science. Quarterly Journal of Economics. Sociological Papers. Yale Review. N. B. There are many excellent articles scattered through these periodicals, but they are too numerous to be listed here. Reference to many of them is made in the text of this essay. Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® THE STANDARD OF LIVING AMONG THE INDUSTRIAL PEOPLE OF AMERICA CHAPTER I THE STANDAED OF LIVING " How can these people endure it? " asked the fair boarder, closing her novel and lazily sinking into the depths of her hammock. "Mr. Farmer drudges from four a.m. till dark — always doing chores, and never a visible result! He 's never been to the theatre ! Why, he has n't even read ' The Balance of Power'! I don't call that living — it may be existing." Such words are heard every day in rural sum- mer resorts. Corresponding sentiments are entertained by many a farmer who cannot see how his guests are held by the chaotic buzz of the metropolis. The people of one city block "couldn't be hired" to move to certain other squares; yet the respectable inhabitants of these latter districts "would n't be buried from Z street." It is really amusing to notice how often those words "live" and "exist" are contrasted, but the distinction is merely the expression of the fact that "consciously or unconsciously every man whose means or wealth or resources are more limited than his wants — and this is practically the case with human beings generally — has a scale of wants in his mind when he arranges these means. On the basis of this scale he satisfies what are his more urgent wants and leaves the less urgent ones unsatisfied." * In other words, every man has his own "Standard of Living." I Smart, Introduction to the Theory of Value, p. 22. Digitized by Microsoft® 2 THE STANDARD OF LIVING Satisfactorily to define the standard of living is ex- tremely difficult. Professor Charles J. Bullock, for in- stance, writes, "Each class of people in any society is ac-, customed to enjoy a greater or less amount of the comforts or luxuries of life. The amount of comforts or luxuries cus- tomarily enjoyed by any class of men forms the 'standard of living' of that class." ' That is to say, the standard of living, as the expression is usually understood, consists simply of what men actually do enjoy. On the other hand, there always are felt but unsated wants that prompt men to struggle for higher wages; these reasonable unfilled de- sires are the motive power of progress. Few indeed are the women who do not confidentially whisper to their friends, "We cannot do that now, for we are rather poor this year." An inborn spirit of emulation prompts each to envy the pleasures of his more fortunate neighbor; thus there is an "ideal" standard of living which is always in advance of achieved satisfaction. Professor Bullock's definition is particularly valuable in suggesting two important truths. First, it properly emphasizes comforts and luxuries. "If we are to judge by his expenditure, the workingman may graduate his wants thus : — bread and meal, house, liquor, tea, tobacco, clothes, meat." ^ The fact is that in every-day affairs effort is often directed more to securing superfluities than to providing necessities: for example, it is said on good au- thority that a large per cent of recent real estate mortgages in New York have been given that the owners of the pro- perty might purchase automobiles. In the second place, the extent and content of the unsated wants in a man's ideal standard is largely determined by actual satisfac- tions. This truth is emphasized by Mr. Frank Tucker when he says, "A standard of living is a measurement of life expressed in a daily routine which is determined by * Introduction to the Study of Economics, p. 126. • Smart, Introduction to the Theory of Value, p. 23. Digitized by Microsoft® THE STANDARD OF LIVING 3 income and conditions under which it is earned, economic and social environment, and the capacity for distributing the income." * Having noted these fundamental principles, it is possible to take another step. Each individual has his own more or less rational concept of what is essential to the mainten- ance of his own social position; and he knows exactly what this position is, whether he be the bank clerk who de- lights in horse-races, or the man who shares the same desk and plays on his Sunday-school ball team. The one de- mands "smart" raiment and amusement at high nervous tension, the other wants respectable, serviceable clothes and healthy sport. They live in different worlds, they have individual criteria: so each man has his own standard of living. But it will be noted that the bank clerks as a class have some wants in common in contrast to the mechanics, for instance. The clerks must enter their offices clean- shaven, the mechanics like a good scrub after work; the former wear kid gloves and fresh linen, the latter are more comfortable in woolen gloves and flaimel shirts. These contrasts and comparisons can be extended until the stand- ards of each group have been determined with considerable precision. Thus the class standard of living may be com- pared to a composite photograph; certain features are em- phasized, while others are faint or blurred according to the proportion of individuals possessing the character — or feeling the want. On the other hand, development of the individual is so largely influenced by his environment that his notions are, in the main, those of his class. So the class standard of living is the product of the ideals and resources of its members, and, in turn, modifies their criteria. But class is not the only factor within the community in the development of the individual's ideal standard of liv- ing. Aside from its large determining influence in the mat- ter of class membership, income has an important part to ^ Chariiiet and the Commons, vol. xvii, p. 300. Digitized by Microsoft® 4 THE STANDARD OF LIVING play; purchasing power limits the quality and quantity of obtainable satisfactions. As little Tommy wants to be like Big Brother, and Big Brother envies the prowess of the butcher-boy, so the smelting hand feels the desires — not of the President of the Steel Trust — but, say, of his fore- man, the nearest person whom he sees enjoying just a little more distinction, just a little more material wealth than he. So the individual's ideal is limited by his income; the higher he climbs on the ladder of success, the wider is his view; the more he sees, the more he seeks. Another determinant of the standard of living is the progress of civilization. Professor John G. Brooks quotes a Cape Cod captain as follows: "My father wanted fifteen things. He did n't get 'em all. He got ten and worried considerable because he did n't get the other five. Now I want forty things, and I get thirty, but I worry more about the ten that I cannot get than the ole man used to about the five he could n't get." ^ The modern carpenter has far more comfort than Richard II dreamed of, simply because progress has put new things within his reach, — created new utilities and new wants, — but the carpenter knows that there are many, many things that he cannot have. Thus there is a constant, though irregular, rise of the standard of living as civilization becomes more complex. The standard, then, is a result of two forces, environment, comprising time, income, and class, and individuality. It will not do, however, to leave the problem at this point. As the standard determines the manner of living, it is important to distinguish between worthy and unworthy, or high and low standards. It may reasonably be doubted whether the standards of the very rich are ideally any higher than those of industrial workers. A dinner given by one of the exclusive four hundred with a monkey as the guest of honor is no more justifiable than the practice of the "wash-lady" who displays the gold fillings in her false 1 The Social Unrest, p. 96. Digitized by Microsoft® THE STANDARD OF LIVING 5 teeth. Both are useless, if not positively harmful; they are evidence of low or unworthy ideals. A normal standard of living, on the other hand, is one which conduces to healthy symmetrical development, physical, mental, and moral. The standard is properly counted ideally high in proportion as it achieves this end, and especially as its emphasis falls upon the intellectual and moral elements. What, then, is the content of the lowest tolerable stand- ard of living.'' In the first place, there must be food, cloth- ing, and shelter sufficient to maintain economic efficiency. Even those persons who believe that the sole end of exist- ence is production, must grant this proposition, at least in its general application. Under shelter is included light, fuel, and necessary furnitiu-e. If economic efficiency is to be preserved, there must be provision against sickness and unemployment; for, unless his strength is maintained during idleness, when he returns to work the individual is unfit for his stint. ^ Moreover, the man's standard must include a family, else, in a generation, production will cease. But this view of the purpose of man is far too narrow. Few people would to-day have the hardihood to deny that man's life should contain the largest possible amounts of wholesome pleasiu*e. "One of the strongest human wants is the desire for the society of one's fellows." ^ This means that with a normal standard of living the house should contain a room fit for entertainment of company, that the family should have clothes which will enable them to appear in public without shame, and that the routine should include some leisure for polite intercourse. Still if man is to be an end in himself, he must have more than this; he needs some education, books, pictures, and whole- some recreation; he must have time for the home life that 1 9th Special Report cf the Commisnoner of Labor, 1897, Italians in Chicago, pp. 44-46. ' Bullock, Introduction to the Study of Ecomonics, p. 80. Digitized by Microsoft® 6 THE STANDARD OF LIVING Colonel Roosevelt calls "the highest and finest product of our civilization." A little boy once defined home as "the place where mother is," From the viewpoint of the child's welfare, this youngster undoubtedly hit upon the signi- ficant fact. Modern scientific charity as well as the Christ- ian religion recognizes a very real social value in the home. It is probably this which is in the mind of Professor John A. Ryan when he writes that the wife should not be a wage- earner,^ thus implying that the father should support the family. Beside all these things, a normal standard of living contains provision for all emergencies, sickness, accident, unemployment, and death, and for material advance — savings : religion, too, should be in the routine. So the ideal standard of living demands the satisfaction of reasonable wants of both body and intellect, and includes an ambition to improve. Now the question arises. What does it cost in America at the present time to maintain a reasonable standard of living ? What is the money equivalent of a minimum per- missible standard ? Professor Ryan and John Mitchell an- swer, six hundred dollars per annum; Professor Albion W. Small says a thousand dollars.^ This is one method of mea- suring — "the wise guess." Another method is to sit down and figure out what a family needs, and what these goods cost. When this is done by experts, the result is a valuable approximation. Again, a large number of budgets of fam- ilies in a certain class may be collected and the average expenditure computed: this average may be considered the monetary expression of the standard of living in that group. By far the most satisfactory method, however, is that of the late New York Commission which collected and classified budgets, and set the minimum at the point where the average family ceased to run into debt, — $825 for New York City. Having found this money equivalent, it 1 N. C. C. C, 1907, p. S43. ' Charities and the Commona, vol. xvii, p. 300. Digitized by Microsoft® THE STANDAED OF LIVING 7 is possible to determine what laborers are justified in daiming as a "living wage," and what relief should be given families in order to keep them above the point where their old standards will collapse. A clear understanding of what the standard of living is permits some appreciation of its significance. In the first place, unless the standard includes adequate food, cloth- ing, and shelter, health will inevitably suflFer and the race will degenerate physically. If, on the contrary, men obtain a proper satisfaction of these fundamental wants, not only wiU health be preserved and improved, but a foundation will be laid for intellectual progress. A step farther may be taken along this line: unless they believe that their de- scendants will be able to maintain the parental standard, men will, if thoughtful, refuse to become fathers. Again, if women would rather dress showily than enjoy homes of their own, married or unmarried, they will refuse to assume the burden of motherhood.^ Thus, in two distinct ways, the standard of living tends to determine population. By this limiting of propagation, the standard of living limits the number of wage-workers, and so, it high enough, it can change the ratio of supply to demand for labor and thus raise compensation. In a much more simple and direct way, however, the desire for a higher standard of living decides the minimum pay demanded by trades unions and operates to increase earnings. More satisfactions will breed new wants, yet higher wages will be sought, and so the process will continue. In this way the " ideal " standard of living is the key to the material progress of the indus- trial classes. Moreover, "in most cases increased wages have meant the gratification of the intellectual and artistic sense of the workers; have meant books and pictures; have meant a few extra rooms in the house and more decent surround- ings generally; have meant a few years extra schooling 1 Van Vorst, The Woman Who TaiU. chap. ii. Digitized by Microsoft® 8 THE STANDAED OF LIVING for the children; have meant, finally, a general uplifting of the whole working-class." * "The encouraging part of the whole matter is this, that among the poor there is every- where the intensity of purpose that causes them to give up material things — food and raiment, and go hungry and shabby, in order to secure the spiritual things, amuse- ment, education, and social relationship." ^ The pursuit of a higher standard of living is, then, the inspiration of intel- lectual advance; upon it depends the physical and mental and moral weKare of the people, the development of the commonwealth. Two things, therefore, are essential to the progress of a nation: first, that the individuals receive so much material wealth as will enable them to satisfy their reasonable wants, and, second, that they continually discover new and wholesome desires. ' Mitchell, Organized Labor, p. 153. ' Philip W. Ayres, Charities and the Commons, vol. ix, p. 216. Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER II FAMILY EXPENDITURES "In America, where tradition and family play an unimport- ant part, the great educator is the spending of money." • "Tell me how you spend your money, and I will tell you what you are," says an American economist. Indeed, it is doubtful whether there can be found a better criterion of character — or of culture — than the disbursement of money. On the other hand, limited means harshly cir- cumscribe that freedom of expenditure which alone would truly reveal the real personality. It is, then, with a two- fold purpose that household budgets are studied: first, to learn the character of the families, and, second, to deter- mine whether they can aflford to develop desirable traits. Do workiugmen receive enough money? Do they spend what they receive judiciously? The last decade has witnessed three noteworthy at- tempts to answer these questions. During the two years November, 1903, to September, 1905, Mrs. Louise Bolard More held the "Fellowship of Greenwich House," a social settlement on the lower West Side of New York City.^ She entered heartily into the life of the district, won the confidence of the people, and, with some assistance from Miss Elizabeth Lennox, succeeded in compiling the budgets of 200 families which she considered typical of that locality.' Of these households, 27 had incomes of less than $500; 72, of $500 or less than $800; 44, between this amount and $1000; 46, between $1000 and $1500; and 11, of over $1500.* The extremes were $250 and $2556, and 1 Van Vorst, The Woman Who Toils, p. 69. 2 More, Wage-Earners' Budgets, p. 2. " Ibid., pp. 2 and 7. * Ibid., p. 29. Digitized by Microsoft® 10 THE STANDARD OF LIVING the average $851.38. "If the woman was not accurate or reliable, or was of too low a grade of intelligence to answer the questions on the schedule intelligently, that family was dropped"; * other families could not be studied because of the intemperance or irregular employment of the husband. It is readily granted that thorough inquiry into the affairs of these rejected families was impossible, but that does not alter the fact that, unless households of this very char- acter are accorded definite statistical recognition, no inves- tigation is complete. Again, the statistics could have been presented in better tables; but, on the whole, Mrs. More's work is highly satisfactory. In 1901, the United States Bureau of Labor, under the direction of the late Carroll D. Wright and G. W. W. Hanger, investigated the "Cost of Living" for 25,440 families, divided among 33 States in proportion to their manufacturing population, and distributed among the various industries in accordance with their relative import- ance. " While individual statements may not be abso- lutely accurate, it can be safely assumed that the averages based on any considerable number of statements correctly represent the group or class of families from which they were secured, as such errors as may exist in the statements of individuals are doubtless compensating."^ The results of this investigation, which were published as the Eight- eenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, are presented in six parts: I. Membership of Families. II. Occupation, Earnings, and Non-Employment of Head of Family. III. Income and Expenditures of Family. IV. Detailed Expenditures in 2567 Families. V. Income and Expenditure in 11,156 Normal Fam- ilies. VI. Consumption of Food in 1043 Normal Families. ' More, Wage-Earners' Budgets, p. 31. ' 18th Annual Report of the Commusioner of Labor, p. 17. Digitized by Microsoft® FAMILY EXPENDITURES 11 The average membership of these households was 4.38, and of the normal families, 3.96; while the mean income of all was $749.50, that of normal families, composed of a husband at work, a wife, not more than five children (none more than 14 years old), and no dependents, was but $650.98. The study was confined to families of wage-workers or of persons whose salaries did not exceed $1200 per year; the data were collected by experienced agents; and the pre- sentation of the tabulated results requires more than 500 pages. The physical immensity of the task made it im- possible to draw distinctions between large and small cities and to include many other desirable tabulations. Yet enough was done to make the report the most complete work on the subject ever published — thoroughly scientific and comprehensive — intensive enough to allow many sj)ecific deductions. The latest investigation, however, is, as it should be, the most complete in its specific field. New York City. At the New York State Conference of Charities and Corrections, in November, 1906, a committee was appointed to report at the next conference the essentials and the cost of a normal standard of living in the cities of the state. Dr. Lee K. Frankel was made chairman, and Dr. Robert Coit Chapin, secretary of this committee. When it became ev- ident that to accomplish much by volunteer help was im- possible, the trustees of the Russell Sage Foundation came to the rescue, paying agents to gather data. Eventually the schedules of 391 families were accepted as substantially accurate. Dr. Chapin studied these budgets and set forth his tables and conclusions in a book, "The Standard of Living in New York City," which was published in April, 1909. As an intensive study of a Umited area, this work is peerless; but its scope is confined to New York City and a brief survey of the conditions in Buffalo. As, in all proba- bility, both the total cost of living and the relative prices of necessities are abnormal in the great metropolis, this book Digitized by Microsoft® 12 THE STANDARD OF LIVING is of no great significance for the country at large. Never- theless Dr. Chapin's conclusions are well drawn, and have the additional merit of unusual definiteness. With the exception of three investigations by the Massa- chusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, in 1874, 1883, and 1901, these are the only really serious American studies of the Standard of Living. True, some attempts have been made in Maine, Wisconsin, and other states, but they have lacked comprehensiveness and definite aim, and are of little value. As has been said, it is the object of these inquiries to determine how much workingmen spend, and how they spend it. The classical effort in this field, the model of all subsequent study, was the achievement of Dr. Frederick Engel, who, in 1857, compared the budgets in Le Play's famous "Family Monographs," added data of his own, and formulated his schedule of the normal distribution of expenditures in their relation to income. TABLE I engel's table op propoetionate expenditures Object Percentage of the esypendUure for /amily oj a man vnth income qf; $22£-$300 $450-$600 «7S0-$1000 Subsistence Clothing 16 g. 18 1 18 Lo, Lodging io(-»5 ,0^30 ■,o"-85 Firing and lighting Education, religion, etc. Legal protection Care of health Comfort, recreation 62 65 601 16 12 95 18 12 90 18 12 5 5 6 e 3.51 6.6 l 1 1 5 2. 2. 10 3. 3. 1 2.5 3.5 Legal protection 1 , 2. , „ 3. , - Care of health ^^^ a H" o H5 From this table Engel deduced four famous laws: 1. As the income of a family increased, a smaller per- centage of it was expended for food. 2. As the income of a family increased, the percentage of expenditures for clothing remained approximately the same. Digitized by Microsoft® FAMILY EXPENDITURES 13 3. With all the incomes investigated, the percentage of expenditure for rent, fuel, and light remained invariably the same. 4. As the income increased in amount a constantly increasing percentage was expended for education, health, recreation, amusements, etc."^ The brilliant work of this German statistician was confirmed in the main by the early work ia America. The Massachusetts Labor Report for 1885, for instance, con- tained the schedule embodied in Table ii. TABLE II EXPENDITURES IN WORKINGMEN's FAMILIES IN MASSACHUSETTS, 1885' 1 . Percentage qf the expenditure for family with income of Object $300 ta 450 $450 to 600 $600 to 750 $750 to 1200 $1200 and oter Subsistence 641 63 1 601 561 511 Clothing Rent 7 80 '97 1?:^ h^ 14 14 94 15 17 •94 19 16 ► 90 Fuel 6 6 6 6 5 Sundries 3 5 6 6 10 It will be noticed that in 1885, in America, a larger share of income was absorbed by the subsistence wants, less being left for sundries — education, health, recreation, and amusements. Two other facts, however, are particu- larly significant: whereas the Belgian or German outlay for lodging remained constant at 12 per cent as the income in- creased, American rents fell from 20 per cent to 15 per cent of the expenditure ; second, as they became more prosperous, Americans enlarged their relative expenditure for clothing. This might have indicated extraordinarily high rents in Massachusetts, or very great lack of good clothing in the lower income groups, or both. The condition in 1901, how- 1 Bullock, Introduction to the Study of Economics, p. 99-100. 2 Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1885, pt. iv, p. 52. Digitized by Microsoft® 14 THE STANDARD OF LIVING ever, was much more favorable to the Massachusetts work- ing people, as the proportion of expenditure devoted to existence wants had fallen in every income group from 2 to 6 points, the gain being largely in reduced food cost. StiU, the expenses for clothing increased with the income, but not so excessively as in 1885; rents were stiU inordinately high, and the relative cost of lighting had begun to fall as income grew. (See Table iii.) The Americans were by that time more liberal in their expenditures for health and insurance than were the Germans. TABLE III EXPENDITUBEB IN WOEKINGMEIN's FAMILIES IN MASSACHUSETTS, 1901 * PerceTitage v[ the expendit ure /or family with income of oaea than $450 $450 lo 600 $600 to 760 $750 to 1200 $1200 and over Subsistence Rent Clothing Fuel and lighting 66. 21.96 9.15 7.91 95.02 64.89 17.64 11.69 6.91 91.03 53.30 17.27 11.68 6.76 89.00 53.18 11.03 14.66 5.39 84.26 54.87 6.80 14.62 4.49 80.78 Education, church. Health, insurance Sundries 5tC. 1.61 2.98 .39 2.92 4.69 1.36 3.99 3.98 3.03 4.12 5.06 6.56 4.68 6.39 8.26 4.98 8.97 11.00 16.74 19.22 Total aver, expend. $382.49 555.63 688.87 886.50 1252.59 In Tables iv, v, and vi (pages 15, 16, 17), taken from the three great studies mentioned at the beginning of this chap- ter, will be found an epitome of the subject of budgets. The presentation shows, first, the actual average of all expendi- tures of families in each income group, and, second, the percentage of the total outlay devoted to each major want. In the perusal of these tables it is interesting to note that in no case does the expenditure for food reach 51 per cent: • Maseachtisetta Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1901, pp. 296-297. Digitized by Microsoft® i |H n g h § i 1 o a -< a > 3 o ■g & § > H 1 HH "*-. 1^ 1 1 n 5 I u r-^ m o |H S ^ ^ Q a ^ o 00 l-l h O 1-25 isS 9sS 3 ^*iA S S S P^ <» 00 ^ i-i »o o« i-i GO «DOQC3l>WGOt>«6»Oi> S to CO -* CO O _(_ ■* (M GO ^-t i-H I t- 0S©*0SJ>OX»0i-l«50S Ol-^iOCOCOX 1M5 ®J 0» 1-4 I CO O«5b-G0t*»0O0S*0CD M 0< '^ GO r-1 W5 i-H ■<*« rH 0< i-H I lO GO^GOW3(NO»Ot* u:iciG0Q6ouj{>-^^o ua CO to t> O^G0OQd50X ** rH I-H « Oi O* oqco-*xcOMM a* •* 0> rH 1 § **? *^ . *^ ^ *'? ® •■; (. »5i-H05»d'«j!G6o«50 O oi 00 CD CO OJ rH »d 50 . *Oa< O rH ) 0< W5 t- X t> <« W5 GO «5 00 1> ©? ■^Oi>C0-*cd'*T^rH ■* GO O rH i y'§ § S-H .9 =« 8 SS3i § 5 d t. ^1 Digitized by Microsoft® o I-:) I pi B • 2^° 1^1 1137.42 18 6.0 qogoomo^qo^o t-CO00«5COWi>CO (»o6Gooii>doi> «i l-H PH i-H Ssi :ss |5S teas U) S ^ I-H »0 ^ SO >0 '^Oi-ioo>o i-iOC0J>l>C0l>O WSi^e^OGOGOCOO Ot-CO-*©40*i-lOS •^ rH i-t CO CO -^ OS ■* (N OS O CO Q4 9) (^ CN UO O CO pH CO O COGOiX OSC0c6r-5|>®»»O'^ Tj) l> ^ »0 CO rH ^ rH OJ rt t« 00 CO i-l rH G0OS»O *Or-tCOCOCO^OO - CO I-H i> ^ O O CO I-H «5 00 rH CO p.4 OS i-H«5'<#|>Ol>G0»i0 O G< ■* O CO CO l> GO CO F-5 i> Mi t- OS »C CO GO I-H rH rH -* CO Ot iH OS _ o o « t- b-a -* t- CO ^ GO»OCOOSWSfhOSCO oico*o os'^o»d»C'*i-5i-H ^ CO Q^ ^ ^ I-H rH CO ai a a o's 5 „ s § 00 9t 00 9) m 9) U3 >oa>>anoir-ocas>>o t>pHU3>010>000« t- O <0 t-t O CD «5 < mt-oos>b-oi-i s .-S v.^toa>'*o>oo5iocs» •S 1 O lOi-HOJWsii-irHod ~ ^ 0« rl § "& ^ 1 ft. . oooscooi-Ht-m J;i Bq ^OToiidaioii-it: W §* ■l « S 9 Digitized by Microsoft® g I § -I § 1 » ^ ^ a z •*00'**«JI8» cs «J GO O GO ^ *0 GO SO rH r-H GO r-l i-H 04 *0 GO t* t-H OS 05 Q^ 'i*' ^ SO 00 GO W i-t i-l 00 rH - »o 00 t 00 Q< OS < O^ r-l GO GO CO U) Q) OS 0> O t> '«SJ 00 lO UO GO 00 00 CO 00 CO 1-1 t- O* rH O* I-H I-H ir t* t- i> o w CO O W5 W I-H o rH l> SO GO i-i ei I S 'f l>0 ^ 0< GO •^ -njl rH «5 i-J rH CD S rH 00 GO ■'^ rH 1-4 Si« -^ rH rH O) GO 00 00 »« »» OS ■ "»* I-H rH 1-^ ffl ■* O 05 O 1-1 ■^ »0 »-H 00 « OS S 00 CO 05 U5 U5 <0 rt 00 "o oS t- i CO rH >o OS'* o I-H a» 00 MS OS s» •* ws «5 CD Q» 00 05 ■* 0< 00 1>05 0« CO I-H i OS S ■* OS «5 rH ■* 0» 00 S< O O US CD s§ 9* rH 05 rH §5iS2§ «. CO 00 rH U3 rH CO "^ 1-i rH rH §§gss§ s ^ 00 00 O "O 1-1 CO "^ t-t r-^ 1-1 >H 8 SlliSi^^ I' BO BS in s S o s'Sg 1-^ "ft. Digitized by Microsoft® 18 THE STANDARD OF LIVING in other words, American workingmen now find food a much less pressing claimant of their resources than did Engel's subjects, or even the people of Massachusetts, in 1885. Another interesting fact is that after the income of $600 is reached, the relative strength of food wants dimin- ishes rapidly in the United States as a whole, though in New York City there is Httle gain in that respect, food there absorbing proportionately less of the low incomes and more of the high ones. Again, there is something sinister in the enormous excess of rent paid in New York City, espe- cially by families of small resources. Whereas the average outlay for rent in the income group $400-$500 ia the city is $120 or $125, that in the country as a whole is $86.54. Dr. Chapin explains this phenomenon on the groimd that exorbitantly high rents in the metropolis force people who live there to consider shelter almost their prime want. It is a peculiarity of New York City that as their incomes grow larger, most families instead of seeking better quar- ters have to be content with a minimum of improvement in their houses, and are constrained to devote their addi- tional resources largely to the purchase of food.' It may be interesting to note that at the recent Berlin City Plan Exhibit it appeared that many families in the 1200-1500 marks income group in Schoenberg paid about one half their money for rent, and that the percentage expenditure for housing falls off in the higher and lower groups.^ In general, as prosperity grows, clothing is awarded a constantly increasing proportion of income, though among the more well-to-do families, especially among those whose accounts were recorded in Dr. Chapin's tables, there is a slight decrease in the per cent of outlay for raiment. When a man is very poor, his first necessities are food and a safe place in which to sleep. After both of these wants have been supplied, he can devote his efforts to satisfying other * American Journal of Sociology, vol. 3dv, p. 638 ff. ' The Survey, vol. xxiv, p. 644. Digitized by Microsoft® CHART I PER CENT OP TOTAL EXPENDITURES BtAJJE FOR VARIOUS PURPOSES BY 200 NEW YORK CITY FAMILIES IN RELATION TO SIZE OP INCOME (Plotted from data on page £S of Wage-Eanur't Budgets, by Mis. L. B. More.) See Table it preceding. 9200 $400 (500 $600 $700 <800 $900 $1000 91200 40Q BOO 600 7 00 800 90O 1000 1200 1500 50* iripoD 46i 5:; 35 ill SOX 25.* wsaS^ — r= -«=- 20jt i5.)i lOX 5X f 0,* ctSTHTNg US9I im- Digitized by Microsoft® 20 THE STANDAED OF LIVING desires. His hunger he'can conceal; he can escape tempo- rarily from squalid home surroundings; but he cannot so easily rid himself of his rags — the badges of his poverty. So pride prompts him to secure better clothes as soon as his resources will permit him to do so. Fuel and Ughting expenses slowly decline, and outlay for sundries rapidly rises in importance as incomes become more ample. Engel's laws, then, need considerable modification before they can be apphed to American workingmen of the pre- sent time. They may be restated thus: As the income increases: 1. The proportionate expenditure for food a. decreases for the country at large from 50 per cent to 37 per cent, but b. in New York City, it amounts to almost 45 per cent of the total outlay until an income of $1000 is attained. 2. There is a strong tendency for the percentage of ex- penditure for clothing to increase. 3. Relative expenditures for housing a. remain about constant for the country at large, falling very slightly after $400 incomes have been reached, but b. decrease rapidly from 30 per cent, or more, to 16 per cent in New York City. 4. Proportionate expenditures for fuel and Ught de- crease. 5. Expenditure for culture wants increases absolutely and relatively. These deductions are graphically illustrated in the curves on Charts i to in. (See pages 19, 21, and 23.) Could the words "large city" be substituted for New York.? Some facts make it probable, yet New York has undoubt- edly gone farther in the evolution of exorbitant rentals than any other American municipality. At any rate, the substantial agreement between the results of Mrs. More Digitized by Microsoft® CHART II PER CENT OF TOTAL EXPENDITTJKES MADE FOB VABIOTTS PURPOSES BY 391 NEW YORK CITY FAMILIES IN RELATION TO SIZE OF INCOME (Plotted from data on page 70 of the Standard of Living in New York City, E. C. Chapin.) See Table v preceding. $400 $500 $600 $700 $800 S900 $1000 $1100 $1200 600 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 13 00 50K ^H m* 35X 30« 25* 20* .oNoa'SS ' 15* 10* 5* OK Digitized by Microsoft® 22 THE STANDARD OF LIVING and Dr. Chapin is high testimony to the accuracy of their work. TABLE VII mCOUE AND EXFENDITUBE FEB FAUILT FOB NOBUAL ^ FAMILIES BT BIZB OF FAMILIES * Actual expenditures for various purposes No C.» IC. 2 C. 8 C. 4 C. « C. Avtrait Total F.^ 2124 2579 2700 1973 1248 532 Income per F.' $632.61 $638.29 $649.04 $665.90 $683.16 $664.82 Rent ' 115.67 110.16 110.23 112.69 112.39 111.03 Fuel 27.22 27.87 28.38 28.75 28.40 30.33 Light 6.55 6.78 7.02 7.12 7.26 7.00 Clothing " 71.06 75.39 80.63 85.10 89.64 92.97 Sundries " ' 120.75 127.19 125.17 124.54 126.64 112.84 Total " ' 341.25 347.39 351.43 358.20 364.33 354.17 Food ' 230.64 248.87 267.41 287.86 306.44 317.05 Total " ' 671.89 596.26 618.84 646.06 670.77 671.22 It remains to speak of a few other general influences on the budget. Table vii shows that in general the fam- ily incomes are larger in households having more child- ren. As the size of the family increases, the total family expenses rise, and the food cost constantly grows larger. In fact, expenditures increase so much faster than in- comes that, for families having five children, there is an average deficit. Another interesting development is the slight food cost entailed by an additional child — never more than $20.50 per annum. It is, however, almost in- credible that an additional child can be clothed for from $3 to $5 per year, or that less rent will suffice to provide ac- commodations for five little ones than for three. It is easy to conceive of a family without children disbursing its income arbitrarily; but the other figures have a definite meaning — income does not increase in proportion to need. More food has to be purchased: this additional food is 1 See p. 11 for definition. ^ 18th Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, p. 568. ' C = child or children. * F = family or families. Digitized by Microsoft® CHART III PER CENT OF TOTAL EXPENDITUBES MADE FOB VARIOUS PURPOSES BY 11,156 NORMAL. FAMILIES THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES IN RELATION TO SIZE OP INCOME (Plotted from data od pages 101 or £8S of the ISih Annual Report qf the United Siaiei Commisnoner oj Labor,) See Table ti preceding. Under $200 $300 $400 $500 $600 $700 $800 $900 $1000 $1100 Orer 200 300 400 500 600 ,700 8^^ JOOQ 1100 1200 120 Digitized by Microsoft® 24 THE STANDARD OF LIVING obtained only at the sacrifice of a good home, decent clothing, and those little comforts included under the head of sundries. This is further exemplified in Table viii (see below). Granting that it is cheaper to Kve wholesale, and that adults, being larger consumers, raise the necessary average cost of existence more than when there are fewer children in the family, are not these reductions of expendi- ture per individual, especially those for food, clothing, and rent, too great to be accounted for by anything save a lower standard of living? Can a reduction of outlay from $198 to $96 per capita bring about anything but suffering in the larger family? TABLE VIII mCOMIi AND EXFENDITUBE PER INDIVIDUAL IN NORMAL FAMILIES BT SIZE OP FAMILY ' No C.« 1 C. 2 C. S C. 4 C. SC. Income per individual $316.31 $212.76 $162.26 $133.18 $113.86 $94.97 Outlay per individual for Rent 57.83 36.72 27.56 22.64 18.73 15.86 Fuel 13.61 9.29 7.09 5.75 4.73 4.33 Light 3.27 2.26 1.75 1.42 1.21 1.00 Clothing 36.53 25.13 20.16 17.02 14.94 13.28 Sundries 60.37 42.40 31.29 24.91 21.11 16.12 Total 170.61 116.80 87.85 71.64 60.72 60.69 Food 116.32 82.96 66.86 57.67 51.07 46.29 Total 285.93 198.76 154.70 129.21 111.79 95.88 The fact that incomes are insufficient is further con- firmed by the statistics of saving. Of the 25,440 families studied by the Bureau of Labor, 12,816, or 50.38 per cent had surpluses which averaged $120.84; and 4117, or 16 per cent had deficits averaging $65.58; while 33.44 per cent of the families barely finished the year without contracting debt.' Now such a state of affairs that, during a year of prosperity, one sixth of all families fall into debt, and 49 1 18tk Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, p. 688.] • C = child or children. ' 18th Annual Rejiort of the Bureau of Labor, p. 69 ff. Digitized by Microsoft® FAMILY EXPENDITURES 25 per cent are unable to save for a "rainy day," is intoler- able. Incomes are not sufficient. Of Mrs. More's families, a larger number had deficits than had surpluses, and 49 per cent spent just exactly what they earned. ^ This in- vestigator found that the average deficit grew smaller as income increased up to $1000, and from that point on, saving was possible. Dr. Chapin found that Bohemians, Austrians, Russians, and Italians can begin to save if they have incomes of $700 or $800, while Americans, Teutons, and Irish "do not reach the saturation point, so to speak, below an income of $900 or $1000." ^ In this connection it may be well to observe that the mere saving of money is not in itself proof that a proper standard of living has been attained. The eflFort to save money may result in a sacrifice of health or proper comfort. Food is probably the first point where most people economize,^ and yet food is often the one object of outlay that can least wisely be limited, as the health may be seriously impaired by this curtailment. In its investigations of New York standards, the com- mittee discarded the schedules of all families spending less than $600. The class earning from $600 to $700 was also considered below a normal standard; the housewives in this group cannot be expected to display exceptional man- aging abiUty. The households with incomes in the $700 to $800 class could barely support themselves without debt, provided there were no such emergencies as sickness and death. But in the next income group, $800-$900, was found what might be called prosperity — the famiUes lived in what they considered comparative comfort.* At this point the demands for food and shelter and clothing seem to reach an equilibrium,* and the culture wants begin ' More, Wage-Earners' Budgets, p. 108. ' Chapin, Standard of Living in New York City, p. 247. ' Goodyear, Charities and the Commons, vol. xvi, p. 191. * Charities and the Commons, vol. xix, p. 1039, also p. 1053 fl. ' American Journal of Sociology, vol. xiv, p. 638 fif. Digitized by Microsoft® 26 THE STANDARD OF LIVING to increase rapidly and constantly. Thus it was determined that in New York City the physical wants of a normal family cannot be properly filled by an income of less than $800. But even at this point, a high standard of living has not been reached, for, as appears in Tables rv, v, and ix, the intellectual wants are only just beginning to receive recognition. TABLE IX EXPENDITUBB OP INCOME IN NEW TOEK, BY INCOME GEOUP * Group I II III Average income $650 $746 $845 Rent 154 156 167 Car fare 12 13 14 Fuel and light 35 37 39 Fumitiu'e 6 9 9 Insurance 18 19 19 Food 270 320 345 Meals away 18 22 22 Clothing 91 102 112 Health 11 16 18 Taxes, dues, contributions 8 11 11 Recreation 3 6 6 Education 5 5 5 Miscellaneous 25 30 40 In summary, then, it appears that food is the claimant of the largest share of the income of workingmen's families, causing from 35 per cent to 51 per cent of the expenditure; the variations depend on the locality and on the size of the income. Rent occasionally consumes 30 per cent of the total outlay in the city, but its legitimate place seems to be between 15 per cent and 20 per cent, probably close to 18 per cent. Clothing absorbs from 7.5 per cent to 15.5 per cent of the resources, the famiHes of the lower grades being sadly under-clothed. Fuel and light require from 5 per cent to 8 per cent of expenditure, the proportion falling as earnings increase. After these outlays have been made to provide a bare existence, there remains 11 per cent to 27 per cent of the income for satisfying other wants and for > Charities and the Commons, vol. ziz, p. 1050. Digitized by Microsoft® FAMILY EXPENDITURES 27 saving. But when it is borne in mind that this item of sundries includes health, car fare, insurance, toilet, etc., it is perfectly evident that the standard of living must be low until the income reaches at least $700. To illustrate this poiut. Table x will be useful. The 2567 families, whose records are there set forth, averaged 5.31 in size, $827.19 in earnings, and $768.54 in total expenditures. That the TABLE X DETAILED EXFENDITUBES OF 2567 FAMILIES * The amount of expenditure for each commodity is the average outlay of families having expenditures for that purpose. rti-„ . Families having expendi- Average amount expended ""^^ turefar given object for given purpose No. Percent Amount Rent 3076 80.87 $122.92 Mortgage Principal 142 6.63 145.82 Interest 203 7.91 63.73 Fuel 2666 99.96 32.24 Lighting 2567 100.00 8.15 Clothing Husband 2519 98.13 34.38 Wife 2534 98.71 26.37 Children 2279 88.78 54.15 Taxes 881 34.32 16.86 Insurance Property 806 31.40 4.89 Life 1689 65.80 29.65 Organization Labor 944 36.77 10.62 Other 1123 43.75 11.84 Religion 2062 80.33 9.49 Charity 1311 61.07 4.68 Furniture 2170 84.63 31.13 Books and newspapers 2432 94.74 8.82 Amusements 1807 70.39 17.44 Liquors 1302 50.72 24.53 Tobacco 2033 79.20 13.80 Sickness and death 1969 76.70 26.78 Other purposes 2539 98.91 45.63 Total preceding per family 441.64 Food 326.90 Total $768.54 1 18th Annual Report qf the Commiasioner o/ Labor, pp. 497, 502, 503, 504, and 610. Digitized by Microsoft® 88 THE STANDARD OF LIVING mean expenditures of these famiKes for books and news- papers should be only $8.82, for clothing children only $54.15 (often to be divided among three or four little ones), and for religion only $9.49, seems clearly to indicate a low standard of living. Finally, as the number of children in normal families increases, the income grows more inadequate to the phys- ical needs of the household. Does it seem reasonable that from three fourths to nine tenths of a workingman's earn- ings should provide only the barest subsistence, and that much or most of the remaining quarter or tenth should be used in securing the requisites of mere physical efficiency? In the detailed study of the hfe of American industrial workers that is to follow, attention will be directed first to unemployment, and then to incomes, which can be really understood only in the light of the facts about involuntary idleness. Next, the three fundamental wants, housing, food, and clothing, will be studied. After that, some space will be devoted to conditions of work and living, to intellectual and social life, and to the determination of what consti- tutes a living wage. Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER III UNEMPLOYMENT "In Philadelphia, where 9672 men had been employed in certain industries in 1816, 7500 had been discharged in 1819. This city was not exceptional." ^ Probably nothing to-day rivals such wholesale unemployment, yet, in times of depression, there is always an "army of the out-of- work." During the panic of 1893, for instance, Carlos C. Closson, Jr., estimated that in sixty large American cities 523,080 workmen were unemployed. Bradstreet's returns revealed 581,956 idle laborers in these same municipal- ities, and placed the total unemployment in the 110 cities at 777,165.2 Again, during the depression of 1907-08, 20,000, or 50 per cent of the coal-miners in the region about Pittsburg were unoccupied from December to July; two thirds of the iron molders earned nothing at their profes- sion for a whole year, and 65 per cent of the carpenters sufiFered both reductions in wages and lack of work — a double hardship.' "From every class and occupation of labor came the answer of a year of only half or three fourths, or even one third of the time employed." ^ A canvass of 1416 tenement-house famihes by the district nurses in New York City divulged the fact that during the month of February, 1908, 24 per cent of the heads of these households could find nothing to do; ' and Graham Taylor wrote that 37 per cent of the membership of the Amalga- mated Society of Carpenters and Joiners throughout the country were receiving out-of-work benefits during this • Brooks, Social Unrest, p. 82. ' Quarterly Journal of Economies, vol. viii, pp. 257, 260. ' Charities and the Commons, vol. xxi, p. 271. « lUd., vol. xxi, p. 1050. ' Ibid., vol. xix, p. 1637. Digitized by Microsoft® so THE STANDARD OF LIVING month, 17.5 per cent in June, and 9.6 per cent in Septem- ber, 1908 — busy seasons for this trade. Yet these sta- tistics do not show the total extent of the unemployment, for no allowance is made for those who having some resources, held the benefit privilege in reserve, and for others who, being in arrears for dues, were ineligible to enjoy it.^ On the first of February, 1908, 50 per cent of the men in some of the building trades, and from 25 per cent to 30 per cent of those in the clothing trades were idle.^ Although these figures relate to years of panic and, for the most part, to two cities where the eflfects of finan- cial depression were exceptionally severe, they properly serve to call attention to the tremendous extent of unem- ployment as it visits certain communities from time to time. The surprising truth that, even in prosperous times, "the curse of the American workingman is irregular em- ployment," ' is evidenced by the meagre statistics avail- able. For instance, in New York State on September 1, 1900, 31,339 organized laborers, or 13.3 per cent of the membership of the unions, were unoccupied. The persist- ence of enforced idleness year in and year out is shown in Table xi. Clearly an average the year around of 9.3 per cent of the laborers unemployed is a serious matter. This problem may be viewed in a new light if lost time is considered. Thus in periods of great industrial activity nearly 10 per cent of the unionists lost a month's work or more in each quarter of the year. But these workers are endowed with more or less skill, — what of the unskilled? It is said that the Italians in New York do not work an average of 5.5 months in the year.* In April, 1896, the Italians in Chi- I Charities and the Commons, vol. xxi, p. 694. ' Ibid., vol. xix, p. 1464. ' Adams and Sumner, Labor Problems, p. 170. ♦ Economics of the Liquor Problem, p. 226. Digitized by Microsoft® ^ pq §* 00 l> ui ^ -^ Ud b-' CO* 1-4 ^' (N ^ PH p-i rH rl r-4 r-t w i-H «( r-t OJ ,-H PH i-l (M 0< i-t rH rH rH eD i-t oocqi^paji>oot-;Ooo»Hcoos ^oaa>FHa6aiodi>tQu£;&i-4pH lQA ^ rH i-( pH i-HoodooodooQtQtcdQJoio * i-ti-lrHO^GOrH O) Q< i-H i-l i-l OatO*QA9^(MOOCOOpHlQOt> GQU)pQ0i-H'^a»A«Ot>Q0COi4 Q4Q)Q)Q)pHpH|-HrHi-li-HrHQ«rH <«Pt-CSOIOQQOOAr-ICOeOi-H «o{««-^o5o»Qasb-wooi »crcopoo»o»oQi'oGO<«''o»rH|>i-(«C01>l>O? oa^GOTjicxuso»oO'«!pt-co COQ0eop(^Q4tO^t-000XC000O>O>a)O3O> s ^ s ■at Q Digitized by Microsoft® i s 1 g t- 1-lillH lOt-lHt- 1 at ^SSS 00 o» m o i-i O) CO I-I g q ■* t; o; 00 IN-4< I-; s »d i-H r-H W rH t^ CO GO f-( CO IN i-ixj oi i-i r-iCOi-c r^ t- rH '■€ SS 05 <0-* « CO «5 <0 ■* 1 o N « US 9) oi CO ■« CO I-I i-t © rH iH CO rH "& -« o; 00 1-; SJ q 00 «3 (« g CO ^ QJ «0 S >Or-( ^ »o so t^ )-l rl CO I-H 1 1 Mjm W t- O 00 US t- 1 b o "^ass t- 11 i> a. c^ v> OJO ■* t- 00 M'JI O 1 a i-i i-t ai -* O OS 1* « § r-c t-r-l fe I- 1-1 1 t- s» m xj q "1 q 00 -^i 00 >>, a ■^ 03 OS 1> g rH li OS t^ g " i-HXJr-l ■? I-* CO II ^ CO o* >o lot- g O « ■* 1-1 g s t> wi CO 00 E-1 •^gg^ '■g ^ (N-*rH «i J ■* rH q ffl 00 !>«< CO o OS »i5 rH -^ 00 rH GO CO CO SXOr-l iH CO rH 1-^ o t- -J> t- 9» ■& A ■* oi i> 00 ;s rl >0 rH "^ B5 g t- lO to OS t- „ ffi r-( CO r-1 ■* ^ •& OS OS WS Q4 t- a GO O) rH CO *o ^ CO t^O os 1> J s wfco oTo s S -^"fffrH 05 OS ^ ra c 1-4 CO OO CO 00 - ^S"' 00 (^ 1 1 ,,_^ 1 + + ■& '''ososo ~ OS 03 O ?nf m^ 1 isss^l rH OO CD CJ 6 6 6 ti ° o = S At aaasj aa agi iHOiooO rH91C0O Digitized by Microsoft® UNEMPLOYMENT 33 cago were actually studied, and it was found that of 2663 wage-earners 1517, or 56.97 per cent, were idle an average of over seven months.^ Not quite so startling are the results attained in 1893, shown in Table xiii. TABLE XIII UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE BLUMS OP POUB CITIES, 1893 ' Total populaiion of alum districts canvassed cilum population unemployed Number Per cent Months unemployeS Total Averagt Baltimore 18,048 Chicago 19,748 New York 28,996 Philadelphia 17,060 1564 8.67 3135 15.88 2615 9.02 2591 15.19 » 6255 ' 3.6 7327 3.1 6116 3.1 5132 2.9 When it is noted that these percentages of the unem- ployed are calculated on the basis of the entire popula- tion, a little more of the significance of this table will be grasped. Suppose a full half of the people to be wage- earners — surely a generous estimate — there would have been in Baltimore 17.34 per cent, in Chicago 31.76 per cent, in New York 18.04 per cent, and in Philadelphia 30.38 per cent of the bread-winners out of work an average of over three months — and this in a slum population, people who, having the smallest resources naturally suflFer most when their earnings are curtailed. The facts that in Kansas, in 1904, 184 workmen selected at random were employed an average of only 267.7 days;* that in Illinois, in 1886, 85,329 workmen were unoccupied an average of over 28 per cent of their time; ^ that in Indi- ana, in 1900, 408 men replying to inquiries by the state labor bureau reported an average idleness of 78 days;' and ' Bulletin of the Department of Labor, no. 13, p. 706. ' 7th Special Report erf the United States Commismmer of Labor, p. 66, and ibid. • Not including those for whom reports were not made. • Kansas Bureau of Labor and Industry, 1904, p. 330. ' Journal of Political Economy, vol. vi, p. 253. • Indiana Bureau of Statistics, 1899-1900, p. 199. Digitized by Microsoft® 34 THE STANDARD OF LIVING that 260 days is an unusually fortunate year's work in the anthracite coal-mines,^ — tend to confirm the conclusion that the evil of unemployment is widespread. It is possible, however, to find more general facts concerning enforced idleness. The 18th Annual Report of the United States Commissioner of Labor, to which reference has already been made, contains some valuable data on unemploy- ment. Of the 24,402 heads of typical workmen's families throughout the United States, 12,154, or 49.8 per cent, were idle one week or more during the year; 9203, or 37.7 per cent, were unemployed four weeks or more ; 6263, or 25.7 per cent, were unoccupied at least eight weeks; and 13.1 per cent could find work no more than three fourths of the time. The total labor time lost was 114,612 weeks, or 2240 years.2 Supposing that every 25,000 male wage-earners in the United States lose 2240 years of work each twelve- month, the total annual loss of labor would be 2,120,000 years, or 30,000 seventy-year lives, there being some 23,000,000 such workers.' This may be an exaggeration of the truth, and yet the census figures themselves reveal facts sufficiently startling. Take Table xiv for an example. TABLE XIV UNiaiPIiOYMKNT OF MALE WAGE-EABNEBS * Make 10 years qf age and quer engaged in gainful occupations Unemployed Total Number Per cent Agriculture 9,404,429 1,830,803 19.6 ! Professional 827,941 111,547 13.5 Domestic, personal 8,485,208 1,209,787 34.7 Trade, transporUtion 4,263,617 444,278 10.4 Manufacturing, mechanical 5,772,641 ' 1,631.057 28.3 AU occupations] 23,753,836 6,227,472 22.0 ' Adams and Sumner, Labor Problem, p. 164. » These figures are calculated from the data given on p. 288 ff. of the 18tk Annual Report of the United States Commissioner of Labor. ' IZih Census of the United States, 1900, "Occupations," p. ccxz'n. * Ibid., p. ccxxviii. Digitized by Microsoft® UNEMPLOYMENT 35 But these statistics have slight significance without some knowledge of the duration of this involuntary idle- ness. On this point the census data are rather unsatisfac- tory, and yet they furnish some aid as shown in Table xv. TABLE XV DtJBATION OF UNEMPLOYMENT OP MALES 1 1-3 montha 4-6mon ^iii.:^.::/. :: ::::::: M t>* ri^ yf Jn > ■ 5 S^'' , ' " / cS: 7 t 3?!"" X\ ^»x Digitized by Microsoft® 40 THE STANDARD OP LIVING Two other large facts here present themselves. It is generally asserted that the unskilled laborers are more liable to unemployment than the skilled. Such data as are available, though inconclusive, seem to indicate exactly the opposite. In the volume on " Occupations " of the Census of 1900, there is a table showing the percentage of per- sons ^ in each occupation unemployed for some part of the year. Among those having the greatest proportion of idleness are glass-workers, plasterers, masons, brick- and tile-makers, paper-hangers, laborers, miners and quarry- men, painters, glaziers and varnishers, carpenters and joiners, etc. The figiu-es, therefore, do not show an ex- cessive liability to lack of work among the unskilled. Undoubtedly, however, having lower wages, and therefore less adequate resources to fall back upon, there is greater suffering among the lower grades of workers when they are idle than among their more highly trained brothers. In this problem of the unskilled, one factor is especially pro- minent in the large Eastern cities. Immigration must have some influence in maintaining the surplus of these labor- ers. In this connection, however, the large relieving effect of emigration during the recent panic must not be forgot- ten. The introduction of new machinery, especially in periods of depression, causes at least temporary unem- ployment, even though the ultimate effect is more work.* Still another impersonal cause of enforced idleness must be mentioned — bad weather. This is particularly trouble- some among the members of the building trades. The factors so far mentioned are largely impersonal, but there are others more clearly connected with the individual workmen — accident, inebriety, old age, strikes, sickness, and vacations. Table xvi, which has been compiled from the statistics in the 18th Annual Report of the United 1 ISth Census of the United States, "Occupations," 1900, p. ccxxzii, and Charities and the Commons, vol. xxi, p. 271. " Report of the Industrial Commission, vol. sdx, p. 753. Digitized by Microsoft® S & OS P iH tH CO ■g^ « aS t- o Q CO o g.^ U3 a) 00 00 OS i I OS O 00 06 OS •^3 r-l I-I i-l a o CO 1-1 CO 00 o CO CO OS I-i «d OS p-l CO OS ICO -; 00 ■* oaioo oslos g S ■* t- 00 o o» 3 g CO o o< e) a« ■S fc CO W ■* OB t- S S 1-100 CO '«<« S g r-IO» >0 t- CO 25 (M UO 00 o r-l ©J ■«JI t* CO o CO CO OS 00 04 J ' CD O "OICO I CO 00 CO Bj •S g 00 ■* r-l CO OS S § t-ai ■* i>a» sSrHCO g O F^ CO CO t" r-lfe "* CO E; r-l CO ^ 00 OOrH O CO O CO CO CO a) r-l ^ O CO « «3|C0 S o -vfi a) o td 0< 1-1 -H « ■* los 00 t- « 9 OS us 00 00 »H- r< ^ iK "« S S -a 11 a 1 -3 i ■3 1 a u V s s> CO p (D*S ccide ad w runk lz;o I Digitized by Microsoft® 42 THE STANDARD OF LIVING States Commissioner of Labor, shows the actual working of the various forces. The effect wrought by each cause is shown by the number of men whose employment it inter- rupts; but its real power for evil is better measured by the duration of the idleness which it entails. The former shows the extent of the suffering; the latter, its intensity. It will be noticed that industrial conditions caused from 53 per cent to 60 per cent of the idleness, bad weather, 2.5 per cent to 3.5 per cent, and sickness and accident about 31 per cent. Thus at least 85 per cent of the idleness was brought about by causes entirely beyond the control of the men. Strikes and vacations do not occasion 4 per cent of the loss of work. These statistics were gathered from representative work- men throughout the United States, and are probably an accurate expression of general conditions. The statistics obtainable from the unionists in New York State show wide variations in the relative importance of causes,^ but it should be borne in mind that the New York fig- ures are for organized workmen only, and also include a large proportion of workers in the building trades. Con- ditions in Kansas ^ essentially confirm the government figures, but in adopting the general law, it must be re- membered that its applicability to any particular locality is uncertain. To be a curse, unemployment must have evil effects. It has been computed that it causes from 9 per cent to 47 per cent of pauperism ' and thus entails a tremendous burden upon the country. Idle men are competitors for the positions of the employed; and so a period of great financial depression can often be utilized for such a lower- ing of wages as happened in Pittsburg during 1908, or even ' New York Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1906, xix. ' Bureau of Labor and Industry, Kansas, 1899, pp. 289 and 291. ' Warner, American Charities, chap, ii; Report of the Industrial Covir mission, vol. xix, p. 747. Digitized by Microsoft® UNEMPLOYMENT 43 for the breaking-up of unions.' Unemployment, more- over, has a tendency to deprive its victims of suflScient food; thus their efficiency for future work may be seriously impaired, or savings may be exhausted and debts incurred * which will be a handicap when prosperity returns. Again, there is a marked liability for idle men to become saloon or corner loafers, to fall into vice. Hardship and idleness corrupt the morals and the home. Perhaps it is true that "with the progress of industries greater regularity of em- ployment is secured," ' yet while so many industries are over-capitalized in the sense that the proportion of business done rarely reaches 75 per cent of the capacity of the plants, no permanent solution of the problem of un- employment can be found. ' Charities and the Cominons, vol. xxi, p. 271 ; Mitchell, Organized, Labor, p. 173. ' Bulletin of the Department of Labor, no. 13, p. 707. ' Ely, Yale Review, vol. xi, p. 237. Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER IV INCOMES Although the theory of wages is beyond the scope of this essay, it is, perhaps, worth while to mention some of the influences that tend to differentiate compensation. The Census Bureau states them as follows : Supply of labor, including women and children able to dis- place men as operatives; trades unions; organizations of employ- ers; industrial combinations; character of manufactures; degree of skill of the operative; conditions of business, whether prosper- ous or otherwise; number of days worked; laws regulating the employment of women and children; differences in methods and processes, and in the extent to which machinery can be used; character of machinery, whether demanding in its operation more or less of skilled labor than is required in hand processes; and urban or rural location of factories. An intimate acquaintance with the conditions surrounding each industry is required for the complete understanding and accurate discussion of the more important phases of the subject.^ According to the Austrian theory of value, wages de- pend in part upon the worth of the product. Beyond ques- tion this value of output determines a long-run upper limit of remuneration; yet in many occupations where the pro- duct is very valuable, the wages are not high, because the laborers could be easily replaced by others. Thus "the army of the unemployed," described in Chapter iii, is engaged in a ceaseless campaign against high wages. On the other hand, workingmen fall into certain non-compet- ing groups, the results of heredity, standards of living, and ' Census Bulletin, no. 93, p. 14. Digitized by Microsoft® CHART VI UTILIZATION OF PLANTS AND AVERAGE ANNUAL EARNINGS OF ALL EMPLOYEES, SELECTED INDUSTRIES, MASSACHU- SETTS 1895 189S ISOr 1898 189g 1900 1901 1902 mS J90j 1905; 1906 f907;i908 90<: SOiz 70«: G0« 50:: Digitized by Microsoft® 46 THE STANDARD OF LIVING such monopolies as trades unions, which can restrict the number of apprentices and, therefore, the number of labor- ers in a given field. Thus those who are at work gain some degree of freedom from the rivalry of the idle. The intro- duction of new machinery may increase the earnings of the few at the expense of the many, or it may raise the remun- eration of the many. However significant it may appear in theory, risk apparently is not of preponderate or practical importance in the actual fixing of wages; too many other elements are considered first, and every man hopes that he will be so fortunate as to escape disease or accident. Most girls would rather stand behind the counter at $4 per week than enter "service" for $20 a month in addition to a home and the usual perquisites of the "domestic." This preference involves two elements in the fixing of wages, the relative amount of pleasures or inconveniences attached to a given occupation, and the social position which it confers upon the worker. Other factors in deter- mining comparative wages are the responsibility of the positions, educational prerequisites and the intensity of the required exertion. As a matter of fact, the wages actually paid seem to be largely accidental. Just why one man is paid $25 for laying bricks 44 hours a week, and another is given only $12 for 60 hours of brick-making; why one man receives 40 cents an hour for spreading paint that another, equally skilled, compounds for 16 cents per hour, is not easy to explain on any theory of value.' Organization accounts largely for this difference — happy the trade that was early organized! The Census Report mentioned difference of locality as a wage determinant, and it is interesting, in this connection, to note the figures in Table xvii, calculated from the 1906 Illinois Labor Report. » New Jersey Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1907, pp. 207-208. Digitized by Microsoft® CHART Vn UTILIZATION OF PLANTS AND AVERAGE ANNUAL EAENINGS OF ALL EMPLOYEES, ALL INDUSTKIES, MASSACHUSETTS Solid line represents the per cent of the productive capacity of all manufacturiDg plants actually utilized. Dotted line represents average annual money wages of all employees. 18951S96 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1802 1903 19M IMS Jt90B 1! Digitized by Microsoft® 48 THE STANDARD OF LIVING TABLE XVII SCT OF SIZE 0» CITX ON THE RATE OP PAT OF PEE80NS ENGAGED MANUFACTUKE ' Woffe-eamera Average wages Chicago Cities over 20 M population Cities 8 to 20 M population Remainder of the State 191,844 231,964 27,694 54,428 $623.00 618.00 ; 676.00 525.00 The facts in this table confirm the belief that the larger the city, the larger the average earnings, and possibly indicate that both the cost and the standard of living are lower in the smaller communities. Probably this is one of the sev- eral reasons for the exodus of factories from large to small cities.^ Another interesting fact, in connection with the practical determination of wages, is their dependence on general in- dustrial prosperity as expressed in the fullness with which the productive power of manufacturing plants is utilized. This is illustrated by the curves in Charts vi to ix (pages 45, 47, 49, and 51), plotted from the statistics of the Massa- chusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor. In conclusion it may be well to point out that these curves as well as those in Chart x (page 53) show a con- stant increase of money earnings, except for the setback fol- lowing the panic of 1907. This tendency is fully confirmed by the statistics of the United States Bureau of Labor; nevertheless retail prices of food are advancing so rapidly that, for the last decade, there has been no gain in the real wages of persons employed in manufacture. This is shown in Table xvrii (page 50), and graphically in Chart XI (page 55). Probably one reason for the failure of real wages to ^ Calculated from figures on pages 45, 69, 32 ff . of the Illinois Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Report for 1906. 2 See article by A. F. Webber, Annals of the American Academy, vol. yziii, p. 223 S. Digitized by Microsoft® CHART VIII UTILIZATION OF PLANTS AND AVERAGE ANNUAL EARNINGS I OF ALL EMPLOYEES IN COTTON MANUFACTURES, MASSA- CHUSETTS Solid line represents the per cent of the productive capacity of all manufacturing plants actually utilized. Dotted line represents average annual money wages of all employees. 1895tS96 1897 1S9S I8D9 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 191% I90Tf908 $410 Digitized by Microsoft® 50 THE STANDARD OF LIVING increase is to be found in the fact that less skill is involved in many of the manufacturing occupations, and that the unskilled workers are, with or without the aid of machin- ery, accomplishing more intricate tasks. Thus there is a leveling process from both ends, and wages tend to seek an uniform level. Undoubtedly the unskilled enjoy almost the entire advantage in this change.'' TABLE XVIII EELATIVE WAGES AND PRICES ^ (Relative numbers computed on basis of average for 1890-1899 equal to 100.0) Year FuU-time Hours Wages weekly Employees per hour earnings week ■per employee Retail prices of food weighted accord- ing to family consumption Purchasing power measured by retail "prices of food, of Sourly wages Full-time weekly earnings per employee 1890 94.8 100.7 100.3 101.0 102.4 97.9 98.6 1891 97.3 100.5 100.3 100.8 103.8 96.6 97.1 1892 99.2 100.5 100.8 101.3 101.9 98.9 99.4 1893 99.4 100.3 100.9 101.2 104.4 96.6 96.9 1894 94.1 99.8 97.9 97.7 99.7 98.2 98.0 1895 96.4 100.1 98.3 98.4 97.8 100.6 100.6 1896 98.6 99.8 99.7 99.5 95.5 104.4 104.2 1897 100.9 99.6 99.6 99.2 96.3 103.4 103.0 1898 106.4 99.7 100.2 99.9 98.7 101.5 101.2 1899 112.1 99.2 102.0 101.2 99.5 102.6 101.7 1900 115.6 98.7 105.6 104.1 101.1 104.4 103.0 1901 119.1 98.1 108.0 105.9 105.2 102.7 100.7 1902 123.6 97.3 112.2 109.2 110.9 101.2 98.6 1903 126.5 96.6 116.3 112.3 110.3 105.4 101.8 1904 125.7 95.9 117.0 112.2 111.7 104.7 100.4 1905 133.6 95.9 118.9 114.0 112.4 105.8 101.4 1906 142.9 95.4 124.2 118.5 115.7 107.3 102.4 1907 144.4 95.0 128.8 122.4 120.6 106.8 101.6 But what are the actual conditions? The Census of 1900 showed that there were 22,489,425 men, 4,833,630 women, and 1,264,411 boys and 485,767 girls (under 16) engaged in gainful occupations in the United States.' This mighty army of workers supports ' Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, no. 77, 1908, p. 7. 2 See article A. A. A., vol. xxiv, pp. 300 ff. ' Census Occupations, p. cxxzii. Digitized by Microsoft® CHART IX UTILIZATION OF PLANTS AND AVERAGE ANNUAL EARNINGS OF ALL EMPLOYEES IN WOOLEN MANUFACTURES, MASSA- CHUSETTS Solid line represents the per cent of the productive capacity of all manufacturing plants actually utilized. Dotted line represents average annual money wages of all employees. 18951898 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 laOSgtaOS 19071908 $460 S450' $410 $430 S420 $410 S400 $390 $380 $370 $360 Digitized by Microsoft® 62 THE STANDARD OF LIVING 15,963,965 private families.^ As there are only 13,150,671 married men at work, 2,813,294 of these private famiUes — 18 per cent of them — could not possibly have been sup- ported by their natural heads. There was an average of 1.82 bread-winners to the family whose mean size was 4.6. However, the number of married women who are at work is comparatively small, 769,477, or 15 per cent, of the fe- male wage-earners. It is a delightful truth that in nearly all communities the mother is, as far as possible, spared the hardships of industrial toil. The evils of child labor, espe- cially in manufacturing, are so well known that they need no elaboration here. In the broad view, the labor of child- ren is as disastrous and as dishonest an industrial policy as paying dividends out of capital or issuing bonds to meet a regularly recurring deficit in current transactions. Fur- thermore, child labor undoubtedly so lowers the wages of men that, in general, the total family income in industries employing children is less than the earnings of the father alone in other industries.^ Passing over, then, the question of child labor, the women in industry demand some attention. Women are impelled to seek employment by two motives — the neces- sity of supporting themselves or others, and the desire for pin-money.' Employers engage women because they are "adaptable, reliable, easily controlled, temperate, easily secured, neat, rapid, industrious, careful, polite, little prone to strike, and apt to learn." In all these particulars, it is said, women are preferable to men. Their points of superiority may be expressed in two words, "cheapness" and "docility." That it is cheaper to employ women than men is abundantly proven by the fact that, when they are on an equality with men in point of efficiency, though the women are given higher pay in 16.5 per cent of the cases ' Abstract from Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, p. 27. 2 Mitchell, Organized Labor, p. 140. ' Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1902, p. 245. Digitized by Microsoft® CHART X PROGRESS OF WAGES IN MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES IN MASSACHUSETTS AND NEW JERSEY The chart is based on data in the Annual Reports of the Labor Bureaus of Massachu- setts and New Jersey. Solid lines show percentage of adult male wage-earners earning less than specified sum pep week in New Jersey. Dotted lines show percentage of adult male wage-earners earning less than specified sum per week in Massachusetts. 1897 898 1899 1900 1901 1902' 1903 1901 1905 906 907 1908 r^l ?fe"^l-nTTlT~ti'Lr rnf "-^Afry-U .fTt>r T tttJs-j-I mt--------^-- ::-;-::'^;;-:-:---;--::-:--:: :::::: ; "S »--4.J Ivt^l *»* 2*-)ivt» w-'"^-i:. 4_', 1 V fftrf r - . 1 r\ 1 ^ 40* _________ _ _ _ _ _|_ _ i- J ^1 '^ >■' ^1 1 _ 35* :~v,_:__' _■ _ __ : ■ _ 1 j _ _i_q j^ i^_v-'_,l- j . ■^^ -ju--.. 1 _u":i^uiv\jJ J - ",--.'--. 1 1 1 ri'j I'. 1 1 ^5Ss"'-<- J^J- 1 ^-l^"sL-.i ..... -j- ''naT-i- 1 -1-' ■ ^v 1 - L nn^ "-^ ^■^f'J <^-.. /H ^-^ ^ L Hi Digitized by Microsoft® 54 THE STANDARD OF LIVING and equal remuneration in 7.3 per cent, they are less gen- erously compensated by 76.2 per cent of their employers.* The reasons for the low wages of women are patent. They lack in efficiency; physically, women cannot work as hard or as long as men, and, probably, they are more often ill; they frequently work on products of little value, partly, no doubt, because the attitude of men keeps them from more remunerative tasks; and they seem to be lacking in skill, resource, or initiative. Moreover, the very nature of their intellectual processes keeps their wages down — they are not apt for organization, but are more submissive than men. The potential competition of the large number of women who might be tempted from the home into industry by higher wages is a factor of no mean importance. Again, women can live on a lower minimum wage than men, be- cause they need less food, and because their earnings — especially the pay of those who work for luxuries or for the mere pleasure of doing something — are often subsidized. But perhaps the greatest fact, in that it embraces many of those already enumerated, is the generally realized expect- ation of most women that they will not work long, but will soon marry. ^ They do not fuUy exert themselves. It is often held that the entrance of women upon the field of industrial labor is beneficial to society in that it allows men to work at other things and thus increases the total amount of production; but, in the light of the statistics of unemployment presented in the preceding chapter, it is probable that the competition of women does actually displace men or, at least, reduces their wages, especially in the textile trades. That industrial labor makes woman a more efficient administrator in the home or gives her a ' 11th Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, p. 30. '' E. A. Filene, A. A. A., vol. xxvii, p. 616. One half the women in the cotton industry at the ages of 18 to 21 leave before their twenty-fifth birthdays — the majority to become wives. The Survey, vol. xxiv, p. 652. (Quoting unpublished federal "Report on the Cotton Textile Industry.") Digitized by Microsoft® CHART XI Full-time weekly earainga ■ — Retail prices of food — . — , — . — . Purchasing power full-time weekly wages - 1850 1891 1892 1893 18M I8C5 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1001 1903 1903 1904 1905 1806 190T Digitized by Microsoft® 56 THE STANDARD OF LIVING useful way of passing time is more than doubtful; domestic economy can be learned only by practice; if repeating one or two manual motions day in and day out teaches the value of cleanliness, child psychology, or the art of cooking, wage-earning by prospective mothers benefits the home. In contrast to these possible advantages of the labor of women, there are certain positive evils. In writing of the 188,578 girls in Pennsylvania factories. Dr. Peter Roberts says, "The textile industries are not self-supporting. We are safe in saying that 50 per cent of all the employees in these industries expend an amount of energy which the wages do not replace." ^ He further accuses these industries of something far worse — dissipating the energy of succeed- ing generations. Here are two distinct evil results of the industrial employment of women, lower wages of men, and physical deterioration of the race. Who can watch the crowds of women entering the factories without observing the effects — unending weariness, stooped shoulders, sal- low complexions ? ^ It is even said that this work of women induces irregular habits, and is a large cause of sterility. Substantially all the arguments urged against child labor apply with equal force to the toil of women. The Wiscon- sin Bureau of Labor Report aptly smns up the situation in these words: Unless we change the present demoralizing condition, we will continue to see women, worn out by the work of their youth, unable to do their part ia making happy and successful homes. Their children, if not given better opportunities, go through the same course and keep up the circle of vicious inefficiency.' The object of this chapter, however is not to furnish an argument against the labor of women, but to find what incomes are actually enjoyed by industrial families. 1 A. A. A., vol. xxiii, p. 442 (1904). ' See The Woman Who Toils. ' 13th Biennial Report of the Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statis- tics of Wisconsin, quoted in Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, no. 88, p. 852. Digitized by Microsoft® INCOMES 57 PER CENT OF FAMILIES HAVING INCOME FROM VAKIOUS SOURCES Digitized by Microsoft® 58 THE STANDARD OF LIVING Though both women and children form an important part of the present labor force, men are the great providers, and it is they who merit most thorough attention. Among the 25,440 families canvassed in the I8th Annual Report of the United States Commissioner of Labor, 99.28 per cent of the husbands were at work, .57 per cent were invalids, and .15 per cent idle, but only 8.68 per cent of the wives contributed to the income.^ Table xrx shows the sources of the incomes enjoyed by these families. TABLE XIX* SOUBCBS OP FAMILY INCOMB Per cent of families having Source qf income income from specified source Wife 8.54 Children 22.19 Boarders and Lodgers Other sources (except husband) 23.26 14.35 Total 68.34 Less families having no husband 4.08 Largest possible per cent of families having income from husband and one other source 64.26 Smallest possible per cent of families dependent solely on husband for support 35.74 In this table it appears that at least 35.74 per cent of the families must have been dependent on the father alone for support. It is highly probable that in many families income was received both from the earnings of the child- ren and from boarders or lodgers. Therefore it is entirely safe to say that fathers bore the entire financial burdens of more than 35.74 per cent of these households. This conclusion is confirmed by the data in Table xx. In 1890 the United States Department of Labor studied the family life of the employees in the cotton, woolen, and glass industries. From their results it is calculated that the father was the only bread-winner in 23.1 per cent of 1 18th Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, p. 236. a Ibid., p. 362. Digitized by Microsoft® INCOMES S9 TABLE XX EXACT SOimCES OF INCOME OF FAMILIES DEPENDENT ON THBEE INDUSTRIES IN 1890 ^ Cotton Woolen Glass All Source qf ineomt No. F.' |%f. No.F. %F. No.F. %F. No.F. %F. Husband 496 23.1 452 49.6 818 64.1 1766 40.6 " and wife 170 8.0 54 5.9 19 1.5 243 4.5 " and children 483 22.6 127 13.9 144 11.3 754 17.4 " and other sources 316 14.8 137 15.0 213 16.7 666 15.4 " wife and children 41 1.9 8 .9 3 .2 52 1.2 " children and other 359 16.8 81 8.9 69 5.4 509 11.7 " wife and other 52 2.4 7 .8 8 .2 62 1.4 " wife, children and other 15 .1 2 .2 2 .2 19 .4 Total families in any wise dependent on husband 1932 89.7 868 95.2 1271 99.6 4071 92.a Total families dependent on industry 2132 911 1276 4319 all families dependent on the cotton industry, 49.6 per cent on the woolen, and 64.1 per cent on the glass (in- cluding fatherless families). As these are all industries in which women and children are largely employed, it may be concluded that the father is the sole support in at least 45 per cent of families. Uncertain as the average is, it de- serves respectful consideration, for Dr. Chapin found that 46.8 per cent of the families included in his study were sa supported. According to the Census of Manufactures, the 4,244,53S men engaged in manufacturing, in 1905, received an aver- age income of $533.93.' In Montana, in 1900, the mean earnings of the 9718 industrial workmen who reported * Based on figures in 7th Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1891, vol. ii, part iii, pp. 1736-1770. * F = families. ' Census of Manufactures, 1905, vol. i, p. bod (calculated). Digitized by Microsoft® 60 THE STANDAED OF LIVING were $807; in North Dakota, 2168 men averaged $535; Minnesota recorded 66,889 workmen at an average of $492; and Wisconsin 120,131, averaging $449.' Adams and Sum- ner say that one half the male city factory operatives earn less than $480 a year.^ But before attempting to fix the typical wages for the industrial workers, it may be well to glance at some of the larger businesses. A great deal of capital is invested in steam railroads. What can be said of the income of their employees — the men who annually make such a sacrifice of life and suffering to the cause of material progress? In 1908, the New Jersey roads employed some 42,514 men at an average annual wage of $657.22.^ Assuming that in this profession the same proportion of men are employed at $10, or less, per week as in other industries in which the average annual remuneration is about the same, 11,400 of these men received less for their year's work than $520. In Indiana during 1906, 1870 conductors earned an average of $1084.93; 2287 engineers, of $1284.69; 4408 station men, of $508.37; and 88,967 trackmen, of $378.93. i In Maine the mean earnings of railway hands, including all save officers, was $559.15.* Of 13,796 railway men in North Carolina, in 1905, 11,295 were employed in occupations where the average pay was less than $1.62 per day, or $500 per year.* There are over three hundred thousand track laborers in the United States,^ whose wages vary from an average of $1.50 in New England to $1.03 in the South- east. They are mostly foreigners, and, in view of their liability to unemployment, it is doubtful if many of them earn $450 per annum. In 1908 the railroads of the United States employed 61,215 firemen at an average per diem ' Journal of Political Economy, vol. xi, pp. 107 and 104. * Adams and Sumner, The Labor Problem, p. 159. * New Jersey Bureau of Statistics of Labor and Industries, 1907, p. 133. * Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, no. 72, p. 688. ' Ibid., no. 74, p. 174 (calculated). 6 Ibid., no. 68, p. 147 (calculated). ' Ibid,, no. 72, p. 434. Digitized by Microsoft® INCOMES ei compensation of $2.64; 57,668 enginemen at $4.45; 43,328 conductors at $3.81; 114,580 other trainmen at $2.60; 41,419 section foremen at $1.95; 299,448 other trackmen at $1.45; and 46,221 switch tenders and crossing watchmen at $1.78.^ The pay of general officers usually continues during their illness or vacation; that of the other help, more numerous but less highly compensated, ceases during un- employment, whatever the cause. Closely associated with the railroads are the coal-mines. The average earnings of Michigan coal-miners in 1908 was $720.2 The 30,742 lUinois miners in 1906, though their mean daily wages were $2.54, worked only 189.6 days and earned but $480.32.* Ohio miners, of whom there were 38,671 in 1904, fared slightly better, earning on the aver- age $496.60.* The Indiana returns for 1903 show all grades of mean earnings, from pumpmen who worked 365 days at $2.20, and foremen who received $975 per year each, to trappers working 215 days at $1.13.^ Less than $500 was earned by 46.5 per cent and between $500 and $600 by 24.24 per cent of the Illinois miners in 1904.* In 1908, the anthracite miners in Pennsylvania enjoyed an average in- come of $673.34; they numbered 43,482, but the average remuneration of all the 176,377 employees was $496.13. Bituminous workers were less fortunate that year, miners averaging $447, and all employees, $458.29.' The year previous, however, bituminous pay was better, and the average compensation of all bituminous workers was $546.96, but this was imusual.' Dr. Peter Roberts, in the first chapter of his "Anthracite Coal Communities," writes 1 Interstate Commerce Commission, Staiistica of Railroads, 1908, pp. 41 and 47. * Michigan Bureau of Labor and Industrial StaMstics, 1909, p. 402. , » Illinois Coal Report,1906, p. 93. • Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, no. 62, p. 295. 6 Ibid., no. 71, p. 330. ' Illinois Bureau of Labor Staiiaties, 1904, p. 160. ' Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, no. 88, p. 845. « Ibid., no. 75, p. 605. Digitized by Microsoft® 62 THE STANDARD OF LIVING that 143,820 employees, representing families comprising 450,000 individuals, are engaged in anthracite mining. Although the average household consists of four or five members, the contract miners, 25 per cent of all, receive about $600 apiece, while other adult workers, at least 60 per cent of all, earn only $450 each.' The clothing trade need not be treated at such length. In 30 Maine clothing factories in 1905, 234 men received wages averaging $10.82 per week; 1078 women earned a mean weekly wage of $6.78.^ In 1894, the yearly remuner- ation of the garment-makers in New York ranged from $249.94 for knee-pants-makers to $402 for cap-makers; and the male machine operators and handworkers of Chicago earned, on the average, $430 and $325, respectively, the average recompense of all male workers in the cloak-mak- ing trades being $330.42.' But these figures must not be considered of great general importance. The organized laborers in New York City are, perhaps, better off in respect to wages than any other large class of workers. In 1905 the mean earnings of men was $815.* In 1906 their average income in the first and third quarters of the year was $437.62, or a rate which is equivalent to $875 per annum.' In the first quarter of 1904, 7.5 per cent earned under $75, 27.5 per cent between $75 and $149, 41.7 per cent between $150 and $225, and 23.3 per cent over $225 . ^ In the third quarter of that year even more enjoyed the higher incomes. There are now about 400,000 men in these trades unions. Recently arrived immigrants have varying fortune in the wages that they receive. Many Italians, Poles and Lithu- anians work twelve hours a day in Pittsburg for $1.65 to ' Anthracite Coal Communities, p. 346. ' Maine, 19th Annual Report, p. 100. ' Eaton, American Statistical Association, vol. iv, pp. 141 to 174. * New York Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1905, p. cxlviii. ' Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, no. 75, p. 598. • New York Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1904, p. Iv. Digitized by Microsoft® INCOMES 68 $1.98. Some Croatians have even oflfered their labor for $1.20 daily, and Italians and Slovaks have been actually hired at $.90; on the other hand, some earn as high as $70 in two weeks.' In 1905, a New York City firm employed 500 Sicilians at $1.75 a day, and the padrone agencies found in the Northern States positions for 12,536 Italians at not more than $1.50.^ The average wages for Italians that year, employed through these agencies, was $1.46; Slavs and Hungarians commanded the same sum, and other nationalities fell to $1.41 per day.' Among textile operatives wages reach a low ebb. In 1900 the average earnings of male cotton operatives was $405.69 in Massachusetts, $243.34 in Georgia, $216.39 in North Carolina, and $207.58 in South Carolina. The 9679 New Hampshire men who worked in cotton factories in 1906 earned an average of $417.31.^ In the four Southern States above mentioned the regular pay of men seems never to surpass $10.50 per week, even for bosses; $7 is high, and some men actually work six days for $4.20. The average earnings of the 145,718 adult male cotton operat- ives enumerated in the Census of Manufactures was $358, varying from $522 in Pennsylvania to $283 in Georgia. Men in the woolen mills received a little more, $447, and silk afforded even greater remuneration, $472 per year; but there are only 27,037 men working in the silk mills and 44,452 in the woolen. At boot- and shoe-making 95,257 men were able to secure a mean income of $528.* These averages, however, do not tell the whole story. It is important to know how many men are employed at each wage rate. Mr. A. E. James calculated from the Dewey Report* that 19.64 per cent of the adult male factory ' Charities and the Commons, vol. xxi, pp. 638-39. 2 Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, no. 72, pp. 161, 427, etc. (calcukted). » Ibid., no. 72, p. 426. * Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, no. 71, p. 338 (calculated). » Census of Manufactures, vol. iii, pp. 48, 138, 181, 246 (calculated). • 12th Census, Special Report on Employees and Wages. Digitized by Microsoft® 64 THE STANDARD OF LIVING operatives receive less than $8, 42.61 per cent less than $10, and 59.26 per cent less than $12 per week.^ He also says that there seems to be a mode or fashion in wages. There are large groups paid $12 and $9 per week. In fact, he says, "the typical male American factory worker may per- haps be said to be shown by the Dewey Report to be the man who receives $1.50 a day." ^ In the Appendix will be found some tables grouping wage-earners and constructed on a cumulative plan. TABLE XXI PER CENT OP THE ADTTLT MALES ENGAGED IN MANTJFACTTJHING, WHO BECEIVED LESS THAN $3, $6, $9, $12 OB $15 PEE WEEK IN SPECIFIED STATE AND TEAR Year Pnder $3 VndetiS Under $9 Under n^ Under $U California I.San Francisco 1906' .29 4.43 19.40 63.40 79.35 2. Small cities 1906 .11 8.47 20.92 39.23 58.55 New Jersey 1906 .57 8.28 27.03 57.49 73.70 Missouri 1904 6.97 19.50* 58.05 77.17 Illinois 1904 21.76 31.15 Massachusetts 1906 .54 4.16 25.35 55.12 75.02 Wisconsin 1904 7.20 23.99 67.95 85.48 Table xxi shows the percentage of wage-earners for California cities, and the percentage of adult males en- gaged in manufacture in five other states, who earn less than $3, less than $6, less than $9, less than $12, and less than $15 per week. Considering the wide variety of location and of industry in these states, there is a re- ' American Statistical Association, vol. x, p. 332 ff. 2 Ibid., p. 340. ' All employees (includes women and children and is not confined to factories). * Interpolated — $6-$8 equals 10.12 percent; $8-$10, 18.92 per cent. See California Bureau of Labor Statistics, ISth Biennial Report, p. 88 ff.; New Jersey Bureau of Statistics, 1907, p. 118; S7th Annual Report, Mis- souri Bureau of Labor Statistics and Inspection, p. 181 ff ; Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1904, p. 113; Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1907, p. 360; Wisconsin Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1904, p. 294. (Refer- ences are for data from which this table was compiled.) Digitized by Microsoft® INCOMES 65 markable similarity in the figures. About half of one per cent earn less than $6; 19 per cent to 27 per cent earn less than $9. This is really appalling. If, as is perfectly justifiable in the light of Chapter in, an allowance of two weeks is made for unemployment, one fourth of the full-grown men in next to the most important branch of American economic life earn less than $450 a year, and over half — weU up toward 60 per cent — receive less than $600. The course of wages in Massachusetts and New Jersey, as shown by the proportionate membership of various wage groups, for a series of years, has already been traced in the curves of Chart x (page 53), ' wherein it appears that although Massachusetts had a setback in 1904, due, probably, in part to a change of basis for the data, there is in progress a constant improvement. The most satisfactory wage statistics, however, are those published as Bulletin no. 93 of the permanent Census Bureau. In 1904, an investigation was made of 123,703, or 62.9 per cent, of the manufacturing establishments, and 3,297,819, or 47 per cent, of the wage-earners employed during the busy week.^ The crowning achievement of this investigation was the schedule copied as Table xxii in this essay. Assuming fifty weeks as the normal working year, this table shows 92,535 grown men earning less than $3 per week, or $150 per year; 338,635 receiving less than $5 weekly, or $250 annually; 1,116,199 paid no more than $8 a week, or $400 per annum; 2,009,914 who are compen- sated at less than $10 per week, or $500 yearly; and 2,664,349 who are not considered worth more than $12 a week, or $600 a year, to their employers. To these can be added at least half a million coal-miners and railroad hands, with the result that in manufacture, transportation, and mining over three million men, about half of whom bear the entire burden of supporting their families, are ' See Appendices A and B. * Census Bulletin, no. 93, p. 10. Digitized by Microsoft® 66 THE STANDARD OF LIVING TABLE XXII ESTIMATED DIBTRIBTTTION BT WEEKLY EABNINGS OF AVEBAGE NUMBEB OV ALL WAGE-EABNEBS, AND MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDBEN, 1905 ^ All Wage-eamsra Men 16 years and over Wtekly earning! Nutnber Percentage Cumulative Niitn hfir Percentage Cumulative in groups percBTitage 11 UitllfVvr in groups percentage Leas than $3 225,793 4.1 100.0 92,536 2.2 100.0 $3 to $4 264,626 4.8 95.9 96,669 2.3 97.8 4 to 6 340,113 6.2 91.1 149,531 3.5 95.5 5 to 6 863,693 6.7 84.9 177,550 4.2 92.0 6 to 7 454,285 8.3 78.2 272,288 6.4 87.8 7 to 8 453,203 8.3 69.9 327,726 7.7 81.4 8 to 9 423,689 7.8 61.6 336,669 7.9 73.7 9 to 10 619,465 11.3 53.8 557,046 13.1 65.8 10 to 12 708,858 13.0 42.5 664,435 15.4 62.7 12 to 15 741,036 13.5 29.5 714,816 16.9 37.3 15 to 20 618,314 11.3 16.0 609,797 14.4 20.4 20 to 25 171,844 3.1 4.7 170,571 4.0 6.0 25 and over 85,402 1.6 1.6 85,006 2.0 2.0 Total 6,470,321 100.0 4,244,638 100.0 Women 16 yeara OTld over Children under 16 yean Leas than $3 77,826 7.3 100.0 65,432 34.7 100.0 $3 to $4 115,741 10.9 92.7 62,316 32.7 65.3 4 to 5 158,926 14.9 81.8 31,666 19.8 32.6 5 to 6 173,713 16.3 66.9 12,430 7.8 12.8 6 to 7 176,224 16.6 50.6 6,773 3.6 6.0 7 to 8 124,061 11.7 34.1 1,416 0.9 1.4 8 to 9 86,467 8.1 22.4 653 0.3 0.5 9 to 10 62,193 6.8 14.3 226 0.1 0.2 10 to 12 64,340 5.1 8.5 83 0.1 0.1 12 to 15 26,207 2.6 8.4 13 (a) (a) 15 to 20 8,616 0.8 0.9 1 (a) (a) 20 to 25 1,273 0.1 0.1 25 and over 397 1,065,884 (a) (a) Total 159,899 (a) Less than one tenth of 1 per cent. unable to command incomes of $600 per year. It must be remembered that persons occupied in the mechanical pur- suits, three fourths of those engaged in trade and transport- ation, and all those interested in the field of domestic and personal service, in fact about one half of the men more or ' Census BvUetin, no. 93, p. 13. Digitized by Microsoft® INCOMES 67 less directly connected with manufacturing and urban pur- suits, have been left entirely out of this account. It would be conservative to estimate the number of adult males, usually classed as industrial workers and persons engaged in personal service, who receive less than $600 a year for their labor, at five million. Again, by multiplying the figures for persons engaged in manufactures, some of the building trades, coal-mining, clerks in trade and transport- ation, and bartenders, and of the railway employees, as classified in the abstract of the TweKth Census and the Statistical Report of the Interstate Commerce Commission (figures of 1900), by the percentages which may be readily calculated from those given by the Commissioner of Labor, it is developed that 4,979,000 adult males are employed at less than $12 a week, the equivalent of $600 a year.' Since many trades are not mentioned at all in this computation, it is safe to consider the five million before mentioned as a conservative estimate of the number of male industrial workers who do not earn $600 a year. Professor Ryan wrote, "the conclusion seems justified that at least 60 per cent of male workers in the cities of the United States are to-day (1905) receiving less than $600 annually." ^ Many families, however, have other sources of income than the father. Of the families having children, treated in the Eighteenth Annual Report of the United States Com- missioner of Labor, 30.73 per cent of those in Connecticut and 57.85 per cent of those in Georgia sent some of their children to work. Children formed 4.7 per cent of all workers in this canvass, and 22.19 per cent of the house- holds had incomes from their labor. Women made con- tributions to the resources of 8.54 per cent of the families; boarders and lodgers increased spending power in 23.26 per cent of the class; and other sources supplied funds in 14.35 per cent.' The result was that, whereas the average • 18th Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, p. 283. * A Living Wage, p. 162. ' See Table xxn. Digitized by Microsoft® 68 THE STANDARD OF LIVING earnings of heads of families were $621.12, the average family income was $749.50.' Of the normal families, 21.2 per cent had incomes of less than $500 and 41.52 percent of less than $600.^ In the Massachusetts investigation of 1901, it was found that of the 152 famiUes, 127 considered it necessary to augment the earnings of the father, raising the average income in a manner still more notable, from $594 to $877.84.3 The incomes of families of Maine laborers, in 1900, averaged $500.25, of bleachery employees $449.06, and of machinists $602.93.* In 1891 the average income of 2132 households dependent on the cotton in- dustry was $657.76.^ On the other hand, there were probably in St. Paul, in 1906, 1000 families that could not obtain $300 for their labor.* A generalization as to the incomes of American industrial households seems impos- sible, but the most comprehensive results so far obtained, those of the Bureau of Labor, place the resources of 41.52 per cent of normal families below $600, and of 21 per cent below $500. 1 18th Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, p. 57. 2 Ibid., p. 583 (calculated). ' Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1901, p. 281 ff. * Maine Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1900, p. 24 ff. ' 7th Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, vol. ii, p. 851. « David Morgan, N. C. C. C, 1907. p. 366. Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER V HOUSING In the chapter on budgets it was shown that providing a home is one of the most serious of the problems of the work- ing people. They do not exaggerate the importance of a suitable habitation, for upon it depends to a large extent the comfort of their hves. A good house is something more than a shelter from wind and wet: it should invite the inflow of enough good air for ventilation; it should wel- come the drying, cheering sunlight; it should facilitate the sanitary disposal of waste materials; it should encourage cleanliness by making neatness possible; and it should be well supplied with water. To meet the demands of physical life alone, every one of these requirements must be ful- filled, but the dwelling must undergo severe criticism on another basis. Unless the habitation has a room fit for the entertainment of company, social intercourse, with all its importance for pleasure and culture, is embarrassed. More vital than either of these functions of the house is the opportunity it affords for home life. Home should be the pleasantest place for the children to pass their time, should be the force that makes their moral nature strong. There is a minimum of food without which the human animal will starve, but there seems to be no limit to the squalor that may characterize his habitation.' On the other hand, "Generally speaking, those who rent homes, whether the same be private residences, flats in modern apartment houses, or rooms in ordinary tenements, are sure to secure the very best that even by pinching in other 1 Fonnan, N. C. C. C, 1906, p. 345. Digitized by Microsoft® 70 THE STANDARD OF LIVING directions their means can be made to cover." ' Thus, though poverty can and often does drive men to live in the meanest hovels, they naturally seize the first opportunity to move to better quarters. Your friend may not see the holes in your socks; you cannot deceive him so easily if your window panes are broken. So pride encourages every man to hire the best house he can afford. Perhaps because it is so big physically, the tenement house is the first object of reform in most commimities that attack the problem of homes. A tenement house, in the law, is generally a building occupied by three or more families living independently of each other and doing their cooking on the premises. On Manhattan Island alone, there were, in 1900, 42,700 of these structures inhabited by some 367,461 families, comprising 1,585,000 persons. The mean size of households was 4.31 individuals, and there were, on the average, 7.78 families to the house. ^ So densely was the city populated that 16,647 of these houses were inhabited by 40 or more persons each, and 22,996 by 30 or more.' This great development of tenement houses seems to be necessitated by the rapid increase of popula- tion in the city; it is difficult to provide proper accommo- dation for all the people, and so rents are placed outrage- ously high. One result is the "rent strike" which occurs every year or two on the lower East Side. Another result is that "the poor have taken lodgers, in consequence of which the ' one-room family ' is becoming common in New York. That is, where a flat of three rooms should hold one family, it is made to hold three, so that together they may make the rent." * Something of the exorbitance of these rents was revealed in the chapter on budgets, but it may be well to cite a few of them. Prices for apartments vary ■ New Jersey Bureau of Statistics of Labor and Induslries, 1907, p. 206. ' DeForest and VeiUer, Tenement House Problem, vol. i, p. 211. • Ibid., p. 212. ' Riis, Charities and the Commons, vol. xviii, p. 77. Digitized by Microsoft® HOUSING 71 with the location in the city, the position of the rooms in the house (front or rear), and the side of the street. In 1900, a two-room tenement in New York City could be hired for from $8 to $10 a month, three rooms at $8 to $15, four rooms at $13 to $17, and five rooms for about $23.' Since that time rentals have risen. Many families plan to keep their monthly rent exactly equal to a week's wages and move to better or worse quarters as their earniags in- crease or decrease : the necessity of thus devoting approxi- mately 25 per cent of the income to securing shelter shows how high the rents really are.* Some families seem to have a chronic mania for moving; oftentimes they "jump the rent." This practice is another factor in making it difficult for honest people to provide for their needs — the land- lord must charge heavily for his risk. At the time of the great investigation by VeiUer and DeForest, there were in New York City over 350,000 dark rooms distributed among some 40,000 houses.^ Such a room, without direct communication with the outside air. Is unfit for a sleeping-apartment; in fact, its right to exist for any purpose can well be questioned; yet here were those 350,000 dark, unventilated chambers, most of them bed- rooms. Halls and cellars were dark and damp and dirty; airshafts were so small as to merit the epithet "culture tubes " for disease germs; water-supply was frequently very inadequate. Much plumbing was chronically in acute dis- order; the water-closets, inadequately flushed, were often filthy with excreta drying on the wood-work, and were sometimes papered with the advertisements of quacks. Bathrooms were almost unknown.^ There is more truth than humor in that oft-repeated phrase, "he uses his bath- tub for a coal-bin." "In New York only 306 people out of • DeForest and Veiller, Tenement House Prohlem, vol. ii, p. 439. ' More, Wage-Earners' Budgets, p. 137. • DeForest, Charities and the Commons, vol. xi, p. 356. • Almost all of these facts from The Tenement House Prohlem. Digitized by Microsoft® 72 THE STANDARD OF LIVING 255,033 considered by Mr. Gilder's committee, and only two per cent of the population studied by the Bureau of Labor, had access to baths inside the houses which they occupied." ^ The complete story, however, cannot be told by the sanitarian. When many families live in the same house, there is little possibility of privacy. If, as often happened, the only source of water was a hydrant in the yard, or, at best, a faucet in the hall, there was a strong force working to breakdown all modesty. Grown girls stripped to the waist, would go to the sink to wash. Not simply this : in the tene- ment house family quarrels are public property. Every one knows when his neighbor comes home drunk, and when he beats his wife. All this was degrading; but far worse was the great evil of sexual immorality. Many a tenement house harbored a prostitute, who made no secret of her profession. Dangerous to young men she certainly was; her life of apparent ease was even more a snare to the girls. Who would not like leisure and fine clothes? Since the material for that report was gathered. New York has obtained an excellent tenement -house law. For the first two years Robert DeForest was its administrator, and so well did he enforce it that there has been very sub- stantial improvement. New York tenements were prac- tically freed from prostitutes by 1903.^ The sanitary evils were harder to deal with, but the grossest have been cor- rected. The case of this great city is cited at such length to illustrate the tendency in all municipalities if housing con- ditions are not closely watched. After all, the problem can be summed up in the words of DeForest and Veiller, "Ade- quate light, air, perfect sanitation, even passable home en- vironment cannot be provided by the best tenement house which is commercially possible on Manhattan Island." ' 1 Committee of Fifty, SubstitiUes for the Saloon, p. 211. • DeForest, Charities and the Commons, vol. xi, p. 179. • DeForest and Veiller, The Tenement House Problem, vol. i, p. 6. ) Digitized by Microsoft® HOUSING 73 The latest data on the subject of housing in New York City are furnished by Dr. Chapin. In most quarters of that city four-room apartments cost more than $14 a month, and prices are not much lower in the other bor- oughs. ^ Dark rooms are stiU so common as to be included in the apartments of 53 per cent of the families with in- comes of over $400, and of 38 per cent of the families with incomes over $1100. Not more than a quarter of families with incomes below $1100 have bathrooms, and less than a third have private toilets. Considering a fam- ily to be overcrowded if there are more than l}4 persons to the room, 50 per cent of all the households canvassed were overcrowded. Surely, if there has been improve- ment since 1900, it was sorely needed. However, "it is only in very large cities that there exists what might be called a 'tenement-house problem,' although in nearly every city there is a housing problem." * In the typical case, some fine old mansion, abandoned as its old tenants moved to new and fashionable neighbor- hoods, is occupied by three or four families; the germ of the tenement system has found lodgment; and unless speedy steps are taken, the municipality will awake some day to find that a radical reform is necessary to purify its slums. The problems of city lite are almost always complicated by the country people, who are completely ignorant of urban hygiene. In all the large cities of New York State — Buf- falo, Albany, Troy, Syracuse, and Rochester — there are housing problems.' Crossing the Hudson brings to light an interesting condition. The New York law was so well en- forced that many sweatshops were driven across the river into New Jersey. There, Jersey City has tenement houses as noxious as those in Manhattan, save that most of them are of a more primitive type, the converted dv/elling. In * Chapin, Standard of Living in New York City, p. 75 ff. ' Veiller, A. A. A., vol. xxv, p. 251. • Devine, Ckaritiea and the Commom, vol. vii, p. 491. Digitized by Microsoft® 74 THE STANDARD OF LIVING this city about 41 per cent of the families, canvassed in 1902, lived in apartments of three rooms, or less,' and "a light bedroom is more the exception than the rule." In 9 per cent of the apartments at that time there was a ratio of 2.5 persons to one room. Now, however, this state has an excellent tenement-house law and a vigilant commission to enforce it. Farther south, Philadelphia, with its rows on rows of attractive four- or six-room dwellings, still has troubles of its own. Although it is possible to hire small attractive residences for from $8 to $25 per month, and only 1.44 per cent of the popidation live in tenement houses,^ yet there is great crowding in some districts, especially in the Italian quarter,' and many small rear dwellings on back alleys are to be found.* Some families occupy cellars,' and in many places the ground is wretchedly drained. Obtrusive privy-vaults are often in evidence,* and sinks not infrequently discharge into the yards. Comparatively, Philadelphia is very for- tunate; absolutely, however, even she is cursed with noisome housing conditions. Other cities in the East either have bad housing condi- tions or are threatened with such trouble, — Baltimore,^ Boston,* and Portland,' for example; but in the West there is one tendency toward a slightly different problem. In Chicago, for instance, near the stockyards, there exist street after street of dilapidated shanties absolutely devoid of apology for sanitary arrangements.'" There is danger, too, from apartment houses that threaten to become as unwholesome as the old New York tenements. Sometimes small one- or two-story buildings are used by three or four » Sayles, A. A. A., vol. xx, p. 139 ff. ' A. A. A., vol. xx, p. Ill ff. » N. C. C. C, 1906, p. 683. 4 A. A. A., vol. xx, p. 116. ' Charities and the Commona, vol. xii, p. 492. • Ibid., vol. xiv, p. 633. ' Ibid., vol. xviii, p. 137. ' A. A. A., vol. xx, p. 123. ' Maine Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics, 1907, p. 160. " Charities and the Comnums, vol. xv, p. 455 ff. Digitized by Microsoft® HOUSING 75 families.* Cincinnati, also, has its tenement district, with the accompanying dark rooms, and dangerous water- closets, of which, in one district, 51 per cent were found out of repair at an inspection in IQOS.'' Tenements, fewer than those in New York, but about as pernicious, exist in Milwaukee.^ In 1904, one third of Cleveland tenement- house families had only one sleeping-room each, and in that city 45 per cent of the apartments harbored three persons to a bedroom.* This municipality, having re- cently adopted a new law, is on the road to improvement. In Washington, in 1904, there could be found many blind alleys, where the annual death-rate of negro babies was 457 per 1000.^ "These people lived in pig-sties because some man would rather have 25 per cent profit than keep his soul." Los Angeles has a "Sonoratown," where, in the inner courts of the fine old adobe mansions, the poor of Spanish blood inhabit shacks and tents and sheds.* New Orleans possesses its "Little Palermo," a slum in which disease finds a worthy ally in the hot weather.' So the recital could continue, mentioning city after city,, each with troubles of its own, different in kind and degree, but alike in their call for a remedy. Within the last five years, the municipalities have been waking to their con- dition, and passing laws, but reform is slow work. Take Pittsburg for example: "Last winter the Pittsburg Survey, cooperating with the Bureau of Health, con- ducted a special investigation of the housing situation in Pittsburg. Its purpose was a general stock-taking from the point of view of sanitary regulation. Evil conditions were found to exist in every section of the city. Over the omnipresent vaults, graceless privy-sheds flouted one's 1 N. C. C. C, 1902, p. 343 fif. 2 A. A. A., vol. XX, p. 99 fif.; N. C. C. C. 1903, p. 352. ' Wisconsin Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1906, p. 309 ff. * Charities and the Commons, vol. xii, pp. 346 ff., 351. ' Ibid., vol. xii, p. 66. • Ibid., vol. XV, p. 295. ' Ibid., vol. xv, p. 162. Digitized by Microsoft® 76 THE STANDARD OF LIVING sense of decency. Eyrie rookeries, perched on the hillsides, were swarming with men, women, and children, — entire families living in one room and accommodating 'boarders' in a corner thereof. Cellar rooms were the abiding-places of other families. In many houses water was a luxury to be obtained only through much efifort of toiling steps and straining muscles. Courts and alleys fouled by bad drain- age and piles of rubbish were playgrounds for rickety, pale-faced, grimy children. An enveloping cloud of smoke and dust, through which light and air must filter, made housekeeping a travesty in many neighborhoods; and every phase of the situation was intensified by the evil of over- crowding — of houses upon lots, of families into houses, of people into rooms." ' Since that survey, a tenement-house law has been passed and fifty thousand people have been supplied with sanitary accommodations. Yet "the tenement-house dwell- ings, for three or more families, are, when all is said and done, but a small part of the homes of the wage-earning population. The great housing problem in Pittsburg is that of the one- or two-family dwellings. Here is a field where even more exacting sanitary work and regulation must be done in the ensuing years."'' It is at least a ten years' task to make all the dwellings of this city fit for human habitation. Such is the situation in the larger cities; everywhere there are unwholesome housing conditions, evils that men often attack, but which are strongly intrenched. "And yet the problem of the better housing of the working people exists in the small towns and villages just as cer- tainly as in the larger cities." Dr. Bogart has shown that Yonkers had just as hard a battle to fight, with slums as pernicious as those of New York itself.' The New Jersey ' Charities and the Commons, vol. xxi, p. 871. ' Ibid., vol. xxi, p. 871. ' Economic Studies, vol. iii, ■passim. Digitized by Microsoft® HOUSING 77 Tenement House Commission has found that even the hamlets of the state have houses which in many cases re- veal as unsanitary conditions as those in the larger cities.* An investigation by Albion F. Bacon revealed extremely unsanitary conditions in the towns of Indiana.^ Thus even the smaller communities are afflicted. At the risk of tediousness, a word must be spoken of the homes in semi-rural localities. In the anthracite coal district, although some companies provide substantial dwellings for their men, others rent their employees shacks, assessed on the tax-books at $10 to $100, for $1.75 to $3 per month.' Some of the miners are able to care for small gardens of their own and live in private houses, well built and neatly painted; but the danger of "cave-ins" is so great that many companies dare not sell land. Other operators desire to hold title so that in case of strike they may be in a position to discomfort their employees by evicting them from their homes. The Lehigh Coal Com- pany has adopted a more liberal policy, and about 27 per cent of its employees own their dwellings. In the Southern mill towns conditions are about at their worst. A mill will own a group sometimes reaching six hundred cottages which it will rent for $.50 per room per month, or more. The rent is often deducted from wages, and some- times includes fuel or the right to cut firewood in the company timber lots. Some of these dwellings are neither sheathed, plastered, nor papered, and the tenants suffer intensely from the occasional cold weather.* Of these dwellings Miss Van Vorst writes: "It is defamation to use the word 'home' in connection with the unwholesome shanty in the pest-ridden district where the remnant of the children's lives not lived in the mill is passed. This ' Charities and the Commons, vol. xiii, p. 666. 2 Ibid., vol. xxi, p. 376. ' Roberts, Anthracite Coal Communities, chap, v, pt. i, p. 125. ' < Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics qf Labor, 1905, p. 68 ff. Digitized by Microsoft® 78 THE STANDAED OF LIVING handful of unpainted huts, raised on stilts from the soil, fever-ridden, and malarious; this blank ugly line of sun- blistered shanties, along a road, yellow and deep, is a mill village. . . . There is not a garden within miles, not a flower, scarcely a tree." ' In conclusion the words of a United States Department of Labor Inspector may fitly epitomize the situation. In 1895, Clare de Graffenried said : "Almost every small manufacturing town is in great peril from unnecessary and preventable overcrowding. — Build- ings are multiplied on the smallest spaces. Barracks are put up holding from ten to fifty families, in which as many as possible of the foreign element congregate." ^ No discussion of housing would be complete without some mention of the boarder and the lodger. Young men and women, who are attracted to the city from the country by the hope of earning large wages, must be given a place to sleep; even some people of urban descent are homeless and are compelled to find rooms among strangers. In many municipalities, the Young Men's Christian Associa- tion and the Young Women's Christian Association fur- nish dormitories and maintain lists of reputable places where rooms and board may be obtained. Working-girls' clubs exist in other cities, but these agencies are woefully inadequate to the need.' Ten per cent of the women of Pittsburg live in lodging-houses; paying $.75 to $1.00 per month for rent and cooking and dividing the food ex- penses pro rata (about $1.50 per week) ; from one to twenty young men often inhabit a single small dwelling with a boarding boss and his wife.* In Boston 25 per cent of those engaged in manufacturing and mechanical trades, and 17 per cent of those occupied in domestic service and personal service, are lodgers.^ In 1905 there were in New » Van Vorst, The Woman Who Toils, p. 278. 2 N. C. C. C, 1895, p. 103. • Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, no. 15. * Charities and the Commons, vol. xxi, p. 641. » Ibid., vol. xix, p. 967 ff. Digitized by Microsoft® HOUSING 79 York 16,470 beds in licensed lodging-houses to rent at from $.10 to $.30 per night.^ The Eighteenth Annual Re- port of the Commissioner of Labor showed that in the 25,440 families investigated, native Americans have one boarder to every 3.022 families, and one lodger to every 19.844, while the corresponding figures for the foreign-born are 2.495 and 9.244.^ Thus 5918, or over 23 per cent of the households canvassed, took boarders or lodgers, deriv- ing therefrom an average annual revenue of $250.77.* The reason that so many families receive these strangers into their homes is that rents are high and incomes are in- sufficient. Otherwise so many households would not sacri- fice their own privacy. Of course, many of these boarders are unmarried relatives, who can hardly be called outsid- ers; yet the fact remains that many are in no way con- nected with their landlords, but are entire strangers. Tenure of homes is another important consideration. The report of the Commissioner of Labor on "The Cost of Living" showed that 19,090 families rented their homes at a mean yearly cost of $116.55 or $24.62 per room. The other 4357 families owned their houses; of these 1243 paid an average of $147.50 on the principal of mortgages and 2029 paid an average of $54.58 interest.^ The mean expense to those owning encumbered houses was $138.59, and only 10.63 per cent of all families owned their houses clear of encimibrance.^ Thus it was found less expensive to hire a dwelling than to possess a mortgaged building, though the hired houses had only 4.73 rooms on the aver- age and the owned residences 5.92. Basing his conclusions largely on the figures of the Twelfth Census, Mr. Hunter says: "Probably no wage-earners in Manhattan own their homes, and in several other large cities probably 99 per 1 Charities and the Commons, vol. xiii, p. 486 ff. ' 18th Annual Report of the Comm.iasioner of Labor, p. 22 (calculated). » IKd., pp. 362, 366. * Ibid., pp. 365-370. » Ibid., p. 52 ff. Digitized by Microsoft® 80 THE STANDARD OF LIVING cent of the wage-earners are propertyless. The significant thing in this lack of ownership Ues in the fact that a very large majority, probably 90 per cent, of the workingmen in the cities and industrial communities, are propertyless." * So far this chapter has been a mere recital of the char- acteristics of the homes of the working people, residences of the lowest class, it is true, but buildings which shelter millions of laborers' families.^ Doubtless there are many better dwellings and many happy households; yet there must be all gradations between the extremes of squalor and comfort, and, therefore, many persons must be doomed to occupy unwholesome tenements. What is the result? Miss Jane Addams says: "In reality the idea of a home reaches back so much further than the four walls, and is so much more deeply implanted in the human breast than the ownership of land that we do not need to fear a new type of house will destroy it."' Her beUef may be said to find some confirmation in the statistics of the Depart- ment of Labor, for, of the homes which were investigated in 1901, it was found that, as to sanitation, 63.94 per cent were good, 29.33 per cent fair, and 6.73 per cent bad; as to furniture, 64.16 per cent were good, 25.84 per cent fair, and 10 per cent poor; on the other hand, in 81.37 per cent clean- liness was classed as good, in 12.61 per cent as fair, and in 6.02 per cent as bad. Thus, amid sanitary and monetary handicaps, people strove to keep their houses in good order.* Yet Mr. Gould in the Eighth Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor, is probably nearer the truth: "There need be no caviling as to the relative merits of block dwellings and small individual homes. No matter how excellent the accommodation, no matter what pre- cautions are taken to secure self-containment and isola- • Hunter, Poverty, p. 42; see also Abstract from Twelfth Census, p. 133 ff. ' There were 11,326,658 persons living in houses inhabited by 11 persons or more in 1900. Abstract from Twelfth Census, p. 27. » A. A. A., vol. XX, p. 102. * 18th Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, p. 21. Digitized by Microsoft® HOUSING 81 tion, home in a tenement building can never be what it is where a single roof covers a single family." ^ "Those who have studied bad housing find in it one of the worst evils of the day." " The first count against the tenement house is physio- logical. Perhaps the worst effect is on the children: "the overcrowding of tenements is an excellent reason for the late hours at which young children of the poor go to bed; it being hardly possible for the children to sleep in the midst of work and talk, until they are thoroughly ex- hausted. As a matter of fact, children of four and five years are often awake until nine or ten o'clock at night." ' Such late hours deprive the little ones of needed sleep, interfere with their physical growth, and injure their nervous development; moreover, life in overcrowded buildings deprives even adults of an adequate opportunity of recuperation. So hot are these structures in summer that comfort is sought on the roofs and fire escapes. "When we were at the Board of Health some years ago," said the Earl of Shaftesbury, "we instituted inquiries in these low and miserable neighborhoods to find what was the amount of labor lost in a year, not by illness but by sheer exhaustion and inability to do the work. We foimd upon the lowest average that every workman or work- woman lost about twenty days a year from sheer exhaus- tion."* In addition to the devitalizing influence of in- sufficient rest, drainage from sinks and vaults escaping onto the ground, filthy water-closets, and close physical proximity foster germ diseases. Lack of proper light and ventilation, faulty bathing facilities, and damp cellars undermine vitality as surely and as silently as the bacillus tuberculosis waits to seize every opportunity to do mis- chief. An investigation in Berlin some years ago revealed ' 8th Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor, p. 176. ' Bacon, Charities and the Commons, vol. xxi, p. 382. ' City Wilderness, p. 67. * Quoted in Poverty, p. 156. Digitized by Microsoft® 82 THE STANDARD OF LIVING the fact that the death-rate for families occupying one room was 163.5 per thousand, for families occupying two rooms 22.5 per thousand, three rooms 7.5, and four rooms, or more, 5.4.'- The case against crowding in houses on sanitary grounds is fully established. But there are other counts. "It may be taken as an axiom that if you make the workman's home comfortable, he will give up the public house and its ruinous conse- quences; and that when the workingman's home is little better than a pig-sty, that man will always be an inhab- itant of the public house or beer shop."^ "Wherever corporations furnish unhealthy home surroundings, the evils of intemperance will be more or less felt in all the directions in which the results of ruin find their wonderful ramifications." ' When two such authorities as E. R. L. Gould and Carroll D. Wright agree in this fashion, there can be little doubt that bad housing does impel men to the use of intoxicants. Again, bad housing has an important psychological effect. A filthy environment tends to cultivate individ- ual habits of negligence. Familiarity with ugliness and dirt is degrading. Moreover, "it is bad for people to be crowded into barrack-like tenement houses, for such massing inspires the cheese-mite consciousness, makes the self count for nothing." * "Close relations to a few people — as in a well-knit family — joined to a vivid sense of obligation to the community, seem to be more favorable to stable character than the loose touch-and-go associa- tions of general intercourse." ' In other words, Professor Ross holds that life in a crowded district checks the growth of individuality and of stable character. Mr. Veiller thinks that one of the serious effects of the tenement house is a ' Riis, Charities and the Commons, vol. xviii, p. 77. ' Municipal Affairs Magazine, March, 1899. ' Quoted from Anthracite Coal Communities, p. 350. * Ross, Social Psychology, p. 88. ' Ibid., p. 88. Digitized by Microsoft® HOUSING 83 nervous friction of life on life which forces people to live under constant nervous strain.^ But the worst effects are on the moral nature itself. The sense of modesty is endangered; children sleeping in the same rooms as their parents learn many things they would better not know; and the evil associations in crowded districts, combined with the lack of opportunity to play, seriously impair the morals of the boys and girls. "Professor Huxley, who once lived as a medical oflScer in the east of London, spoke out of his personal knowledge when he declared that the sur- roundings of the savages of New Guinea were much more conducive to the leading of decent existence than those in which many of the 'east enders' live." ^ In the tene- ment and in the hovel the high type of family life which is indispensable to the mental and moral development of normal man is impossible. When it was said that the tenure of homes is a matter of importance, no attempt was made to justify the state- ment. The significance of propertylessness is appreciated by Robert Hunter, who writes: "A property less person is one without any economic reserve power. He is in no position to ward oflE the sufferings which must frequently come to most persons depending wholly upon their ability to labor and upon demand, in the community, for their services. Security of livelihood in the present state of society comes only with the possession of property." * Yet the lack of property has a deeper meaning, "the pro- tection and care of a piece of property makes for thought- fulness and steadiness, individualizes." ^ "Personal pos- session brings with it a sense of responsibility and social worth. It materially enhances the productive capacity of the individual." ^ Thus this lack of real property deprives the workingman of a possession which would 1 A. A. A., vol. XXV, p. 254. ^ Strong, New Era, p. 193. • Poverty, p. 46. " Ross, Social Psychology, p. 89. ' Roberts, Anthracite Coal Communities, chap, v, pt. 4. Digitized by Microsoft® 84 THE STANDARD OF LIVING be valuable, both as a resource in times of economic trouble, and as an influence to steady, frugal habits. But there is another side to the question. It is often a positive disadvantage to the workman to own his house, for his employment may change at any time, and he may then find his home very inconveniently located. Moreover, if he live in a town dominated by a single industry, home ownership would seriously hinder his defense of his rights in a disagreement with his employers. On the whole, then, it may be just as well that workingmen do not own their houses. The large lodging-houses, too, have grievous faults. The isolated life postpones marriage and fosters selfish- ness.^ The houses often lack parlors; so, if social life is not absolutely prohibited, visitors must be entertained in the rooms. What immorality this practice may lead to can never be known. At any rate, such life is unnatural, it lacks every vestige of ennobling family intercourse. The housing problem, then, is omnipresent in the United States. In most large cities, and in many smaller ones, the more poorly recompensed laborers inhabit tenements. They pay exorbitant rents for dark or dingy rooms lack- ing in proper toilet and bathing facilities. High rentals make it necessary to accommodate boarders and lodgers, thus fearfully overcrowding the small apartments. The result is that the morals of the children are endangered and vice is rampant among their elders, that individuality is crushed out, and that adequate rest cannot be obtained by workers. There are millions who occupy such tenement houses. Even where these habitations are unknown, how- ever, just as intolerable sanitary conditions exist, whether it be in the small houses of Philadelphia, the shanties of Chicago, the once stately mansions of Southern California, the country barracks of New Jersey, or the draughty huts of the Southern mill towns. Everywhere the homes of 1 Wolfe, Charities and the Command, vol. xix, p. 961. Digitized by Microsoft® HOUSING 85 the poor are not only unattractive, but repellent — filthy, disease-breeding : boys and girls are driven into the streets, men into the saloon. Workmen can no longer generally own their homes — thus they lose the steadying effect of proprietorship, they have less incentive to thrift, and they are less likely to be such reliable citizens as of old. Again, boarders and lodgers, men and women with no family attachment, complicate the situation. Beyond doubt the homes of several million laborers are far below a reasonable standard for comfort and for morality. It should be possible to keep these dwellings at least clean and neat; they should certainly have good light and venti- lation, sanitary toilet facilities, abundant water, and sleep- ing-apartments numerous enough for decency. These reasonable demands of the most modest standard are all too frequently unheeded. They find no place in the stand- ard of living of countless American laborers. Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER VI FOOD Food has two main functions, the furnishing of heat with which to run the bodily machine, and the supplying of matter with which worn-out tissue is replaced or new tissue formed. Some substances ordinarily taken as foods seem to perform neither of these offices, but cause a flow of the digestive juices, or act upon the nerves. Aside from its physiological use, food is an important social stimulus. It is certainly not going too far to say that the table is the centre of a large part of modern life. Not to mention the really worthy pleasures to be derived there from tastes and aromas, the genial conversation makes men better. This is the ideal — however feebly, every household is creeping toward it. Since physical health is indispensable to the highest intellectual development, food is the foundation of mental as well as bodily efficiency. Properly to perform its physi- ological functions, diet must have two constituents — proteids, for body building, and fats and carbohydrates to furnish energy, whether for immediate use or to be stored against future demands. The proteids, it is true, may act as fuel, but in this capacity they are uneconomical, for not only are they poor heat producers, but they leave what Professor Irving Fisher calls "clinkers," compounds that are worthless or harmful, and that have to be ex- pelled from the body. On the other hand, when fats and carbohydrates are used as fuel, they burn to water and carbon dioxide, two easily eliminated substances. For immediate availability, carbohydrates are the best food, Digitized by Microsoft® FOOD 87 but fats are more concentrated, and can be stored in the body for future consumption. Although there has been much discussion as to the amount of food really needed by human beings, the ques- tion has never been settled. Professor W. O. Atwater concluded that a man at moderately active work should have 115 grams, or .25 pound, of available protein, and enough fats and carbohydrates to produce in all 3400 calories of heat."^ A man at hard muscular work requires 20 per cent more, a woman 20 per cent less, and so on. These figures have hardly been improved, and are used in many recent dietary computations. In determining whether a family is sufficiently fed, it is customary to count the man as 1.00, his wife as .90, a child between 11 and 14 inclusive as .90, a child 7 to 10 as .75, one 4, 5, or 6 as .40, and one under 3 as .15.^ By adding the decimals corresponding to the ages and sex of the members of the household, its food requirement can be reduced to terms of adult males. For example, a family consisting of father, mother, and three children, aged 2, 5, and 12, would require the food of 1.00 + .90 +.15 + .40 +.90, or 3.35 adult males. Thus, if it is known what victuals a household uses, by means of the figure expressing its nutrition requirement and of tables showing the food and fuel value of the substances pur- chased, the adequacy of the family diet can be deter- mined.^ But the economists have not been content with this tedious method of calculation; it is too difficult to apply. So various efforts have been made to ascertain the minimum monetary equivalent of 115 grams of proteids and 3400 calories. In 1896, after long experimentation. Professor Atwater estimated the minimum cost of neces- sary food at $.23 to $.25 per man per day in the cities of New York and New England. Professor Frank P. Under- • Farmer^ Bulletin, no. 142, p. 48. ' 18th Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, p. 102. ' See tables in Farmers' Bulletin, no. 142. Digitized by Microsoft® 88 THE STANDAED OF LIVING hill, of Yale, with a slightly different standard (100 to 125 grams protein and 2500 to 3000 calories) found that New York families were, in 1907, almost certainly under- nourished if they spent less than $.22 per man per day on food, and almost as surely well fed if they spent that sum, or more.^ The fixing of this standard afforded a short method of determining with approximate precision whether families in New York City are under-fed. On account of the great diversity of conditions, such a cri- terion for the United States as a whole is impossible. It is evident, then, that, in studying the problem of diet, the kind and amount of food purchased must be known, in order that its nutritive value may be calculated. But there is one other significant factor in studying the diet of the working people — its preparation. Professor At- water considered the cooking of foods very important, for seasoning has large effect on the juices, and stimulates the nerves; cooking changes the chemical composition, and thus alters both the digestibility and the nutritive value ;^ general appearance affects the appetite; and, both in the amount of material discarded and in use of fuel, preparation may be more or less wasteful. Home cooking, estimating labor as worth syi cents an hour, is from 30 per cent to 55 per cent cheaper than purchasing of the bakers.' As it is impossible to carry to completion wide studies involving all these elements, — kind, amount, and preparation of food, — the problem of nutrition can- not be thoroughly canvassed; yet some progress has been made toward definite conclusions. Before entering into an extended discussion of what is purchased by American workers, it may be well to note how much they spend for their nourishment. In Massa- chusetts, in 1885, the mean cost of food for some families * Chapin, Standard of Living in New Yorlc City, p. 126. ' See Farmers' Bulletin, no. 142, p. 30. ' American Statistical Association, vol. vii, p. 463. Digitized by Microsoft® FOOD 89 averaging 5.21 individuals, was $171.73, or 49.28 per cent of the total cost of living — $32.90 per person. * In that year average board could be procured for about $3.84 per week for men and $2.56 for women. Then, however, the prices of groceries were 16.18 per cent higher than in Great Britain, and board and lodging were 39.01 per cent higher; yet the average cost of living was only 17.29 per cent higher in Massachusetts. In 1896, M. Levasseur wrote that the American family spends $5 or $6 a week for food.^ How cheaply Italians live and work is recorded in the Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor no. 72.' They would pay a rental of $1 a month for a bunk in a shanty and expend from $5.13 to $5.50 for food during this period. Slavs and Hungarians spent from $8.50 to $10 on their diet. In these camps, the typical cost of living for six months was $48 for Italians, $72 for Slavs and Hungari- ans, and for other nationalities $108. The average weekly expenditure for nutrition of the Italians in Chicago ranged from $.67}^ per individual in families of 7 persons to $1.88}^ for men living alone. The average was $.82.* Dr. Forman found households living in Washington at the weekly rate of $.72 per man, the mean of 19 poor families being $1.08.^ In Wisconsin, in 1904, 423 families spent an average of $233.93, or 46 per cent of their incomes, for subsistence — $55.44 per year per member, or a little over a dollar a week.^ It is reported that some Western col- leges, which have farms of their own, are able to furnish board to their students at $.14 or $.15 per day. The free lunch, often furnished by saloons, plays an important part in the economy of many workingmen, and some women; one Chicago saloon "gives" away from $30 to $40 worth ' Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1885. ' Yale Review, vol. v, p. 126. ' Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, no. 72, p. 474, and no. 13, p. 725. « lUd., no. 13, p. 725. " Ibid., no. 64, p. 603. • Wisconsin Bureau of Labor, Census, and Industrial Statistics, 1905-06. Digitized by Microsoft® 90 THE STANDARD OF LIVING of food a day.' In the Bureau of Labor study of " The Cost of Living," it was found that for the normal famihes the mean outlay for food per adult male was $91.31, vary- ing from $94.54 in the North Atlantic Division to $79.26 in the South Central States — not an extremely wide dif- ference.^ It is interesting to note that, with the increase of children, the expenditure for nutriment per adult male (as well as per member of the family) fell very rapidly. Rating the families having no children 100, those having one child spent 90.24; two children, 80.01; five children, 54.67 per male adult. ^ It will be noticed that the average food expenditure throughout the country was $91.31, which is $1.76 per week, well above the safety limit set by Professor Underbill, $1.54. If this average means any- thing, it would indicate that the average families are well- fed. On the other hand. Table xxm would seem to prove that, at least among normal families, those having four or five children are under-fed according to the mone- tary standard for New York and New England cities. TABLE XXIII FOOD COST PEK ADULT MALE IN NORMAL FAMILIES' No. of children No, of/amilies Cast Cost per day No children 138 $121.01 $.331 One child 225 109.20 .295 Two children 256 96.82 .265 Three children 206 86.05 .236 Four children 152 75.52 .207 Five children 66 66.16 .181 Little can be learned, however, from considering aver- ages for a country over which food costs differ so widely as they must in the United States. It is, therefore, at least helpful to turn to some more specific dietaries. Dr. ' Substitutes for the Saloon, p. 17 ff . ' 18th Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, p. 105. » im., p. 107. « Ibid., p. 631. Digitized by Microsoft® FOOD 91 Roberts^ says that in the anthracite coal communities, the grocery bill of a Slav family will average $2.68 per capita per month, and that of an English-speaking family $5.68. The Slavs buy flour, barley, salt pork, potatoes, cabbages, barrel pickles, garlic, coffee, sardines (5 cents the can), eggs, and some butter and sugar. The English-speaking popula- tion adds to this list of purchases, ham, onions, bottled pickles, tea, lard, dried beef, spices, cakes or crackers, mackerel, canned tomatoes, peaches, apricots, cherries, lemons, cheese, sugar, butter, salmon, soap, rubbers, and brooms. Now, the Slavs are beginning to indulge in some luxuries, such as jam, prunes, and apple-butter. Many of these mine employees vary their diet with vegetables that they cultivate in their own gardens; in fact, some of the operating companies encourage this practice. On the whole, the lowest stratum of mine employees has good food both in variety and quantity. Among the foreign- born, the food is eaten at a clean wooden table, from an agate pan, with a pocket knife; but that does not seem to detract from its value. The factory people in Pittsburg are not so happily situ- ated as the nearby miners. A girl often makes her dinner of bread and jam, cake and pickles; or she may have cheese, sausage, or cold meat. At any rate, she habitually bolts her lunch in less than ten minutes, in order to have opportunity to talk during the major part of her nooning. The reason for this pitifully insufficient diet is well ex- pressed by Mrs. Van Vorst in describing her own experi- ence as a working- woman: "I am beginning to understand why the meagre lunches of preserves, sandwiches, and pickles more than satisfy the girls whom I was prepared to accuse of spending their money on gewgaws rather than on nourishment. It is fatigue that steals the appetite. I can hardly taste what I put in my mouth; the food sticks in my throat. I did not want wholesome food, exhausted 1 See Anthracite Coal Communities, chap, iv, pt. 3, p. 106. Digitized by Microsoft® 93 THE STANDAED OF LIVING as I was. I craved sours, and sweets, pickles, cake, any- thing to excite my numb taste." ^ Something similar is described by the author of "The Long Day," a bright young country girl, who, coming to New York to make her way after her parents had died, finally found that she fared best by accepting the free lunch, offered in the saloons. The girls in the "Pearl Laundry," where, for a while, she found employment, would eat for their noonday meal pickles and a ham sandwich. Once she asked a factory operative why she did not eat more and received this reply, "Me? Oh, I'm all right — I'm eating as much as I ever do. The work takes away my hunger. If it did n't, I don't know how I 'd get along. If I ate as much as you, I 'd be likely to starve to death. I could n't make enough to feed me. When I first begun to work in the factory, I'd eat three or four pieces of bread across the loaf, and potatoes and meat, and be hungry for things besides; but after a while you get used to being hungry for so long, you could n't eat if you had it to eat." ^ The anonymous writer believed this condition to be typical of the New York factory girls. They are so poorly paid that they cannot afford to be hungry, that they cannot even feel hunger. The Southern textile workers are an interesting folk, largely country people drawn to the mills by the hope of earning high wages. They forget to consider that they will have additional expenses and will be unable to raise their own vegetables. Of them the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor says: ' "The operatives of the South do not eat so much meat as those of the North, and, as one mill treasurer said, 'do not eat enough,' but exist on vegetables, chickens, and fruit. A Northern operative would find it rather diflBcult at first to become accustomed 1 Van Vorst, The Woman Who Toils, p. 39. 2 The Long Day, p. 129. ' Massachusetls Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1905, p. 67. Digitized by Microsoft® FOOD 9S to the kind of food and the method of cooking, but it is a fact that if he covld become used to it, he might in time live more cheaply in the South." It is left to the reader to infer that the Northerner would not and could not thrive on this diet. Miss Van Vorst vividly describes her first two meals in a boarding-house for cotton operatives: "On a tin saucepan there was a little salt pork, and on another dish a pile of grease-swimming spinach." The food was devoured in less than a quarter-hour, because the factory allowed only forty-five minutes nooning, and there was a mile walk each way between the house and the work. For supper these people ate fish, salt pork, and hominy. All was grease. It was very repulsive to a person of refinement, and was, moreover, physiologically inade- quate. This fact was strikingly expressed by one of the people themselves, who remarked to Miss Van Vorst, "'You all must of had good food whar you come from: your skin shows it; 't ain't much like hyarabouts. Why, I'd know a mill hand anywhar, if I met her at the North Pole — sailer, pale, sickly.' I might have added for him deathlike — skeleton — doomed." ^ This testimony of a cultured Northern woman who went and worked with the mill hands is of great value. These people are certainly insufficiently fed. One of the interesting facts developed by Dr. Forman in his study of the conditions of living among the poor of Washington is the important place occupied by bread in the dietaries of the indigent. According to his calcula- tion this justly named "staff of life" absorbed over a fifth of the expenditure for subsistence. In the week when outlay for nutrition was at its maximum, bread cost a typical family $1.17 (19.8 per cent of all), and at a time when food expenditure was at the opposite extreme, this household spent for bread $1.03 (24.5 per cent of all).* ' The Woman Who Toils, chap, vii, quotation on p. 239. * Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, no. 64, p. 601. Digitized by Microsoft® 94 THE STANDARD OF LIVING Bread and meat together comprised 60 per cent of the food consumed by these families; potatoes, coffee, and tea were other staples. Syrups, cheap preserves, and jel- lies were used to substitute for butter on bread; though fruits were little purchased, apples, pears, and grapes were most popular.* Among the poor generally the menu is characterized by the superlative importance of bread. ^ That the Italians of Chicago were not properly nourished was long suspected, because they were considered fit for the lighter forms of manual labor only, because they avoided the hospitals on the ground that they starved in these institutions, and because rickets was very prevalent among their children. The conclusions of the Bureau of Labor were that "it is probable that there are exceed- ingly few Italians in the city of Chicago who do not spend enough money upon their food to buy sufficient nutriment to keep their bodies in good condition, providing only the money is judiciously spent, and the food properly prepared. Except in rare cases, the Italians certainly eat enough." The fault with their diet is that there is an excess of fuel in the forms of wheat flour, pork, lard, and second-rate green vegetables. Beans, eggs, chicken, and cheese are sparingly indulged in. The large consumption of beer curtails the expenditure for more wholesome foods; the "Italian laborer frequently takes for his lunch only bread and peppers." The cooking is indefensibly uneconomical, and aggravates the malnutrition. Even the children are denied a milk diet and are fed the same unwholesome stuff that is eaten by their elders. Thus, the fault among these Italians is not lack of means to buy food, but unwise expenditure — the consumption of too much fuel and too little protein.' ' Bidletin of the Bureau of Labor, no. 64, p. 605. ' Charities and the Commons, vol. xvi, p. 193. • This may be found in full in Bulletin of the Department of Labor, no. 13, p. 721 S., or 9th Special Report of the United States Commissioner of Labor. Digitized by Microsoft® FOOD 95 ■ Returning to New York, Dr. Chapin's work includes an accurate estimate of the number of under-fed families among the workers. TABLE XXTV UNDEB-FED FAMILIES IN NEW TORK CITY* Income $400 to $599 $600 to $799 $800 to $899 $900 to $1099 Total families 25 151 73 94 Under-fed familiet Number Fer ceni 19 76 48 32 16 22 8 9 Total 391« 91 23.2 Of course these figures give no indication for the country as a whole, but they certainly do portray conditions as they exist in New York City. Exactly one third of the famihes with incomes between $400 and $900 are under-fed — do not spend $.22 per man per day for food. And this is true in a country that professes to lead civilization! TABLE XXV PER CENT OP TOTAL POOD EXPENDITTIBE INCUBHED FOB SPEC'lflC OBJECTS* NoHh South North Sovth United AUaniic Atlantic Central Central Western Statee Poultry, meat, fish 35.49 32.47 31.58 31.83 28.94 33.80 Eggs, milk, butter, cheese 22.19 19.09 20.61 17.27 20.73 21.26 Lard 2.41 4.26 3.22 4.89 1.76 2.86 Tea, sugar, coffee, 10.12 10.42 10.35 11.45 9.48 10.24 Flours, bread, rice 9.93 11.12 8.24 12.27 7.04 9.57 Vegetables, fruit 13.36 15.16 16.23 13.56 27.81 14.77 Other food 6.50 7.48 9.77 8.73 4.24 7.50 Table xxv exhibits the percentage of total expendi- ture for food incurred for various purposes by fam- ihes all over the United States. It shows that the normal outlay for meats is about 34 per cent of the total cost of food, for bread, flour, and rice, 9.57 per cent. An 1 Chapin, Standard of Living in New York City, p. 127. ' Total of families investigated. ' 18ih Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, p. 82. Digitized by Microsoft® 96 THE STANDARD OF LIVING interesting fact is the high proportionate expenditure for lard and for flour, bread, and rice in the Southern divis- ions — the old failing, too much fuel, and too little pro- teid. The West uses fruits and vegetables to a large extent. This is very fortunate for the Westerners, as fruit is certainly a valuable variant of diet. But something more concrete is necessary to determine whether American working people are properly fed. In the Report of the Commissioner of Labor on the cost of living, to which reference has been made, is a table' showing how much of each of several specified kinds of food was purchased per adult male in each section of the country, the cost of each kind of food per adult male, and the cost of all food per adult male. In the Appendix will be found the food values of most of these materi- als.^ These percentages were applied to the Bureau of Labor figures with the results which are summarized in Table xxvi.' From the specified foods, sufficient energy in the form of proteids could not be derived, in a single section of the United States, by the average adult male. On the other hand, the fuel value would in every case satisfy Under- bill, and almost meets Atwater's requirements. However, these specific items do not include all of the food expend- iture. If the rest of the money actually spent for subsist- ence is as wisely used as that accounted for by the spe- cific items, it is evident that almost but not quite enough proteids (.25 lb.) are obtained in every division of the country, with the exception of the Western States, and that 1 18th Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, p. 623. ^ Appendix C. ' Perhaps this table needs a word of explanation. In the North Atlan- tic States the total expenditure for food was 122 per cent of the expendi- ture for specified foods. So, if the specified foods are a fair criterion of all the food, the total daily proteids consumed by the average adult male will be 1.22X0.203 (the corrective constant multiplied by the proteids in the specified foods), or 0.249 lbs. Appendix D contains the full figures. Digitized by Microsoft® o BS I Pi P3 g S o o s 11 - §1 o o o o o t* -i*! iO O CO tH »r5 OS CO «5 CO CO o< so ©» (n M5 I-H i-H (N O CO CO 05 *0 ^ ,— I ,-( 1-H W o o o o o •ss-^l ■II IS rH 00 O !> to 1-1 OS t- »■* »0 S» i-H ®* »o CO i-t Mi CO 00 O CO GO »0 «0 .3 ° "2 a o o o o o T-H i> to OS o» ^ CD ©< '^^'^ t-To CD rH lO »o OS t- i-f ^ rH 04 O CO OS 151. GO OS CO »fl ■* O ■^ O OS *o .s =2 rt d g g o 34* C3 BO 3 ^ ers 322 (Jeneral service, includes 678 23.00 1 : 14.0 workhouse inmates 277 723 37.79 1 : 8.8 True, these data represent the population of Ireland, yet the relative condition of classes would probably be similar in the United States. It is needless to expatiate upon this table. Members of the working classes must expect to be ill from one fourteenth to one ninth of the time. What a burden this is in the expense for medical care, in loss of earnings, and in physical pain! It is no wonder that from 20 per cent to 25 per cent of poverty is attributable to sickness.^ There is another form of disease, widely known, yet almost ignored in social studies. Through ignorance or perversity, venereal affections, particularly gonorrhoea, are often contracted by youths of 16 to 20; and this malady is often prevalent to such an extent as almost to rival measles.' According to the best statistics 60 per cent of young men approaching maturity become affected with venereal, disease in a single year.* To be sure, this plague is by no means peculiar to industrial people, yet it deserves mention because of the large, though silent, part it must play in the lives of the masses. Though it seldom brings death to the man, gonorrhoea causes be- tween one-haK and three-quarters of the sterility in mar- riage, and 20 per cent to 30 per cent of blindness,* 80 1 Warner, American Charities, p. 115. • Ibid., p. 40. 1 Charities and the Commons, vol. xv, p. 712 ff. (Ed.). Bangs, Charities and the Commons, vol. zv, p. 715. Digitized by Microsoft® 132 THE STANDARD OF LIVING per cent of pelvic diseases of women, and a large part of the chronic ill health common to this sex.^ This disease which men esteem so trivial falls with terrible force upon their innocent wives and children. It is one of the great unsolved problems of the working people, a problem which they cannot even state. The children, too, have their own afflictions. In 1906, it was announced by the New York City Health Department that two thirds of all children examined in the schools were physically defective.^ As a consequence of this and sev- eral other startling statements made at that time, a "Com- mittee on the Physical Welfare of School Children" was organized in May of that year, and an investigation made. This study revealed that malnutrition was present in 12.9 per cent of the defective children, 79 per cent had bad teeth, 47 per cent nose defects, 45 per cent throat defects, and 70 per cent enlarged glands. Not all of the defects could be attributed to extreme poverty, but it was noticeable that while only 50 per cent of families with incomes of less than $10 per week employed a physician, 68 per cent of the households earning $10 to $19, and 77 per cent of those receiving over $20 enjoyed the services of doctors. The same increase in physical care was apparent in the proportions of those who consulted the dentists, but families of the middle class were the most free in their use of public dispensaries. This is an interesting detail; the main results of the investigation must be touched upon. If New York is at all typical of the nation, there are probably 12,000,000 physically defective children in the schools of the United States. In New York City 41,600 children are insufficiently fed, and 299,600 have bad teeth. Defects were not confined to the poor, though there were most defects among families with marginal incomes; nor was ' Buckley, Charities and the Commons, vol. xv, p. 720. ' American Statistical Association, vol. x, p. 272 ff. (Whole paragraph a condensation of this article.) Digitized by Microsoft® HEALTH 133 TABLE XXXVI DEATH-RATES IN CERTAIN OCCUPATIONS (MALES) ^ Occupation All Occupations Architects, artists Clergymen Engineers and surveyors Lawyers Fbysidana and surgeons Teachers (school) All professional Clerical and official Commercial travelers Merchants and dealers Hucksters and peddlers All mercantile and trading Hotel and boarding-house keepers Saloon-keepers, liquor-dealers, bar-tenders, and restaurant-keepers All public entertainment Personal service, police, and military Laborers (not agricultural) Servants All laboring and servant Blacksmiths Boot- and shoe-makers Brewers, distillers, rectifiers Butchers Cabinet-makers and upholsterers Carpenters and joiners Cigar-makers and tobacco-workers Compositors, printers, pressmen Coopers Glass-blowers and glass-workers Hat- and cap-makers Machinists Masons (brick and stone) Mill and factory operatives (textile) Millers (flour and grist) All manual and mechanical Farmers, planters, farm laborers Gardeners, florists, nurserymen Miners and quarrymen Sailors, pilots, flshermen Steam railroad employees Stock-raisers, herders, drovers Draymen, backmen, teamsters Boatmen and canalmen All agricultural, transportation, and outdoor 1 Twelfth CenaiUt Vital StatisticB, vol. i, p. cdx (extracts). Death-Bate 1900 1890 IS. 13.8 11.7 UA 2S.5 18.2 8.2 5.6 17.2 17.7 19.9 21.8 12.2 10.4 15.3 15.7 13.5 9.S fi.7 5.8 16.4 14.7 12. 14.1 12.1 12.3 22.3 14.9 13.3 14.4 15.4 14.5 12.9 15.4 20.7 25.3 16.5 12.9 20.2 22.6 isis 15.6 9.4 15.3 19.7 14.7 le.i 14.9 18. 16.3 17.2 13.3 18.7 16.3 12.1 11.1 23.8 21.6 10.8 9.5 17.9 19.5 10.5 11.4 19.9 15.6 8.8 8.1 26.6 17.3 13.S IS. 17.6 11.9 17.2 14.8 9.6 7.8 27.7 22. 10.8 9. S2.1 19.4 11. 12.1 18.8 20.1 15.8 12.1 Digitized by Microsoft® 134 THE STANDARD OF LIVING malnutrition the cause of the illness. The little ones are not allowed adequate sleep, nor are they given proper medical care, too much reliance being placed on patent medicines and "out-growing" diseases. The dentist is hardly consulted at all. Parents can and do provide phys- ical care for their children if they realize that it is indis- pensable. It cannot be doubted that there are many, many defective children in the schools; ^ the physical condition of those in the mills needs no comment here. One more point must be touched upon, the light that mortality statistics throw upon the comparative healthful- ness of occupations. F. L. Hoffman says that one-haK of the deaths between the ages of fifteen and sixty-five are pre- ventable.^ This does not mean that the rate of mortality could be cut in half by preventing the action of the specific causes that bring about this 50 per cent of preventable deaths; but it does imply that human life can be greatly lengthened. Table xxxvi shows clearly that many of the industrial occupations are wasteful of human life. Poor houses, inadequate nourishment, and insufficient clothing, combined with long hours and unsanitary con- ditions of labor, combine to undermine the health of industrial people. This is strikingly evidenced by the present tendency to shorten the trade life. Accidents are very much too numerous, and cause a "dead loss" to society. Moreover these mishaps every year throw into distress or actual pauperism many families. Disease, too, is at work, especially among the tenement house population and the overworked factory people, causing physical and eco- nomic suffering. A great problem presents itself in the wide prevalence of venereal afflictions and in the suffering brought upon women as a consequence of their toil and of improper assistance in child-birth. Even the children are ' See for partial confirmation, Eiikpatrick, Fundamentals of Child Study, chapter xvii. ' Charities and the Commons, vol. xvi, p. 95. Digitized by Microsoft® BGEALTH 135 widely subject to physical defects. The industrial people certainly do not have enough money to spend for the preservation of health, and they are exposed to great dangers both from accidents and disease — dangers that ought not to be countenanced a moment. Nothing has been said of the relations of impure milk to the infantile death-rate nor of the oppressive burden of frequent fun- erals; but enough facts have been presented to prove that the laborer enjoys far less bodily health than he can reason- ably demand for physical and economic efficiency, not to mention his own intrinsic worth as an end in himself. Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER X INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL LIFE So far this study has been confined almost exclusively to the material life of the working people, but there exists another side. Though the psychology of the laborers is every bit as important as their food and clothing, it is too large a theme to be adequately discussed as a mere part of the wider subject of the Standard of Living. In this chapter, therefore, the effort is limited to a few of the most important phases of thought and resulting action. In so large a country, it is reasonable to expect the working classes to have almost every conceivable variety of idea and belief: only those opinions which are typical of large numbers of people are here mentioned. Perhaps the most important part of man's mental life is his attitude toward matters of sex. The taboo placed upon this subject by polite society, together with the pleasure derived by the average man from gross thoughts, lend it a certain charm in the mind. "Between youth and maid a 'Platonic friendship' is impossible, not because it goes against their nature, but because it clashes with the dominant tradition that any liking between them must be sentimental."^ So from earliest childhood the matter of sex is given an artificial position in the mind. This devel- ops into a love of the obscene which is almost universal, but which seems to be most tolerated or least concealed in the breasts of the laboring class. "On the subject of morality," says the anonymous author of "The Long Day," "I am constrained to express myself with comparative dif- fidence lest I be misinterpreted and charged with vilifying ' Ross, Sooial Psychology, p. 269. Digitized by Microsoft® INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL LIFE 137 the class to which I once belonged. . . . The average working girl is even more poorly equipped for right living and right thinking than she is for intelligent industrial effort. One of the worst features of my experience was being obliged to hear the obscene stories which were exchanged at the work-table quite as a matter of course, and, if not a reflection of vicious minds, this is at least indicative of loose living and inherent vulgarity. The lewd joke, the abominable tale, is the rule, I assert posi- tively, and not the exception among the lower class of working girls." ^ If the reader's experience is not sufficiently wide to enable him to believe that this statement is essen- tially true, he may be interested in the words of Dr. Warner — " No boy among boys, or man among men, can fail to have evidence thrust upon him showing that a very great amount of vitality is burnt out by the fires of lust. Among the rougher class of day laborers upon railroads, in quarries, and even upon the farms, the whole under- current of thought, so far as conversation gives it evidence, is thoroughly base and degrading. In several cases that the author investigated carefully, inefficiency certainly resulted from the constant preoccupation of the mind with sensual imagining. . . . Personal acquaintance with railroad day laborers, and others of a similar class, convinces the writer that they are very commonly kept from rising in the industrial scale by their sensuality, and that it is this and the resulting degeneration that finally convert many of them into lazy vagabonds."^ Not only does vile mental imagery characterize a large proportion of the laborers, but the thoughts often lead to deeds. Possibly the " mor- als of the working class are as high as those of the middle class " '; yet, both from the large number of prostitutes who formerly inhabited the tenements of New York, and from the prevalence of venereal disease spoken of in the last ' The Long Day, p. 281. ^ Wamer, American Charities, p. 67. • Stephens, Higher Life for the Working People, p. 96. Digitized by Microsoft® 138 THE STANDARD OF LIVING chapter, it is certain that their conduct is not as lofty as it should be.^ Now, how does this baseness of thought influence home life? "Hasty marriage is usually the working girl's last protest against a wage-earning system that pushes her to the wall."^ Far more men than most good souls would willingly admit, in practice, if not in theory, hold to the idea that the wife is purchased for the pleasiu-e of her lord. "Abstinence is out of the question. The sentiments of men who purchased their wives still exist among many of the lower stratum of society. The woman is something for their use, for which they paid the price."^ The result is that there are often too many births; children follow each other too quickly for the mother's health, and for their own welfare; in New York City, women have been found prolonging lactation in the vain belief that it prevents conception. Indeed, so hard do they find married life that many a mother solemnly warns her daughter not to marry.* In a neighborhood by no means the worst in Brooklyn, one woman is universally envied because her husband does not beat her. Sometimes very little affection is wasted between man and wife. He earns the living, and she keeps the house. After supper, he goes out to join the men, she stays in and "minds" the children. Husband and wife refer to each other as "her" and "him." "Furthermore, I have found among working people almost no pretence of feeling where none exists. Where the death of a husband has meant merely a loss of income, with the attending problems of struggle and adjustment, there is no effort to make it appear otherwise."^ Children are often neg- lected if the mother must work hard, at other times they are inadequately nourished. The whole situation can be 1 See The Woman Who ToUs, p. 271 f. ^ MacLean, American Journal of Sociology, vol. ix, p. 306. " Roberts, Anthracite Coal Communities, p. 72 ff. and 85. * Herzfeld, Family Morwgraphs, p. 19 and p. 61. " Eastman, Charities and the Commons, vol. xxi, p. 566. Digitized by Microsoft® INTELLECTUAL AND SOCLIL LIFE 139 summed up by saying, for very many families, "there is very little spiritual comradeship."^ Perhaps it will be well to recite the routine of a coal- miner's wife as recorded by Dr. Roberts. She must have his breakfast ready by five or five-thirty; housework occupies her until it is time to wash and dress the children preparatory to giving them breakfast and sending them to school. Then the baby must be bathed and nursed, and the children's dinner cooked. The afternoon is spent in preparing a hearty supper for the miner, which must be all ready when he appears, because then the good wife has to wash his back for him. After supper comes dish-wash- ing, and then the children are put to bed. The evening has to be spent mending. Add to this the marketing, washing, baking, and other incidentals, and the life of the miner's wife is by no means attractive.^ It is not alone the miners who impose this wearisome existence on their families. Among the Southern cotton people domestic practices are just as unbearable, and routines of equal hardship may be everywhere observed. It is not intended to place the blame upon the men, the source of the misery lies in the condition of industry that requires excessive labor, and in the state of society that tolerates such low ideals of womanhood and home life. That is one side of the question. On the other hand, it. is just as true that "The tenement houses have many instances of devoted family affection. It is impressive and reassuring to find that under much of the home life of the district there is an impregnable rock of fundamental morality. The virtue of generosity and certain aspects of moral courage exist in a high degree."' There can be found, indeed, among the American industrial workers many, many instances of the most happy and unselfish ' Herzfeld, Family Budgets, p. 51. ' Roberts, AnthTocite Coal Communities, chapter v, part 2. » The City Wilderness, p. 289. Digitized by Microsoft® 140 THE STANDARD OF LIVmG lives. In these households, in almost all families in fact, if woman is treated as a chattel, she is yet, in a sense, the master. "The woman is, in almost every sense, of greater importance than the married man of the artisan class, in any scheme for storing up economic energy. The artisan of good habits who is ambitious for economic improve- ment often makes his wife his banker, and gives her con- trol of the domestic budget. For the most part, the man only exercises a veto power. "■*■ It seems to be almost universal practice for the wife to hold the family purse. In many cases, the entire earnings are intrusted to her, and she even doles out to her husband carfare and beer money.^ So, although a brutal lord-of-property attitude is characteristic of many husbands, there are among the workers, all varieties of family life. It is not uncommon to boast that culture and refine- ment breed a philanthropic spirit, but it is probable that there is more genuine kindheartedness among the laboring classes than among the wealthy. "There is more honor than courtesy in the 'code of etiquette. . . . Each man for himself in work, but in trouble all for the one who is suffering. No bruise or cut or bum is too familiar to pass uncared for."' "It takes a long time to exhaust the reservoir of kindness and true charity which exists among the poor, for, as Maurice Hewlett says: ' Only the poor love the poor. And only they who have little to eat Give to them that have less.' "* The attitude of some of the laborers may be typified in the words of the old hag who aided the author of the "Long Day," when her awkwardness had put her far behind in her work: "That's all right. I'm glad to help yer! And * Hamilton, Savings and Savingi InstituMons, p. 177. ' Herzfeld, Family Monographs, p. 50. » Van Vorst, The Woman Who Toils, p. 43. * Quoted by Hunter, Poverty, p. 71. Digitized by Microsoft® INTELLECTUAL AND SOCLiL LIFE 141 sure, if we don't help each other who's going to help us poor devils, I'd like to know?"^ And jSnally it is relevant to quote from the "Letters of a Workingman": "There's certainly nothing stingy about the people in the tene- ments. . . . They'll respond more readily than any other class of people, even though it costs them lots more to do it."2 The testimony to the mutual helpfulness of the in- dustrial people is well-nigh universal. This is not so re- markable as it, at first blush, seems, for it is only suffering that makes possible sympathy, and sympathy it is that causes kindly actions. In the discussion of food, it was noted that meals were often bolted during the noon hour in order that the hands might have time for conversation. The working-girls are often voluble talkers, but their speech dwells mostly upon young men and sociables and parties. Those who read find material in their books; extravagant romances most of them are, with pretty or striking names; hardly ever is a story of the slightest value. Thus both talk and read- ing is imelevating — but a blessed diversion'; newspapers are eagerly devoured by most of the men. Another interesting light upon the character of the in- dustrial class is that shed by their diversions. For recreation and amusement 70.39 per cent of the 2567 families intens- ively studied by the Department of Labor made expendi- tures averaging $17.44.* This is by no means an extrava- gant outlay for pleasure; it could well be larger without detriment to the people, but evil lies in the fact that much is unwisely spent. The sights and sounds of the street are undoubtedly interesting to all, but can hardly be "palmed off" upon the intelligent as recreation. "Our inquiry into the possible indoor amusements for the working people during the winter months brings us back, with an added 1 The Long Day, p. 210. * Letters from a WorJdngman, p. 161.; , • See The Long Day, chapters v and vi for evidence. * 18th Anmud Report of the Commiasioner of Labor, pp. 607 and 609. Digitized by Microsoft® 142 THE STANDARD OF LIVING sense of disappointment, to actual conditions. The saloon, the dance hall, and the cheap theatre are to-day their chief centres of amusement. The first is pernicious; the other two, as they exist, are at least questionable in their influence. Of reading-rooms there are only a few; of gym- nasiums, the number is still less. What wonder if, during the months when the streets and parks are not habitable saloons are crowded with hosts of men and boys, for where else shall they go for amusement." ^ In New York City dancing forms nine tenths of the formal diversion of the working-girls.^ The halls, which are often conducted as adjuncts to saloons, usually offer privileges of the floor for from five to fifty cents. " A quarter of a million persons a week attend the dance halls, mostly young men and women between sixteen and thirty years of age."' The Slavs in the Pennsylvania coal-fields habitually drink heavily before their prolonged dances. "The dancing halls, which are weekly patronized by the working classes of these mining towns, are not fit places for our young, for their minds are not humanized and their bodies are not refined in them. False standards of social life are developed there. Dangerous and daring men have perfect freedom and are under no restraint in cementing friendship with gullible young girls, which often means their ruin. There is no refining influence exerted in the hall and the vices resulting from these dancing halls have frequently been brought home with a rude shock to families in these coal- fields."^ "Young respectable women will so far forget themselves in a dancing hall as freely to associate and dance with men whom they would be ashamed to recognize on the street."^ In "select company," dancing may be harm- less, but, appealing as it does to the lower nature, practiced ' Economics of the Liquor Problem, p. 185. * Charities and the Commons, vol. xxi, p. 1018. ' Ibid., vol. xxi, p. 1038. * Roberts, Anthradie Coal Communities, p. 201. » im., p. 200. Digitized by Microsoft® INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL LITE 143 as It is in proximity to saloons and under conditions that are often actually immoral, or at least demoralizing, this amusement is certainly pernicious in its effect upon the industrial people. Next to dancing in importance as an amusement, is the theatre. "A careful estimate makes it probable that at least three hundred thousand persons attend theatres in New York on week days, and five hundred thousand on Sundays." ^ There are said to be five hundred moving picture shows and six hundred theatres in the tenement districts of New York City. In Pennsylvania, some of the native miners spend $10 a month on the theatre alone; in one community containing some 13,000 young men, $20,000 to $25,000 is annually sunk in this single form of amusement.^ Boston has the same tale of lurid tragedy and coarse comedy, vaudeville and "Nickelodeons."' The best that can be said for these institutions is that they are often harmless, but the difficulty that the officials of New York City constantly experience in suppressing the fea- tures of entertainment which are even legally immoral, bears powerful testimony to the fact that many managers go just as close, as they think safe, to the obscene. Other important soiu:ces of amusement there certainly are, political and labor excursions, public parks and trolley resorts, museums, menageries, and aquariums, baseball, racing, and prize-fighting. Pleasure clubs are frequently organized. In New York City your "gentleman friend" invites you to a ball or a "racket," the racket being a ball where refreshments are served without extra charge. The man dances almost exclusively with the girl whom he escorts, save that he may have a few numbers with her "lady friend." * The trades unions, to which about one ' Charities and the Commons, vol. xxi, p. 1038. ' Roberts, Anthracite Coal Communities, chapter iv, p. 108. 3 The City Wilderness, p. 176 ff. ' Herzfeld, Family Monographs, p. 18. Digitized by Microsoft® 144 THE STANDAED OF LIVING ninth of the industrial workers belong, often organize excursions, and, in their meetings, give the men perhaps the highest intellectual life that they can obtain. Of the 2567 families canvassed by the Bureau of Labor in 1901, 944, or 36.77 per cent, expended an average of $10.52 for affiliation with these societies, and 1123, or 43.75 per cent, expended an average of $11.84 for other organizations.' The large proportionate membership of the unions fur- nishes strong presumptive evidence that these families were above the average in means and intelligence. Thus, though organizations are not very costly, they play a rather prominent part in the life of many of the labor- ing classes. These unions are of great benefit to their members, teaching them the value of a brotherly, seK- sacrificing attitude, and aflFording them the severe disci- pline of debate.^ Still another factor is very important in the psychical or social life of the working people — the saloon. Accord- ing to the data of the Bureau of Labor, 50.72 per cent of the families canvassed had expenditure for intoxicants averaging $24.53.' It is highly probable that this outlay for drink is set too low * for many house-wives doubtless tried to conceal the real extent of the use of intoxicants. In Pittsburg the foreign born are often heavy drinkers. Some of them will spend more for liquor than for food, and individuals can imbibe from two to three gallons on a festal occasion.^ The per capita consumption of distilled spirits, wines, and malt liquors in the United States in 1908 was 23.01 gallons.' That is enough to make at least ' 18th Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, pp. 500, 604 and 508. ^ John Mitchell, Organized Labor, chap, xviii. • 18th Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, pp. 500, 504. and 608. * See Chapin, Standard of Living in New York City, p. 221. ^ Charities and the Commons, vol. xxi, p. 643. ' U. S. Statistical Abstract, 1908, p. 676. Digitized by Microsoft® INTELLECTUAL AND SOCL^L LIFE 145 a gallon and a half each week for every male of voting age. It costs, on the average, $7118.30 per year to buy the liquor sold in a saloon.' Now, when there are only from 200 to 800 people to support each saloon, the mean expen- diture must be from $8.50 to $35 per capita, or about $40 to $150 per family. The magnitude of this burden may be astounding, but it must be remembered, in considering the averages, that at least thirty million Americans are living in "dry localities," either by state prohibition, or some substantial form of local option. Table xxxvii shows the number of inhabitants to each saloon in several of the leading cities of the United States, in 1900. TABLE XXXVII POPULATION, AND POPULATION PER LICENSED BETAIL LIQUOB SALOON IN SEVERAL AMERICAN CITIES IN 1900* cay New York Chicago Philadelphia St. Louis Boston Baltimore Cleveland Buffalo Pomtlation per Population saloon (retail) 3437,202 1698,575 1293,697 575,238 560,892 508,957 381,768 352,387 San Francisco 342,782 Cincinnati 325,902 316 265 748 268 568 244 204 206 108 190 City Pittsburg New Orleans Detroit Milwaukee Washington Newark Jersey C. Louisville Minneapolis Population 321,616 287,104 285,704 285,315 278,718 246,070 206,433 204,731 202,718 Population per saloon 610 185 287 164 560 187 210 239 617 Even the lowest ratio there included, one drinking place to 748 people, is high enough to emphasize by itself alone the significance of alcoholic liquor in every-day life, but the high ratio (San Francisco) means that there are no more than thirty men to patronize each saloon. "Had the saloon no other reason for being retained than mere pleasurable waste, and were its value merely a pathological one, it would long since have suffered the ^ AntirSaloon League Year Booh, 1909, p. 78. ' Compiled from Statistics in the Bulletin of the Bureau oj Labor, No. 36, pp. 833 and 839. Digitized by Microsoft® 146 THE STANDARD OF LIVING ordinary fate of the unfit."' But there must be something that satisfies a really vital want in this institution, or it could never be true that "the saloon must look to the older men in the community for support, to men over thirty years of age."^ In the first place, "stimulus is necessary to any form of psychic life. The quality of a psychic life depends in some measure at least upon the quality of the stimulus presented. The life of the ordinary workingman is made up of habits; and yet, simply because of this fact, psychical energy, which is unused in the very habitual, seeks the more persistently for its own appropriate form of expression, and because the proper stimulus to psychic expression is either foreign to the conditions or is not recognized because of defective education, recourse is had to the false stimulus of alcoholics." ' In other words, the industrial worker has neither the means nor the education to love books; his home is frequently unattractive; fagged out with a long day's work, he is unable, often, to converse entertainingly; yet he craves social pleasures. Alcohol furnishes the stimulus, the saloon affords the field of activity. More attractive than the home of its patron may be even the dingiest dram-shop. There a man finds congenial companions among whom he can cast off his reserve and be himself, there he is always a welcome guest whatever the hour, there he hears the latest news and gossip, listens to discussions of the questions of the day, gambles a little perhaps, or awaits the sporting returns. A superior person is the proprietor, the man who is willing to act as a post office, an employment bureau, a political leader, a friend to every one, and a family councilor. Often the saloon keeper will accommodate his patrons with loans in times of sore need, and he habitually "trusts" many of them for drink for a week or so until pay day. The neigh- borhood saloon is almost the entire social life of the com- ^ Economic Aspects of the lAqvar Problem, p. 214. 2 IKd., pp. 218-219. > Ibid., p. 217. Digitized by Microsoft® INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL LIFE 147 munity. Still another hold has this institution. The work- man abhors the cheap restaurants with their dirty linen and air of poverty. With two beers he can obtain an ex- cellent, well-cooked and nutritious dinner before the bar or at a polished table. It is altogether natural that the saloon should have a wide patronage among the industrial workers. 1 But the fact that the saloon does meet certain essential psychic and physical wants of the workingmen does not justify its existence. Whether or not the causal-effect relation can be drawn, the number of suicides in different countries is closely proportional to the per capita consump- tion of liquors. ^ Inebriety, moreover, is the direct prime cause of 10 per cent of pauperism,' probably being at the root of a great deal larger proportion of dependence. It has been proven beyond peradventure by the German experimenters that alcohol, even in the smallest drinkable quantities, interferes with brain action; the effects of a single bottle of wine sometimes last three days. Even in manual labor, such as typesetting, efficiency is greatly decreased by indulgence in intoxicants. Finally alcohol seriously impairs the functioning of the vital organs. There can be no denying that intoxicating beverages, even in moderate quantities, do weaken the body and degrade the mind.* Alcohol is both the cause and effect of bad conditions of living; its pernicious work far over-balances for evil the good features of the saloon. It would be interesting to touch upon the great field of education — to show how undemocratic the American school system really is, in that so few children are given manual training, the instruction that would help them win in the industrial battle; but they are offered subjects like 1 This whole paragraph is largely based on material in the Work of the Committee of Fifty — Saloon Substitutes. ^ Prinzing, American Statistical Assodaiion, vol. v, p. 155. • Warner, American Charities, p. 38. * Williams, McClure's Magazine, October, 1908, p. 704. Digitized by Microsoft® 148 THE STANDARD OF LIVING Greek and Latin, of small practical value. No wonder healthy young boys who must toil with their hands turn away from the high and even the grammar schools. "The general tendency of American cities is to carry all their children through the fifth grade, to take one half of them to the eighth grade, and one in ten through the high school."^ "Whatever the stage of their advancement a large part of the pupils of our schools leave at the age of 14."'' At this age very few of them have completed the grammar grades. But until they mend their own ways, the poor have no right to complain of any lack of democracy in this country. "I have known Boston shop-girls at their dances to put up a placard 'No servants admitted.'"' The light negroes do not think the dark negroes their social equals. So through every round of society presses this desire for difference, for superiority over some one — the undemocratic spirit. The artistic sense of the industrial people varies greatly, some liking the cheap trash that they can buy of street peddlers, and others evidencing genuine appreciation of real masterpieces. As the working classes are composed of such a heterogeneous mixture of races, all sorts of superstitions abound among them. The Italians often wear fetishes to drive away the demon which could be identified as "Malnutrition."* There is often the densest ignorance of the nature of contagion in disease, and doc- tors are sometimes known as "charmers." Etiquette is frequently peculiar, but usually good-hearted. The hard struggle for a livelihood forces many of these people to think seriously, and they have many keen and profound opinions. "It is dangerous to report class opinions. 'What Labor thinks' has been the lying text of many a demagogue. There is no uniformity of conviction upon a single indus- ' Ayres, Laggards in our Schools, p. 3. ; ' Ibid., p. 18. ' Brooks, Social Unrest, p. 236. * Hunter, Poverty, p. 33. Digitized by Microsoft® INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL LIFE 149 trial topic among some twenty millions who work for wages in the United States." ^ One thing, however, may be said with confidence. There is a general feeling that something is fundamentally wrong with the society that allows to some men idleness and ease, and exacts from other men toil and hardship. At the time of their great Revolution, the French people were the most happily situated of all the peasantries of Europe. The American laborer is probably more fortunate than any other work- man on earth with the possible exception of his brother in Australia, yet "contentment and docile behavior are not a consequence of enlarged income and increased well- being. The new acquisitions, as we all observe, rarely quiet discontent; often, indeed, augment it."^ To illus- trate this feeling of class conflict it is sufficient to quote from the constitution of the Industrial Workers of the World, under which sixty thousand Americans are organ- ized. "The working class and the employing class have nothing in common, . . . between these two classes a strug- gle must go on until all the toilers come together on the political as well as the industrial field, and take and hold that which they produce as their labor." ' "The real peril which we now face is the threat of class confiict. If capital- ism insists upon the policy of outraging the saving aspira- tions of the American workman to raise his standard of comfort and leisure, every element of class conflict will strengthen among us."* This class jealousy is a real danger to American society as at present constituted, yet, if the warning is heeded, this feeling of unrest may lead to the grandest national development that has ever been achieved. " On the whole this discontent is to be welcomed as a sign of healthy growth. In raising the level of a race, or a class, it has always been difficult to instill a psycho- ' Brooks, Social Unrest, p. 125. ' Ibid., p. 111. ' Quoted from A. A. A., vol. xxx, p. iSi. * Brooks, Social Unrest, p. 344. Digitized by Microsoft® 150 THE STANDARD OF LIVING logical desire for goods for the obtaining of wliich eflfort and self-control must be applied. For this discontent, therefore, the friends of progress must be grateful." ^ This unrest has occasioned a change in union poKcy; workers no longer desire to rise from their class, but with it.^ So, although there is a widespread attitude of sus- picion and a conviction of injustice in the present organiza- tion of society, this is exactly the state of aflPairs to facili- tate progress. One other side of life remains to be touched, the moral. It is the function of the church to provide men with a stimulus and with the means of obtaining the highest moral development. Does the church meet the require- ments? One method of measuring the value of an organi- zation to an individual is by the amount he is willing to sacrifice for it. Now of the 2567 families mentioned in the Bureau of Labor study, 80.33 per cent had expenditures for religion, but this outlay averaged only $9.49,' surely a small per cent of income. " Mr. Moody said a few years ago, 'The gulf between the church and the masses is growing deeper, wider, and darker every hour.' The reality of such a gulf is not a matter of opinion. Careful investigations have been made in city and country which give us definite knowledge."* "According to the careful estimate of a clergyman of one of the largest New England factory cities, not one man in fifteen of the Protestant operatives in that city ever attends church."^ The total membership of all churches in the United States in 1908 was 34,282,543, but this number includes a very large proportion of those whose connection with religious organ- ization is merely nominal.^ The blame for this gulf lies ' Laughlin, Industrial America, pp. 70-71. * See Article on "The New Unionism," A. A. A., vol. xxiv, p. 296 ff. ' 18th Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, pp. 505 and 509. ^ Strong, The New Era, p. 204. « Ibid., p. 208. ' Christian Advocate, January 16, 19Q9. Digitized by Microsoft® INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL LIFE 151 largely with the church. It has been IndifPerent to the needs of the poor, failing to apply its own doctrine to temporal affairs and catering largely to the monied classes. It hires ministers to make pastoral calls and forgets to do missionary work in its own community; or, when it does start a mission branch, the affairs of that chapel are not conducted upon democratic principles; the poor think they are being "patronized."^ If they have a church, it would be weU for them to assume the responsibility of managing it themselves. Again, the church has, in many cases, con- fined itseK to "charity," giving alms instead of lifting individuals. Another mistake that this institution has made is going too far toward secularization; religion as such is better than religion sugar-coated with all manner of disguising institutionalism. On the other hand, the workingmen themselves are largely at fault, they are too sensitive; they feel that they are "not wanted" in many a good church where they are really heartily welcomed. Another factor in this alienation is the lack of means of the industrial people. They cannot afford proper clothing for attendance at divine service; moreover, men working long hours are too tired Sundays for church attendance. Though "it is true that the overwhelming proportion of workingmen in the cities is entirely out of touch with the churches, . . . They willingly admit the truth of Chris- tian principles, and claim their struggle to be a religious one at the core." ^ At present both the parties are awake to the situation as never before. The Presbyterian, Method- ist, and other denominations are making genuine efforts to reach the masses, and the central labor unions are exchanging delegates with the ministers' associations.' The industrial people do respect true religion. "In all my experience of meeting and talking, often becoming inti- • LeUers from a Workingman, p. 48 ff. ' Cochran, A. A. A., vol. xxx, p. 451. ' Stelzle, A. A. A., vol. xxx, p. 457. Digitized by Microsoft® 162 THE STANDARD OF LIVING mately acquainted with girls and women of all sorts, I have never known one, however questionable, by whom the church was not, after all, held in respect as the one all- powerful human institution."^ This is probably charac- teristic of the large mass of working people; indifferent they may seem, deep down in their hearts they feel the need of something satisfying; they revere Christianity. "If society is to be saved the regenerating power can only come from the moral-spiritual nature of man."^ "The labor question is fundamentally a moral and reli- gious question. It will never be settled upon any other basis, therefore the church has a most important part in the solution of this world problem." ' Wide as the gulf seems, it is not deep and can be filled in until the attach- ment between the church and the industrial people is perfect. It can hardly be said that "the field is white for the harvest." The resemblance is rather to a plot of potatoes. What is above ground is dry and withered, looks absolutely dead. Under the surface, however, are the healthy tubers. They are worth digging for, but it costs a backache. This must close the brief sketch of the mental and moral life of the industrial people of America. It has been shown in previous chapters how the financial resources of the workers are so limited that not only is proper physical development often prevented, but the highest intellectual nature must be dwarfed. In the present part of the study, the results of these conditions, — or possibly, to some extent, their causes, the circle being complete — appear. The tendencies to low thought, the purchase theory of wives, and hasty marriages, in many instances, entail existence which is unworthy to be called a home life. Amusements are usually obtained imder conditions that ' The Long Day, Tp.idO. • Roberts, Anthraeite Coal Communities, p. 353. ' Stelzle, A. A. A., vol. xxx, p. 450. Digitized by Microsoft® mXELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL LIFE 153 endanger morals. The saloon may satisfy certain legiti- mate and deserving wants, but it exacts a terrible tribute of money, efficiency, and happiness. The masses are improperly educated and are the prey of follies and super- stitions. There is a great gulf between the workingman and the church. Yet at the bottom there is solid ground for hope. Their kindliness to one another shows that there is humanity and sympathy in the minds of the poor. The feeling of discontent with their lot is a possibility of remarkable progress. The church is beginning to recognize its real task. To-day the country has one of its greatest opportunities for achieving the progress of the industrial people. Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER XI THE LiViNG WAGE Before considering the actual amount of money necessary to support the average industrial family for a year, it may be well to glance for a moment at the general commercial position of the poor. They must buy everything at retail, and are, therefore, greatly handicapped in securing full value for their money. Take for example the matter of rents. Table xxxviii shows, what has previously been mentioned, that the rents charged to the poor are exorbit- antly high in consideration both of the resources of the people and of the worth of the rented property. It is generally admitted that ten per cent is a fair return upon TABLE XXXVIII MONTHLY RENTS ACTDALLT PAID BY FIFTEEN FAMILIES, COMPARED WITH BENTS NECESSARY TO SECURE A TEN PER CENT RETURN ON FULL VALUE OF property' Market value property Bent value Rent paid Excess paid 1 $420 $3.50 $8.50 $6.00 3 330 2.75 5.00 2.25 B 360 3.00 7.00 4.00 6 390 3.25 5.00 1.75 7 600 6.00 6.00 1.00 9 1284 10.70 12.50 1.80 10 300 2.50 5.00 2.50 12 357 2.98 4.00 1.02 13 900 7.50 8.50 1.00 14 600 5.00 7.30 2.30 15 375 3.13 5.00 1.87 161 900 7.60 7.60 17 760 6.25 9.00 2.76 18 ISOO 12.60 14.00 1.60 19 650 6.42 10.00 4.53 ' Taken from Btdletin of the Bureau of Labor no 64, p. 621, Digitized by Microsoft® THE LIVING WAGE 155 the full value of real property for a year, yet the first house on the list yields its owner over twenty-four per cent. ^ These figures were obtained by Dr. Forman for the city of Washington, D. C, but are probably not unrepresent- ative of a large part of the country. Here it appears that the fifteen families spend for rent $114.30 per month or forty-one per cent more than just prices would warrant. Another illustration of the extra cost entailed by retail purchase of housing is furnished in Table xxxix. There it is developed that rent per room falls as the size of the apartment increases until the tenement consists of from four to six rooms. So in the buying of shelter, the poor man is at a great disadvantage. TABLE XXXIX E MONTHLY RENT OF ROOMS IN TENEMENTS OF SP Number of rooms Average monthly rent in in apartment Boston Yonkers Basil 1 5.73 2.66 3.01 2 4.32 2.38 2.20 3 3.38 2.10 2.01 4 3.20 2.16 2.05 5 3.41 1.97 2.13 6 3.40 1.91 2.34 7 3.73 2.23 2.34 8 (or more) 4.68 2.76 2.36 Average 3.48 2.09 2.19 Another source of loss to the poor comes to light when the purchase of supplies is considered. "The poor house- wife knows what good bargains are, but the meagreness of her purse oftentimes prevents her from purchasing sup- plies except in very small quantities. She goes to the grocery store and buys a single bar of soap for five cents, knowing very well that she could get six bars for a quarter, and that if she should buy six bars she would save five cents; but, perhaps, if so much is spent for soap there will not be enough for food. She is buying potatoes at the ' Taken from Economic Studies, vol. iii, p. 336. Digitized by Microsoft® 156 THE STANDARD OF LIVING market. For her large family a bushel of potatoes would not be an oversupply and that quantity can be bought for a dollar; but the outlay of a dollar for potatoes may not be possible. Instead of spending a dollar for a bushel she spends eight cents for a quarter of a peck, paying at the rate of $1.28 a bushel, losing nearly 30 per cent by the transaction. Three cans of tomatoes can be bought for 25 cents, but she has only enough money for one can, and for that she pays 10 cents, perceiving clearly as she does that for every five cans purchased in this way there is a clear loss of one can. She has gone the rounds of the market and has nearly finished her purchases, but there are still butter, sugar, coffee and salt to be bought, and besides some matches are needed. For all these things she has 25 cents remaining. Butter is 30 cents a pound; sugar, 5 cents; coffee, 15 cents; salt, 5 cents a large sack or 3 cents a small sack (the latter being half as large as the former) ; matches 3 boxes for 5 cents or 2 cents a box. The purchase of a pound of butter cannot be thought of. The purchase of a half pound would leave but 10 cents for sugar, coffee, salt and matches. If all these desired articles are to be bought, the remaining 25 cents must be skillfully spent. Practice has taught our housewife the art of making skill- ful divisions. She buys a quarter of a pound of butter for 8 cents, a half pound of sugar for 3 cents, half a pound of coffee for 8 cents, a small sack of salt for 3 cents, a box of matches for 2 cents, and has 1 cent left with which to buy an onion for the soup. She has lost heavily on every one of these articles, including the onion, and she knows she has lost." ' Sharp practice by tradesmen is another source of loss — for instance Mr. DriscoU of New York — finds that computing scales are so rigged as to give the owner $1 or $2 a day "pure velvet." One of his inspectors remarked in a certain butcher shop, "This is the first honest scale I have found in twenty-five blocks." 1 BuUetin cf the Bureau of Labor, no. 64, p. 618. Digitized by Microsoft® THE LIVING WAGE 157 Dr. Forman concludes that, considering rent and living expenses, these fifteen families lost ten per cent by reason of bad bargains. "If, therefore, we wish to form a just notion of what a very poor man is earning, we must sub- tract from his nominal earnings this one-tenth which he loses because of his poverty and the conditions under which he purchases."' Beside these routine losses, the poor encounter other commercial disadvantages. One of these is the apparent necessity of buying on the installment plan. It is certainly true that many an article would never be purchased at all were it not for this system, yet the buyer has to meet enormous overcharges on everything thus obtained. "A dollar or more is lost on a coarse blanket, two or three dollars on an almost worthless rug, twenty or thirty dol- lars on a sewing machine." ^ In addition to the financial wastefulness of such a method of acquisition, there is a moral evil. To be always in debt for something is not wholesome, neither is it elevating to feel that one does not own all the furniture in the house, and that, unless payments are made promptly, the goods will be forfeited and all that has been paid for them utterly lost. On the other hand, it is even more degrading when the housewife yields to temptation, and so discourages the collector that he gives up his visits before the full sum has been paid. On the other side of the question it is to be said that, granting the wastefidness and demoralizing influence of installment buying, "with few exceptions those families who buy nothing or very little in that way live under con- ditions too bad to be justified by any economic or social theory." * " The chief danger of buying on the installment plan lies in the fact that the poor are as a rule very hopeful of the future, and feel, therefore, that something will be ' Bulletin of the Bureau qf Labor, no. 64, p. 621. 2 lUd., p. 615. » Ibid., p. 617. Digitized by Microsoft® 158 THE STANDARD OF LIVING sure to turn up to make it easy for the new obligation to be met."^ In spite of its perniciousness, installment buy- ing cannot be absolutely and indiscriminately condemned. In a previous chapter attention has been called to the fact that the poor lose from forty to one hundred per cent when they purchase insurance at retail, not to mention the enormous waste from the policies which they allow to lapse after they have been paying premiums for some time. This was an attempt at saving. Now when the opposite policy is adopted, when the poor man finds that he must borrow, and some circumstances seem amply to justify loans for personal needs, he suffers again. Dr. Chapin found that, among 318 housrfiolds having incomes be- tween $600 and $1099 in New York City, forty-two fam- ilies borrowed money and twenty-three pawned articles.^ When a loan has to be made the companies, which adver- tise interest rates of forty to sixty per cent, actually charge from 138 per cent to 221 per cent per annum, and enforce such rates with terrible threats of foreclosing the chattel mortgages which they have taken as security.' Pawning is not quite so expensive a method of obtaining funds. In Cincinnati in 1896, the pawnbrokers rates were ten per cent per month for loans of less than $20, five per cent for accommodations, $20 to $50, and three per cent for more than $50, that is, their lowest charge was thirty-six per cent a year. The State of Pennsylvania allowed a charge of five and a half per cent per month.* Thus it is evident that wherever they turn for financial aid, the poor, too ignorant to know and profit by the law, are forced to pay outrageous usury. In addition to all this, it must be remem- bered that fraudulent investment agents find their most ready victims among the industrial people. * Brown, Development of Thrift, p. 24. ' Chapin, Standard of Living in New York City, p. 244. ' Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, no. 64, p. 627. * Miller, Economic Studies, vol. i, p. 130 S. Digitized by Microsoft® THE LIVING WAGE 159 In this hasty sketch enough has been said to justify the statement that the very poor lose heavily in all their transactions involving money. True, most of the in- dustrial people have many advantages over the very poor in financial matters, yet it is a fact that most grades of laborers are more or less subject to all of these losses. The poor man's dollar does not bring him as much as the rich man's dollar, although it is very much harder to earn. With these facts in mind, but without attempting to complicate the problem by applying them, it is now possi- ble to estimate the "living wage." Mr. Gompers has de- fined a living wage as "a wage which, when expended in the most economical manner, shall be sufficient to maintain the average-sized family in a manner consistent with what- ever the contemporary local civilization recognizes as indispensable to physical and mental health, or, as being required by the rational self-respect of human beings."' There is just one phrase in this definition to which excep- tion must be taken, at least so far as the wording is con- cerned. It is an undeniable fact that the "most economical" expenditure cannot be expected of the housewife in the typical industrial family. To spend most economically requires far more knowledge than is possessed by the average woman. If the definition is changed to read, "expended in the most economical manner consistent with the intelligence of the average housewife" the diffi- culty will be obviated. It should be borne in mind, more- over, that the "rational self-respect of human beings" would require the saving of enough to provide for an independent old age. Unless the living wage is paid to all men, the married, who most need regular work, will be at a disadvantage in competition with single men for employment. Therefore, the living wage should be the minimum wage for all adult ^ Ryan, A Living Wage, p. 129. Digitized by Microsoft® 160 THE STANDARD OF LIVING males. Such a minimum has been variously estimated. John Mitchell has fixed it at $600 for cities of less than one hundred thousand population.' "A prominent official in one of the largest charities in New York City thinks that $2.00 a day, or about $624 a year is necessary for a family of five in that city." ^ Professor Ryan is willing to accept $600. He thus summarizes his conclusions: "Anything less than $600 per year is not a Living Wage in any of the cities of the United States; second, this sum is peobablt a Living Wage in those cities in the Southern States in which fuel, clothing, food, and some other items of expend- iture are cheaper than in the North; third, it is possibly a Living Wage in the moderately sized cities of the West, North, and East; and fourth, in some of the largest cities of the last named regions, it is certainly not a Living Wage.'" It was such a surprise to many when the committee of the New York State Conference of Charities and Correc- tions decided that $825 was the necessary income to allow a family of five to maintain a fairly proper standard of living in New York City, that it may well be questioned whether $600 is not too low a minimum for the large majority of the smaller cities in the North, East, and West. * To test this criterion, a very intelligent man who works at odd jobs in Middletown, Connecticut, was consulted.' At first he was confident that a decent living could not be obtained for less than $750 per year. It was impressed upon him that it was a minimum wage, merely enough to maintain physical and mental efficiency that was sought. On the basis of his accounts for 1908, and much careful ' Mitchell, Organized Labor, p. 118. ' Hunter, Poverty, p. 61. ' Ryan, A Living Wage, p. ISO. * Charities and the Commons, vol. xix, p. 1053. ^ Note: He used to be a skilled dyer earning large wages, but the chemicals ruined his health so that he has been compelled to do out-of- door work, such as grass-cutting and snow-shoveling. Digitized by Microsoft® THE LIVING WAGE 161 calculation, he finally produced the following as his mini- mum estimate: Minimum cost of living f err one year for family of five Rent $120. Fuel, 5 tons of coal 35. 1 cord of wood 5. Food, Groceries 168. Milk, 1 quart per day at 8 cents 29.20 Vegetables 24. Meat and fish 96. Clothing 140. Church and other organizations 20. Pleasure 20. Doctor 12. Miscellaneous 40. Total 709.20 This estimate can be summarized thus: Rent $120. 16.9% Food 317.20 44.8 Clothing 140. 19.7 Fuel 40. 5.1 This leaves 13.5 per cent for other expenditures which, in comparison with the standards in chapter on budgets, is not excessively large. Now assume arbitrarily that the family consists of a husband, a wife, a boy between eleven and fourteen, a child, between seven and ten, and a baby under three; the total food consumption will be that of 3.70 adult males. ^ At twenty-two cents per man per day, it would cost $297 a year to provide adequate nourishment for this household. The estimate of this man, then, was not too high. His family, especially his wife, is not by any means well clothed in the usual sense of the term, but appears to be equipped with the minimum for health and comfort. Reduce his figure for clothing to $120. It will be remembered that Dr. Chapin concluded that a family could not be clothed for less than $100, and did not affirm that this sum would * 18th Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, p. 103. Digitized by Microsoft® 162 THE STANDARD OF LIVING sufiBce.' His estimate makes absolutely no provision for night-clothes, overshoes and other equipment necessary for encountering storms, and the amount allowed for foot wear, particularly for each boy, is incredibly small. So $120 for clothing is certainly not too high, especially in the light of the standard fixed by the Iowa Bureau of Labor Statistics. One hundred and twenty dollars a year will not hire a very good house, but diminish this figure to $100. The necessary expenses now are: Food $297 Rent 100 Clothing 120 Fuel 40 Church and other organizations 20 Medical attendance 12 Amusement 20 Miscellaneous 40 Total 649 Surely this is not a high estimate for a Living Wage. It makes no provision for saving. Middletown is a small city, and its prices are comparatively low. The estimate was very carefully made as a minimum and then reduced by sixty dollars. It is, then, conservative to set $650 as the extreme low limit of the Living Wage in cities of the North, East, and West. Probably $600 is high enough for the cities of the South. At this wage there can be no saving and a minimum of pleasure. Yet there are in the United States, at least five million industrial workmen who are earning $600 or less a year. It will be remembered that 1,116,199 men engaged in manufacture alone are earning no more than $400 per annum, and 2,009,914 are receiving no more than $500. If all industrial occupations are considered, probably four million men are not enjoying annual incomes of $600.* ' Chapin, Standard of Living in New York City, pp. 166, 187 note. ' See chapter on incomes. Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER XII POSSIBILITIES In the preceding pages an attempt has been made to picture the life of the American Industrial People. It has been developed that over a fifth of the adult male laborers are idle at least a part of the time; that for this fifth, the average period of unemployment is about twelve weeks, and that the total annual loss to the nation is over a million years of working time. This enormous waste of potential labor power is largely due to industrial condi- tions, but is increased by accidents and sickness and is, directly or indirectly, the cause of much suffering. This evil intensifies the meagreness of the incomes of the men — at least five million industrial workers are receiving less than $600 per year and many do not earn $500. Irregular employment and low wages are the fundamental evils, but they have far-reaching effects. In the first place every industrial community faces a housing problem. Huge tenements and tiny hovels, alike degrading to morals and destructive to health, handicap the progress of their inhabitants. Boarding and lodging have a two-fold effect, deleterious to both hosts and guests. Moreover, at least a third of the industrial people are insufficiently nourished partly through poverty and partly through ignorance. Although clothing is a more elusive subject with which to deal, it appears that many families are not properly provided against inclement weather. Dr. Chapin's work shows that at least a third of the house- holds in New York City with incomes less than $1000 are not properly clad for health; moreover, even those who spend enough for apparel often woefully misuse their Digitized by Microsoft® 164 THE STANDARD OF LIVING funds, neglecting the inside layer for the outside appear- ance. In still another phase of his life is the laborer handi- capped — he is the victim of accidents and disease due to his home conditions and to the physical and nervous strain of his work. One of the saddest features of modern indus- try is the premature wearing out of men. In his intellectual and moral life the workman is by no means all that could be desired. He thinks and talks impurely, his home life is largely a matter of convenience, there is often little or no spiritual comradeship between husband and wife. The saloon exacts a terrible tribute, both directly in money, and indirectly in physical and mental suffering. Amusement tends strongly to the sens- ual, dancing leads frequently to gross immorality — yet, though alienated from the church, the poor are good at heart and have profound respect for things religious. The church and the workingman are beginning to feel the need of cooperation. With this summary of the present condition of the Amer- ican industrial people, this essay might close, but it seems not improper to briefly note some of the many proposals and undertakings for ameliorating their lot. As space fails for a full discussion and even for a full enumeration of these agencies, they can be sketched only in their main outlines. Unemployment is one of the most difficult problems confronting the social reformer. Especially baffling is the idleness due to industrial conditions; seasonal variations of trade, financial depressions and the like now defy rem- edy. One suggestion appears to have some merit. The wisdom of "making work" by the government is more than questionable, for while such a policy may afford relief to some it overtaxes others in hard times, and public expendi- tures are already so great that they should not be under- taken for anything which will not be per se widely bene- ficial. On the other hand, the curves in Charts 4 and 5 Digitized by Microsoft® POSSIBILITIES 165 show that work is most slack during the latter part of June, July, August, and September, and again in the winter months during January and February. Now the summer is the best time for open-air labor and it seems that if the construction work undertaken by the states and cities could be largely concentrated in these months the tem- porary depression in the manufacturing industries might be somewhat counterbalanced without any increase in public expenditure and without permanently throwing any men out of employment. The winter period of idle- ness, though more intense, is shorter. The personal causes of idleness can be better attacked. Accidents and sickness, it will be recalled, occasion over thirty per cent of unemployment. Workmen's compensation and rigidly enforced laws for the safeguarding of dangerous machinery can be made to accomplish much in the alleviation of sufifering, yet the United States needs to plod on another step and study the health conditions of occupations. Employers of those engaged in dangerous trades should bear the expense of the incident diseases. But this is only a step toward so regulating industry that health will be protected, and thus a large amount of unemployment can be checked. But there is another group of idle men who have no regular occupation. The public employment bureaus, such as have been successfully established in Washington, Michigan, Wisconsin, Connecticut, and other states, in a single year supply over a hundred thousand men and fifty thousand women with positions.^ The cost of placing an apphcant varies froin about six cents in Washington to upwards of a dollar in Connecticut, but the average is pretty low. In order to succeed, an office must have a capable superintendent who can spend most of his time visiting employers and winning their confidence; great care must be exercised in supplying calls for help, lest the ' See Appendix E. Digitized by Microsoft® 166 THE STANDARD OF LIVING reputation of the bureau suflfer; there must be money enough for judicious advertising, and the oflBce should be so centrally located as not only to make it convenient, but to bring its work before the eyes of the newspaper reporters. Yet, after all is said, these public employment bureaus have not thus far shown themselves capable of very largely solving the problem of involuntary idleness. Probably, however, it is the wage question which is the crux of the entire labor problem. If incomes could be raised without an exactly equivalent rise in prices, unem- ployment would be more endurable, better houses could be hired, better food purchased, better clothing worn, more sufficient provision made for old age, more attention paid to health and more educational and moral advantages enjoyed. The unions have only partly solved the situation. Without doubt they raise the wages of their own members, at times even beyond what seems justifiable; in other cases they are not so successful; but for the vast majority of the unskilled they have done very little good and possi- bly some relative harm. The late tendency toward in- dustrial, as opposed to trades, unionism has more promise for the unskilled laborers although its working out will be a long, complicated process. The restriction of immigra- tion would, for a time at least, limit the number of un- skilled laborers and thus make them individually more valuable. Other localities might be, perhaps, saved from the fate of New Britain, Connecticut, where it is said, Poles working contentedly for seventy-five cents a day, have made getting a living hard for the older inhabitants. Nor would a policy, not of absolute exclusion, but of great restriction, be essentially unkind to the European peasan- try. Many of the immigrants are unmercifully exploited, hordes are the victims of tuberculosis or other diseases, and a large proportion are completely demoralized. More- over emigration is certainly not an unmixed good to the old world, and is looked upon by many governments as Digitized by Microsoft® POSSIBILITIES 167 a great peril. The doubtful value of restriction of immi- gration as a partial solution of the wage problem lies in the diflSculty of devising any fair and effective basis of selection of those admitted, and the difficulty of securing Congressional legislation upon the subject against the opposition of large business interests, and finally in the possibility that the births among the present laboring classes might be so increased that within a few years the excess of laborers would be as great as ever. Another expedient for raising incomes to a satisfactory standard is the "Minimum Wage Board." Such a body should consist of equal numbers of employers and em- ployees from a given industry with a non-interested chair- man. They would meet frequently and set a minimum wage below which no employer could go, although he might pay more if he thought best. Victoria, Australia, has nearly forty such bodies the first of which were estab- lished in 1896, and they are apparently successful in rais- ing wages and increasing employment in dull times. They are popular among the workers. The experiment of wage boards among the "home workers" in England is being begun this year, and the National Consumers' League is advocating a similar policy in American industries employ- ing women and children. While the efficacy of this institu- tion is not yet proved it is well worth study and perhaps a trial, as the experiment would be fraught with no great danger.^ Of the more specific evils growing out of low incomes, bad housing was one of the first to claim attention. In the Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor for September, 1904, Mr. G. W. W. Hanger, told of sixteen firms which have undertaken to supply good and cheap houses for their employees. All of these undertakings were meeting with fair success, but in some cases, the accommodations pro- vided at low rates were obviously insufficient for decent * See Article by John A. Ryan, Survey, vol. xxiv, p. 810. Digitized by Microsoft® 168 THE STANDAED OF LIVING living. A South Carolina firm supplied cottages at $.50 per room per month, barely enough for repairs and taxes, but the buildings were of an inferior sort, though "good enough for the people who occupied them." Aside from this case, which was not financially a paying venture, the lowest rental was $1.50 per month for four rooms. Now four rooms is rightly considered by Dr. Chapin, and John Mitchell, insufficient for a typical family, and it did not appear that more than four rooms could be hired for less than eight dollars a month in any case. Yet it can be said that these undertakings seem to demonstrate that for a reasonable rent, good houses can be provided. There have been numerous semi-philanthropic experiments in provid- ing cheap good shelter, notably in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington. The City and Suburban Homes Com- pany has helped many mechanics to piu"chase their houses. A Washington Sanitary Improvement Company has earned five per cent dividends on its houses, but its charges are $9.50 to $11 a month for three rooms. A new com- pany has there been formed to rent apartments at $7 or $8, with the expectation of earning four per cent."^ And now Mr. M. D. Morrill is building his first six room con- crete house which he claims will cost $1200 or less if 20 or more are built at one time.^ At least three great diffi- culties must be overcome in providing model shelter for the poor on a commercial basis. Good houses may be so expensive that laborers will not be able to pay the rents; a reform entails more rental or lessened profits.' Second, such supervision of model property as is necessary to earn interest and furnish cheap but respectable houses requires an unusual amount of business acumen. Finally, houses may easily be made so attractive as to appeal to the me- chanic and others receiving high wages, and so the poor ^ Sternberg, Charities and the Commons, vol. xii, p. 726 ff. ' The Survey, vol. xxiv, p. 98. ' De Forest, A. A. A., vol. xx, p. 94. Digitized by Microsoft® POSSIBILITIES 169 may not be helped at all. In concluding the whole matter it may be well to quote Mr. Gould, who after describing various attempts at private reform says, "The analysis of Economic experience here presented shows conclusively that five per cent in dividends and a safe reserve can be earned on model tenement dwellings anywhere, charging customary rents, provided the total cost of the completed property does not exceed $500 per room."^ For the achieve- ment of this result, however, cheap land easy of access, a low cost of construction, a knowledge of the people, and a supply of rare tact are requisite. In view of all these difficulties it is hardly to be expected that any comprehen- sive reform of housing conditions will be accomplished by private enterprise. If private means cannot be relied upon, the state must be appealed to, and it is through law that the problem of housrag can probably best be solved. The New York and New Jersey tenement house codes are very successful in bettering the homes of the poor. Other states and cities are adopting similar statutes, and the tenement houses can be said to be suffering the initial steps of a transforma- tion for the better. The more rapid the development of these tenement house laws, properly enforced, the happier will be the working classes. But the tenements do not comprise the whole problem. Boards of health by enforc- ing codes requiring sewer connections, tested plumbing, one toilet to each family, and adequate water supplies can make impossible the renting of many of the ramshackle single or double houses now in use. These shanties have no right to exist and must be suppressed by vigorous measures. If no other way is possible the method of Buffalo is available. There the Board of Health may order ten- ants to be evicted unless requirements for improvement are met within a specified period. However, if they can- not find other accommodations, the tenants may live on, 1 Gould, Y(de Review, vol. v, p. 16. Digitized by Microsoft® 170 THE STANDARD OF LIVING ' for a limited time, rent free, until orders are obeyed by the landlord. Enforced law can make the ownership of unsan- itary houses financially impossible. America is now at the proper stage to finally solve its housing problems. With Boards of Health, Tenement House Commissions and their respective codes, discovered and fairly perfected, as tools of reform, is allied a new movement. The exodus of the factories to the small cities brings, it is true, great danger of congestion to these muni- cipalities; but if they are only awake to history in the making, they can profit by experience and expand without developing such unwholesome tenements as existed in New York and Jersey City, such hovels as are to be found near the Chicago stockyards, or such back alley miseries as are present in Philadelphia and San Francisco. If they are vigilant, growing cities may avoid imsavory notoriety for their slums. The worst of the evils due to boarding and lodging occur in the tenement houses and will be corrected as good laws against overcrowding are enforced, but for those family-less persons who take up their residence in buildings devoted to the boarding or lodging business, a great deal must be done. The first thing is to require by law the provision of parlors that guests, especially women, shall not be com- pelled to entertain their company in their own rooms. This alone would be a great step in advance, but something is needed to prevent the de-humanizing process that makes selfish bachelors and spinsters of these lonesome creatures. The Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Asso- ciations are making a noble effort to attract and entertain young people, settlements do something, but the bulk of the work is incumbent upon the church. When country youths seek the city, they should be preceded by letters to the pastors of city churches, they should be followed up, entertained a bit, and enticed into friendships in good society. Thus their new surroundings can be made more Digitized by Microsoft® POSSIBILITIES 171 agreeable, and they will not be driven into morose isola- tion by the fact that no one is interested in them. Through the country new-comers the church can reach the natives of the city. This work constitutes a great opportunity which is being neglected. The next subject that forced itself into consideration was the prevalence of undernutrition among the industrial people. Of course the obvious remedy is to increase in- comes until an expenditure of at least twenty-two cents per man per day can be universal. Yet that would be only a beginning, for the poor must be taught how to spend their money wisely. The campaign of education is already being carried on by visiting nurses, friendly visitors, settlement workers and other charities. Much more could be accomplished by the wider introduction of classes in domestic economy — not in the high schools, for hardly a tenth of the children ever go through them,^ but in the grades. The simple arts of keeping fires, and of cooking staple articles of diet should be thoroughly drilled into the young girls. They could be taught that the cheaper cuts. of meat are just as nutritious as the choicer portions, that much grease is to be abhorred, that more fats and carbo- hydrates can be eaten in winter than in summer, and which foods are rich in proteids, which in carbohydrates. With economy in fuel, plain cooking, and the rudiments of dietary hygiene thoroughly mastered, by the children of the grades, a generation would probably witness quite an improvement in the nutrition of the laboring people, but it is not necessary to wait a generation. Evening classes and free lectures for mothers, and a wide circulation of literature similar to that used in the anti-tuberculosis cam- paign could accomplish a great deal in a few years. Passing over the matter of dress which will find its correctives largely in increased intelligence if domestic economy is seriously taught in the schools, the matter of ' Ayres, Laggards in Our Schools, pp. 3 and 11. Digitized by Microsoft® 172 THE STANDARD OF LIVING thrift is the next to claim attention. The poor are not possessed of suflBcient business acumen to make their own investments, building and loan associations appear to have reached their zenith, and to be on, the decline, prob- ably because it is becoming increasingly more precarious for a workingman to own his home, so the savings baiLks and insurance companies are about the only institutions which help the poor to make provision for the future. But the savings banks are too largely limited in their territory, and many of them do not feel inclined to under- take a large mail business. It is then particularly fortu- nate that this year has witnessed the establishment of postal savings banks. In other countries, the postal savings bank has proven itself an institution of widespread benevo- lent effect. The government has the confidence of people who dare trust no other agency; the provision for the sale of deposit stamps for ten cents will be available to school teachers in educating their charges to save; and an ac- count may be opened by any one over ten years of age with a deposit of a dollar. It is to be hoped that the first few offices to be established will be so successful that none can dispute the value of the institution, but there is ground to fear that, by opening the first depositaries in cities where there are many savings banks already estab- lished, and by issuing certificates instead of pass-books, the plan will be denied the best trial. The problem of health has already been touched upon in connection with accidents and the diseases of occupa- tions as causes of unemployment. The fight against child labor and the campaign of the Consumers' League to regu- late the labor of women are essentially health movements, but effective work is being done in an entirely distinct field. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company has taken up a form of welfare work with the business purpose of extending the life of its policy-holders. After vigorously cooperating with the Anti-Tuberculosis movement in a Digitized by Microsoft® POSSIBILITIES 173 "War upon Consumption" it has placed its field force at the disposal of boards of health and sanitary associations, and, further, has arranged in over forty cities to extend a free nurse service to its policy-holders. The value of the visits of these nurses can hardly be estimated — for their work is preventive, educational. Soon this company will probably have a sanitorium at the disposal of its tubercu- lous policy-holders. From another angle, medical inspec- tion in the schools is destined to do much toward improv- ing the health of the masses, for a little attention during childhood can often avert many physical perils that come from adenoids, slight spinal curvatures, deficient eyesight, and poor teeth. This work not only improves health, but promotes education. Another very important matter is that of the length of the working day. The Eighteenth Annual Report of the New York Bureau of Labor Statis- tics contains an eloquent appeal for shorter hours of labor, and shows that though in some cases production is dimin- ished by the shortening of the working day, in others there is no reduction in output. At any rate, the curtailment in the productivity of labor is never so great as the increased efficiency per hour. John Rae concludes, "The effect of shorter hours on the general wages of labour depends entirely on their effect on production. If they lessen pro- duction generally, they will lower wages generally, but they have not, in fact, lowered production generally in the past, and they have consequently not lowered wages." ' The beneficial effect of shorter days upon the workingmen generally cannot be disputed. "The men who work the longest hours spend the most time in the saloon. It is the man whose vitality has been least exhausted who is more easily content to go directly home after his day's work is done."* "The unanimous testimony of all competent observers, teachers, ministers and sociologists, has been 1 Rae, Eight Hours f(yr Work, p. 242. ' Letters from a Workingvum, p. 44. Digitized by Microsoft® 174 THE STANDARD OF LIVING to the effect that a reduction in the hours of labor almost invariably means an improvement in the whole moral tone of the community, a raising of the standard of Hving, a growth of self-respect of the workingman, and a dim- inution, not an increase in drunkenness, violence, and crime. If the American workman can be entrusted with suffrage, it is certainly safe to entrust him with a few hours of leisure."^ Finally, and perhaps the most authoritative utterance upon the subject, is the opinion of the United States Industrial Commission: "On the side of the working population there can be no question respecting the desir- ability of fewer hours, from every standpoint. They gain not only in health, but also in morality, temperance, and preparation for citizenship." ^ Thus the improvement in health must be a product of many factors among which are legislation compelling the protection of workingmen from all the dangers of occupation, both accidents and poisons, the welfare work of insurance companies, health boards, and sanitary associations, medical inspection in the schools, the reform of housing, the improvement in the choice of food and clothing, and the curtailing of the hours of labor in order that undue fatigue may not under- mine the system. At so many points in their life has ignorance increased the misery of the industrial people that education has frequently been believed to be the one sure cure for all present ills. More knowledge would certainly be of the greatest assistance to the workingmen's families. In the first place, any amount of culture is worth while in itself. Carlyle thought it a tragedy that one man, capable of knowledge, should die ignorant. It is worth considerable effort to be able to enjoy a good book, to appreciate a good sermon, to go into raptures — gushing or unexpressed ' Mitchell, Organized Labor, p. 125. ' Report of the Industrial Commission, vol. xix, p. 772. Digitized by Microsoft® POSSIBILITIES 175 — over a beautiful view, or to know and love men. Edu- cation, almost without regard to its exact content, gives capacity for all this and more, but it were misfortune indeed to have this love and yearning for the good without the ability to satisfy the desire. And, to a large extent, education helps to sate the wants it engenders, for it increases efficiency. It is said that Russian peasants can- not handle American farm implements, simply because their minds have not been trained to the adaptation necessary for using such machinery. This is one of Ricar- do's "strong cases," but it serves to illustrate the point that knowledge is transmutable. The education which is offered by the American public schools to-day, however, is not the most beneficial for the great mass of people. Doubtless every boy should know his reading, writing, arithmetic and grammar; that is, he should have a good command of the vernacular and should know how to keep his own accounts. In a democracy, every child should be taught something of civics and of appreci- ative history of his country. Further than this, however, it is hard to say that there is any subject necessary to all children. Yet there are certain studies which undoubtedly deserve a higher place than they are now accorded. Among these, one of the first is physical culture. Mention has been made of the surprising number of defective children in the schools; a systematic physical examination and more attention to defects that can be corrected by exer- cises, might, especially if combined with active, interested cooperation between parent, teacher, and school physician, prevent epidemics, improve general health, and raise the physical standard of the race. Since "The business of education is adaptation to environment," and since about ninety per cent of the boys will have to work with their hands, it is the duty of the school to prepare these youths for their future tasks.' Industrial training, whether it aim ' Professor Raymond Dodge. Digitized by Microsoft® 176 THE STANDARD OF LIVING to develop trade skill, or only to cultivate general adapta- bility, would be of infinite value to the average school boy. It has been demonstrated in Cincinnati, that this chance to use tools improves scholarship in other departments, and so interests boys that they remain longer in school. So not only does this important study directly fit the majority of the pupils for their inevitable environment, but it affords additional opportunity for the teachers to instill the more strictly cultural ideas that so increase the pleasures of life. Indeed, manual training has one additional advantage. Pedagogical leaders now agree that moral development is the most important product of education. Manual training has a distinct moral value. Exact measurements require honest effort and an honest attitude toward that work. Moreover, such exercises develop persistence in spite of discouragement, and in- spire boys with the constructive spirit. A corresponding training in domestic economy for the girls has already been mentioned. This kind of instruction is needed to adapt the boys and many of the girls to the environment in which they are to spend most of their lives. There can be little doubt that an extensive introduction of manual training and domestic economy into the schools would contribute largely, directly and indirectly, to the happiness of the industrial people, but there is just one other subject that should be taught to every youth — sex hygiene. Reference has already been made to the wide prevalence of venereal disease. The physicians repeatedly state that the only remedy is a imiversal knowledge of the facts, and yet, very few people realize either the nature of the afflictions or their terrible grip upon mankind. If the home had not failed, there would be no necessity of calling upon the school. But the home has not yet shown itself capable of coping with this plague, and, since such institutions as the Y. M. C. A. reach relatively few yoimg persons, the task seems to devolve upon the school. In Digitized by Microsoft® POSSIBILITIES 177 proper hands instruction upon this subject could be made dignified, free from embarrassment, and extremely effect- ive in checking the ravages of sex diseases. Even it such teaching imposed no restraint upon the passions of men, girls would be warned to choose their husbands carefully. If any considerable number of young ladies should heed this warning, the men would be compelled to be more strict in their conduct. One other advantage of a more complete and rational education must be noticed; men would be given higher ideals of life if they could be longer held in the class room. At present many boys leave school just at the beginning of manhood, the time when the wholly animal, unmoral being is giving place to the idealistic, chivalrous youth, — at the critical period of life. The longer the youth stays in the school the more probable it is that these heroic ideas will impress on his nature the spirit of manly generosity. Thus his attitude toward the home will be measurably elevated and his mind will find that other subjects are even more charming than the sensual. Education is by no means a panacea, but the more American youths are taught, the better, happier lives they will be enabled to lead. In education, finally, is the best solution of the amuse- ment problem. This education should take two forms, amusement and instruction. By amusement is meant social and literary functions similar to those so much enjoyed in the settlements, and by instruction public lectures upon subjects of real educational value such as are conducted with such marked success in New York City under the guidance of Dr. Leipziger. Thus it is edu- cation that, combined with higher incomes, is the great mainstay in the improvement of the lot of the industrial people — "Education for Efficiency," industrial, domestic, hygienic, cultural, moral. In this brief sketch a few of the important agencies for Digitized by Microsoft® 178 THE STANDARD /OF LIVING raising the standard of living have been enumerated: — Unemployment must be attacked on two lines, a wise temporal distribution of public work and the enlargement of free state employment bureaus, and the elimination of accidents and occupational diseases. Low incomes can be raised partly by the labor unions, the larger benefit to the unskilled being probably to be found in the newer indus- trial union idea, restriction of immigration should be of some assistance, and minimum wage boards are a promis- ing though comparatively untried tool. The evils of housing can only partly be alleviated by private enterprise, but good thoroughly enforced state tenement house and health codes can be relied upon to gradually render the homes of the working people sanitary. The boarder and lodger must be reached by some active social or religious organization; this work logically falls upon the church. The standards of nutrition are so largely dependent upon incomes that little can be accomplished without a rise in wages, yet domestic economy can be popularized with beneficent results. The postal savings banks have the opportunity of greatly encouraging thrift especially if the school teachers enlist the interest of the children. Health can be improved by the prevention of industrial diseases, the prohibition of child labor and regulation of the labor of women, welfare work similar to that of the MetropoUtan Life Insurance Company and the Tuberculosis Campaign, medical inspection in the schools, and a shorter working day for those subject to over-fatigue. Finally education adapted for an industrial environment is perhaps the one most powerful factor that can be enlisted in the cause of a higher standard of living for the American working people. One thing, however, must not be forgotten; the spiritual side is the most important part of man's nature. The church is awaking to a deep sympathy with the laborer, the workingman respects religion. It is the followers of Christ Digitized by Microsoft® POSSIBILITIES 179 who are slowly but surely destroying the saloon and thus raising productivity of individuals and the morals of com- munities: it is the followers of Christ who are leading in the great movements of the day to ameliorate the hard conditions of industrial life. Without Christianity, greater physical comfort may be attained by the laboring man, but there will be between employer and employee an ever keener struggle for supremacy, fiercer for each advance that is achieved by the laborer unless both parties re- cognize the divine authority of the Man who said "Love one another as i have loved tou." Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® APPENDIX Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® g ^ I s 3-(»l(»fflO»^OSUB'JI00Wr-l>O o io t- use a> ^ t-m 9> u3^ t-i> »5 l>CQ^QOWi— *Q005^ S5 'oi'jIcidoicxii^rHt-IeQi-Has rt pH 0» •« lO t- OS 05 " fc «; 1> S* 0 I- 05 OS S ■*'*i-'-it-'?K5^t-i-i-ie co«>a0'»'00>a «e- iH iH r-( o) S Digitized by Microsoft® e>QO>enaoat»i» i OS « >a e ooot .8 ■§ I M U3 t- QO at I m « » ooot I GO '« to 00 a CQ H S w >d i-< o5( r-1 o« m •* » t- o> 00 >omoeos)t>oa>t- S " i-i oi i> m oi ■^ i-i i-H 1-5 m>Quo>ost>o< Digitized by Microsoft® FOOD VALUES (aPPBOXIMATE PEB cent op pood available POB NUTBITION IN THE ABTICLEB ACTUALLY PUBCHASED ON THE OPEN M ABKEt) fowl Per CBiU of prottidi Caiariti per pouni Fresh beef U. 1000 Salt beef 14.5 1000 Fresh hog 18. 1250 Salt hog S.i 3550 Other meat 14. 1000 Poultry 18.8 765 Fish 10.8 220 Eggs 18.7 685 Butter 1. 8410 Cheese 87.7 2076 T.flrd — 4000 Flour and meal 12. 1640 Bread 7.8 1200 Sugar — 1760 Rice 8. 1620 PoUtoes 1.44 296 Milk 8.3 310 Molasses 1226 Digitized by Microsoft® ■aS 1 B9II01B0 spimod Bpanoi ^800 1 o CO sepoi^O 8PI3J0JJ Bpunoj Bpanoj ?B00 1 u •a S aajmiBO sprajoij spunoa Bpnnoj »800 5 1 B3UOHJ0 Bpiaioij epunoj spmioj ?Boa j S •A B3U01B0 epwiojj epunoj apimoj woo g§l§l§l§§§iil§§§§§,, U3drHnrHrHi-iMes9)df-i^OM»de4« § l§i§liiii§iiii§i gsssssssa, , iSSgs I eoeoorHi-iciosc 1 1 M 8 , ssssss^ssassssssaes — iH e^ «o iM CO CO U3 cq S3 :£''>£;'-•'£!£ £3 SS S I cs-^rHc-oooooWwioOio^qeo'^oi gSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS =a3!"Sfi2 3"SSSSS= ssssscpssg I I I I SSiiSiSiSiiliiSSiS M d CO CO iH cj CO CO CO o 1-4 ' ' ' S3kac4co ' ' ^dtot^rHe^c4'dpH I I I oit^dto I I sss8SgsBS5(ggssasassss ^r-icocotoeici'dt-t-deJ^d^^ocQc^p^ % M € "O Pi ^mflowr? hS S* Om mW Digitized by Microsoft® E WORK OF FREE PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT BUREAUS (Compiled from various state and federal leports.) Calendar year ir I Applications for Applications for Situations secured nUch last fiscal employment help State period cheed men women men woTnen men woTnen Wisconsin^ 1908 13,134 3,023 13,146 3,269 13,133 3,022 Minnesota 1908 23,131 14,630 23,012 17,637 22,294 14,220 West Virginia 1908 4,852 1,005 431 572 381 461 Washington* 1907 45,027 3,723 Missouri 1908 12,189 1,770 7,581 2.003 6,337 1,089 Montana' 1908 11,012 6,383 14,492' 6,872 6,116 Connecticut 1908 4,938 7,951 2,775 6,412 2,565 6,536 Ohio 1908 11,909 11,684 7,103 12,055 6,592 9.374 Oklahoma 1909 3,462 » 4,089' 3,250 » Michigan 16,065 6,615 16,732 1,865 10,396 6,833 Mass., Boston 1907 26,360 9,600 19.966 13,731 8,671 5,809 Tlh'nois 1905 27,652 11.946 Maiyland 1904 1.078 234 202 160 378 161 1 Two years. » 1907 for Seattle ofBce, 20 months ending August 31, 1908. for other offices. ' Men and women. Digitized by Microsoft® o 'J>0>000'*00>OOOOPOOOOO C 0» rlr-lrlOOOOaOX ^ 00 00 Oi p-( r-4 CO o H - 00 00 i-i t- "o o t- •« o» m i-i B* oiooacQaoooooo^ OOOOOi-IOOrlOrH r^ t- iO *^ 1-1 ffl t-o » i-lOO eo I ujoooostooooooooooo "So "■ •*>Qr-lO0»>-ll-l-iOO»5OQ0OO00 ■a r-105 i-H r-l 1-1 « ai a» W 0« 1-1 w o g H ;z; o pel pq i 1 I. rH^O-^rHOSOCDOSOCD i-lpHi-10i-IOi-0*Ci>00^000'00000000 .oO OOOOi-llOiJlr-ICOOa^QOOSOa^asOiOS'ifl ■a t- 1-1 1- w « "O c * . — - — _ S n ' ,2*1 0050iJ10i-l»n0050CO "> 1-1 O r^ O rH 1-1 1-1 r- O O rH > IQ CO O Qbi 1 r1 1-1 1-1 „ •oooooo-fliimooooooooisio »Oi-10»Or-li-li-l-500-^'^ qD03030QOIQSI^OOOG>>003COi-l'^Ot« 04 1-1 i-( 1-1 GO 04 Ot O Ot 1-1 rH OrHi-HOr-lOi-*OFHOi-H lO CO GO 03 »0 »0 00 00 ■* F-l O O Digitized by Microsoft® INDEX Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® INDEX Accidents, 127. Accidenta and unemployment, 10. Adams, T. S., wages, 60. Addams, Miss Jane, home tenure, 80. Affection, lack of, in families, 138. Age, premature, 126. Agriculture, unemployment of laboi- ers, 38. Albany, housing problem, 73. Alcohol, effects, 147; social stimulus, 116. Amusements, 142 ; and education, 177. Amelioration, 164 ; summary of plans, 178. America, danger, 149. Americans, luxury in clothing, 104. Anglo-Saxon, clothing expenditure, 104. Artistic sense, 148. Atwater, W O., criticism of dietaries, 100 ; necessary food cost, 87. Australasia, hours of labor, 123. Australia, condition of laborers, 149. Ayres, Philip W., ideals of poor, 8. Bacon, A. F., housing in Indiana, 77. Baker, food purchased from, 99. Baltimore, housing, 74 ; unemploy- ment, 33. Banks, saTiogs, 111. Bath-rooms, in tenements, 71. Benefit features, Metropolitan Lite In- surance Co., 120. Benefits, out of work, 30. BerUn, City Plan Exhibit, 18) death- rate in tenements, 82. Beveridge, W. H., theory of unemploy- ment, 36. Births, 130. Blindness, 131. Boarders, 78; improvement of condi- tions, 170; source of income, 67. Boards of Health and housing reform, 169. Bogart, Tonkers tenements, 76. Borrowing, among the poor, 158. Boston, amusements, 143 ; housing, 74; lodgers, 78. Boys, and shortened trade life, 126. Bradstreet's, estimate of unemploy- ment, 29. Bricklayers' wages, 46. Brickmakeis' wages, 46. Brooklyn, place of women, 138. Brooks, John G., progress and stand- ard of living, 4; unemployment, 29. Buffalo, housing problem, 73 ; housing reform, 164. Building and loan associations, 114. Building trades, unemployment, 30, 38. Bullock, Charles J., definition by, of standard of living, 2; the desire for companionship as a want, 5. Bureau of Labor, wage and price sta- tistics, 48, 50. Burial money, 119. Carlyle, Thomas, education, 174. Carbohydrates, consumption, 94; func- tions, 86. Causes of anemployment, 40. Census, classified wages, 65; unemploy- ment, 34; wages, and wage-earners, 60, 69, 64. Chapln, Robert Coit, bakeries, 100; clothing cost, 18, 105, 161; housing standard, 168 ; pawning, 158 ; saving, 25 ; soiirces of family income, 59 ; standard of living, criticised, 11; tenements, 73 ; thrift, 110. Character, revealed in expenditures, 9. Charity, hurtful to church, 161. Charts, 19, 21, 23, 37, 39, 45, 47, 49, 51, 63, 55, 57. Chicago, diet of Italians, 89, 94 ; hous- ing, 74; Italians, health, 129; unem- ployment, 30; wages of clothing- makers, 62. Child labor, 52, 67, 172. Children, defective, 99; effect on fam- ily expenditures, 22; faulty diet, 100; food cost, 90 ; health, 132 ; sleep in tenements, 81 ; training, 148. Christianity, 178. Church, and boarders and lodgers, 170; and labor, 150. Cincinnati, housing, 76; industrial training, 176; pawnbrokers' rates, 158. City and Suburban Homes Co., 168. City wages, 48. Civilization, progress and standard of living, 4. Digitized by Microsoft® 192 INDEX Class, conflict, 149 ; detennlnant of standard of living, 3. Clothing, chapter on, 103; cost in nor- mal families, 22 ; functions, 103; re- lation to income, 13, 18. Clothing trades, unemployment, 30; wages, 62. Closson, C. C, unemployment, 29. Coal district, housing, 77; miners' wages, 61. Coffee, 99. Comforts, place in standard of living, 2. Commissioner of Labor, accidents, 128 ; boarders and lodgers, 79 ; food pur- chases, 98; savings, 110; sources of family income, 68 ; table of expendi- tures, 17. Committee of Fifty, diet, 99. Compensation, for accidents, 128; workmen's, 165. Condition, of industrial people, 163. Conductors' wages, 60. Conference of Charities and Correc- tions, living wage, 160. Connecticut, child labor, 67; employ- ment bureau, 165. Conversation, shop girls', 141. Cooking, importance, 88; uneconom- ical, 94. Cost, of life insurance, 118; of living, 6, 26 ; social, of long hours, 124. Cotton industry, families dependent on, 69. Croatians, wages, 63. Crowell, Miss Elizabeth, midwlves, 130. Dancing, 142. Darkrooms, 71. Death, rate and over-crowding, 82; rates, 133. Deaths, preventable, 134. Debt, installment buying, 167. Defaults in insurance payments, 120. Defective children, 132. Deficits, 24, 110. DeForest, Robert, and New York tene- ments, 72. De GrafEenried, Clare, housing, 78. Delicatessen, 100. Democratic spirit, lack of, 148. Denmark, hours of labor, 123. Depression, financial or industrial, and unemployment, 29, 165. Deterioration, and faulty diet, 101; and labor of women, 56. Dewey, D. E., Eeport of, on wages, 63. Diet, Chicago Italians, 94; effect on efBciency, 101; factory girls', 92; faults, 101 ; miners', 91 ; Southern mill towns, 92; "Washington, D. C, 93. Discontent, 149. Disease, 129. Domestic economy, field for training, 171. Domestic servant, trade life, 126. Driscoll, Clement, scales, 156. Dryden, John F., Industrial insurance, 117. East Side, 70. Economies, in diet, 100 ; in purchase of clothing, 108. Education, improvement of, 171, 174; in insurance, 117; undemocratic, 147. Efficiency, and alcohol, 147; and diet, 101 ; from education, 176; of women, 64; with health, 122; with savings, 117. Emigration and unemployment, 40. Employment bureaus, state, 165; table, 187. Engel, study of budgets, 12 ; modified laws, 20. Euginemen, wages, 60. England, wage boards, 167. Etiquette, social, 143. Europe, accidents in industry and de- pendence, 128; and restriction of im- migration, 166. Eviction and tenement house reform, 169. Exhaustion of tenement dwellers, 81. Expenditures, charts, 19, 21, 23; cloth- ing, 104; Engel's table, 12 ; entrusted to wife, 140; family, 9; food, 89, 95; health, 122 ; income, 15 ; installment plan, 157 ; insurance, 116; proportion- ate, 20, 26; workingmen's in Massa- chusetts, 13. Factories, exodus to small cities, 170. Families, expense for clothing, 104; normal, defined, 11 ; normal, expend- itures of, 22 ; sources of income, 62 ; tenement house, 70. Fatigue, poisons, 123, Fats, functions, 86. Firemen, wages, 60. Fisher, Irving, food, 86. Food, Atwater's criticisms, 101; chap- ter on, 86 ; consumption, tables, 186 ; cost in relation to income, 14 ; econ- omies in, 100; expenditures for, 22, 87, 95 ; extravagance, 100 ; social stim- ulus, 86; standards of diet, 87; sufficiency for nourishment, 97; val- Digitized by Microsoft® INDEX 193 nea of food stuffs, 185; values pur- chasable for ten cents, 188. Forman, S. E., food cost in Washing- ton, 89 ; dietaries, 93, 99 ; rents in Washington, 155. Frankel, Lee K., Chairman of Com- mittee on Cost of IriTing, 11. Free lunch, 89, 146. French peasants, 149. Friendly visitors, 171. Fuel, consumption of foods for, 98. Generosity of the poor, 140. Georgia, child labor, 67 ; textile wages, 63. Girls, thoughts of working, 137. Glass industry, families dependent on, 69; trade life in, 125; unemployment, 38. Gompers, Samuel, living wage, 159. Goodyear, Miss Caroline, clothing, 106; disease, 129. Gould, E. R. L., homes, 80; housing reform, 169 ; tenements and the sa- loon, 82. Government, and unemployment, 164. Great Britain, hours of labor, 123. Hanger, G. W. W., building and loan associations, 114; cost of living, 10; housing, 167. Health, chapter on, 121; and clothing, 106; dehnltion, 122; dependence on food, 86. Hewlett, Maurice, 140. Hoffman, F. L., deaths, 134; indus- trial accidents, 127. Homes, labor of women in, 54; pur- chase of, 111 ; standard of living, 6; tenure of, 79. Hours of labor, course of, 50; health, 123; reduction of, 173. Housing, chapter on, 69; in Southern mill towns, 77; reform, 167; strength of want, 69. Hungarians, food cost, 89; wages, 63. Hunter, Kobert, home tenure, 79. Huxley, East End, 83. Hygiene, education, 176, Ignorance in food selection, 94, 102. Dlinois, unemployment, 33; wages, 48, 61. Immigration, and employment, 40; and wages, 62, 166. Incomes, chapter on, 44; classified, 68; determinant of standard of living, 3; insufficient, 24, 162; sources, 67. Indiana, housing, 77; unemployment, 33; wages, 66. Industrial accidents, 127. Industrial Commission, hours of labor, 174. Industrial education, 175. Industrial insurance, 116. Industrial people, condition of, 163. Industrial unions, 166. Industrial Workers of the World, 149. Inebriety and unemployment, 40. Installment buying, 157. Insurance, form of saving, 115. Intellectual life, 136. Interest rates to poor, 158. Interstate Commerce Commission, wages, 67. Iowa, bureau of Labor Statistics, clothing, 105, 162. Irregularity of work, 124. Italians, diet of, 89, 94; superstitions of, 148; unemployment of, 30; wages of, 62. James, A. E., wage statistics, 63. Jersey City, tenements, 73. Kansas, unemployment, 33, 42. Kindliness of poor, 140. Knopf, S. A., clothing, 108. Labor and the church, 150; earnings, 68; organized, 30, 62; women, 52. Laborers, opinions of, 148; sensuality of, 137. Law, housing, 72, 76, 169. Leipziger, Henry M., 177. Lennox, Miss Elizabeth, budgets, 9. Le Play, family monographs, 12. Levasseur, Emile, food, 89. Liquors, consumption of, 144. Lithuanians, 62. Little Palermo, 76. Living wage, 154, 159, 161. Lodgers, 78; amelioration of lot of, 170; as sources of income, 67. Lodging houses, evils of, 84. London, dockyards, 127. Los Angeles, Sonoratown, 75. Losses of the poor, 154. Loss, from disease, 131. Luxuries, in standard of living, 2; in food, 100. Machinery and onemployment, 40; and wages, 46. Mackay, 112. Maine, wages, 60, 62, 68. Malnutrition, 94. Manhattan, home tenure, 79; tene- ments, 70. Manual training, 176. Digitized by Microsoft® 194 INDEX Manufactures, classified earnings, 64. Marriages, hasty, 139; prospective ef- fect of, on wages, 54. Massachusetts, classified wages, 53, 65, 184 ; family expenditures, 13 ; food cost, 89; hours of labor in, 125; rela^ tion of prosperity to wages in, 45; report on Southern mill operatives, 92; secondary occupation, 68; textile wages, 63, variation of employment, 37. Medical attention, 132. Men, as sources of income, 57. Methodists and laborers, 151. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, 120; welfare work of, 172. Michigan, accidents in, 127; state em- ployment bureau, 165 ; wages, 61. Middletown, living wage, 160. Midwlves, New York, 130. Milliners, unemployment of, 38. Milwaukee, tenements of, 76. Miners, dietaries, 91; unemployment, 34 ; wages, 61. Minimum wage boards, 167. Minnesota, wages, 60. Mitchell, John, housing standard, 168; living wage, 6, 160. Montana, wages, 59. Moody, Dwight L., 150. Morality, in thought, 136; and cloth- ing, 107; and education, 177; and in- stallment buying, 157. Morals and insurance, 116 ; in the tene- ments, 72, 83. More, Mrs. Louise B., clothing, 104; deficits and surpluses, 25; Family Budgets, 15; "Wage-Earners' Budg- ets," 9. Morrill, M. D., houses, 168. Mortgages, 2, 79. National Consumers' League, 167, 172. Newark, insurances policies in, 117. New Britain, immigration, 166. New England, city churches, 150; track-hands, 60. New Hampshire, wages, 63. New Jersey, classified wages, B3, 66, 183 ; tenement house law, 169 ; varia- tion of employment, 39. New Orleans, housing, 75. Newsholm, accidents, 127. New York City, abnormal conditions, 18 ; bakeries, 100; clothing expendi- tures, 104; disease, 121, 129; housing reform, 168 ; insurance, 116 ; lodgers, 78 ; unemployment, 29 ; women, 138. New York State, Bureau of Labor, health, 123; hours of labor, 173; Con- ference of Charities and Correc- tions, on cost of living, 6, 11; tene- ment house code, 169; unemploy- ment, 30, 42 ; wages, 62. Nickelodeons, 143. Normal families, defined, 11 ; expendi- tures, 22; for food, 90. North Carolina, wages, 60, 63. North Dakota, wages, 60. Nurses, visiting, 171. Nutrition, improvement of, 171 ; in New York, 95; of school-children, 132 ; standards of, 87 ; table showing diet, 97 ; under-nutrition, 98. Nutritive value of foods, 185, 186, 188. Occupations, class standard of living, 3 ; death rates in, 133 ; secondary, 36. Ohio, miners' wages, 61. Opinions of labor, 148. Optimism of poor, 158. Organized labor, unemployment, 30; wages, 46. Overcapitalization and unemploy- ment, 43. Overcrowding, Pittsburg, 76 j in tene- ments, 73. Owen, Robert, 124. Padrone, immigrants' wages, 63. Paint compounder, wages of, 46, Pauiter, wages of, 46. Pauper burials, 117. Pauperism and alcohol, 147 ; and unem- ployment, 42. Pawning, 158. Peasants, Russian, 175. Pennsylvania, amusements of miners of, 143; cost of clothing in coal-fields of, 104; interest rates, 158 ; labor of women and children, 56; wages, 61, 63. Philadelphia, building and loan asso- ciations, 115; housing problem, 74; housing reform, 168; unemployment in, 33. Pickles, in diet, 92. Pittsburg, dietaries, 91; drinking in, 144; housing, 75; lodgers, 78; thrift, 110 ; unemployment, 29; wages, 42, 62. Platonic friendship, 136. Plumbing, disordered, 71. Pneumonia, and insufficient clothing, 106. Poles, wages, 62, 166. Poor, losses of, 155. Population per saloon, 145 ; and stand- ard of living, 7. Portland, housing, 74. Digitized by Microsoft® INDEX 195 Possibilities, 163. Postal savings banks, 172. Poverty, and disease, 131. Presbyterians, 151. Prices of food, 50. Privacy, impossible in tenements, 72. Property, ownership of, 83. Prosperity, and savings. 111; and wages, 48. Prostitution, in tenements, 72. Proteids, functions, 86; lack of, in diet, 96. Protestants and labor, 150. Public work, distribution of, 165. Eae, John, hours of labor, 124, 173. Railroads, accidents, 127; wages, 60. Reading of poor, 141. Real wages, 48. Recreation, 141. Religion, 152. Rents, 18, 154; and incomes, 13, 24; in tenements, 71. Restriction of immigration, 167. Ricardo, David, 175. Richards, Mrs. Ellen H., clothing, 103. Rickets, 94. Risk, and wages, 46. Roberts, Peter, clothing, 104; labor of children and women, 56; miners' dietaries, 91, 99; wages of miners, 61; woman, 139. Rochester, housing, 73. Roosevelt, Theodore, home Ufa, 6. Ross, B. A., home tenure, 83. Ryan, John A., home life, 6; incomes, 67 ; living wage, 160. St. Paul, 68. Saloon, 142; connection with faulty diet, 99 ; free lunch, 89 ; functions, 145. San Francisco, housing reform, 170. Sanitorium, 173. Sayings banks. 111, 172. Sohoenberg, rents, 18. Schools, 147 ; reform of, 175. Sea.sonal industries, 38. Secondary occupations, 36. Section foremen, wages, 61. Secularization of church, 151. Settlements, 171. Sex, in mental life, 136; effect on wages, 54. Shaftesbury, Earl of, 81. Shanties, 74. Sickness, 40, 121. Skill and wages, 50. Slavs, dances of, 142 ; food, 89, 91; wages, 63. Sleep, in clothing, 108; in tenements, 81. Slums, origin of, 73. Small, A. W., 6. Smart, W. A., 1, 2, 99. Social and intellectual life, 136. Social functions of housing, 69. Social life and saloon, 146. Social position and wages, 46. Sonoratown, 75. South Carolina, company housing, 168; textile wages, 63. Standard of dress, perverted, 107 ; of food, 88; of housing, 168. Standard of living, 1; cost of, 25; de- fined, 2 ; non-competing groups, 46 ; relation to savings, 113. SteriUty, 134. Stimulants, and diet, 99; and fatigue, 123. Strikes, and unemployment, 40. Sumner, H. L., wages, 60. Superstition, 148. Surplus, 24, 110. Sweets, 92, 99. Syracuse, home baking, 100 ; housing problem, 73. Taylor, Graham, unemployment, 29. Tea, place of, in dietary, 99. Tenement house, 70, 81, 129, 167. Textiles, diet of operatives, 93; wages, 63. Theatres, 143. Theory of savings, 112. Thrift, 110; encouragement of, 172. Tllden, Horace, 107. Trade life, 125. Trainmen, wages, 61. Troy, housing problem, 73. Tuberculosis, 130. Tucker, Prank, definition by, of stand- ard of living, 2. Underhill, Prank P., food cost, 87. Under-fed families, 90. Under-nutrition, extent, 98. Unemployment, 29; accidents, 128; causes, 36; disease, 131; effects of, 42; labor loss from, 35; remedies for, 164. United States, building and loan asso- ciations, 114; hours of labor, 123; in- surance in, 117. Unrest, 149. Unskilled labor, unemployment, 40. Unions, broken by depression, 43; in- surance, 120; mental and social life, 144; wages, 166. Variation of employment, seasonal, 37. Digitized by Microsoft® 196 INDEX Van Vorst, Mrs. John, food, 100; edu- cation, 9; factory workers, 91. Van Yorst, Misa Marie, clotliing, 108 ; dietaries, 93; health, 129; hours of labor, 124; housing, 77. Veiller, Lawrence, tenements, 72, 83. Venereal disease, 131. Vice, result of unemployment, 43. Victoria, wage boards, 167, Wage-Earners' Budgets, 9. Wage, living, 154. Wages, 7, 166, 44; classified, 183. Wants, and sayings, 113; satisfaction, 27; scale of, 1; strength of subsist- ence, 26. Warner, Amos G., unemployment, 38 ; sensuality, 137. Waste of human labor, 126. Washington, D. C, employment bu- reau in, 185; housing, 75, 168; food cost, 89; rents, 166. Washington Sanitary Improvement Co., 168. Water in tenements, 72, 76. Weather, and unemployment, 40. Welfare work, 172. Wisconsin, employment bureau, 165; food cost, 89; labor of women, 66; wages, 60. Wives, purchase theory, 138; wage- earning, 58. Women, health, 130; position, 140; routines, 139; working, 62. Woolen industry, 58. Working-girls clubs, 78. Workingmen, oversensitiveness, 161. Workmen's compensation, 165. Wright, Carroll D., cost of living, 10; tenements, 82. Yonkers, tenements, 76. Young Men's Christian Association, and Young Women's Christian As- sociation, 170; as lodging houses, 78. Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . A Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® HD6983.S8""'""''""'>"-"'"'^ The standard of living among the industr 3 1924 002 694 911 Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft®