Wages are fixed wholly independent of, social relations.

The anthracite wage is anti-social. The present system of wage payment fails to stimulate workers to industry and thrift because it has not given them a reward in proportion to their exertions and ability. There is no relation between product and wages. Rather wages are fixed by competition and monopoly. The present wage scale fails completely to provide a return in proportion to social needs. The simplest requirements of social progress call for ambition, for justice, and for the provision of health necessities. The present anthracite wage scale offends even these primitive social standards.

10. The Anthracite Wage and the Increased Cost of Living

The wage of many anthracite workers, when measured in terms of physical, economic or social adequacy, is meager. The wages paid to a great body of the anthracite mine workers are not sufficient to maintain physical, economic and social efficiency. Another phase of the matter remains to be considered-the relation between the increase in anthracite wages and the increase in the cost of living.

Granted some will insist that the wages of the miners are not entirely adequate to provide for the demands of efficiency, it is still true that the miners have been constantly bettering their position.

The past few years have witnessed several bitter labor struggles in the anthracite region. The workers have maintained a powerful trade union at great cost. During the labor disturbances, the workers have sacrificed, the wage loss has been enormous, property has been destroyed, and the social and political organization has broken down. What is the outcome?

Three periods must be considered. First, there is the period 1890 to 1914; second, the period 1903 to 1914; and third, the period 1911 to 1914. The cost of living facts that are available date from 1890. The great labor struggle of 1902 marks an epoch in the struggle of the anthracite worker for better conditions of life; and the readjustment in 1912 gives a brief period of contrast with the situation at the present time.

The ordinary worker's family spends at least two-fifths of its money for food, one-fifth for rent; one-sixth for clothing; and the remainder for miscellaneous things like insurance, saving, recreation, education, health.

The United States Bureau of Labor has been collecting figures on food costs since 1890. During those years, in the North Atlantic States, the cost of food rose 60 per cent. From 1903 to 1914 the cost of food rose 40 per cent. From 1911 to 1914 the cost of food rose 17.2 per cent.

Rent costs are difficult to secure. No one has made any study of rent costs; hence there are no figures available. Isolated instances indicate that there has been a considerable increase in rent

during the past twenty years. Just how great that increase has been no one is in a position to say.

The most complete clothing figures are published in the wholesale price bulletins of the United States Bureau of Labor. Between 1890 and 1913 the wholesale prices of clothing rose about onefifth. Between 1903 and 1914 the prices rose about one-third.

If the figures were available it would be profitable at this point to work out the increase in the total cost of living, weighted, or apportioned according to the amount of money spent for each item. The figures, unfortunately, are not to be had.

There is another very important consideration that is frequently overlooked in discussions of the cost of living. "Living" means doing the things that are done in the group to which one belongs. The cost of living means the cost of keeping up with the social standard.

During the past twenty-five years there has been an immense increase in the standard of life. Many new lines of expenditures have been introduced, as, for example, the cost of health, of recreation and of education. Doctors, dentists, moving pictures, compulsory education laws, newspapers, magazines and the like have all been added to the list of things that the ordinary American considers necessary to his welfare. Twenty-five years have made these numerous additions to the standard of living. Those who live in American communities must keep up with the times.

It is no argument to say that a great body of the anthracite workers are foreigners. One of the chief aims of American social organization is to "Americanize" the foreigner. If that means anything it means getting the foreigners to adopt the American standard of living.

Twenty-five years have witnessed a considerable increase in the price of the articles necessary to maintain life. They have also witnessed a rapid rise in the standard of life. Has the increase in anthracite wages been sufficient to offset this increased cost of living?

Following the labor disturbances in the late eighties, there was a period of a dozen years during which the workers bargained individually with their employers and took what they could get.

During the period immediately preceding the break-up of the union, the miners had worked out a rather high standard of co-operation. The union paid sick and death benefits and benefits to widows and orphans. There was a miners' newspaper, which encouraged unity of action. There were co-operation stores, and through the efforts of the union, the first mine inspection law was passed. Another law was enacted which compelled the weighing of coal.1

The union was broken up through the persistent efforts of the operators. "With the surrender of the men, they were compelled, as a condition of obtaining work, to sign away the right of having their coal weighed. The sliding

scale continued in operation, but the determination of the basis and the prices paid to labor were entirely in the hands of the operators till the strike of 1900." Until 1900, therefore, there was no such thing as a standard wage in the anthracite fields. Hence, no adequate description of the wage conditions during these years can be given. Indeed, it is not until the investigation made by the Anthracite Strike Commission in 1902 that a really adequate statement of the wage problem is made.

State reports do contain some material on wages during this period. These figures, gathered by Mr. Suffern, are as follows:2

TABLE XI.-EARNING AND WORKING TIME OF ANTHRACITE MINES, 1890-1911.

The earlier figures are extremely unsatisfactory. The average yearly earnings are secured by multiplying the average daily wage by the number of days worked. There is no indication of the

1 "Conciliation and Arbitration," op. cit., p. 214.

Ibid., p. 360-61.