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(*t Nome Mine Worker** Onion, No. MO, Western Federation of Miner*.
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Entered as second class matter March 1, 1111, at Ui post office at
Nome, • Alassa, under the Act of March I, 1871.
“To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, or as
nearly us possible, Is a worthy object of any good government."—
Abraoam Lincoln
All changes In standing advertisements must reach thla office at six
o'clock each evening to insure insertion In the following Issue.
Advertising rates made known on application.
Address all Communications to Dally Nome Industrial Worker,
Box 210 Nome, Alaska. Phone, Black 114.
Nome, Alaska, May 17, lit 17.
PROFESSIONAL CONSOLATION.
In those days of high prices, the
professors have stepped into the
arena to persuade working folk that
they are not so badly off after all
—that really they have too high a
standard of living—that they are
wasteful— that the cheaper tuts of
meat are more wholesome—that a
reform in dietetics is urgently need
ed—that by resorting to cheaper
food greater food values can be ab
sorbed anil so on ad infinitum.
Comes to us through the United
1‘ress the following dispatch:
"Seattle Wash—A carpenter in
the 14th century received a wage of
only 12 cents a day. against $4.50
today. Ye':, cost of living was, rela
tively. higher than it is today.
The statement is that of Profes
sor it. M. Garrett of the University
of Washington, who also recites a
list of food costs taken from the ac
counts of the expenditures of the
Karl of Derby, later King Henry IV,
of England as he was about to em
bark in 1390 on a campaign against
the Lithuanians.
A carpenter in those days, for his
daily wage of 12 cents could buy
one pound of butter, two pounds of
cheese, a pound of salt, two pounds
of flour, one dozen and half of eggs,
a. chicken and a pound of rice.
A earpenter'of today would have
to pay $2.60 cents for this bill ot
goods but it wouldn’t eat up his en
tire daily wage, as it would that ot
the carpenter of 13 90. The latter
carpenter would still have $1.90
left. So, argues Professor Garrett,
while the workers of today pays
more lor necessities, he gets more
corapuratt ely for his labor. So the
times are better.
In 1390 eggs were nine cents a
gross that today would would cost
from $12.50 to $14.00. For 14
pounds of butter that would cost
him $7.00 he paid a shilling or
25 cents. Rice brought by way ot
Venicia from the east cost ten
pound for a shilling. • It costs a
dollar today.
The one shining exception to the
general rise in prices that lias oc
curred since that time is sugar.
In 1390 it cost 36 cents a pound
and now it retails at eight c'-r.ts".
The fact that Henry IV was
Henry. Duke of Hereford, son ot
John of Gaunt, is no matter. The
point of Importance is that here is
a college proressor lanes us duck
over eight hundred years of progres
and tells the workers to be satis
fied that they are better off to
day than they were then. They
<an buy all the food they want and
have a little over but in the days of
Henry IV they could do no such a
thing.
That ought to keep the yaps
quiet for a while, and everyone
onglit to see that Professor Garrett
is deserving of the control of some
establishment which is munificent
ly endowed by the Rockefellers.
Professor James E. Thorold Rog
ers, of Oxford University, has
studied the very period which Pro
fessor Garrett uses for his compari
son with present day things in the
labor world in a monumental work
entitled Six Centuries of Work and
Wages. He says in Chapter XII
T find that the fifteenth century
and the first quarter of the six
teenth were the golden age of the
English laborer, if we are to inter
pret the wages he earned by the
*-ost of the necessaries of life”.
Moreover while the carpenter got
but his twelve cents a day, the
cost of maintenance was but
twelve or sixteen cents a
week. But more often than not
twelve cents and board were pain
or if not boarded an allowance
given him to cover it. "This is espe
cially the case when the workman
is hired by opulent corporations or
-associations. There was always a
servant's table in these establish
ments, and the workman is bidder,
to it without stint or grudging. 1
find for example, at some of the Ox
t lord colleges that ordinary rates
are paid, and the workman is fed
into the bargain. Food was so
abundant and cheap that it was no
great matter to throw It In with
wages".
Wheat in those times at its high
est price cost about fourteen cents
a bushel although it was much
more frequently lower than higher
than this. Compare this price, with
jMay wheat last quoted at 317 1-2
cents a bushel.
Whole beeves by the carcass sold
for $3.75 in the cities but were sel
dom more than $3.00 in the coun
try. There was during all of the
fifteenth century a general rising
tendency in wages for all classes of
labor.
Apart from the very evident ef
forts of Professor Garrett to prove
v hat is far from being the fact,
that after the day’s wages had been
expended in the costs of living there
remained nothing for the workers
in those bygone days, the period
referred to is most interesting and
for this reason that the great,
plague or Clack Death had been as
destructive fully in human life as
has been the great war.
The Plague ‘it was which liber
ated the serfs in England, and al
though the feudal laws remain in
some mild aspect until today, the
condition of the English worker
never became after the fourteenth
century what the French peasant's
condition remained until the French
revolution.
What Wat Tyler, about the period
mentioned by Garrett, failed to
achieve when he delivered that un
answered question:
"When Adam delved and Eve
spa n
Who was then the gentleman?”
the Black Death recurring, easily
accomplished.
It is computed that not less than
a third of the stricken countries
perished, ami such mortality today
even in the bloodiest of wars would
be inconceivable. The shortage of
labor was the fust thing that made
itself felt, but it worked a great
and complete change in conditions
throughout every country. In some
it caused religious revivals and great
bands of flagellants went around
flogging themselves in penance and
under cover of their religious fer
vor committing such outrages upon
morality that the higher religious
authorities became scandalized and
suppressed them.
In England the most noticeable
result was the great improvement
in labor conditions. Food became
cheap and labor was at a premium.
Men could make enough in three j
months to live in luxury for the
rest of the year, and because the
lords of the manor conceived that
they were being supported by alms
from charitable people who were
imposed upon, alms giving by parli
amentary enactment became against
the law. Indeed the King in a pro
clamation addressed to William the
Primate forbade any person offer
ing “higher wages than was custom
ary”, but laborers simply abstain
ed from working for such wages
with the result that the mandate
became ignored after the crops had
rotten a season or so in the field.
This proclamation was passed into
law and known as the Statute ot
Laborers. But in spite of this en
actment, the wages steadily in
creased until in the sixteenth cent
ury the discovery of America pro
duced such u flood of silver that
the coinage became debased and it
was impossible to buy anything m
the former prices.
Another thing in connection witv
this period that is never fairly
explained is the enormous ability
of the population to replenish itself.
Many economists have expressed
astonishment at what they regard
apparently in the nature of psycho
physiological phenomena. . One his
torian tells us that the fecundity ot
the people became beyond anj
tormer conception of possibility,
Triplets were very general, twins
more frequent than single births
and the reproduction was so greai
that the population was soon ai
the same standard as before its
loss of fully one third by the Black
Death.
But surely this is a very simple
matter. There was lots to eat ansi
drink. Clothing was easily procur
able. Shelter was to be had by all
Work was plentiful. There was nc
uncertainty or insecurity for the
future. Men and women could raise
large families and feel secure thai
none would want, and nature did
the rest. Indeed this national fe
cundity that prevailed during the
epoch after the Black Death is the
greatest tribute to the well being ol
the people as contrasted with the
present time. Now birth control
finds favor, because it is almost im
possible for a workman to raise a
family and he has no certainty that
lie will hold his job and not leave
behind a family of paupers and de
stitute indigents.
Here is a matter of interest for
the Professor Garretts to chew upon
for a while which would much more
richly repay consideration than the
details of the costs of the expedi
tion of the “Earl of Derby after
wards Henry IV in his Campaign
against the Lithuanians”.
What made possible the wars car
ried on by Henry IV, Henry V. the
later Wars of the Roses, was the
general prosperity that existed in
Great Britain following the Black
Death. The men at arms had ample
food. The yeomen were sturdy,
well fed and well nourished. The
food was plentiful for all and more
fairly distributed.
It may be remarked in passing
that a comparison can be drawn
between this period in England and
the period that followed the French
revolution.
After the French revolution had
smashed up the feudal lords and al
lowed the peasants to pursue the
path of peaceful productivity on the
lands. France rose from a land of
starving peasantry and from being
miserably famine ridden, to a
country of plenty ar.d prosperity.
It was able without bankruptcy to
support the gigantic campaigns of
Napoleon and to provide soldiers
who could dare and defy and con
quer the world.
Today the inadequacy of the
wages paid in proportion to the
productivity of labor in the t'nlted
Statse is literally shocking. Today
in America labor is getting a
smaller share of the product of its
toil than ever before in the worldjs
history. Certainly much less than
in the fifteenth fell to the lot or
the agricultural labor or the town
or country carpenter.
The dispatch sent out by Profes
sor Garrett therefore is grossly mis
. leading. The relativity of things
which can give a proper conception
of the standing of labor then and
the standing of labor now is wholly
and very viciously and in a very
misleading way ignored. Never did
labor get so little of that which it
produces. Never was labor so stint
ed and never was it handed so much
of the husks and so little of the
sweet kernel as at the present time.
The laborer in the Fifteenth cent
ury had very little trouble of any
kind. During hard years when fam
ine stalked abroad, the monsasteries
had great stores which thoy lavish
ly gave in alms. That they later
exacted labor in return mattered
little. Poverty was in the modern
sense unknown. The knowledge ot
sanitation, cleanliness and other
amenities of life many have been,
indeed they were, low, but at least
everyone had their bellyful. They
had to pluck neither haw nor hip.
In their wallets were supplies when
they went from one place to another
and it has to be confessed that poor
laws and vagrancy acts come to ci
vilization's aid only with the Re
formation.
The Reformation was simultane
ous with the discovery of America,
j It was simultaneous with the flood
ing of the world with untold quan
tities of silver which ruined the
purchasing power of the shilling 1
and which sent costs of living sky j
high.
Gold is experiencing the same
transformation in the world as
silver did then. The Rand last Jan
uary produced almost twenty mil
lion doflars worth of gold. Its
average monthly production of gold
is close to eighteen millions. Ad
vances in metalurgy pile mass after
mass of the yelow metal into cir
culation more quickly than the ordi
nary functions of a circulating med
ium can absorb. Moreover and ad
ded to this, gold at a reduced pur
chasing power has been dumped into
the American money market with a
superabundance of spending, paying
exaggerated prices for everything
that has had the result of making
everything artificially and excess
ively high.
Added to this the decreased sup
ply in proportion to the demand
and the prices of things are all
steadily soaring. Perhaps when
normality is again reached and the
world is at peace improvement may
take place, hut just now emphati
cally labor is getting less in the
form of wages of what it produces
than it has ever done in the world
of production. The productivity of
; labor is simply gigantic, the pur
j chasing power of wages is going
right down, steadily all the time.
CONFESSED KILLER WILL
BE EXTRADITED FROM CAL.
SACRAMENTO. May 16.--Joseph
Redenbaugh, the self confessed
slayer of Mrs. Alma Dunn and Pa
trolman Connery in Minneapolis
will be extradited. Redenbaugh
who was taken into custody on sus
picion by the police authorities here
admitted his identity and also con
fessed to murdering the man and
woman above named.
Interchanges of dispatches be
tween the local police and those in
M. PASCOFF.
I. A DIES & GENTS TAILOR.
Your Clothes Cleaned, Pressed mid
Repaired.
SUITS MADE TO ORDER from
select fabrics and trimmings.
ALL WORK GUARANTEED.
Cor. Lane's Way and Front Street.
Minneapolis have secured attention
to the work of extradition about
which there will he no further de
lay.
CAKLK okay.
The cableship Burnside inter
rupted the cable between Sitka and
Valdez to examine another suspic
ious section of it and to make
needed repairs thereto just while
on the spot. In consequence some
of the Industrial Worker’s press
dispatches were delayed in the
shuffle. Yesterday at about noon
by Nome time, the cable was again
in good shape and the stuff was
rolling rapidly through.
Let as estimate on your Job Work
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THE HOME OF FRESH CANDIES. SALTED PEANUTS, PEA
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LU NCHES.
I
Golden State
BUTTER
IN BRINE OR CARTONS. .
-A
SEPTEMBER PACK
There is no Ilutter like it in Nome,
ami this advertisement appears for
the benefit of those who are very
particular on butter and really de
sire to get the best obtainable.
Thorulf Lehmann
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