OCR Text |
Show Conditions Differ While, as a usual thing the masses of the country are in sympathy with any move of the laboring man for the betterment of his wage and working condi-. condi-. tions, they will hardly be in sympathy with the movement of the organization of engineers and trainmen to force the railroads of the country to increase their wages by shortening their hours ' of labor and still calling for the same bulk of wages. There are too many skilled men in various vocations of life who would be compelled to pay years of time at small wages to learn their ; business and who even now per-i per-i form technical work at less pay The farmer, the carpenter, the printer and many others. Then ! there are thousands of railroad " men whoUll various positions of ' trust and who get less than two-thirds two-thirds the average of the train i men. The Interstate Commerce , Commission gives the following 3 figures on the average wage of l the trainmen for the year of i 1914, based on a 10-hour day: Enginemen, average yearly , wage, $1,819.91. Firemen aver- age yearly wage, $1,084.62. " Conductor, average yearly wage, $1,599.22. Other trainmen, average aver-age yearly wage, $1,058.22. Any demand from the rail-t rail-t roads coming at a time when ( such concerns were exploiting the country for every cent they -) dared, might have been sanction-s sanction-s ed by the masses. A different T phase of the situation presents itself now, how"ever, since the advent of the Interstate Com-s Com-s merce Commission, the regula-r regula-r tion of railroad rates and the aim of more equitable distribu tion of money to all men. r |