Baltimore Evening Sun (16 September 1911): 6.

One who loves and reveres the American Language sends me the following curious dialogue, which he overheard ltely in a North Carolina town:

[Microfilm damaged]
No: I never got no chance to go.
If I had knowed you’s want to went, I’d seed you’d got to go.

From any Labor Day editorial in any American newspaper:

America is the land of opportunity for the man willing to work. Nowhere else in the world is industry, skilled and unskilled, so richly rewarded. The American workingman’s hours of labor are short and his pay is high. His lot is infinitely batter than that of his brothers in the effete monarchies of Europe. He has ind[line effaced] the laws and a chance to rise. On his prosperity, and on it—alone, depend the prosperity of this great republic.

From Wages in the United States by Dr. Scott Nearing of the University of Pennsylvania, just issued by the MacMillans:

A study of the classified wage statistics shows that half of the adult males working in the industrial sections of the United Sates receive less than $600 a year; three-quarters are paid less than $750 annually and less than one-tenth earn $1,000. Half of all women fall below $400 a year, while nearly nine-tenths receive less than $750.

—It appears that half of the adult males of the United States are earning less that $500 a year; that three-quarters of these are earning less that $600; that nine-tenths are earning less than $800; while less than 10 per cent receive more than that figure. A corresponding computation of the wages of women shows that a fifth earn less than $200 annually; that three-fifths are receiving less than $325; that nine-tenths are earning less than $500, while only one-twentieth are paid more than $600. Three-fourths of the adult males and nineteen twentieths of the adult females actually earn less than $600 a year.

Here we have, not guesses, but the accurate results of a very elaborate investigation—the most elaborate investigation of wages ever made in the United States. Reports upon the subject, of course, are issued by Federal and State authorities. The Commissioner of Labor dealt with it at great length in 1903. A Wage Study accompanied the census of 1900. Most of the States have labor bureaus and nearly all of these bureaus publish statistics. But, as Dr. Nearing shows, the available Federal statistics are out of date and those issued by some of the States take account only of the unionized industries. His own investigation was based chiefly upon the reports of the Massachusetts, New Jersey and Kansas bureaus, which are painstaking and complete and upon independent inquiries into the wages paid in various widespread industries. In addition, he used all available statistics from other States whenever they bore marks of accuracy and completeness.

The telephone industry fairly represents the condition of the better sort of wage-earners in the United Sates. It employs large numbers of women, but the work they do requires considerable skill and intelligence, and they come form a class obviously higher than that which supplies workers to the mills and factories. And of its men, practically all save the office clerks are skilled mechanics. Yet a study of the returns shows that, the average telephone operator, in the larger cities, receives but $30 a month, or $360 a year, and that of the men employed, about 20 per cent. receive less than $600 a year, 35 per cent. less than $725, 73 per cent. less than $1,000 and 96 per cent. less than $1,500. Of the 3.9 per cent. receiving the latter wage or more, practically all are executive officers, and, in consequence, cannot be fairly reckoned among the wage-earners.

The following table shows how the monthly wages of operators vary in different cities,

In those great industries which require less education and skill in the worker considerably lower wages are encountered. In the cotton industry in Massachusetts, for example, three-fifths of all the adult male employees receive less than $460 a year, which is $8.85 a week, without counting the loss of time due to sickness, accident or other personal factors. Of the adult females employed in the cotton mills, more than 83 per cent. earn less than $460 and 97 per cent. less than $549. Of the children employed, nearly one-half receive less than $5 a week. In the boot and shoe industry wages are slightly better, but even here less than half of the men earn $14 a week and less than half of the women earn $8. In the worsted industry less than 3 per cent. of the men receive $3 a day and less than 2 per cent of the women receive $2. In the foundries nearly 70 per cent. of the adult males receive less than $12 a week.

Dr. Nearing does not deal extensively with wages in Maryland, but one may get some clue to them from the annual report of the Bureau of Statistics and Information for 1910. That report covers only 22 industries and is based upon returns from but 1,381 workmen. If it errs at all, it is probably on the side of generosity. Here are the average annual earnings of certain skilled workmen in Baltimore, as it gives them:

The bureau fixes the average income of clerks at $2.10 a day and their average hours of labor at 10. In the whole list, covering 32 occupations, only printers, masons, steam fitters, plumbers, carpenters and bricklayers have eight-hour days. The rest work from 8½ hours to 11. It is the barbers, who get the lowest wages, what work the longest hours—but the growing custom of tipping them somewhat ameliorates, of course, the hardships of their lot.

The American language, so loose, so lovely:

I wanted to get rid of Van Sickle and [original damaged] thought the experience wouldn’ do

I never seen an-Ching more [illegible].

H. L. Mencken