5
Our Reward.
Now what is the reward of the workers today? Does it enable them to live in decent comfort? If it did there would be no complaint and the world would move on contented and unconcerned. But the facts are astounding. The latest information that we have on wages in the United States is by Prof. Scott Nearing and I want him to tell you about it. In his recent book entitled "Wages in the United States" he calls our attention to the fact that Prof. R. C. Chapin estimated that a New York family consisting of a man, wife and three children under fourteen could maintain "a normal standard, at least so far as the physical man is concerned," on an annual income of $900. Prof. Nearing then made an investigation to learn how many workers get this living wage. Let us assume that the sum necessary to live decently is $600 instead of $900. Prof. Nearing says:
"It appears that half of the adult males of the United States are earning less than $500 a year; that three-quarters of them are earning less than $600 annually; that nine-tenths are receiving less than $800 a year. * * * Three-quarters of the adult males and nineteen-twentieths of the adult females actually earn less than $600 a year."
What do you see in these terrible figures, John? I see the wolf-stare of hunger in the eyes of unpaid men and women. I see the shamble of the beggar asking for bread. I see the palsied foot-steps of the aged tottering their weary way to the poor house. I see children in rags and girls tramping the streets engaged in a nameless traffic. I see the slums with their festering poor. I see men, grown desperate in the unequal struggle, blowing their brains into bloody froth. Yet they are all producing more wealth than their fathers did. And their "reward" is the miserable income mentioned by Prof. Nearing.
But even this "reward" does not come to all. There is that great army of unemployed, some of them becoming wandering outcasts and many of them criminals, that have no income at all. In their bodies and brains are stored labor power and genius that goes to waste year after year. If this great army had the opportunity to engage in producing useful things and with the added powers that steam and machinery give, how many little children could they not clothe? How many wretched homes could they not decorate? How much more material comfort and happiness could they not bestow on mankind? Yet their
