which ran the entire year and was, therefore, not seriously affected by the changed census method of computation, average earnings decreased in Michigan from $415.24 to $381.13, and in Wisconsin from $405.69 to $377.72.

If the canning and other "short period" industries were omitted the reduction in average earnings from 1890 to 1900 in Michigan and Wisconsin would be much greater.

Of course, this method of computing "averages" leads to numerous statistical absurdities in our census reports. In many industries the "average" number of wage earners is given as less than the least number employed at any one time during the year. It will be seen by Census Bulletin No. 209, giving statistics of the canning of fruits, vegetables and fish, that while the greatest number of wage earners employed at any one time during the year was 133,106 and the least number employed at any one time was 45,106, the average number is reported as but 36,401. In the manufacture of building glass we find the greatest number of employed given as 19,943, the least number as 16,059, and the average number was 11,902.

HOW THE DINGLEY BILL FOSTERS TRUSTS AND RAISES PRICES. To claim that a protective tariff does not raise prices is as absurd as to say that ice is hot, or fire is cold, or that a ball is square. A tariff that does not raise prices is not "protective." The very object of so-called "protection" is to enable certain manufacturers to demand and to receive higher prices for their products than they could do were their customers free to buy in the cheapest market. The Dingley Tariff Act, which became a law on July 24, 1897, raised duties to the highest point ever reached in this if not in any other country. Not only are the Dingley duties as high as in the opinion of Republican leaders is necessary to protect manufacturing industries, but those duties were purposely made higher on certain classes of articles so as to leave a trading margin; that is to say, so that there would be ample protection left after this margin had been bartered away in the reciprocity agreements which were to be negotiated under Sections 3 and 4 of the Dingley Act. But the trusts concluded that they might as well keep all of their protection, and consequently they saw to it that the ten or twelve treaties which were negotiated between the United States and certain foreign countries in 1898 and 1900, and which would have reduced many of our duties by 20 per cent. or more, were never ratified. Through the influence of the trusts these treaties were smothered in Senate pigeon-holes and never permitted to come to a vote. How fostering is the care given the trusts by the Dingley Bill is pointed out by Mr. John Moody in his book, "The Truth About Trusts." Of 318 active industrial trusts mentioned in Mr. Moody's table, only 80 were in existence prior to the Dingley Bill's becoming a law. Two hundred and thirty-eight trusts have been formed since the enactment of the Dingley Bill, and these 238 trusts represent five-sixths of the local capitalization of all the trusts in America.

SOPHISTICAL STATISTICS MADE TO DECEIVE VOTERS.

We have seen that the government statistics on wages and prices are unreliable and inaccurate; that the methods employed in making them are the unscientific; that many of the "averages" in the census wage statistics are mathematical absurdities, useful, however, in raising wages on paper; that the price of statistics of the Bureau of Labor, even if accurate, are absolutely unprepared for index numbers which will indicate the relative cost of living at different periods; that they give as much importance to putty, nutmegs, trowels, vises and alum, as articles of consumption, as to corn, hay and eggs; and that they make cotton a farm product and wool an article of clothing.

Apparently these governmental statistics, juggled for partisan, political and protection purposes, are intended to misrepresent facts and to deceive voters, and are issued when they are expected to do most good for the Republican party. These facts discredit, in advance, the wage statistics and the cost of living statistics which Secretary Shaw says "will be forthcoming before the end of the present campaign." It would hardly seem possible that the Republicans can this year, with the cost of living abnormally high and with wages falling and mills closing and railroads and stores laying off employees by thousands, fool voters with any kind of juggled figures or sophistical statistics. The facts are plain and palpable. The Republicans cannot, this time, shirk responsibility or shift it to the Democratic party.

PRICES PROPORTIONED TO CONSUMPTION.

DUN'S PRICE TABLES ARE SCIENTIFIC AND ACCURATE.

Dun's index number is published monthly in Dun's Review, and also in the Monthly Summary of Commerce and Finance of the Department of Commerce and Labor, under the title, "Prices Proportioned to Consumption." The following explanation of its method of preparation is taken from this Government report for April, 1904:

"In the following table the course of prices of commodities is shown with due allowance for the relative importance of each. Quotations of all the necessaries of life are taken, including whiskey and tobacco, and in each case the price is multiplied by the annual per capita consumption, which precludes any one commodity having more than its proper weight in the aggregate.

"For example, the price of a bushel of wheat is multiplied by 5.55, representing the annual per capita consumption of 4 2-3 bushels of food, and the remainder as allowance for seed. The price per pound for coffee is taken 9 times, of cheese 2.3, of chemicals only fractions of an ounce in some cases. Thus, wide fluctuations in the price of an article little used do not materially affect the index, but changes in the great staples have a large influence in advancing or depressing the total. For conve nience of comparison and economy of space the prices are grouped in seven classes: Breadstuffs include many quotations of wheat, corn, oats, rye, barley, beans, and peas; meats include live hogs, beef, sheep, and many provisions, lard, tallow, etc.; dairy and garden products embrace eggs, vegetables, fruits, milk, butter, cheese, etc.; other food includes fish, liquors, condiments, sugar, rice, tobacco, etc.; clothing covers the raw material of each industry, and many quotations of woolen, cotton, silk,

and rubber goods, as well as hides, leather, boots and shoes; metals include various quotations of pig iron and partially manufactured and finished products, as well as the minor metals, tin, lead, copper, etc., and coal and petroleum; miscellaneous incluae many grades of hard and soft lumber, lath, brick, lime, glass, turpentine, hemp, linseed oil, paints, fertilizers, and drugs. The third decimal is given for accuracy of comparison; thus $101.587 representing $101.58 and seven-tenths of a cent. This figure does not purport to show the exact average amount cost of living on January 1, 1902, because wholesale prices are taken and all luxuries omitted. Its economic value is in showing the percentage of advance or decline from month to month."

To show how careful Dun's Review is to quote accurately and to weight properly, note the following further explanation from Dun's Review of September 7, 1901:

Both

"In many cases a large number of quotations are averaged in order to secure a representative price for the commodity, thus avoiding the special effect on one particular grade of exceptional conditions. raw materials and manufactured products are included, preventing the excessive influence of speculative operations in the former, since markets for finished products are more stable. In these cases the per capita consumption is so proportioned as to avoid duplication."

This explanation of the Dun price tables not only indicates what is a strictly scientific system, it also condemns the Bureau of Labor methods as unscientific and unreliable. The Dun price tables are prepared by the leading commercial authority of this country. They are not made in the interest of any political party or to bolster up any tariff theory. The accuracy of these price tables as indicating the relative changes in the cost of living has never been questioned, even by the Bureau of Labor. Why the Labor Bureau should adopt another and totally unscientific system is clear to those familiar with the exigencies of Republican politics.

Following is a table showing the relative cost of living at different dates:

DUN'S INDEX NUMBER FROM DUN'S REVIEW.

Dairy and garden. 12.675

Other food

9.935

8.742 9.171

9.469

10.268

Clothing

Metals

15.527 16.816
15.702 16.366 15.849 15.360

17.916

17.425

Miscellaneous

Total

....

7.887 9.200 14.845 13.808 17.484 16.240 11.642 18.085 15.111 12.286 16.312 16.654 16.890 17.190 16.836

99.191 75.455 95.295 102.289 97.378 103.615 102.208 The totals for June, July and August were $100.951, $97.192 and $97.227 respectively a slight decline since May, nearly all of which decline, however, is confined to dairy and garden products. Moreover, this decline is no more than usually occurs in the summer season; hence it cannot be inferred therefrom that prices are not on the whole fully mentioned. The figures of the table indicate that the cost of living was 6 per cent. greater in 1900 than in 1890; 31 per cent. greater January 1, 1900, than on July 1, 1897;

41 per cent. greater May 1, 1902, than July 1, 1897, and 43 per cent. greater March 1, 1904, than July 1, 1897. The cost of living was higher on March 1, 1904, than ever before in modern times. Its previous high point was on May 1, 1902. Apparently it is mounting higher and higher. It has made new records each year, except 1903, since the trust era began with the passage of the Dingley Bill in 1897.

Misleading as are the tables of the United States Bureau of Labor, even these show that the average wholesale prices for the year 1903 were 26 per cent. higher than they were for the year 1897.

WAGES OF RAILWAY EMPLOYEES.

ACCURATE OFFICIAL STATISTICS OF ACTUAL PAYMENTS TO 1,312,537 WAGE-EARNERS REFUTE THE CLAIM THAT HIGH PRICES HAVE

BROUGHT PROSPERITY TO LABOR.

"Wages do not rise with prices. To assert that they do, or will, is either ignorance or dishonesty.”—J. E. Thorold Rogers, Professor of Political Economy in the University of Oxford, author of "Six Centuries of Work and Wages," etc.

Every railway corporation in the United States is compelled by law to report to the Interstate Commerce Commission at Washington, the aggregate number of days worked during the year by all its employees, and all those belonging to each class and the precise sums paid in wages to all employees and to each class. From these data the Commission's statistician figures averages of daily wages which represent every workman employed during the year and every dollar paid in wages. The number of employees at the time the Commission's last report was rendered was 1,312,537. This is more than seven times the number in the 3,429 selected establishments and the 519 unrepresentative occupations used by the Bureau of Labor as the basis of the estimates which purport to show an advance in wages of 16.3 per cent. over the average for the ten years from 1890 to 1899.

NOT TRUE THAT WAGES HAVE INCREASED PROPORTIONATELY WITH THE COST OF LIVING.

Railroad labor affords the most accurate barometer of wages. A large proportion of its employees are union men, whose wages are comparatively steady. Now the wages of railroad employees, as shown by the Interstate Commerce Commission, averaged nearly the same in 1901 as they did 9 years before, in 1892. In 1902, they were 1 per cent. higher than in 1901, and 5 per cent. higher than in 1897, when they were the lowest. Here is a table from the Interstate Commerce Commission's report, which gives in detail the number of earners in each class of railway labor with their average daily wages for the years mentioned:

COMPARATIVE SUMMARY OF AVERAGE DAILY COMPENSATION OF RAILWAY EMPLOYEES FOR THE YEAR ENDING

JUNE 30.

Class.

(Average daily compensation in dollars.)
United States.

Station agents

1.67

1.75

1903. 1902. 1901. 1900. 1899. 1898. 1897. 1896. 1895. 1894. 1893. 1892. General officers ....11.27 11.17 10.97 10.45 10.03 9.73 9.54 9.19 9.01 9.71 8.10 7.83 Other officers 5.76 5.60 5.56 5.22 5.18 5.21 5.12 5.96 5.85 5.75 8.10 General office clerks.. 2.21 2.18 2.19 2.19 2.20 2.25 2.18 1.80 1.77

7.83

2.21

2.19 2.34

2.25 2.23

1.74 1.73

1.73

1.73

1.74

1.75

1.83

1.82

floating equipment.. 2.17 All other employees

2.00

1.97 1.92 1.89 1.89

1.86 1.94 1.91 1.97 1.96 2.03

and laborers........ 1.77 1.71 1.69 1.71 1.68 1.67 1.64 1.65 1.65 1.65 1.70 1.68

From the above table it will be seen that the greatest increase in wages, excluding general officers, from 1897 to 1903, was only 14 per cent., or less than the increased cost of living during the same period, according to Commissioner Wright's own table of retail prices; it is only about one-half of the increase in prices according to Commissioner Wright's table of wholesale prices, and only onethird of the increased cost of living, according to the honest and scientifically constructed table of Dun. When the maximum increase in wages is only one-third of the increase in prices, it would be difficult to persuade any but a Republican politician that the Dingley high tariff law is as of much benefit to the people as it has undoubtedly proved to trusts and monopolies.

The fairest way to arrive at the true change in wages is not by comparing the daily or weekly wage of one year with that of another, but by comparing the total yearly earnings of one year with those of another. This is done for railroad employees in the following table:

FROM STATISTICS OF RAILWAYS

BY INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION.

Table showing amount of compensation paid railway employees, number of employees, average yearly compensation for each employee and rate per cent. of increase and decrease for the period-1895-1903 inclusive.