Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898 Excerpt:... yard on the Thames, upon which it is proposed to float a banner that "the eight-hour day prevails in this establishment." Mr. Hills adds: "THE EIGHT-HOUR WORK-DAY HAS BROUGHT NOTHING BUT BLESSINGS TO ALL. IT IS GOOD FOR THE WORKMEN, GOOD FOR THE WORK, AND GOOD FOR THE COMPANY." The ignorance of our own shipbuilders before the Senate Committee on Education and Labor, in the hearing on the Eight-hour Bill, in antagonizing its enactment, was supreme. Even in the face of the fact that Mr. Cramp himself testified that he secured contracts for building Eussian warships over the bids of French shipbuilders, furnishing the ship at a lesser cost and in just one-half the time, notwithstanding that the hours of labor were less and wages higher here than in France, he still persisted in opposing the bill. The lesson of other employers as well as his own establishment taught him nothing as to the wisdom, the great public benefit and economy of the shorter workday. To any but the close observer it seems peculiar, but it is nevertheless a fact, that when the hours of daily labor are reduced from ten to nine there is a constant effort on the part of employers to return to the longer workday of ten hours, but it is also true that in every industry where the eight-hour day has prevailed for a reasonable period, that is a year or more, employers of labor do not care, yes, could not be persuaded, to go back to the nine or ten hour day. It is the inexperience of employers or their intuition that once the eight-hour day is gained that there can be no going back, that calls forth their dogged opposition to anything which labor proposes, and this is no doubt heightened by the fear that to concede to the workers an inch and they will want an ell. But be this as...