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 II,' \\CI- II. MM 1 AMI COMPANY. ''- 
 
 1872 
 
THE 
 
 STATE OF THE TRADE 
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON 
 
 EIGHT HOURS AND HIGHER PRICES, 
 
 SUGGESTED BY RECENT CONFERENCES BETWEEN THE NEW- YORK TYPOGRAPHICAL 
 UNION AND THE EMPLOYING BOOK AND JOB PRINTERS OF THAT CITY. 
 
 BY 
 
 THEO. L. DE VINNE. 
 
 NEW -YORK 
 FRANCIS HART AND COMPANY, 12 & 14 COLLEGE PLACE. 
 
 1872. 
 
THE STATE OF THE TRADE. 
 
 ON the llth June, 1872, the New York Typographical 
 Union made an application to the employing book and job 
 printers of this city for a conference as to the expediency of 
 establishing eight hours as a day's work (at the rate of $20 
 per week of forty-eight hours) and an advance of twenty per 
 cent, on the present prices of piece-work. 
 
 This application was made in strict conformity with the 
 agreement made between employers and employed in April, 
 1869, by which each party bound itself to confer with the 
 other concerning all matters of disagreement, and in case of 
 irreconcilable difference, to give thirty days' notice of any 
 determined change of prices or rules. The spirit of this 
 application was as courteous as its form was equitable. 
 
 At a meeting of employing printers, held at the Astor 
 House, June 18, Mr. William C. Martin in the chair, it was 
 decided that a committee of seven employers should be 
 appointed to confer with the committee of seven that had 
 already been appointed by the Union. 
 
 The first meeting of the joint committees was held at the 
 Astor House on June 21st. The reasons assigned by the 
 committee of the Union were substantially these : 
 
 1 . Eight hours is the law of the land, so declared by this 
 
 State and by the United States. 
 
 2. A shortening of the hours of labor is needed to check 
 
 over-production. Men will be better employed. 
 
 3. It is needed to benefit the workman. He needs more 
 
 time for social and domestic enjoyment and intel- 
 lectual culture. 
 
 4. Reduced hours of labor are in accord with the spirit of 
 
 the times. It is the fashion in other trades and 
 should be in this. _ 
 
 M166009 
 
5. Improvements in machinery have so increased produc- 
 tion that long hours are not needed. One can now 
 do, with modern appliances, more in eight hours 
 than he could have done years ago in ten hours. 
 The extra two hours is a useless drudgery. 
 
 To these propositions it may be replied : 
 
 1. The law is fully applicable only in the civil service of 
 the State. It was so understood by the legislators. It defines 
 hours where there is no usage or agreement, but it does not 
 define wages. It cannot ; for legislation like this is beyond 
 the powers of the State. If the State enacted twelve hours 
 as a day's work, no day-workman would feel obliged to give 
 away two hours more of time. As the law now reads, it 
 cannot be pretended that it is the duty of the employer to 
 give the value of two hours to his workman. 
 
 The law is not fully obeyed by the executive officers of the 
 State or the Nation. Even if it were, the usage of the State 
 is too partial and too unfair to be quoted as a precedent. 
 Unlike any individual employer, the State is not controlled 
 by questions of profit or loss, nor limited by the action of 
 competitors. In this, as in other matters, it acts independ- 
 ently, for it is irresponsible. 
 
 2. There is no over-production in printing, as will here- 
 after be more clearly set forth. The real grief of the unem- 
 ployed labor in typography is, that it does not produce all that 
 is sold. Too much of the printed work that is sold or used 
 in the city is manufactured outside its limits. This evil will 
 be augmented by shortening the hours of labor. 
 
 It is a mistake to assume that many pieces of printing 
 that are now done in eight weeks will have to be done in ten 
 weeks ; that short time will insure more and steadier work 
 to all classes of workmen. A greater delay in doing work is 
 contrary to the spirit of the age and the habits of business 
 men. It will not be tolerated. No employer can enforce 
 such a delay on his customer. To shorten the hours of work 
 is to compel the employer to buy more machines, to occupy 
 more room, to keep more men, and especially boys, in em- 
 ploy. It will bring more in the trade, but it will not 
 
UL 
 
 I 
 
 b< 
 
 crease their chances of steadier employment. On the con- 
 y, it will ultimately make their chances more precarious. 
 
 3. The alleged benefit to the mechanic is doubtful. There 
 e instances in which the decrease of hours of labor would 
 5 of great advantage to the workman and his family ; there 
 e others where it would be injurious. But this personal 
 hase of the question should not be considered. The use or 
 
 use of the mechanic's leisure time may be a fit theme for 
 e moralist or legislator ; on the part of the employer, its 
 scussion is considered, and not unreasonably, as an im- 
 rtinence. The workman is not accountable to the employer 
 or his unemployed time. 
 
 The result of short hours of labor on society is another 
 matter which may be noticed with propriety. There is a 
 mischievous doctrine that we work too much a doctrine of 
 xceeding comfort to thousands of idlers, but it is one that 
 ust be rejected by every candid observer. All the advan- 
 tages of civilization that we enjoy have been chiefly earned 
 by long and hard work ; they are upheld by work, and 
 would soon be forfeited if we should materially diminish 
 our performance. The condition of the mechanic in New 
 England and the mechanic in Mexico is a fit illustration of 
 the advantages of long and short hours of labor. The New 
 ngland mechanic, who works the longer hours, best knows 
 ow to use his leisure has more of the comforts of life, is 
 etter paid, is better educated, is more of a man every way. 
 t is his superiority, physically and mentally, that gives tone 
 society and strength to the state. The Mexican mechanic, 
 ho has less work to do and who works less, has most leisure, 
 ut he is poorer, is ignorant, has less opportunity for acquir- 
 g wealth, and less protection to life, liberty, or property. 
 
 4. The proposition that a reduction in the hours of labor 
 in accord with the spirit of the times, is not entirely cor- 
 
 t. The inferences commonly made from this propos- 
 m are illogical. It is true, that within seventy years the 
 ours of labor have been reduced from fourteen to twelve, 
 d from twelve to ten. In this country they were reduced 
 owly, almost without organized action on the part of the 
 echanic, in obedience to natural laws, and without injury 
 
to any interest. Does it follow that we must now reduce to 
 eight ? If so, why not to six, or to one ? 
 
 The prime agent in this reduction of the hours of labor 
 has been the use of steam and machinery instead of muscle. 
 They have increased production to such an extent, that 
 shortened hours of labor were really needed to restore the 
 balance. But has there been, within the last ten or twenty 
 years, any really great labor-saving invention equal to the 
 steam-engine ? Has new machinery been invented that to a 
 great extent has made new uses for labor ? 
 
 There never was greater need for work than there is 
 to-day. There never was a time when men were more judged 
 by their work. There is no greater stigma, short of crimi- 
 nality, than that of idler or loafer. It is the fashion to work. 
 There is no eminent man in any deserving position who has 
 attained his success but through work and work not of 
 eight, but of ten and more hours a day. It is a sad mistake 
 for any mechanic to assume that he always works longer 
 hours than others. There are, it is true, subordinate positions 
 in which the work of the day has to be finished every day. 
 When it occupies six hours a day, the mechanic is envious ; 
 but he forgets that there are many days when the same man 
 has to work sixteen hours a day, and without extra pay. 
 
 In all regular trades ten hours is the rule. It is the 
 basis of all prices. The stubborn resistance made by em- 
 ployers of every class to the change to eight hours is not 
 unreasonable. It is a sudden alteration in a measure of value 
 that disturbs all prices and upsets all estimates. It is not a 
 reform ; it is a revolution. To the mechanic it is a dangerous 
 experiment. He cannot now foresee the possible or probable 
 complications in which the adoption of shorter hours will 
 entangle him. There is a house in this city that has declared 
 eight hours as insufficient for the amount of business it does 
 daily. When menaced with the enforcement of the eight- 
 hour system, it proposed to shorten the day to six hours, and 
 to employ two sets of mechanics. This is but one of many 
 ways by which shortened hours would be of great damage to 
 the workmen. They would ultimately get less wages, and 
 make themselves more competitors. 
 
A sudden shortening of the hours of labor, with its cor- 
 responding advance in prices, can be of no real and lasting 
 benefit to the journeymen. If the compositor on time, in 
 1862, had been told that, in 1872, he would be in the 
 steady receipt of $20 per week, he would probably have 
 expressed his content with the advance. But he is not now 
 content. Neither he, nor any of us, could then foresee to 
 what an extent the purchasing capacity of money would be 
 diminished. A similar future result will surely follow a 
 similar present advance. If this advance could be confined to 
 printing, it might be a benefit to the printer. But it cannot 
 be so confined. Other men, other trades* in self-defence, 
 will advance their rates. If the production of the country 
 is decreased one-fifth, and its prices are appreciated one- 
 fourth, an increase in wages, so far from being a benefit, is a 
 real injury. With wages at $25 or $30, the same dissatis- 
 faction would exist, and for the same reasons. 
 
 5. It is true that, by the aid of machinery in some depart- 
 ments, the mechanic of 1872 can do more work in eight hours 
 than he could have done in ten hours in 1830. It does not 
 follow that the employer of the machinery receives the same 
 prices or makes the same profit. The facts are the reverse, 
 as will be shown hereafter. The workman receives his share 
 of advantages from machinery. In the press-room of a print- 
 ing office he has steadier work, better pay, less drudgery, less 
 responsibility. In the composing-room of a printing office 
 there have been no great improvements, and, consequently, 
 no reduction of expenses to employers. It has been asserted 
 that as much work might be expected in a day of eight hours 
 as had been done in ten hours. This is obviously in flat con- 
 tradiction to the request for an advance of twenty per cent, 
 on piece rates. 
 
 With employing printers this question of eight hours and 
 higher prices is not so much a question of expediency as of 
 ability. To shorten hours and to advance piece rates is to 
 increase the cost of work. Who will pay this increased cost ? 
 
 There are compositors (not many) who believe that the 
 employer should pay it out of existing profits. There are 
 
others who think that it could be secured, with more or less 
 of exertion, from the buyer of printed matter. Employers, 
 without exception, are of opinion that they cannot pay it 
 out of present profits, and that it cannot be had from the 
 buyer. The opposition made is not factious. Assure any 
 employer that he can secure this advance, and although he 
 doubts its ultimate advantage to any interest, he will accede 
 to the request for eight hours. It is only because he sees 
 difficulties that he hesitates or declines. The question that 
 seems so easy of solution to the compositor nothing but the 
 asking and getting of more money from the buyer on the one 
 hand, and the paying out of a corresponding sum on the other 
 hand is to the book and job printer a problem beset with 
 difficulties. To ask the money is not, necessarily, to get it. 
 To ask it, and insist on it, may be to lose what one already 
 has. The employing printer cannot coerce his customer, who 
 has the power to take his work to rivals either in or out of 
 the city. The nature, the extent and the causes of this rivalry 
 among offices are seldom properly considered. It is necessary, 
 as a preliminary, to recite some of these facts. 
 
 The typographic printing of New York may be divided 
 into five distinct classes : 
 
 1. Printers and publishers of newspapers or periodicals. 
 
 2. Compositors of newspapers. 
 
 3. Printers and publishers of books. 
 
 4. Book printers or stereotypers. 
 
 5. Job printers. 
 
 There is no one office in this city that pretends to do the 
 work of all these classes. There are offices that do book, job 
 and card printing ; but in most offices the separation as above 
 stated is sharply defined. For its successful prosecution, each 
 class requires a special kind and separate organization of labor, 
 a special provision of types and presses, and a special educa- 
 tion or apprenticeship on the part of the managers or proprie- 
 tors. Compositors may, and do, work in any of these branches 
 with more or less facility, but employers cannot. Their in- 
 terests are distinct. They do not fraternize any more than if 
 
they belonged to distinct trades. The printer and publisher 
 >f a newspaper is quite indifferent as to the rules and prices 
 >f a job printer; the book printer is equally unconcerned as 
 the practices of a card printer quite as much removed 
 Prom collusion as from competition. 
 
 Morning Newspapers. There are twenty-four daily news- 
 >apers in New York city, viz. : eighteen printed in English 
 language, three in German, two in French, one in Danish, 
 'welve of them are morning papers. In all cases they own 
 :-heir types and presses. Most of them have abundant capital, 
 and employ many compositors, who are always men. The 
 weekly wages are $24, for sixty hours of work, twelve of 
 which must be in daytime. For night-work only, the rate is 
 $22 for a week of forty-eight hours. Piece-work is paid at 
 ;he rate of 50 cents per 1000 ems, unless it is all done at 
 light, for which the rate is 55 cents per 1000 ems. For un- 
 employed time they receive 40 cents an hour. At these rates, 
 the earnings of a piece compositor vary from $20 to $35 per 
 week. The average earnings of all regular workmen may be 
 put at $27 per week. Although the piece rates are but little 
 higher than those of book-work, a morning-paper situation is 
 
 considered as one of the best in the trade. 
 
 
 
 Evening Newspapers. There are nine evening newspapers. 
 Weekly wages are $20 for sixty hours of work. The price 
 per 1000 ems of common matter is 45 cents. Most of the 
 work is done by the piece. Situations on evening papers are 
 preferred by most piece compositors. The earnings are fully 
 up to or exceed the weekly rate. 
 
 Other Newspapers and Periodicals. The Business Directory 
 of this year contains the names of about 375 periodicals not 
 previously described. This number embraces every kind of 
 a periodical from a semi-annual to a tri-weekly from a mag- 
 azine of 500,000 ems to a leaflet of 15,000 ems. Three or 
 four of these periodicals are printed by their publishers, who 
 
 Bboth types and presses ; a larger number own the types 
 lo their composition, but have their press-work done by 
 
10 
 
 the trade : but most of these periodicals have both compo- 
 sition and press-work done by book or job printers, or by the 
 compositors of newspapers. The wages of the men workmen 
 are substantially the same as those paid by the evening news- 
 papers $20 a week and 45 cents per 1000 ems. These situa- 
 tions are not in special request. On some papers compositors 
 will earn over $20 a week, but on most the average is below 
 $17. Much of the work is done by boys and girls, who work 
 at about two-third rates. 
 
 By book journeymen and employers, newspaper compo- 
 sition is rated as the simplest kind of work. It requires the 
 least capital, and keeps that capital in most constant use. 
 Better than any other branch, it allows the use of boys. 
 Prices are consequently lower than for any other kind of 
 composition. Although weekly or monthly newspaper work 
 is done by several book and job printing houses, there are 
 several offices in which it is the exclusive business. 
 
 Compositors of Newspapers. This branch of newspaper 
 printing is seriously damaged by competition, both in the 
 ranks of the employers and the employed. Journeymen 
 complain that it is infested with boys, girls and 'two-thirders, 
 who deprive or prevent union men from employment; em- 
 ployers complain that the competition and sharp practices of 
 journeymen who have suddenly become employers, have so 
 debased the rates that they have no alternative but to employ 
 an undue proportion of two-thirders. The causes and effects 
 of this competition deserve investigation. The employers' 
 rate for this class of work is 80 and 85 cents per 1000 ems. 
 To a thrifty weekly newspaper, with a large circulation, this 
 rate is not a serious tax ; to a paper struggling for existence 
 it is a heavy burden. Unfortunately, the latter is the larger 
 class. Like all other close or needy buyers, newspaper pub- 
 lishers use every effort to have their work done cheaply. 
 They continually invite proposals, and usually give the work 
 to the lowest bidder. As a rule, all these publishers prefer to 
 have the work done in an office where composition and press- 
 work can be done by the same firm all the better if forms 
 can be electrotyped, papers folded and mailed under the same 
 
: 
 
 It 
 
 f. Printers who can furnish this accommodation know 
 ;hat the rates given cannot be reduced with profit or safety. 
 The composition of a weekly newspaper that contains 
 200,000 ems will furnish steady employment for six men. 
 Unlike any other branch of printing, the materials required 
 for such a paper are comparatively cheap ; $1000 judiciously 
 spent, and sometimes much less, will suffice for the outfit. 
 The securing of the composition of such newspapers is the 
 means by which many active and enterprising compositors 
 set themselves up in business. But the work can be secured 
 only by making a lower bid than the established rate. Few 
 compositors who are bent on going in business have any 
 hesitation in making bids of 75 or 70 cents. There are those 
 who have offered 65 and 60 cents, and even less. Such a 
 spective employer is sure that he can do the work at less 
 an established rates. He will work himself, and secure a 
 rofit from the labor of six men. More : he will make up, 
 read proof, and keep his own accounts, and save the expense 
 of time-hands, clerks and proof-reader. The fallacy in this 
 proposition is not perceived. In practical work, he finds that 
 he does not profit by the saved expense of these time-hands. 
 The only difference between his method and that of his late 
 employer is, that he does with his own hands for little or 
 othing, the same work for which others pay money. The 
 tablished employer spends money for the labor; the new 
 employer wastes or gives away time. In either case the cost 
 f the work is substantially the same. One party is paid for 
 ; the other is not. 
 
 A year's experience proves that the reduced rates are too 
 w. The amateur employer finds, in many cases, that he has 
 ot netted journeyman's wages. It is a dreadful discovery 
 r a journeyman who has always stood out for high prices 
 find, after a year of extra unpaid labor in management and 
 sponsibility, that he has been ratting, that he has actually 
 en working for less than $20 per week. What can he do ? 
 o raise the price on the publisher is impossible. He has 
 ut one alternative to discharge one or more of his men, and 
 ut on boys at two-third rates. He does it. 
 
 It is seldom that an established employer allows work like 
 is to pass out of his hands without a struggle. He imitates 
 
12 
 
 the amateur employer's tactics. He farms out the composi- 
 tion to his foreman. It is not difficult to find a workman who 
 will contract to do all the work connected with composition 
 and reading for a rate per 1000 ems closely approximating 
 that of the journeyman. This contractor pays the hands and 
 takes the responsibility; the employer furnishes only the 
 room and the materials. To cover the cost of the proof- 
 reading and the making-up, and other time work, it is under- 
 stood that the contractor shall have the right to hire boys or 
 two-thirders. It is by methods like these that the rates of 
 newspaper composition have been reduced, and that the trade 
 is filled with boys working at reduced rates. The reduction 
 of prices has been but slightly affected by the rivalry of es- 
 tablished offices ; it is the competition of amateur employers 
 that has been most effectual in crowding the newspaper trade 
 with two-thirders. 
 
 Printers and Publishers of Books and Magazines. There 
 are about half-a-dozen firms or incorporations that, in addition 
 to publishing, own and control manufactories in which every 
 branch of book-making is done. All of these houses are 
 wealthy made so, however, not by printing, but by pub- 
 lishing. All have large composing rooms and employ many 
 workmen. Weekly wages are $20; but most of the work 
 is done at the established rates of 47 to 53 cents per 1000 
 ems to men ; 40 cents to girls ; and two-thirds of men's 
 rates to boys. The earnings of the men at these rates vary 
 from $12 to $24 per week. The higher figure is seldom 
 reached; the average earnings are nearer $15 per week. 
 The complaint of the workmen in these offices is, that they 
 are too irregularly employed ; that they are often denied 
 work while boys and girls are kept in full employment. 
 Even with this drawback, the printing office of a publisher 
 is preferred by the compositor to that of the regular book 
 printer, for the publisher who owns a printing office is better 
 able to keep it supplied with work. The publishers say 
 that they provide the work too often to their own disad- 
 vantage, in the giving out of works of slow or doubtful 
 sale. They are induced to take this course because they have 
 
13 
 
 laterials they wish to keep employed, and because they pay 
 no master-printer's profit on the composition and press-work. 
 
 Boole Printers or Stereotype. Under this heading may be 
 included the offices that make stereotype plates or print books 
 only, to the order of the publishers. Of this class there are 
 not more than twenty firms. Some of them do nothing but 
 composition and stereotyping ; some nothing but press-work. 
 or is book-work the chief business of the remainder. There 
 e but seven offices in this city that can be properly con- 
 idered as exclusive book-houses. Even if a more liberal con- 
 struction were made if twenty more job .and pamphlet and 
 law-case printers were rated as book printers, the dispropor- 
 tion of book printers to that of the 150 book publishers 
 is apparently anomalous. The contrast of these figures is 
 enough to show that the book printing of New York city, if 
 it has not declined, has certainly not kept even pace with the 
 wealth and population, or even with the growth of the pub- 
 lishing trade. The older printers of the city, who have some 
 recollection of the number of compositors then employed 
 by Messrs. Trow, Craighead, Benedict, Fanshaw, Ludwig, 
 Smith, Jenkins, Reed & Cunningham, Adee, and many others, 
 and contrast the many book offices of that day with the few 
 book offices of this, will readily admit that the book-printing 
 trade of New York has not increased as it should have done. 
 The wages in all offices are the same as those of the book 
 publishers and printers $20 a week for the men on time ; 
 47 to 53 cents per 1000 ems for piece-work to men ; 40 cents 
 per 1000 ems to girls; two-thirds of men's rates to boys. The 
 earnings of the men are rather less than of those in the pub- 
 lishers' offices ; $12 per week may be hazarded as the average 
 of all men throughout the year. At established rates, a good 
 workman, on fair work, may earn $24 a week ; but he seldom 
 has the opportunity. Compositors complain that the work is 
 exceedingly irregular that a month of activity is followed 
 by a month of idleness; that work is done with injudicious 
 haste, and without regard to their convenience ; that they 
 frequently stand idle for want of letter or of proof; that the 
 quality of work offered is unprofitable, consisting largely of 
 
 trequen 
 quality 
 
14 
 
 bad manuscript or difficult work, and quite inferior in value 
 to that done here twenty years ago ; that proof-readers are 
 nicer and more exacting, and do not allow the compositor to 
 make speed. 
 
 Admitting the truth of most of these claims, the em- 
 ployers reply that the losses occasioned by irregular supply 
 of work are caused by the orders of the publisher ; they 
 work only to order, and have to do the work in the time and 
 in the manner desired ; that the losses by delayed proofs and 
 overworked fonts of letter are as great to them as to the 
 workmen. It is an evil they cannot prevent. They further 
 say, that the quality of the work is beyond their control ; 
 that the fat reprints and easy work, the proofs of which are 
 never meddled with by author or publisher, are for that very 
 reason done outside of the city at cheaper rates ; that the 
 composition that is refused at any rate less than 47 cents by 
 New York compositors, is done not sixty miles distant, to the 
 satisfaction of the publisher, by girls, at 20 cents per 1000 
 ems and S3 per week. The inequality between the New 
 York and the rural price is so great that competition by men 
 is hopeless. The alleged unfairness of keeping two-thirders 
 and girls on fat work in city offices, while men have lean 
 work, it is claimed, is nearly always caused by this com- 
 petition. The employer who so apportions his work is 
 striving, rather ineffectually, to compete with the country 
 printer. In the matter of rates, employers state that they 
 are now paying to men an unusually large proportion of 
 their receipts, as may be seen by the following table: 
 
 e Year N 
 
 1850 1862 1863 1864 1869 
 Workman's Charge for Compo- 
 sition per 1000 ems 27 32 36 50 53 
 
 Employer's Charge for Compo- 
 sition per 1000 ems 50 55 60 90 90 
 
 Percentage of advance made by 
 
 employer 85 72 663 80 70 
 
 The prices quoted are the extreme prices of both compositor and employer. 
 
 Although the book composition of this city is now done at 
 the smallest margin of profit, this contrast of the rates for 
 different years does not fairly indicate the relative expense. 
 
15 
 
 Work is now done by much more expensive methods. A 
 book printer has to keep much larger fonts of type, and in 
 much greater variety of faces ; he has to condemn these types 
 as worn out when they have had less service ; he has to pay 
 relatively much higher rates for proof-reading and for super- 
 vision ; he ha's to do his work in greater haste ; he can only 
 hope to do the most troublesome and least profitable kind of 
 work. The 53 cents paid for composition of 1000 ems of solid 
 manuscript is but for a part of the labor. The matter has to 
 be read, and supervised, at a large increase of cost never 
 less than one-fourth, sometimes more than one-third of the 
 compositors' charge. When other contingent expenses are 
 added, the cost of 1000 ems done exclusively by men's labor 
 is rarely ever less than SO cents. At this estimate the profit 
 cannot be more than 10 cents per 1000 ems. It is too often 
 less. As compositors do not average more than 5000 ems per 
 day, the profit of the employer on each man is less than 50 
 cents per day. 
 
 In 1850-2, a regular piece compositor, in a large book 
 office, could depend, with reasonable certainty, upon earning 
 $9 a week at the rate of 27 cents per 1000. In 1872, the 
 same workman, in a similar office, at the rate of 50 cents, will 
 not average $16 a week. He finds that although he has nearly 
 doubled his rates, he has not doubled his income that every 
 advance in wages is followed by hindrances in the method of 
 doing work that much diminish his performance. 
 
 There are other reasons why the earnings of the book 
 compositor do not increase with the advance in wages. 
 
 The increasing prevalence of incompetent workmen in 
 the ranks of journeymen is a common complaint with em- 
 ployers. Few workmen know how to make-up, to make 
 margin, impose, display titles, or set neat tables, or do other 
 work that pertains to the duties of a good printer. Most of 
 them know only bow to set type ; too many cannot do this 
 properly. The slow and faulty compositor is paid as much 
 per 1000 ems as the good; but he unfairly adds to the labor 
 of the foreman and reader, he destroys type, delays other 
 workmen, and in every way is a serious hindrance. 
 
 The average compositor does not always accept work at the 
 prices that have been approved and adopted by the Union. 
 

 16 
 
 He does not incline to steady situations. So long as the 
 work on which he may be engaged proves to be fat and pays 
 well, he will remain; if it is lean or troublesome, he throws 
 up his situation. He often prefers to be idle for days 
 together rather than take a case at any job that will compel 
 him to harder exertion to make full wages. The city has 
 always been full of compositors of this stamp always 
 changing, always on the lookout for a time situation and 
 fat piece-work unable to see that they lose more time and 
 money in these repeated changes than they would by sticking 
 to one office and sharing its luck. It is this incompetency of 
 the ordinary workmen, and the restlessness and shirking of 
 implied obligations by the good compositors, that have induced 
 many employers to overstock their offices with boys and 
 two-thirders. It is claimed that they do their work quite as 
 well as the poor workman, and that they will stick to their 
 work. 
 
 The evil from which employing book printers most suffer 
 is the want of remunerative work. There is scarce a book 
 office in the city that has not material enough to do thrice 
 the work that is done. The types and men are idle more 
 than half the time. The work that should be done in the 
 city goes abroad. The established rate of the New York 
 printers for composition and stereotyping is $1.35 per 1000 
 ems, but many good houses have reduced the rate to $1.25. 
 The reduction is not enough to meet the views of publishers. 
 They get the work done in interior and eastern cities and 
 villages for $1.00, for 95, for 90 cents. Not even at the two- 
 third rates of boys or girls can New York employers compete 
 with these prices. But this competition of interior towns, 
 annoying as it is, is not as menacing as that of Europe. 
 
 When the price of labor began to rise in this country, 
 shrewd buyers went abroad to seek advantages they could 
 not get here. They found in England that labor could be 
 had at half the American rate ; in Holland and Germany at 
 nearly one-third our prices. Nothing but the rate of exchange 
 and the high premium on gold prevented the transfer to foreign 
 printers of a large portion of our printed work. The times 
 have changed. The premium on gold is comparatively trivial. 
 It will pay an American publisher to have his books made 
 
5 
 
 17 
 
 ,broad. It will pay any English printer or publisher to make 
 effort to get a foothold in the American market. The 
 agined profits are large. The book that costs, if made in 
 America, $1 per copy, can be made in England at the cost of, 
 t most, 80 cents a copy. 
 
 The first steps for this long-threatened transfer of work 
 ave already been taken. One of our largest publishing 
 ouses ba&^lready establrshed- printing house in London. 
 Another is making preparations. We may be sure that many 
 hers will soon follow their example. It is not a matter of 
 choice, but of necessity. If American publishers wait any 
 longer, foreign houses will acquire the control of the Ameri- 
 can book trade. 
 
 The American printing offices that have initiated this ex- 
 periment of foreign manufacture are wealthy and own large 
 ;inting offices, in which they pay no master-printer's profits ; 
 ey have the power and the knowledge to institute any 
 economy they may fancy in the manufacture of their work. 
 With all these advantages, they deliberately decide to let a 
 portion of their capital, invested at home in printing machin- 
 ery, lie idle; they deoida .M to- cqnip new, .pyifffefeag offices 
 abroad, and submit to the inconvenience of dependence on a 
 anufactory three thousand miles distant. There are other 
 ublishers who are deliberating on the superior advantages 
 nd still cheaper labor of cities in Germany. A few months 
 ore and we shall see books by American authors and 
 ublishers that have been printed in foreign offices. Who is 
 ponsible for this national disgrace ? 
 
 There is a large amount of book-work done in New York 
 ;hat is not stereotyped, nor sold by the regular publishers of 
 e trade. Law cases, catalogues and pamphlets are the 
 ost noticeable examples. Like weekly newspapers, this class 
 f work does not require a large outlay for types. The press- 
 ork is usually trivial : it is often done on a cheap hand-press ; 
 not done where the type is set, it can be done by other 
 rinters without loss and with little inconvenience. This 
 ork offers a fine opportunity to a journeyman to commence 
 usiness. It has been largely followed, and this is the result. 
 1860, when wages were $11 per week, the price of law 
 es per page was 75 cents ; in 1872, when wages are $20, 
 
18 
 
 the nominal price is $1.25 per page. Wages advance 81 per 
 cent. ; employers' prices advance 60 per cent. Yet the price 
 is but nominal. More than half the law-work of the city is 
 done at $1.10, $1.00 or 95 cents per page. In catalogues 
 and pamphlets there is a similar debasement of prices. 
 
 Job Printers. Under this heading may be placed at least 
 350 printing offices, more unequal in their appointments than 
 those of any other class. Some of them do book-work, and 
 have stereotype foundries ; many have stationery stores and 
 book-binderies, or lithographic or engraving offices, and keep 
 employed many cylinder presses ; but at least half of the 
 number have no power presses, and do but an inconsiderable 
 amount of business. 
 
 In this branch of printing there is no piece-work. All 
 men compositors are paid at the uniform rate of $20 per 
 week. The smallest offices, that do not use power presses, 
 rarely employ men ; boys, at $5 to $10 a week, do nearly 
 all the work. In the larger offices good men have steady 
 employment, and in busy seasons they frequently do over- 
 work at 50 cents an hour. Among journeymen, situations in 
 job offices are preferred, and there is a constant effort on the 
 part of incompetent men to get in the ranks. All employers 
 agree that the job trade is full of inefficient and uneducated 
 workmen. While job compositors are not seriously discon- 
 tented with their wages, the proprietors of most job offices 
 are disheartened at the ruinous competition now prevailing, 
 and with the menacing aspects of the future. The extent of 
 this competition will be more clearly understood by a com- 
 parison of the figures in the annexed table. 
 
 Current prices for job work: /^-1860v 1872 N 
 
 The Fair The 
 
 Regular Established Competi- 
 
 Rate. Rate. tive Rate. 
 
 Billheads, per ream $7.50 $10.00 $8.00 
 
 Business Cards, No. 4, per 1000 3.50 4.75 3.00 
 
 Letter Headings, per ream 5.00 6.50 4.00 
 
 Handbills, med. 8vo., per 1000 2.75 3.00 2.00 
 
 "10,000 12.50 15.00 10.00 
 
 Posters, half med., 1000 5.00 7.50 5.00 
 
 Railroad Blanks, per ream 5.50 7.00 5.60 
 
 Letter Circulars, 1 page, J sheet, 1000, 5.40 7.50 6.00 
 
K f " 
 \ 
 
 : 
 
 bi 
 
 19 
 
 equity of the prices under the heading Fair Estab- 
 
 ished Rate should need no further justification than the 
 
 imple statement of the facts that the paper, ink, and 
 materials used in this class of work have advanced, since 1860, 
 from 10 to 60 per cent., and that labor has advanced by 82 
 
 er cent. In no instance is the present price more than 
 50 per cent. This insufficient advance shows the pressure of 
 competition. It shows, too, that in the fixing of these prices 
 the job printer has given to the buyer much of the advan- 
 
 ages of improved machinery and organization. 
 
 The insufficiency of the Competitive Rates of 1872 is as 
 clearly demonstrated. In the face of this large advance in 
 the price of labor and materials, the prices are really lower 
 than they were in 1862. These low prices are notorious. 
 They are advertised in newspapers and street cars ; they are 
 
 rought to the notice of every business man by handbills, by 
 drummers and bores. Buyers who know nothing and care 
 nothing about the cost of labor or paper, are kept well- 
 advised that there is a keen competition among job printers, 
 and that prices are going downward. Such an indifferent 
 buyer forms the erroneous conclusion that the difference in 
 rates really represents the difference in profit. It is difficult 
 to make him understand that at least half of this difference 
 or reduction is made by inferior and slovenly workmanship ; 
 
 hat the other half of this reduction is made by persons who 
 do not know the cost or the value of work. To the ordinary 
 
 usiness man this latter statement seems incomprehensible, 
 is not the less true. The charge is repeated with emphasis. 
 Not half the persons in New York who make estimates and 
 give prices for printing know the cost of doing the work. 
 What is still more unfortunate, they have that " little 
 knowledge," so dangerous a thing, which prevents them from 
 
 K3arning any more. 
 Fifteen years ago, every man, so far as the writer's recol- 
 ?ction can be trusted, who was the proprietor or manager 
 f a job printing office in New York city was a printer. At 
 ifferent periods of his life he had been errand boy, com- 
 positor or pressman, proof-reader, foreman, book-keeper. 
 There was no part of the business with which he was not 
 
 , b ; 
 
20 
 
 more or less familiar. He not only knew how to do the work, 
 but he knew the time it would take, and the expense it 
 would involve. The proprietors or managers of the most 
 reputable offices, large or small, who, in face of an active 
 competition, still cling to established rates, are all of this 
 class. 
 
 Within ten years, many new proprietors have appeared 
 who are entirely ignorant of the business. As stationers or 
 booksellers, they have a fair knowledge of the current prices 
 of the more common kinds of commercial work ; of the cost 
 or value of doing that work they know nothing whatever. 
 Every proprietor of such an office and there are many of 
 them has found it necessary to secure the services of a man- 
 ager a practical printer, who must be the foreman of the 
 men, and by turns, must be salesman, buyer, book-keeper and 
 maker of estimates. For one or two of these departments it 
 is not difficult to find competent journeymen; but it is rare to 
 find, at any price, a practical man who knows how to make 
 correct estimates as well as how to manage work. But it is 
 impossible for a novice to carry on the business without such 
 a manager. Liberal salaries are offered. Compositors who 
 have insufficient qualifications a deficiency which the pro- 
 prietor cannot discover are induced, by high wages, to take 
 this responsible position. The false position of such a man- 
 ager is made much worse by the technical ignorance of his 
 employer, who is continually and eagerly pressing this 
 manager for low estimates in order that he may get more 
 work. The manager tries to meet his views. 
 
 Here is an anomaly. As a journeyman, the compositor 
 has clear convictions as to the value of his labor. In case of 
 doubt he always takes the safe side, and charges his employer 
 the highest rate. He runs no risk, for he has the Union at 
 his back. The same compositor, suddenly transmuted into 
 the manager of a stationer's office, has grave doubts as to the 
 justice of employer's established prices. He perceives that 
 they are too high ; he sees many ways whereby they can be 
 reduced without loss. He is sure that he can do what they 
 cannot that h^ can make money where others lose. The first 
 result of this newly-awakened perception of justice is that 
 
: 
 
 s 
 
 21 
 
 he frequently accepts work for his employer at rates that he 
 would refuse as a journeyman; the second result, sometimes 
 ong delayed, is his retirement from office. The employing 
 tioner, in balancing his books, at the end of one or more 
 ears, discovers that his printing has been done at less than 
 st. He has lost money by his experiment. 
 
 While there has been an apparent decrease in the number 
 of strict book-printing houses, there has been a great increase 
 in job offices. The same causes that induce some active 
 nd ambitious compositors to undertake the composition of a 
 newspaper, or the management of a stationer's office, induce 
 others to try the experiment of going in -business. It does 
 not require large capital to set up as a job printer. One 
 Gordon press and a few fonts of card type enable one to do 
 small cards, bill-heads and labels. Such an office becomes at 
 once a rival to the largest office for this class of work. Some 
 f our largest offices are the growth of the most trivial begin- 
 nings. Some of our ablest printers are the proprietors of 
 these small offices. 
 
 To establish an independent business is a laudable ambi- 
 tion, but the zeal that prompts to such a step is not always 
 accompanied with proper knowledge. Not every man so 
 tempted pauses to consider whether another employer is really 
 eeded in the trade ; whether, needed or not, he has the 
 capital and the ability to maintain his foothold. To the dis- 
 passionate observer, who ponders the fact that in these 350 
 job offices not half the hands are kept in constant employ- 
 ent, it is quite clear that there are offices that are not needed. 
 As business does not come to such offices, they have to seek it. 
 But when it is found, it can be had only by underbidding. 
 ere, as in the case of the manager of the stationer's office, 
 the young employer seldom knows how to make estimates. 
 He has even a stronger temptation to make low prices. He 
 mally thinks it better to work at cost than not to work, 
 is common mistake is that he cannot calculate cost, and 
 ally works for less. It takes many months, perhaps years, 
 fore the consequences of the error are brought home to 
 m. He works hard, but, in too many cases, his income is 
 ess than that of a journeyman. He not only loses himself, 
 
22 
 
 but is the cause of greater losses to his older rivals. He 
 debases the prices of others by unsuccessful estimates for 
 work that he cannot do. 
 
 The older master-printers have made frequent attempts to 
 establish a greater uniformity of price, but all to little pur- 
 pose. The managers and novices are too often above the 
 advice of their fellow-employers, and are always beyond the 
 control of the Union. They can neither be coaxed nor coerced 
 to refrain from a competition which is as damaging to the 
 journeymen as it is to themselves and to their brother em- 
 ployers. So long as there are more printing offices in the city 
 than there is work for, so long we may expect this debase- 
 ment of prices. 
 
 The worst feature connected with this overcrowding of the 
 trade is that it has degraded the Business. The custom that 
 should come to one's house in a natural way is begged and 
 scrambled for in the most despicable manner. 
 
 By far the larger portion of the small job work of this 
 city, of such kinds as can be done on treadle presses, is now 
 done in job offices in which boys are almost exclusively em- 
 ployed. It is with the extremest difficulty that any office 
 employing men can offer prices for this class of work that 
 will be accepted. 
 
 In reply to these undeniable truths concerning the reduced 
 prices of employers, the journeymen make this reply: "It 
 is not our affair. We are not responsible for your low prices. 
 You must keep up your own rates." It is not a proper 
 answer. For the low prices now ruling in this city, the 
 workmen, more than the employers, are responsible. The 
 reckless estimates and the thoughtless competition that have 
 debased prices can, in at least two out of every three cases, 
 be traced to men who have but recently come from the ranks 
 of the journeymen, and who are thoroughly saturated with the 
 notion that the business is profitable, and that it can be 
 made, under their peculiar management, to yield even greater 
 profits. 
 
 In the department of small job work, the larger offices 
 have long ago retired from competition with the small ones, 
 and have endeavored to establish new branches of business 
 
Vf 
 
 I 
 
 23 
 
 r which skillful men and large machinery must be employed, 
 ere, too, unexpected competition has been developed. 
 
 The steam lithographic press is a most formidable com- 
 titor. Introduced within three years, it has already suc- 
 ded in wresting from the hands of printers of this city 
 rly a million dollars of business. It is but the beginning 
 f an unknown end. With increased experience in the use of 
 hese machines, and especially in their adaptation to small 
 work, we may safely predict that, in a few years, mercantile 
 lanks printed on stone will be as cheap and as common as 
 hose done from type. The application of photo-lithography 
 in the economical reproduction of book and table work is no 
 longer an experiment but a triumphant success. 
 
 The other competitor is the cheaper labor of foreign coun- 
 tries. Hitherto, job printers have felt secure against outside 
 influences. It has been said that, if books might go abroad, 
 jobs must be done here. It is a great mistake. The city is 
 thoroughly canvassed by agents of foreign printers. Show 
 cards, illustrated catalogues, labels, pamphlet covers, and 
 even billheads and cards, are now done abroad at prices with 
 which no American can compete. The value of this foreign 
 work cannot be defined; but it is already large and is in- 
 creasing. One printing house in London has thirty presses 
 n constant employment on American orders. There are 
 ther printing houses in the same city that do a large amount 
 f business in this country. Large orders for work are also 
 nt to Paris, Leipsic and Berlin. This work goes there, not 
 because it is done better, but because it is so much cheaper. 
 One is within bounds in stating that there goes abroad, from 
 this city alone, every year, job work enough to keep three 
 undred men employed. We have the skill, the men and the 
 materials, but, at present prices, they cannot be used. 
 
 This part of the subject cannot be dismissed without calling 
 kttention to the inequality in the ability of these five classes 
 employing printers to pay the proposed increased prices, 
 'he publishers of books, magazines, and newspapers, who 
 >wn and manage printing offices, are in the receipt of ample 
 icomes from the profits of publishing. To this class the 
 
24 
 
 addition of twenty per cent, to the cost of labor is a serious 
 tax, but it is not a crushing weight. Manufacturers of a book 
 or paper, who originate the work and direct it at every step, 
 and who control the sale and fix the price, have the power 
 to institute nice economies in all the branches, so that they 
 will not suffer the entire loss of this twenty per cent. If 
 composition is relatively too high, they can reduce cost of 
 paper or binding. , In many ways they can hedge an antici- 
 pated loss. Even if they conceded the entire master printer's 
 profit to meet the increased price of composition, it would 
 not destroy their profit on other branches of manufacture. 
 
 The book or job printer has no such opportunities. His 
 work is done to order only, and it must be done exactly as 
 agreed on, and at the regular current rate. He makes profit 
 from but one branch, where the publisher makes his from 
 many branches. If the book printer's profits on labor are 
 encroached on, he has no other branch that will aid him in 
 bearing the weight. He is, and always must be, unable to 
 pay as high a rate for labor as the publisher. 
 
 While this proposed increase of twenty per cent, is a crush- 
 ing weight to the old-established book or job printer, it is 
 really no tax at all to that printer's most formidable city 
 competitor. The small job office, in which all the work is 
 done by the proprietor and his boys, can be quite indifferent 
 to any advance in the price of labor that may be ordained by 
 the Union. The advance may be a real benefit. The pro- 
 prietor and his boys can maintain the old rates, while the 
 larger offices that employ men are obliged to add thirty 
 per cent, to the old prices. This is the reason why the pres- 
 ent prices of small job work are substantially the same as 
 those of 1862. A further increase of rate will increase the 
 advantage of the small office. Its tendency is to break down 
 printing offices of the middle class, and to increase the num- 
 ber of small offices. No thoughtful compositor, who deplores 
 the evils suffered by the trade from an excess of boys, can 
 desire a multiplication of small offices, in which he can never 
 find employment offices that are the real nurseries of the 
 boys that cut down his wages and that keep him out of 
 work in other establishments. 
 
25 
 
 The unfair manner in which the repeated advances in prices 
 ive been made, by discriminating against' book and job work, 
 clearly shown in the annexed table. 
 
 v 
 
 i 
 
 Branch of Composition. 1862. 1870. 
 
 Fob and Book Work. .Weekly Wages. $11.00 $20.00 .82 
 
 took Work Piece Rates* ... .33 .50 .52 
 
 [orning Newspaper.. Weekly Wages. 16.00 24.00 .50 
 
 " ..Piece Rates 35 .50 .43 
 
 Ivening Newspaper.. Weekly Wages. 12.00 20.00 .67 
 
 ..Piece Rates 31 .45 .45 
 
 ''Average of Manuscript and Reprint, for matter made-up. 
 
 The book and job printer, who employs men only by the 
 week, has to pay nearly twice as large a percentage as does 
 he publisher of the morning newspaper. The newspaper 
 ate is but 43 per cent, advance on old prices, while that of 
 ihe book and job printer is 82 per cent. The relative ability 
 of the two classes to pay an advance would be inadequately 
 stated by the transposition of these figures. This is but a 
 sample of the invidious discrimination. For ten hours' day 
 work in a job office, the rate is $20 a week ; for eight hours' 
 night work, on a morning paper, $22. For time work done 
 t night, the job printer pays 50 cents an hour ; for the same 
 ork, the morning or evening paper pays but 40 cents per 
 our. The Sunday paper hand must work over hours on Sat- 
 rday without pay ; but the book or job hand must work one 
 our less. This, surely, is not accident. After this exposition 
 policy, it is not surprising to find that the movement for 
 vance in prices is levelled at the book and job offices, and 
 hat the newspaper offices, as in 1869, are overlooked. It is 
 b enough that New York city in which prices are highest, 
 which profits are least, and in which the pressure of com- 
 etition is greatest should be selected for trying the experi- 
 ent of eight hours and higher prices, but that branch of the 
 ade in the city which is least able to afford it is the one 
 at is first picked out for punishment. 
 
 The thoughtful reader will see that the complaints of both 
 jmployers and employed are alike : on the part of the em- 
 
26 
 
 ployers, insufficient work, insufficient profits, unfair competi- 
 tion ; on the part of the employed, irregular work, meagre 
 earnings, the unfair competition of boys. There is certainly 
 sufficient cause for discontent, but how shall it be remedied ? 
 
 The journeymen propose what is equivalent to a general 
 increase of prices. For it is admitted by them that the effect 
 of the proposed reduction in the hours of labor will soon tend 
 to a positive increase in time wages. It is well understood 
 that the work of the city cannot be done in eight hours. 
 Nor do the applicants as a body really wish to strictly confine 
 the day's labor to eight hours. If they could get the price 
 of overtime for the added two hours, at the rate of 50 or 60 
 cents an hour, they would work ten hours willingly. This 
 point should be clearly understood. The application of the 
 workmen is not so much to shorten hours, as to increase 
 wages. The increase required is unusually large. If 20 or 
 25 per cent, be added to wages, not less than 30 per cent., 
 perhaps 33 per cent., must be added to the prices of the em- 
 ployers. It is a hazardous experiment, and one that should 
 be well considered before it is tried. 
 
 To ascertain the views of individual employers in regard to 
 this proposed increase of prices, and to elicit other pertinent 
 facts, the following circular was sent to every known book and 
 job office in the city : 
 
 NEW YORK, June 25, 1872. 
 to 
 
 At a meeting (held at the Astor House, Friday, June 21, 1872} 
 of a Joint Committee of the Employers and Employed in the trade of 
 Book and Job Printing, appointed by their respective societies for the 
 purpose of considering the expediency of establishing eight hours as the 
 limit of a day's labor, and of increasing the rate of piece work twenty 
 per cent., it was decided, as a necessary preliminary, that the Secretary of 
 the Employers be directed to furnish a Report on the State of the Trade, 
 to be submitted to the next meeting of the Committee for its consideration. 
 As the question of Eight Hours and Higher Prices affects every 
 person connected with Printing, it is hoped that every Printer and 
 Publisher will see the importance of furnishing the Committee with the 
 facts upon which their action must be based. 
 
27 
 
 The answers received will not be published. It is proposed to 
 collect the facts ami figures of these answers, and to present them to the 
 Trade only in the form of a condensed general statement. 
 
 As the time allowed for the preparation of these facts is short, it 
 is earnestly begged that answers will be made without delay. 
 
 Any other information on this subject not included in these 
 questions will be thankfully received. 
 
 THEO. L. DE VINNE, 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 COMMITTEE OF JOURNEYMEN. COMMITTEE OF EMPLOYERS. 
 
 M. R. WALSH, -with Geo. F. Nesbitt & Co. M. B. WYNKOOP,ofWynkoop&Hattenbeck. 
 
 W. PHILP, with Harper & Brothers. E. O. JENKINS. - 
 
 R. W. COX, with Poole &> MacLanchlan. R. H. SMITH, of Smith &> McDougall. 
 
 A. K. GORE, -with New York Register. JOHN POLHEMUS. 
 
 E. B. TUTTLE, with New York Herald. S. W. GREEN. 
 
 J. A . GANONG, with N. Y. Com. Advertiser. J. J. LITTLE, ofLange, Little & Hittman. 
 
 J. KELL Y, with D. Appleton & Co. T. L. DE VINNE, of Francis Hart & Co. 
 
 I. What is the average number of compositors employed on piece-work 
 in your office ? 
 
 Men. Boys. 
 
 2. What were their average earnings in 1871 ? 
 
 Men. Boys. 
 
 3. What were their average earnings in 1868 ? 
 
 Men. Boys. 
 
 4. To what extent are you affected by the lower prices of competitors either 
 in or out of the city ? 
 
 5. Can you furnish an estimate of the annual value of the work once done 
 in your office, and now done out of the city ? 
 
 6. At the established rates of employers, and under fair economical man- 
 agement, what is your estimate of the employer's profit on book 
 composition ? On book presswork ? 
 
 7. Could you pay an advance of twenty per cent, on piece rates out of 
 present profits ? % 
 
 8. Would your customers assent, or could you compel their assent, to 
 an advance of twenty per cent, or more on present prices f 
 
 9. What do you consider the reasons of the present depressed condition of 
 the printing business ? 
 
 10. What do you propose as a practicable remedy ? 
 
28 
 
 To Question 1 not enough answers have been received to 
 justify the writer in offering a statement of the number of 
 workmen in the trade. So far as the limited replies will 
 warrant, the facts are at singular variance with Men. B 0ys . 
 the preconceived theories. The proportion of 8 
 boys to men in the large book and job offices 27 5 
 
 is singularly small. Eight of the larger book 15 
 offices make returns as shown in the margin. 7 1 
 
 In the smaller offices there are more boys than 12 
 men. It shows the more difficult nature of the 20 
 work in the larger offices, and their preference 14 
 for men as compositors. 52 3 
 
 Questions 2 and 3 have not been as fully answered as could 
 be desired. The following table, that gives a contrast of the 
 wages of some offices, will be instructive. ISTI. ises. 
 
 But two offices have made a return of $16.51 $14.85 
 higher earnings in 1871. It would ap- 13.00 14.00 
 pear that the higher rates of 1871 really 10.92 11.93 
 decreased the year's earnings of the piece 17.00 20.00 
 compositor. It shows an increasing 22.00 25.00 
 scarcity of work, and more difficulty in 14.00 14.00 
 doing that work, to the loss of both em- 20.00 18.00 
 ployer and employed. It is a fact that has a direct bearing 
 on the proposition before us. If the slight advance of 1869 
 decreased earnings, would not the larger advance of 1872 
 have a still more disastrous effect ? 
 
 High rates do not necessarily increase earnings. The 
 marking-up of the prices of goods during a dull season is not 
 the method pursued by a merchant to increase his income. 
 It should not be our method. It is not rates but earnings 
 that we need. It is the marking-up of the rates that will 
 defeat this desire. 
 
 To Questions 4 and ^5 every book printer has replied 
 emphatically in the affirmative. Two job printers profess 
 indifference to competition ; but all the others agree in the 
 statement that they are constantly underbid by printers in and 
 out of the city. The estimates of probable loss of work are 
 very large, but they are too incomplete and too irregular to 
 be put in the form of a tabular statement. A careful review 
 
29 
 
 of the replies to these inquiries, and of the facts furnished by 
 publishers, warrants the statement that more than half of 
 the books recently published in this city were composed and 
 stereotyped in other cities. Add this to the very reasonable 
 estimate of probable loss on job work, and it will be seen that 
 the work of New York, now done out of New York, is more 
 than enough to keep every printer in it fully employed. 
 
 These are some of the answers : 
 
 Idle about half the time. Find it very difficult to get a fair price. I get 
 on average one out of five jobs for which I estimate ; the invariable answer 
 is, I can get it done lower. Two of my best customers send their work to 
 Buffalo, another sends to Europe; many others go to New England. 
 $10,000 of work once done by me is now done out of the city. Three-fourths 
 of the work offered I have to decline for insufficiency of price. Can do no 
 work whatever that my customers can wait long enough to get done in other 
 cities where prices are cheaper. I have lost one-fourth of my business. 
 In every estimate I give I have to consider the alternative of the work going 
 out of the city. Am offered more than twice the work I do, but can't accept 
 it at the price. I do nothing but troublesome work, upon which neither my- 
 self nor the compositor makes wages. All the good work goes out of the 
 city. Lost last month one job of $3,000, that went out of the city. Have to 
 do work at just above cost or not do it at all If I could work at the East- 
 ern rates, I could do twice the business. After long trial I've given up 
 competing with country offices, to the loss of half our business. Steam litho- 
 graphic presses are now doing a large portion of my former business. I can 
 get work done by other printers cheaper than I can do it in my own office. 
 Competition has reduced our profits to a mere nothing. More than half our 
 composition has been lost to us. We have lost all the plain composition 
 we once had. My customers get composition and press-work combined, in 
 inland towns, at less rates than I can furnish composition alone. 
 
 To Question 6 there is great disagreement in responses. 
 The highest figure given is "25 per cent., less the depreciation 
 and contingent expenses." It is evidently the response of 
 one who has not deduced this calculation from his account 
 books. One of the largest houses, well known in the trade 
 for the ability of its management, says that it has made no 
 profit whatever on book composition for three years. Another 
 house, equally noted for its care and accuracy, puts the 
 profits at 7 per cent. The majority of responses make the 
 returns of 10 and 12 per cent. The responses appended indi- 
 cate the general sentiment of the trade. 
 
30 
 
 Book-work pays too poorly for me to meddle with it. Don't set type ; can 
 get it done cheaper. Book- work is the poorest kind of work it is not worth 
 trying to keep. Do no book- work now ; gave it up, after long trial, as ut- 
 terly unprofitable. Consider composition only as a feeder to press- work; 
 have never yet been able to find any profit in it. 
 
 To Question 7 there is a unanimous negative. It is not 
 necessary to add a word of comment. 
 
 Most decidedly not. Impossible to get any advance, or pay any. Might 
 get a slight advance on some kinds of work, but not enough to pay 20 per 
 cent. No ! No ! (in nearly all replies). Could not get nor give 5 per cent. 
 We don't make 20 per cent, profit, and could not pay it. Impossible to get 
 or give. It would break us to pay it; it would lose us our business to try to 
 get it. Absolutely ridiculous to ask such questions. Certainly not. A very 
 hazardous step to try. Any advance either in wages or prices is impossible. 
 Customers would be great fools to pay any advance, when they can get their 
 work done so much cheaper in inland towns or abroad. A silly experiment 
 one that I won't try. If I compel my customer to pay this advance he will 
 do it but once or twice ; he will take his work away to cities where it can 
 be done cheaper. If I get it back again, it will be at a still lower price than 
 he now pays. Not one customer would comply: we should only lose the 
 work. 
 
 To Question 8 three answers have been received, in which 
 the writers state substantially that they object to any advance, 
 and do not admit its necessity; but that they would try to secure 
 it if it was adopted. All other employers have replied that 
 they could not get the advance. Most of them have made 
 this statement in the most emphatic manner. 
 
 Many of the leading publishers of the city have been 
 consulted with reference to their ability to pay the proposed 
 advance, All of them say that it is impossible. They agree 
 in saying that such an advance can have no other effect than to 
 drive still more work out of the city. They say that they are 
 now paying an unfair proportion of their receipts for the work 
 done here. In corroboration of this assertion, they point to the 
 following facts : the pamphlet or magazine that was sold for 
 25 cents in 1862 is now sold for 35 cents; the duodecimo, in 
 cloth, that was sold for $1.25 or $1.50 in 1862 is now sold for 
 but $1.50 or $1.75. These prices, which are as high as they 
 can get, are at an average advance of less than 40 per cent., 
 while the New York employing printers' charges are at an 
 average advance of not less than 65 per cent. 
 
31 
 
 Question 9 has excited extraordinary responses. The lead- 
 ing reasons assigned by book printers are : 
 
 Anxiety of too many employers to keep machinery in motion, even when 
 no profit arises therefrom. Lack of organization. Drummers. Unfair com- 
 petition. Stationers. Ignorant workmen who know nothing about making 
 estimates. Foreign competition. The Eight-hour movement. Too many 
 offices. Reckless competition. Too high price of labor, which drives work 
 abroad and to small offices. Unreasonably high price of labor. Too many 
 middlemen. High price of materials and high labor (by many persons). The 
 poor quality and disproportionately high price of composition both by piece and 
 on time. Too high wages. Too many offices. Poor workmen. Canvassing 
 journeymen and stationers who do not understand the business. High wages 
 and poor work. Too many printers. Ignorant workmen who solicit orders. 
 Interference of workmen, as drummers, with the established prices; foreign 
 competition. High wages and high prices of types here ; low wages and 
 low materials abroad. Too abundant labor of inferior grades, which is the 
 bane of both skilled workman and his employer. If the skilled employer did 
 not have to compete on so large a portion of his work with the inferior class, 
 he could afford to pay more, and could get more. One of the evils to be feared 
 from this movement is that it will stimulate this kind of competition. 
 
 To Question 10 not one response has been received that 
 proposes eight hours as a practicable remedy, not one that 
 advises or assents to any advance in wages. On the contrary, 
 there are many who do not hesitate to state that the only 
 remedy is an increase of hours or a reduction of wages, as 
 may be gathered from a review of the annexed responses. 
 
 Better workmen (by many persons). Refuse to work for middlemen; 
 refuse to do work or give commissions to journeymen printers. Discharge 
 men ; do less work, and do it ourselves. Reduce wages (by many persons). 
 Kefuse work to every man who does not understand his business. Sell out. 
 Take the jours into partnership, and make 'em pay their share of the losses. 
 Cut down wages, especially on plain work, and get some of lost work back. 
 Men's wages for men's work ; boy's wages for boy's work. Work ten hours 
 a day, and longer. A strike on the part of employers. Compromise (one 
 party only). Reduce wages 10 per cent. Kill the eight-hour movement. 
 An agreement with the workmen in every office that their wages shall depend 
 on the profits of the office. 
 
 This is the substance of the responses. It is enough to 
 show that employers are clearly of opinion that Eight Hours 
 and Higher Prices are impracticable. 
 
 It is now time to ask the question Is this advance in 
 prices really needed ? In all previous applications for higher 
 
32 
 
 wages the demand has been justified by necessity. When the 
 premium on gold was steadily advancing, and all the necessa- 
 ries of life were growing dearer, . there was reason in the 
 demand that wages should be increased. For this advance 
 there is no such claim. It is not maintained that the expenses 
 of living are higher now than they were in 1869. They are, 
 no doubt, greater than we desire, but they are not increasing, 
 as they were in 1863 and 1864, in every direction. That 
 compositors should desire more wages is but natural ; that an 
 increase of wages would be of benefit to them is admitted; 
 but that men who are now in the regular receipt of $20 a 
 week and upward, are driven by necessity to insist on higher 
 wages, is not the belief of employers. No evidence has been 
 presented that would lead to such a conclusion. 
 
 This movement for eight hours and higher prices did not 
 originate with the printers of the city. It is an epidemic. 
 There is strike in the air. It is one of the many plans for 
 embittering the relations of American employers and employed 
 for which we are indebted to the old world. It is by foreign 
 emissaries and foreign workmen that the strikes and the agita- 
 tions in other trades of our city have been fomented. It is by 
 the subsidy of a foreign trade union that one of our largest 
 associations of mechanics hoped to carry a strike. It is from 
 the apostles of the International and the Commune that 
 American mechanics have been unwittingly receiving teach- 
 ings and orders. Every employing printer who has taken the 
 trouble to make personal inquiry in his own office, is well 
 satisfied that the majority of the compositors do not favor the 
 movement. They have joined it with faint heart, if not with 
 spoken protest, and only from a mistaken sense of fraternal 
 obligation. 
 
 There is one exception. The book compositors of the 
 city, whose earnings never reach $20, are most seriously dis- 
 contented. It is not because the present rates are too low. 
 They are higher than those of the evening, and nearly as high 
 as those of the morning papers. It is not because the Union 
 has not carefully protected their interests. The present scale 
 of prices is filled with safeguards for their benefit. All to 
 little purpose. The morning paper hand averages $27 ; the 
 
: 
 
 33 
 
 vening paper hand at least $22 ; but the book hand does 
 ot average $14 per week. This is a miserable pittance. The 
 unreflecting observer, who knows nothing of the circum- 
 tances of the case, at once rushes to the conclusion that 
 he employer is in a false position in not seeing to it that the 
 iece compositor is better paid. It is worth the while to look 
 to these circumstances : is it the compositor or the employer 
 ho is in a false position ? 
 
 The scanty earnings of book compositors are attributed 
 y workmen to the bad management of the office. Is this 
 he only reason ? It is well known to all printers that there 
 re compositors who are slow ; that the trade is full of men 
 who, on good work, and with every opportunity for making 
 speed, cannot earn $14 a week, while others on the same 
 ork will make $20 a week and more. The trade is full of 
 men who can do nothing but set type. They stand idle 
 daily, in and around offices that have matter to make-up and 
 mpose, jobs to set, tables to arrange, but they cannot do the 
 work. There are also other men who will not work ten 
 hours when they have the work to do. As piece-hands, they 
 consider they have the right to come late and go early. 
 Here are good reasons why their earnings should be inferior. 
 To compositors like these the higher rates would be of 
 ittle benefit. The advance of twenty per cent, would be but 
 trifle in comparison with their expectations. At best, it 
 could but raise their earnings to $18 a week, which would 
 be, as before, twenty-five per cent, less than the wages of the 
 time-workman. To enable them to earn by the piece $24 a 
 week, as is desired, the rate would have to be raised to nearly 
 $1.00 per 1000 ems. This is impossible. But even if it were 
 conceded, it would not end the matter. Give the inferior 
 workman $24 for work on time, and the man of skill would 
 insist on $30 for his superiority. Let this be conceded. A few 
 weeks or months, and the inferior man will move for equality 
 of pay with the best not as a matter of favor, but as one of 
 right. Here we begin to see the true motive of all this dis- 
 content, as well as the charming equity of a so-called minimum 
 price for time work. 
 
 The slow, idle or unskilled workmen, who earn so little by 
 the piece, or who have a precarious employment by time, 
 
34 
 
 are the most clamorous in their demands for higher wages. 
 The fact that they earn so little is repeated again and again, 
 as if it were the end of all argument, even when they are 
 paid the same rate and have the same opportunity as men 
 who earn double. The undeniable fact that they do little 
 work, and do it poorly, they consider as quite immaterial. 
 "A working man ought to have $20 a week, anyhow," 
 was the remark made by a compositor three years ago to 
 his employer. "Not if he don't earn it," was the answer. 
 " I can pay you only by the same rule by which I am 
 paid which is, not for the time you spend on the work, 
 but for the work that you do. If you can't or won't do more 
 in ten hours than other men do in five, you are not entitled to 
 more than $] a week." And what was the response ? u I 
 don't know anything about your affairs. 1 only know that I 
 ought to get $20 a week, the same as the other men. I need 
 the money just as much, and can't live on less." This man 
 was not specially unintelligent, and his views would not 
 deserve repeating if they were not largely representative. 
 They are the avowed doctrines of the International. 
 
 The abstract right of every man to receive from society a 
 comfortable living, when he has complied with society's con- 
 ditions, which no one will deny, is muddily mixed up with 
 the notion that he has a right to exact good wages of every 
 man who may be his employer, whether he has earned them or 
 not whether the employer can afford to pay them or not. For 
 the credit of the trade, it is cheerfully confessed there are 
 few compositors who would undertake to defend this absurd 
 proposition in its full breadth, but there are many who have 
 the idea that they are unfairly dealt with in the matter of 
 wages. Who or what it is that is responsible for their low 
 earnings does not clearly appear. At one time it is banks 
 and speculators ; at another, tariffs and legislators ; but there 
 is a substantial agreement, in nearly all cases, that capitalists 
 and employers are the offenders. 
 
 Some years ago the writer had occasion to remark in a 
 newspaper, that it was the belief of many journeymen 
 printers that the profits of employers were too large, and 
 were acquired by the retention of an unfair share of the com- 
 
\j( 
 
 ; 
 
 th 
 
 . 
 
 35 
 
 ositors' labor. For making this statement he was sharply 
 buked. He was assured that compositors were not socialists ; 
 hat they respected the rights of capital and of property ; 
 ey did but ask for their own no more, no less. But the state- 
 ent that was repelled as so obnoxious seven years ago, is 
 ow made in the frankest manner. Employers are told that 
 eir profits are unreasonable, and that there should be a more 
 uitable apportionment ; that workmen will never be satisfied 
 ritil they get a much larger share of the rewards of labor, 
 his larger share, this fair share, is never stated in figures, 
 ere are few of these claimants who would define this share 
 at less than an advance of one-fourth on their present 
 earnings; there are those who think that the relations of 
 capital and labor could be so adjusted that they would receive 
 ne-half more that they now get. The ability of the em- 
 loyer to pay or, at least, the ability of the business to earn 
 the advanced rate, is never doubted. The omnipotence of 
 e Union, when associated with employers, to revolution- 
 ize laws of trade and to compel customers to pay higher rates 
 is considered as beyond question. It is the vague but wide- 
 spread notion of the ability of the business to pay large 
 profits that has filled our city with small printing offices, and 
 that has induced so many amateur employers to tamper so 
 ashly with established prices, to their own injury. There 
 amateur employers (in the first year of their business life 
 only) who know that they will make 50 per cent, on all the 
 work they do ; there are canvassing journeymen who ask for 
 commissions of 25 and even 40 per cent, with most charming 
 ingenuousness. These exhibitions of faith are the legitimate 
 fruits of a pervading delusion. 
 
 Most employers consider this belief on the part of work- 
 men as the evidences of ignorance and prejudice that are 
 unworthy of consideration, and disdain reply. It certainly 
 cannot be approached by ordinary methods of argument. 
 Assertion can be met only by counter assertion and denial. 
 It is enough to say that there is no large book or job office in 
 this city that does or can yield an income that could pay 
 the journeyman the ideal fair share of which he dreams. 
 Take the year's net receipts of any such office ; deduct the 
 
 rasl 
 are 
 
36 
 
 legal interest on money invested ; set aside a proper sum for 
 depreciation of material ; allow for the services of the mana- 
 gers only at their merchantable value ; the remainder would 
 be pitiably small. Divided pro rata among the employed of 
 the office, it would never yield five dollars a week, often not 
 one dollar a week. The principle of partnership, rigidly 
 applied, would often reduce earnings. The fair and equitable 
 share of the return of labor, so far from adding one-fourth 
 or one-half to their incomes, would seem almost too con- 
 temptible for notice. 
 
 The annexed advertisement, from the New York Herald of 
 July 14, 1872, is to the point. 
 
 (JjnnA CASH WILL BUY TWO ORIGINAL SHARES OF THE JOUR- 
 tlDt/t/U neymen Printers' Co-operative Association (dividends included) ; 
 $200 each original cost; has been in existence over five years. Address 
 J. S.,.&c. 
 
 This is an office that has been exclusively under the jour- 
 neymen's control. It has able workmen; it is creditably 
 managed, and has good standing in the trade ; yet the stock- 
 holder virtually offers to sell out at cost, with simple interest 
 added.* Can the workmen in this office claim that they do 
 not receive their fair share of the profits of labor ? 
 
 Here is the present impracticability of our schemes for co- 
 operative industry. The employing book and job printers, 
 who have frequently discussed this topic, would prefer to 
 make engagements by which the pay of labor would be deter- 
 mined by the profits of labor. The great stumbling block is 
 the paltriness and the irregularity of the profits. Sooner 
 than accept the new duties and responsibilities, the inferior 
 workman, who earns less than $14 a week, would prefer the 
 chance of bettering his condition by a strike. 
 
 The position of this inferior workman, an annoyance to all 
 classes in all trades, is probably greater in printing than in any 
 other. He needs protection continually. He never gets 
 enough. The good workman can take care of himself with- 
 out help. The superior workman always receives extra pay 
 and special favor, without intervention of the Union or the 
 
 * This selection of an example is made only because it has already been pub- 
 lished. It is a fair illustration of the profits of the business of the merchant- 
 able value of the average book and- job printing office in New York. 
 
37 
 
 State. But the inferior workman is continually clamoring for 
 higher rates and more legislation. It is for his sake that the 
 Union fills the scale of prices with vexatious restrictions. It 
 is for his benefit that legislators are bored with applications 
 for eight-hour and apprenticeship laws. That he may have 
 the slender chance of earning two or three dollars a week 
 extra, prices must be put so high that thousands of dollars' 
 worth of work is driven out of the city. It is largely by his 
 instigation that the trade is harassed with quarrels with em- 
 ployers. That he may receive the " minimum wages" a 
 charming phrase, that really means a certain sum of money 
 for an uncertain amount of work the better workman must 
 virtually forego the superior pay to which he is entitled, and 
 must unite with the employer in surrendering a portion of 
 rightful earnings. For this is the only way, practically, in 
 which minimum time wages ever were or ever will be paid. 
 
 It has been too rashly assumed that the unfortunate 
 condition of the man who earns but $14 a week is due to the 
 fact that the trade or the employer puts itself in a false posi- 
 tion when it refuses or evades the payment of full wages. Is 
 this true ? Does not the man put himself in a false position 
 when he attempts to work at a trade, or a branch of a trade, 
 that he understands most imperfectly ? What right has he to 
 the full wages of an expert? 
 
 To allude to the incompetency of the average compositor 
 at once provokes the journeyman to this retort : " It is your 
 own fault. If you indentured apprentices, as employers used 
 to, and taught boys their trades, there would be fewer bad 
 workmen." This bold assertion needs examination. It is a 
 begging of the question to assert that an indentured appren- 
 tice must be a good or even a fair printer. One must look 
 deeper than this for the source of this trouble. Seventy years 
 ago every printer was, of necessity, a book printer. There 
 were few newspapers that were not attachments to book or 
 job offices. Job work, of course, always existed, but without 
 job type or presses it was but a sorry business. As then 
 practiced, the three branches of the trade were equally familiar 
 to almost all compositors. 
 
 Times have changed. Book work is no more the first, but 
 the last on the list. There are more newspaper offices and 
 
38 
 
 newspaper compositors than in the other two branches com- 
 bined. The value of the product of job offices far exceeds 
 that of the book offices. The three branches are entirely 
 distinct. The boy who is taught the trade in one office, 
 learns the branch there practiced, and no other. The news- 
 paper compositor cannot be an expert book hand ; nor can 
 the book hand be a good job printer. 
 
 Plain composition is the only work that piece compositors 
 can do with equal facility in all branches. In the newspaper 
 branch this is about all that is required ; in the book office it 
 is but a part of the work ; in the job office it is not half the 
 work. Further detail is unnecessary. It is obvious that if a 
 man accepts a situation outside of the branch in which he was 
 educated, he works to his own or to his employer's loss. 
 Here is another reason why many men working in book offices 
 earn so little. It is the workman, and not his employer, who 
 is in a false position. 
 
 To do work effectively on the newspapers, one of the old 
 rules of the trade had to be abolished. The office had to 
 make up all the matter. The necessity for it was so obvious 
 that it has never been the occasion of dispute. It was, how- 
 ever, the first step in a system that has been the source of 
 endless disputes in book offices. The compositor who learned 
 his trade in a newspaper office had never been taught to make 
 up book pages or to impose forms. The book office has 
 been compelled to do it for him. For the same reason, it has 
 been obliged to reserve the composition of title-pages and 
 neatly-displayed advertisements. To do the work with 
 propriety, as one must do in the face of active competition, 
 it has been found necessary to give this and like work only 
 to experts. The field of the book compositor has consequently 
 been shrinking into narrower limits. As the trade is now 
 practiced, the average book compositor does nothing but set 
 type. Nor is there any reason to believe that he ever will do 
 more. The tendency of work in all trades is to nicer division 
 of labor. There are many reasons why this is to be regretted, 
 both for the interest of employer and employed ; but we may 
 be sure that the system will never be changed. One will 
 have to accommodate himself to facts and circumstances that 
 he cannot control. 
 
30 
 
 Unfortunately for the compositor of this class, the part of 
 the trade at which he works is one in which the rudiments 
 are most quickly acquired by the novice. Any intelligent 
 boy or girl can soon learn to set type, not well, it is true, 
 but at such a cheaper rate as to reconcile an employer to the 
 imperfections of the work. 
 
 There is probably no one who has a higher estimate than 
 the writer, of the skill, experience and intelligence that are 
 required to constitute a thorough printer. The trade is not 
 to be learned in one year, nor yet always in seven years. 
 But a knowledge of the art of setting type is not a knowledge 
 of the trade. ' We may, by courtesy or from interest, call 
 the mere type setter a printer, but it does not alter the 
 fact, that the skill or knowledge he has acquired is so slight 
 that the boy or girl of a year's practice can do his work. 
 
 There is probably no trade in which boys are such formi- 
 dable competitors to men as in letter-press printing. No 
 carpenter undertakes to build a house, no machinist constructs 
 machines, not even a tailor or a shoemaker can attempt to 
 carry on business almost exclusively with boys. In all these 
 and other trades the journeymen may think that there is an 
 excess of boys, but they never exist in such proportion as in 
 printing. It is a notorious fact that this city is full of offices in 
 which three-fourths of the work is done by boys. It is equally 
 notorious that the cheaper labor of our country rivals is 
 always that of boys or girls ; that a very large proportion, 
 probably more than half, of the plain reprint composition 
 done in this country is done by minors, and done acceptably. 
 
 Compositors have always refused to acknowledge the 
 equity of this competition. The fa'ct that the boy can do the 
 man's work is to them quite immaterial. They consider that 
 they have a prescriptive right to consider composition in all 
 its details as men's work exclusively, and thereby entitled to 
 men's full wages. They adhere as rigidly as they can to all 
 the antique usages of the trade when the necessity for them 
 no longer exists ; they refuse to see that daily newspapers and 
 steam presses and the art of stereotyping have completely revo- 
 lutionized the business. They insist on having all the rights 
 and privileges of the old-school book compositor even when 
 they admit they do not possess his qualifications. They refuse 
 
40 
 
 to do any work at less than the full price of the expert 
 workman. 
 
 Nevertheless, the work is done. The double-leaded reprints 
 go out of the city to be done by girls, or are kept in the city 
 and are done by two-thirders and by boys. The catalogues 
 and table work, often more profitable than work at single price, 
 that men refuse to do at less than price-and-a-half, or double 
 price, declined by the large offices, go to the smaller ones, 
 and are done by boys at less than single price. The small 
 job work that the large job office has to decline, as not paying 
 the actual cost of men's labor, is also taken up by the smaller 
 ones, and is done by boys. The competitors both of journey- 
 men and of established employers are really boys. It is 
 difficult to say which of the two classes suffers most the 
 journeymen or the employers. Both of them are not only 
 losing work, but making competitors. 
 
 It is of little use for any employer or any journeyman to 
 quarrel with these facts. No amount of denunciation or com- 
 bination on the part of employers, nor of resolutions by trade 
 unions, nor of apprenticeship laws by legislators, will ever 
 make any change. If it is found that the boy can do more 
 economically the work that has been done by a man, the boy 
 will do it. The buyer of labor can no more be prevented froni 
 getting it at the cheaper rate, than the workman can be pre- 
 vented from buying what he needs in the cheapest market. 
 
 It is of as little use to refuse to recognize this state of affairs. 
 This has been the policy of the trade for years, but the time 
 has come when it recognizes us. When the unskilled book 
 compositor and his employer, and the job printer also, are idle 
 half the time, refusing work because it is below the proper 
 rate, when this refused work is greedily picked up and is 
 done acceptably by boys in and out of the city, when our 
 mutual refusal to reduce prices seems to have no other effect 
 than that of enabling others to reduce them, and to overstock 
 the trade with boys it is high time that we comprehend this 
 altered state of affairs. When the work of our offices and our 
 city is slipping away, both to the injury of those who lose and 
 those who take it, it is time that we asked ourselves this 
 question : Are we right in insisting on men's wages for boys' 
 work ? Does it benefit ourselves or any one 'else ? 
 
41 
 
 The true source of the troubles of employers about prices, 
 and of compositors about wages, may be found in the persistent 
 attempts of both parties to get men's wages for boys' work. 
 Should it be a matter for wonder, that in trying to reverse the 
 natural laws of trade defeat is as sure as fate ? 
 
 The correctness of this view of the cause of low wages 
 will be shown quite as clearly by a glance at the condition of 
 those departments of the trade in which men do men's work. 
 One may begin with the morning newspapers. This work is 
 much simpler than any kind of book-work, but it must be 
 done with greater speed,- and in unseasonable hours. It re- 
 quires the expertness that is only acquired 'after long applica- 
 tion, and the endurance and steadiness of a fully developed 
 man. It cannot be done by girls or boys. As managed in this 
 city, it is truly men's work, and accordingly receives men's pay. 
 
 In the same offices where book compositors earn less than 
 $14 a week, are the regular job compositors and time hands, 
 who are paid $20 a week. There are also often superior work- 
 men who are paid from $22 to $25 a week. There a,re pressmen 
 working in subordinate positions who get $25 to $30 a week. 
 There are readers, foremen and managers who are paid from 
 $25 to $50 per week ; even higher wages have been paid. 
 All these are men of skill. Their right to good wages rests 
 on a solid basis. They do not complain of the competition of 
 boys, for boys cannot do their work. Their wages rise stead- 
 ily not by strikes, not by the action of the Union, not always 
 through their own request often through the recognition of 
 their superior value by the employer, or by the competition 
 of a rival employer for their services. Poorly paid as print- 
 ing is, there is no trade in which signal ability is better 
 appreciated or encouraged. Over-full as the city is with 
 compositors, there is even now in the dullest season, as there 
 always has been, an unsatisfied demand for skillful workmen. 
 Superior ability always commands steady employment and 
 higher wages. All that the employer asks of the workman 
 is, that he shall furnish him with work that he can sell at a 
 profit. He pays him accordingly. 
 
 It is the misfortune of the piece compositor or unskilled 
 workman, that he insists on furnishing the employer with 
 work that can be bought from boys and girls at lower rates, 
 
42 
 
 and that cannot be sold to profit. Unlike the more skillful 
 time-hand, who works in cooperation with his employer, the 
 unskilled workman wrongly considers it to his interest to 
 work independently. His rules about fat and lean, about 
 single and double price, about piece and time work, must 
 be enforced against the city employer, even when he knows 
 that they are disregarded to such an extent by competing 
 offices, that they cannot be enforced on the buyer. The 
 competition of unskilled or of little skilled labor, both at 
 home and abroad, from which the employer suffers as well 
 as the employed, is recognized by the Union only to be made 
 the pretext for apprenticeship laws and higher prices. The 
 inability of the employer, by reason of this competition, to 
 pay higher wages, is made the necessity for eight hours and 
 pay for standing-time. 
 
 Are these wise methods of dealing with the evils of the 
 trade? Can any man believe that they will increase the 
 amount of work to be done in the city, or that they will even 
 increase the year's earnings of the average piece compositor ? 
 Will they increase the ability of the employer to pay higher 
 wages? Will they not goad him to a retaliation that will 
 make a victory worse than a defeat ? 
 
 The question will be asked If these new rules and prices 
 cannot be enforced, how then can the condition of the work- 
 man be improved ? The remedy is largely in the workman's 
 own hands. It is not in the power of the employer, nor of 
 the Union, to help him out of his difficulties in the speedy 
 manner that he desires. The competition, rural and foreign, 
 from which he suffers was not made by the Union, nor by the 
 city employer; nor can they, nor can the State, abolish it. 
 Quackish remedies, like high prices, or eight hours, or 
 apprenticeship laws, may here and there afford a temporary 
 relief, but they will leave the trade worse than they found it. 
 In spite of all legislation, there is, and always will be, com- 
 petition. It is to be found in every trade and profession ; it 
 is quite as common with merchants as with mechanics. The 
 printer has no right to believe that he should be exempt, or 
 that he can conquer the evil in any other way than by his 
 own individual efforts. 
 
43 
 
 If a man finds himself in a trade overrun with boys and 
 unskilled workmen, who work at cheaper rates, his only 
 remedy is to make himself superior to the boys in skill to 
 qualify himself to get higher wages. If he desires better 
 prices, he must sell a better quality of labor. It commands 
 a better price, and he can get it if he will but try to deserve 
 it. But it is something he must do for himself: no trade- 
 union can do it for him. For the associated efforts of trade- 
 unions, or of cooperative societies, are of little value unless 
 they are based on individual ability. The reform that the 
 workman desires in the trade must begin with himself. 
 
 To the so-called modern positive philosopher, who sneers 
 at the maxims of Ben Franklin, and who subscribes to the 
 doctrines of Proudhon, the suggestion of personal effort may 
 probably be as distasteful as the practice. But there are 
 young Americans in this city, who have not yet outgrown 
 respect for New England teachings, who may listen with 
 better grace to the words of one of her most able sons,* with 
 whose counsels this essay will find a fitting close, and, it is 
 hoped, the fullest concurrence of the reader. 
 
 It is not yet given us to see how this great result is to come about, but 
 we can rest assured that it will not come about through any bombardment 
 of rhetorical epigrams, nor yet through the noisy resolutions of strikes ; it 
 will not come to us through political action, nor yet through the- passage 
 of multitudinous laws intended to regulate the hours of human toil, or the 
 value of human labor, or the demand for wealth ; all these are but the 
 barren product of that spirit of political tampering which has been 
 described as the odious vice of restless and unstable minds. 
 
 Not our generation, nor many succeeding ones, will see the millenium 
 created by an act of Legislature, and ushered into being by the club of a 
 constable. Far otherwise ; the industrial and social reorganization essential 
 to our future, like all far-reaching social movements, can only result from 
 the combined and quiet action of an intelligent and determined people, 
 attending in their own way to their daily work, and coldly disregarding 
 all short cuts and royal roads to their promised land. It must be the result 
 of the deep ground-swell of a steady purpose, and will never originate in 
 the frothy eddies of an idle rhetoric. 
 
 Germany has already taught us one lesson ; England is teaching us 
 another. Both lessons come to us as the still, small voice of reason and 
 hope, making itself heard amid the noisy and profitless tumult of passion. 
 
 * Charles Francis Adams, Jr. Oration in Boston, July 4, 1872. 
 
44 
 
 In those countries, a few among the owners of labor have at last learned 
 to cooperate, as well as to combine. Are, then, the laborers of Germany 
 and of Great Britain - those whom we so constantly refer to in our vile 
 political jargon as ''the pauper labor of Europe " are they more intelli- 
 gent or determined than those of Massachusetts ? Few at least here 
 would care to maintain it. Are they better endowed with means with 
 which to further their experiments ? I cannot say ; but with $160,000,000 
 of wealth hoarded in the savings banks of the Commonwealth, our people 
 should have a sufficiency of capital. Yet the intelligent, self-reliant, 
 determined children of Massachusetts hang backward in this great work, 
 while others in less fortunate lands press to the front. Nevertheless, the 
 work will yet be accomplished, and what the savings bank now is to the 
 laboring class of Massachusetts, that and much more will the mill and the 
 workshop be in the future. Here, and here alone, lies the solution of the 
 problem ; therein is the ark of salvation. 
 
 An immutable law, wiser than any recorded upon human statute book, 
 has decreed that every people may in course of time regulate its own 
 destiny. No human power external to themselves can assist them greatly, 
 and none can permanently retard them. To each community there ulti- 
 mately comes, through government or notwithstanding government, such 
 an industrial and social system as they themselves shall make. The future 
 of Massachusetts rests in the hands of the mass of her citizens, who now 
 crowd together in towns, as their fathers lived apart in the country. It is 
 for them to decide, for her and for themselves, whether they will hereafter 
 be dependents at the doors of corporations, and suppliants at the bar of 
 the Legislature, or whether they will stand up in the honest dignity of 
 independent manhood, and emancipate themselves. Capital is selfish and 
 hard ; indeed, if it cease to be so, it would not long exist. It does not 
 deal in sentiment ; by the law of its being, against which it is childish to 
 disclaim, it buys where it can buy for least, and sells where it can sell for 
 most ; skill and muscle are but one portion of its raw material, as coal and 
 cotton are another. It can be effectively approached in one way, and in 
 only one. To deal successfully with it, labor has yet to prove one essen- 
 tial vital postulate it must demonstrate that labor is more profitable to 
 capital as a partner than as an employe. In these few words rests the 
 whole issue of this great debate ; but this it can never do till it tries and 
 fails, and fails and tries again; for nothing here will succeed but success. 
 One great, cooperative triumph, the result of its own unassisted capital 
 and its own directing brain, would thus outweigh, to the labor of Massa- 
 chusetts, the results of a thousand successful strikes. 
 
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