HORRORS OF PITTSBURG.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9529, 29 June 1909, Page 3

HORRORS OF PITTSBURG.

There has been no sensation over the revelation of the horrors of Pittsburg, writes a San Francisco correspondent under date May 3rd. Yet the sweating, corruption, and industrial murder disclosed are even mure tragic than the 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 thejjworld and got some idea of the dreadful price that men and women of Pittsburg are paying for the eminence.

Most of the labour in Pittsburg ha 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 of the Pittsburg district on the failure of the great Homestead strike of 1892. A flood ot" Italians, Slavonians, Poles, and Russians rushed into the place. The newcomers, accustomed to being overworked and underpaid at home, accepted the conditions that had become unbearable to the Anglo-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 one hundred workers in the steel mills and blast furnaces, sixty make less than two dollars (8s) a day, and only two make more than five dollars; 8s in America, be it understood, is worth about as much as 6s ir. New Zealand. The average wage of 9,000 men was found to be less than 2 dollars 50 cents a day. For this wage men work twelve hours a day, seven days a week; once in a fortnight they do a twenty-four hour shift in order that they may have every second Sunday off. In the Homestead Steel works the investigators found in 1907 a total of 1,517 twelve-hour men, and only 93 tenhour men. Moreover the system is designed to make the men work fastero than their natural pace. If a man drives a machine, he is paid by the piece; if the machine drives him, he is 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 payjj for overtime. Men are urged to speed in order to increase their pav, and then the rate of pay* is cut so that they must work harder to earn the old wage. In the stogie weatshops tne conditions are as bad as in the steel | mills. A steelworker's usefulness ends at the age of forty; he is then thrown on the scrapheap. Girl ! workers seldom last more than six years in the stogie shops. DOLLASK WORTH MORE THAN MEN. In 1907 no less than 526 men were killed by industrial accidents in Alleghany county. That means that J once in every sixteen hours a man J lost his life while at work, in the same year and the same territory one man was taken to the hospital i:i each lour hours for prolonged I treatment, and once y-1 four a man was maimed for life.

I Employers systematically resist , claims for damages; and the em- | ployers control the Government of ! Pennsylvania. In 259 cases of ac- ! cic'ents investigated, the less of income resulted to families for a single year was 52,509 dollars, and the total compensation obtained was a lump sum of 12,000 dollars. The ! estimated loss of income sustained I by 193 men killed while at work was 1 2,754,357 dollars, and the total comI pensation paid to their families was j only 72,039 dollars. ■ Many of these accidents could have ' been prevented by the expenditure of money; but in Pittsburg the dollar is 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 the workers and their familes housed in dreadfui slums, sleeping in overcrowded, sunless roorr.s, inhaling foul air, taking disease from rotten plumbing and open sewers. Many of these tenements were owned by absentee families of vast wealth. In lodging houses it is customary for two shifts of men to occupy the same beds. Recently a moderate Bill to improve sanitation in the tenement?, though passed by the Legislature, was vetoed by the Governor; the landlords objected to it. THE CRUELTY OP CORRUPTION. Political corruption adds to the cruelties of industrial slavery and industrial murder. In 1900 Pittsburg borrowed 25,000,00 dnj'ars to build a filtration plant, but the work was held back four years, while the money Jay in favoured banks. During these four years 1900 persons died from typhoid, or 1,538 above the normal rate from the disease. After the whole filtration plant went into operation, the typhoid death rate dropped from two eveiy day to two every five days. In other words, this particular hit of political jobbery caused the .death of 48 persons a month for four years.