THE E16HT?li#fev:.,.

*•* / • • • • • *• *• • ,♦

STANDARD wS®Y.

WHAT WORKINGMEN CAN GAIN BY IT,
AND WHAT THEY CANNOT.

*

By ALEXANDER JONAS.

PRICE FOR ONE COPY, ONE CENT.—ONE HUNDRED, SIXTY CENTS

NEW YORK:

THE NEW YORK LABOR NEWS COMPANY

35 East Fourth Street.STANDARD WORK-DAY.

When people, unacquainted with the
circumstances and conditions of labor,
hear about the enactment of the law
that the hands in factories, workshops,
and so forth—in a word, industrial
operatives in general—shall work but
eight hours a day, and that any manu-
facturer or boss permitting them to
work longer shall be subject to severe
penalty—they may throw up their hands
and declare those in favor of such a law
to be either foole or idlers.

“ Why should not the hands work lon-
ger time if they want to?” is asked.
“Tho more they work, the more they
can earn. And they complain often
enough of little or no work to be had.,
Why such restriction? It is sheer folly!”
It is thus that foolish or uninformed
individuals object to the endeavors of
organized workingmen, thoroughly con-
versant with their subject, towards
shortening the hours for labor in all
branches of the country’s industry.

But the workingmen know very well
what they are doing and can explain
why they desire such a change.

4‘The more one works, the more he
earns, acquires, and possesses!” This
may have been true in the past, but to-
day it is far from the case; things are
reversed, and one may actually say, in
speaking of industrial wage-workers,
“The more, the longer, the harder they
labor, the less they make!”

And why is it so? There is a reason for
everything on earth, and therefore a
reason for the phenomenon in question.

A long time since, when men worked
for themselves, or at most for retail in-
terchange with their neighbors, it was
wholly different. If I make my own
coat or furniture or implements, or build
my own house and cultivate my own
garden or field, then it is true that the
longer I work daily, the more I have,

since I work for myself—my labor pro-
duces things for my own use. Yes; even
if—being shoemaker or tailor—I make
my own shoes or clothing and enough
more of the same to exchange with
neighbors for flour, meat, furniture and
so forth, which I cannot provide for
myself yet must have—it may be arrang-
ed that they pay me a certain sum of
money for the shoes and I pay them
back a portion of the sum for provisions,
furniture, or whatever it be—it is still
true that the longer I work the more I
earn and accumulate.

But such a time is long gone by. Since
steam and machinery have come to gov-
ern the world all is changed. When the
joiner in the furniture factory, with
machine aid, has made the same piece a
hundred times over, when the hands in
the huge shoe shops of the New England
States, or the watchmakers in the cele-
brated watch factories of America, c?r
the cigar “strippers” and so forth,
throughout all branches of industry,
have labored from morning till night in
the sweat of their brow, what have they
obtained for themselves? Have they
completed a single piece? A table, a
watch, or even a cigar? Anything at all
which belongs to them, and which they
may take and sell or exchange for other
necessaries? Nothing like it. They have
produced, twenty ox a hundred or a thou-
sand of tbem, a certain quantity or num-
ber of goods or articles for an employer,
to whom they have sold their labor at a
fixed price. They, themselves, have
nothing more to do with the goods,
which in no wise belong to them. They
receive, in return for applying their
labor for a certain length of time, a
previously stipulated sum, and that is
the end.

As a result they do not receive their
just due, that is, what they have really
earned, the value of the things produced,THE EIGHT-HOUR STANDARD WORK-DAY.

a

even deducting expense and waste in
manufacture, and the interest on the ca-
pital invested. If, for instance, a hun-
dred machine operators in the course of a
; week have manufactured from raw ma-
terial, costing say $1,000, goods worth
$3,500, each operator should rightfully
have earned $25. Deducting waste and
expehse of machinery, interest on capi-
tal, and salary for management and boss
—providing he has done his part—let us
say $5 a head for one hundred operators,
or $500 a week, there remains over and
above for each toiler $20 of honestly
earned money.

But the workman does not receive
this; he is compelled to divide with the
boss, who takes $10 of the $20 and slips
it in his own pocket. The latter can do
this with impunity, for the workingman
cannot buy factories and machines for
himself, but must submit or seek em-
ployment elsewhere with no better
conditions. (It is this unrighteous divid-
ing, by the by, that the Socialists would
abolish, inasmuch as they would estab-
lish a social order in which neither
machinery, nor factory, nor land should
belong to one person, who might thus
acquire the right to fleece hundreds and
thousands of his feliow beings, but in-
stead to the people in general, to the**
community, so that every one might
reap the full p: Mits of his toil. Of which
, more anon.)

To proceed: It is a notable fact that
the wrorkingman of to-day is no longer
a human being who through skill con-
structs a certain article—a dress, a pair
of boots, a house, or a watch—for his
own use or to exchange for other neces-
saries of life, but instead5 a creature,
who, in order to exist, is obliged to
carry his labor to the labor market, to
dispose there of it to the highest bidder;
ivhile the buyer, the employer, wants to
pay the lowest possible price for the same.
In a word, labor has to-day become a
commodity, and as such must yield to
the conditions of trade.

But the commodity ‘Tabor” is at an
undoubted disadvantage, as compared
with other commodities. If I have in
my store linen, cloth, grain or shoes as
goods, I can bide my time and seize upon
favorable opportunities for selling the
same. The proprietor of the commodity
‘Tabor”—namely, the workingman—can-
not thus delay. Qrfly in exceptional
cases is he so situated that he can wait
weeks or even months to see if the price

will not advance. As a rule he is obliged
to sell daily ©r—*starve!

Now, #as	knows, the more

there/i^tfn.lian&'b/article and the
less	fgr it?**fhn**3bwer the

price of	fal^and. thgiess there

is on h$n£ afid tpe/^trre^delnand, the
higher tfisr^ric^ risfcfe,* * It ijg^prqcisely so
with thb•S/t^c]las!TaJ^or.’, /Ehe jnore em-
ployes in ah£«dtf ana'll «of lftdlistry that
are actually requir&$*{{>li§4ower*go their
wages, and vice versa** *Any child can
understand this, and everj' workingman
knows it by practical experience.

But the capitalists’ method of the
present day, when, with hardly an excep-
tion, the manufacturing of the country
is carried on with steam power and
machinery, has an increasing effect to
dispense with the large number of
hands formerly required to accomplish
a certain amount of work, and to turn
many adrift idle-handed.

Let us consider some establishment
where hand work is as yet in vogue;
There are, say, a thousand operatives
engaged in little shops or yards to pre-
pare a certain amount of goods in a
given length of time. Very well. Now
there steps in a huge power—the capi-
talistic method of production with im-
mense factories, and behold, the same
amount of labor is performed by one-
tenth the number of hands. The other
nine-tenths, or 900 human beings, are in
consequence thrown out; their compe-
tition depresses the wages of those still
retained; they throng to other estab-
lishments and depress the wages there—
for they must live, and in order to live
they must sell their labor, no matter at
what price. This is the present state
of affairs in all civilized countries.
Handwork disappears, superseded by
machine production*

But it does not stop there. When
machinery was first introduced the
operators were obliged to possess a cer-
tain amount of skill. The machines
were not yet perfected, and they re-
quired to be managed by those who un-
derstood their business. But the greed
of money making impels employers to
seek more and more mechanical per-
fection, and in two ways.

First, the machines are constructed
to make but one part of an article, and
thus may be managed by tyros or by
women, or even children just^ big
enough to hold the work. Then the
mechanism is so improved that theTHE EIGHT-HOUR STANDARD WOJtK-DAY.

4 4

»

rapidity of production is increased and
more work turned off ip the same length
of time. The	t%t out of the

hundred worker^ £r IgrpTaMy required in
the shop, •p*erJaaps£ only §G	are re-

tained**#<3m£fcbSrcf of thpsp\>&Uig Vomen
or half-£^oWn# ^offths. VBtt£ all these
must toil Jate *ai$# parly, #fc>r \he more
they w^rk*.%e more pjwiftt#ble becomes
the mactiiijfe ‘ to th3«bt*s& ftnaall must
content*’tliemsdlv&st with* pitiful earn-

mgs!	• •* •• •

• • •

So it goes ih all branches of industry,
from year to year growing constantly
worse, and here in America the number
of those who depress wages by having
work only a part of the time and spend-
ing the rest of the year seeking from
shop to shop—that is, if they do not be-
come regular tramps—the number of
these unfortunates who cannot sell their
labor,even at the lowest prices,is steadily
augmented by hundreds of thousands
of immigrants who, for their part, have
been accustomed to even worse than
those obtained in this country. This
capitalistic mode of production has still
another disadvantage; it is responsible
for sudden shuttings down and lasting
crises through which workingmen come
to the very worst. Perhaps they have
toiled often overtime, day and night.
All at once comes a crash! The demand
for goods has ceased, and it is found
that the supply is far too great, The
manufacturer allows work to proceed
for a time but wages are reduced. The
million workers can buy nothing, con-
sume nothing, and the result is further
cessation of demand for skilled labor.
And so the manufacturer must shut
down, and the operatives go out upon
the street.

This has occurred, as every worker
knows, oftener and oftener of late. And,
under such pressure—the exhaustion
from working hard and long, the suffer-
ings consequent upon intervals of en-
forced idleness—the workingman, ren-
dered absolutely unfit to fullill the duties
or enjoy the privileges of a human being,
father of family, or citizen, is reduced to
a mere living machine.

What is then to be done? How is
this evil to be, in some slight degree,
remedied ? A complete and permanent
change can only be effected by the ap-
plication of the Socialist principles of
which we have already spoken.

But it is evident that the majority of
^oilers do not as yet understand, have

not thoroughly gone to the bottom of the
matter, or comprehended a radical cure.

Something, therefore, should be done,
and speedily, that the conditions be ren-
dered in a measure more endurable.

Machine labor we cannot and will not
dispense with; immigration we would
not forbid and could not if we would,
as is evidenced by the inutility of the
Chinese law.

What then ?

Let us think. What is the root of the
trouble? The commodity 6Tabor'1 is,
owing to the causes we have set forth,
in the market in such vast quantity, that
it greatly exceeds the demand.

How shall we begin ?

There are various ways. In many
States the workingmen have succeeded
in obtaining a law against child labor in
factories. This is good, for the children’s
places must be filled by adults. In other
states a law has been enacted that women
shall receive the same wages as men for
performing the same task. This also is
good, as are many other provisions. But
the principal thing, under existing cir-
cumstances, is for the legislature to
pass a law shortening the working hours
in all industrial institutions, and to pro-
vide severe punishment for each and
every transgression of this law.

There is no fixed length of the work-
day in the factories or shops of this
country; it is generally from ten to
twelve hours in duration.

If we take into consideration the sud-
den crises through which the condition
of things is always made worse—we may
estimate the number of men constantly
idle at from ten to twenty per cent, of
the total.

These must not only receive assistance
from trades unions, but, if non-union
men, must greatly depress wages by
their constant appeal for employment.

Now, if wijti one grand, unanimous
movement, all laboring organizations
should at a stroke obtain the establish-
ment of the eight-hour work-day, the
speedily ensuing consequences would
prove of inestimable Messing to all
toilers, male or female.

We can sum these up concisely as
follows;

1. After the introduction of the eight-
hour rule* the same amount of work willTHE EIGHT-HOU:

have to be accomplished per day as when
the days were of ten or twelve hours in
length. This will require more hands To
be employed, and the ten to twenty per
cent, of workingmen idle, the proletarian
reserve army of the capitalists, will be
drawn upon until it disappears entirely.

. The commodity, “Zabor,” will no longer
exceed the demand.

2. As a result the price will rise, that
is, wages will be increased despite the
shortened time. Yes, even if at first
employers should wish to pay less for
eight hours than formerly for ten hours’
labor they would be compelled ere long
to give more; for the cheap hands, the
workers **at any price,” who once hung
around and besieged them, would be
missing, and the bosses would have but
the alternative to accept more moderate
profits or to shut up shop. That they
would choose the first there can be no
question.

/

*3. As a consequence of better wages
and the employment of men hitherto
idle**the demand for goods manufactured
will increase. Tim wTorkinernen will
once more be aj^le to buy themselves
something, to ynsume something, thus
causing trade to brighten up, by which
the employers will also profit.

Over-production will be avoided, for
the shortening of hours will retard the
senseless manufacturing and piling up
of goods that the market has no call for.
As a result, crises and their pernicious
consequences will occur less frequently.

5. The workingman will become a

human being. The man who toils ten,

twelye or fourteen hours a day and

corned home at night exhausted to find
no domesticity, because he does not earn
sufficient to support the same, and be-
cause his wife works at washing or sew-
ing and is thus prevented from fulfilling
her household duties, can naturally have
little taste for culture, for the joys of
family life, for the duties of a citizen, or
^ consideration of the graver problems
of the world. His stupidity craves at
best to be stimulated by alcoholic drinks
and the pleasures of the beer saloon.
As a matter of course, his only capital,
his strength, is prematurely exhausted,
so that at forty years of age he is an old
man, providing he is still alive. Two to
four hours less of work each day will do
wonders for him, He will not be so

,nd toody that he has
[? inclinapon for domestic
ies, andme will Jaa.vft time
to these.

6. He will learn the p<
of orga
hitherto

head
with
situal
himsel:
he—i
can*5 * * 8' ao
self he
brother w<
all, and

mon,

He will	what

tten through his
Mer to shoulder
[li those who are
who suffer like
;ame interests asj
with these h<
lg, that by him-1
mg, but with his
jrything! “Each for
each!” The significance

&

of this motto will become clear to him,
and he will act accordingly in the
future.

phlet

gfc

eniiTpf

If the readers of this little pamphlet
would ponder well over its conf<
and if they would consider life as
tualiy is, they would soon be convil
that the immediate results of shorten!]
the hours of work wd^uld prove as ad-
vantageous** to the workers as we have
striven to depict them.

If any one ask whether these salutary
results would be lasting or not, whether
the circumstances causing the misery of
excessively long hours would return or
not, whether the mitigating effects of
shortened time obtained through en-
forcement of \ the eight-hour law would
remain any length of time whatever, we
must answer unhesitatingly, “No!”

And why? Because the accursed capi-
talistic system of production from which
we suffer renders illusory and perish-
able all reform which may have been
obtained under favorable conditions. In
this fashion: When the eight-hour law}
should have been in force for a time, it
would gradually become evident that
the hands were accomplishing just about
as much work as they used to in 9 and 10
hour days. And for good-reason. If
I can run a mile in 15 minutes, it does
not follow that I can run 20 miles in 20
times 15 minutes, or 5 hours; the longer
I run the more I become exhausted, un-
til I require perhaps 30 minutes for the
last mile, where it was only 15 at the
start. The same is true as to labor. A man
working 10 to 12 hours per day does not
accomplish as much in the last 2 hours
as in the first. With shorter time, he
will be fresher, stronger and better able,
and will perform more work per hour all
the way through,6	THE EIGHT-HOUR STANDARD WORK-DAY.

And further: The employers, in their
anxiety to make up for small losses oc-
casioned at first by shortening of time,
will redouble their efforts towards im-
proving their machinery.

Finally: The ranks of cheap labor will
ever continue to receive accessions
through the tide of immigration.

The consequence will be that gradu-
ally—if nothing occurs to prevent—the
old conditions will have returned. By
degrees the labor of one operative after
another will be found superfluous; for
the shortening of time will have quali-
fied the workmen to accomplish more
per hour than before, and as much, per-
haps. in 8 as formerly in 10 hours; im-
proved machinery, dividing the work in
parts, and immigration will moreover
have bad their effect. And in the course
of a few years-—sooner or later, accord-
ing to circumstances—the time will come
when the supply of the commodity
“labor” again shall exceed the demand;
when again will begin that pernicious
turmoil which must end wflh a general
crash, with the ruin of Innumerable
lives. This is what must come to pass—
that is, if nothing occurs to prevent.

If this be true, some one says, what is
the use of struggling to gain the
eight-hour law? Why not go farther
and insist upon measures to at once and
efficiently ameliorate the unfortunate
condition of things? “To ameliorate
the unfortunate condition of things,7’
there is no more effective means than
the shortening of time, which at least
would give some years of relief.

But to REVOLUTIONIZE the affairs of to-
day, is the true way and the only way
to bring relief, genuine and lasting re-
'fief to the working people!

Are you ready? Forward, then! We
are with you. Where is the coward
that would draw back ? Form your bat-
tailions; to" arms! Have you not weap-
ons enough ? There are the arsenals of
the counter-jumper militia, stocked with
military stores, repeating rifles and am-
munition. Fling the police in the gutter,
the militia in the river! Drag the venal
politicians and corrupt judges from their
seats, chase the capitalist hyenas from
the town, the priests from the churches!
Go through the country and arouse the
bowed-down farmer! Put the rifle into
his hand! Range your forces from town
to town! Blow up the infamous Legis-
lature! Scourge the corruption of Con-

gress from the Capitol! Take possession
the land that belongs to you, of the
factories and machinery that you erect
and create, of the houses that you build!
Why delay an instant? Are you not
hundred-thousands—millions ? Who can
withstand you, if you choose ? Into the
street! Forward! Forward! “Allons
enfants de la patrie!” * * *

You are startled? You draw back?
Ah, friends, the crowd that follows us
on the way is still, small. This will not
overthrow the might of capital. There
are those who, head over ears in debt,
still cling desperately to some small
property which they hope to rescue
from the clutch of the usurer. Their
efforts are fruitless, perhaps, still they
hope on. There are others earning
hardly enough to buy a respectable din-
ner, who hope somehow and some day
to become millionaires. For Vanderbilt
was once a poor boat-hand and became
a Croesus. To be sure! 0n8 in a hun-
dred thousand, and why not be the one?
There are thousands on thousands so re-
duced by poverty and distress that they
neither hope nor desire aught beyond
the two things connected with their
daily toil: shorter hours and higher
wages. They want nothing further be-
cause they understand nothing further.
But that which at least they can under-
stand, which their comprehension can
grasp, which they would cheerfully
fight to obtain, or make sacrifice for, if
the subject were but presented with
simplicity and clearness, is the shorten-
ing of working hours, which, for the
time being, secures immediate relief.

And now, having seen that the eight-
hour period is not destined to become
permanent, let us determine what,
under any circumstances, may fee ob-
tained therewith. It is as follows:

1.	By shortening the time: increased
wages, mitigated crises; by preventing
intervals of idleness: a general elevation
of the laboring class in every respect as de-
scribed above. And this alone is worth
the struggle!

2.	Now, when gradually in the course
of years the old troubles begin to creep
in (occasioned by the causes above cited)
when the workers perceive that again
something must be done to prevent the
return of former evils, the v laboring
masses will find themselves in a wholly
different situation from that of the-pres*The eight hour standard work-day.

7

ent. j There will be marrow in their
bones, intelligence in their skulls. Their
organizations will have strength and
power and purpose. They will know
how much they can do if they only
unite and assert themselves. The strug-
gle which shall then begin for further
limitation of hours, or—if the time be
propitious—for the final aim of the
Socia st labor movement, the over-
throw of capitalistic rule, and the ob-
taining of a system which is founded
on the principles of justice and human
brotherhood—this struggle will bear
with it the certainty of success, of
triumph. There can be no question of
the outcome or ensuing consequences.

The eight-hour movement is the lever
with which the giant “proletariat,” now
lying prone upon the earth and barely
able to resist the contemptuous kicks of
his oppressors, shall be placed upon his
feet and so enabled to use his fists.

AND THEN WOE TO HIS ADVERSARIES !

But how is the eight-hour day to be
obtained ? That depends, of course,
upon circumstances. Every reasonable
means is justified, and workingmen
should be prepared, lest their actions
however peaceable (parades, demonstra-
tions before factories, non-association
with “scabs,” and so forth), be inter-
rupted through the brutality of the capi-
talists, especially by the clubs of the
police. Violence must be met with vio-
lence, as every one knows, not except-
ing those who would not for aught on
earth be induced to forcibly attack the
existing social system. The principal
thing remains, however, that the eight-
hour rule would not only obtain for the
moment, but exist as a lasting institution
—that is, as far as its usefulness is con-
cerned—and not remain a dead letter.

Therefore, if the organized working-
men, by a great economical movement,
by uniting all their forces, now succeed
in actually enforcing the eight hour nor-
mal work-day, so that from the moment
of victory it be adhered to in all in-
dustrial establishments, it must be urged
at once that the victory bo sanctioned
and made permanent and binding by
statute. Should this be omitted little
would be gained; the rule would be
broken now and then, here and there,
and finally as a general thing.

But if, by United States law, which
the organized workingmen would natur-
ally see carried out to the letter, the vari-
ous rulings were defined and severe pun-
ishment provided for each add every
transgression, the spirit of the law would
enter into and animate the flesh and
blood of the toilers, and an institution
thus grounded and protected could not
easily be shaken. Thus would be formed
a substantial and commanding position,
from which the workingman should pro-
ceed to new endeavors and new vic-
tories.

And since a law can only be adopted
through the representatives of the peo-
ple, it would stand to reason that the
working classes should not merely con-
tent themselves with bringing pressure
to bear upon the country’s present venal
body of law givers, upon individuals so
thoroughly corrupt that one is never safe
to deal with them, and who, at the first
opportunity, would betray the people;
but they (the workers) should send rep-
resentatives of their own to Congress
and the legislatures, men upon whose
upright character reliance could be
placed, and who would know, regarding
the working classes, just where the shoe
pinched.

In a word, workingmen should at
once turn their backs upon those par-
ties which are utterly devoid of prin-
ciple, ever susceptible to bribery and
inimical to the laboring classes, the par-
ties calling themselves Republicans,
Democrats, Mugwumps or anything of
the sort—should turn their backs upon
them and unite with the Socialist Labor
Party, which, composed essentially of
wage workers, defends the interests of
the working people, and whose platform
not only includes the demand for the
eight-hour law, but also all other de-
mands of labor in accordance with the
spirit of the age. When workingmen,
having come to a knowledge of the in-
terests of their class, organize corre-
spondingly, as a mighty social and
political party, then, and then only,
will the present manifold scattered and
fruitless efforts assume the shape of a
mighty, purposeful movement, which
shall surmount all obstacles, and whose
complete victory shall be but a question
of time!

S. L. P.



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