TO MAKE MONEY. HORRORS OF PITTSBURG.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 144, 19 June 1909, Page 9

TO MAKE MONEY. HORRORS OF PITTSBURG.

SWEATING IN STEELWORKS. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SAN FRANCISCO, 3rd May. There has been no sensation over the revelation of the horrors of Pittsburg. Yet the sweating and corruption disclosed are even more tragic than tho conditions in the Chicago "Jungle." These things 'have been discovered by investigators sent to Pittsburg by the Sage Foundation, and have been quietly published in their report. The investigators in their two years of work received little help, and met some opposition from the great employers ; but they discovered why Pittsburg is the -greatest steel centre in the world, and got some idea of the dreadful price that the men and women of Pitts Durg are paying for the eminence. Most of the labour in Pittsburg has come from Southern Europe, and even in the second generation it is still totally foreign in language and customs. American, British, and German labour was driven out jf the Pittsburg district on the failure of the great Homestead strike w 1892. A flood of Italians, Slavonians, Poles, and Russians rushed into the place. The newcomers, accustomed to Being overworked and underpaid at home, ..cepted the conditions that had become unbearable to the An-glo-Saxon workers. Organisation of the workers was prohibited, so that the individual worker had to make his bargain with the boss , and the boss drove a hard bargain. Here are some of the facts ascertained by the investigators :—: — EIGHTY -FOUR HOURS A WEEK. Out of every 100 v/orkers in the steel mills and blast furnaces 60 make less than 2 dollars (8s) a day, and oniy two make more than 5 dollars ; 8s in America, be it understood, is worth abtnit as much ds 6s in New Zealand. The averago wage of 9000 men was found to be less than 2 dollars 50 cents a day. For this wage the men work twelve hours a day, seven days a woek ; once in a fortnight they do a twenty-four-hour shift in 'order that they may have i every second Sunday off. In the Home- j stead Steelworks the investigators found in 1907 a total of 1517 tweive-hour men and only 93 ten-hour men. Moreover, the system is designed to make the men work faster than their natural pace. If a man drives a machino, he is paid by j the piece ; if the machine drives him, heis paid by time. Machinery is speeded to make the hands overwork. Fines are levied for producing less than a certain minimum, but there is no pay for overtime. ' Men are urged to speed m order to increase' their pay, and bhen the rate of pay is cut so that they must ' work harder to earn the old wage. , In the stogie sweatshops the conditions are bad as in the steel mills. A 1 steelworker's usefulness ends at tho age ] of forty ; he is then thrown on the scrap- ; heap. Girl workers seldom last more ' than six years in the stogie shops. DOLLARS WORTH MORE THAN , MEN. In 1907 no less than 526 men were killed by industrial accidents in Allegheny county. That means that once ever sixteen hours a man lost his life j while at work. In the same year, and j the same territory, one man was taken to the hospital in each four hourb for , prolonged treatment, and once in each j twenty-fours a man ,was maimed for i life. Employers systematically resist claims for damages ; and the employers control the Government of Pennsylvania. In 259 cases of accidents investigated the ' loss of income resulting to families for a single year was 52,509 dollars, and the total compensation obtained was «► lump sum of 1?>000 dollars. The estimated loss of income sustained by 193 men killed while at work was 2,754,357 dollars, and the total compensation paid to their families was only 72,039 dollars. Many of these accidents could have been prevented by the expenditure of money; but in Pittsburg the dollar ia worth more than the man. SOCIAL HORRORS. These conditions of employment produce the inevitable social horrors that go with overwork and extreme poverty. The investigators found tha workers and their families housed in dreadful slums, sleeping in overcrowded, sunless rooms, inhaling foul air, taking disease from rotten plumbing and open sewers and privies witEout sewer connections. Many of these tenements were owned by absentee families of vast wealth. In lodg ing-houses it is customary for two shifts of men to occupy the same beds. Recently a moderate Bill to improve sanitation in the tenements, though passed by the Legislature, was \etoed by ths Governor ; the landlords objected to it. THE CRUELTY OF CORRUPTION. Political corruption adds to the cruelties of industrial slavery #nd industrial murder. In 1900 Pittsburg borrowed 2,500,000 dollars to build a filtration plant, but the work was held back four years, while th© money lay in favoured banks. During those four years 1900 persons died from typhoid, or 1538 above the normal rate from that disease. After the whole filtration plant went into operation the typhoid death-rate dropped from two every day to two every five days. In other words, thia particular bit of political jobbery caused the death of forty-eight persons a ..month for four years. , Is it to be wondered afc that many American cities are making efforts to break away from the corrupt tyranny of political partisan rule?