and Ohio Railroad has had to pass its dividends; and they have had to do so on all the trunk lines except the New York Central.

Mr. THOMPSON. If these trunk lines had got into their treasury the amount which they were nominally entitled to on the single item of oil, they would have had $13,000,000 a year more to distribute than they had. By their system of rebates and drawbacks, although nominally the transportation of oil to the seaboard costs $19,000,000, less than $6,000,000 has got into the treasury of the railroad companies.

The CHAIRMAN stated that the testimony given before the committee by the gentlemen from Pittsburg was most interesting and most valuable, and he thanked these gentlemen for coming before the committee.

VIEWS OF MR. CHARLES C. COFFIN, OF BOSTON.

WASHINGTON, D. C., January 16, 1879.

Mr. Charles C. Coffin, of Boston, Mass., appeared before the committee, and, in reply to preliminary questious by the chairman, stated that he was an American citizen; that he had been connected with the press for a good many years; that as a matter of business he had been making a study of the labor question, and was prepared to give the committee some results which he had arrived at. He said that he had no speculations or theories to offer. The committee was asked to legislate in behalf of labor. Labor-leagues, trades-unions, socialistic agitators, and political speakers asserted, first, that labor alone creates wealth, and, second, that capital is antagonistic to labor. Last Sunday he had been in a church in Washington, and the minister, in the course of his sermon, gave utterance to the sentiment, "Labor and Capital stand glaring at each other ready for a spring," Other sentiments were that labor was oppressed; that machinery throws men out of employment; that the rich are growing richer and the poor poorer; and that the condition of labor to-day is worse than in the past. Mr. Coffin proceeded as follows:

In considering these points I propose to go from cause to effect, in order to ascertain how much ground there may be for these assertions. I shall endeavor to show the social condition of society, past and present; the earnings and havings of labor and capital, past and present; what labor and capital together have accomplished; and some of the causes that have produced the present discontent, and will make some suggestions in regard to the future of labor.

These complaints are not new. One hundred and ninety-nine years ago John Basset made a speech in Parliament complaining that the English manufacturer could not compete with the Hindoo weaver, who was content with a small copper coin per day, whereas the English weaver demanded from sixpence to a shilling a day. One hundred and ninety-three years ago the justices of Warwickshire, England, fixed the prices of agricultural labor, making wages from March to September four shillings per week, and from September to March three shillings and sixpence per week, without board. One hundred and seventy-two years ago Gregory King, in a book entitled "Natural and Political Conclusions," states that there were 880,000 families in the kingdom; that half of them were able to eat meat twice a week (including the gentry and aristocracy), and that the other half ate it but a few times during the year. He also stated that the population of the kingdom was 5,500,000, and that the wheat raised was less than 500,000 bushels. This would give but a pint and a half of flour in the year to every man, woman, and child in the United Kingdom; that their living consisted of rye, barley, oats, and pease. Bear in mind that at that time Boston, Albany, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston were considerable towns.

Since 1830, within half a century, there has been the coming in of a new civilization. I propose to take a glance at the conditions of life and society as they were in my boyhood, in the year 1830, which I can remember distinctly, in contrast with those of the present time, in order to see whether these demands of labor to-day are reasonable or unreasonable.

The stage-coach then made 75 miles a day. To-day you are whirled 40 miles an hour, and across the continent in a week. The mail then went 75 miles a day. Now you talk with your friend in Chicago and hear the tones of his voice through the telephone. The broker in Wall street, the pork-packer in Chicago, the cotton-broker in New Orleans manage their business by hourly reports from every commercial center in the world. In those days the country houses as a rule were unclapboarded, unpainted, unplastered, with a yawning chasm in the chimney for a fire-place, and it was a common remark that in winter people froze one side while they roasted the other.

To-day a majority of country houses are clapboarded, painted, blinded, are neat and comfortable. In the country they have the base-burning stove, and in the city the furnace and steam-heater. The furniture of those days consisted of some common

chairs and a bedstead made by a common carpenter. Carpets there were none. The table garniture consisted of pewter plates and iron spoons, knives, and forks. The kitchen ware consisted of a Dutch oven, a frying-pan, a skillet, and a dinner-pot. To-day there is no end of household furniture. In those days the industries were carried on in the household. There was no industry for females except that of the spinning-wheel and the loom. I had the curiosity to ascertain just what a spinner could do in a day, and I sent up to New Hampshire to a sister of mine who used to be an expert spinner, knowing that she had a spinning-wheel and some rolls, and I had the exact measurement of the distance which she walked in spinning with a large wheel. A day's work of ten hours would enable her to spin 3. 8 miles of thread, and she would walk nearly 5 miles in doing it. Now, in one of our manufactories you will see a girl of fifteen minding a machine that spins 2,100 miles of thread in a day-a thread that would reach from Washington to California. In those days the woman who commenced with the spinning-wheel and loom to get her fitting-out when about to get married would have to spend many weary days in making her sheets. To-day she obtains them at seventy-five cents apiece. In those days there was no industry that females could turn their hands to except the spinning-wheel and the loom. They were utterly cut off from doing anything else except working in the field with the

men.

The CHAIRMAN. It is alleged that that was a much better condition for women than the existing one; that they were then in the household, in the family, in the relations for which nature designed them, instead of being as now in factories and occupations which sever them from the domestic circle. The proposition is laid down that there is in the present position of women a degradation from the better state of things that existed at that time. What answer have you to make to that?

Mr. COFFIN. That is not my opinion. Those women who labor in factories with whom I have come in contact (those of American birth, certainly) have as much dignity and modesty and refinement as those whom we find at the farm to-day.

The CHAIRMAN. But do they come as readily into the proper functions of woman! Do they marry and settle down and have homes of their own, as women did have a century ago when the farmers were living in the way you describe, and when pretty much every girl was married in the course of time, and had a home of her own?

Mr. COFFIN. The trouble in Massachusetts is that we have vastly more women than men; but that arises from the fact that emigration has taken off the men.

Mr. THOMPSON. That disproportion is counterbalanced by a preponderance of men in some other parts of the country.

Mr. COFFIN. Yes; but they do not happen to come together in marriage.

The CHAIRMAN. Now we are asked to transfer the surplus of labor to the land-to undertake that as a national duty. Would it not be equally a national duty to transfer the unmarried women to the men?

Mr. COFFIN. Quite as much as to do the other. A half century ago my father's house was lighted with a tallow candle or by a pitch-knot on the hearth. To-day you have the softer radiance of the kerosene. In those days, if the fire went out, you had only flint and steel with which to relight it, while to-day every man carries a light in his pocket. In those days a man who loved tobacco, if he was away from a household, could not indulge in the luxury of a pipe unless he had a flint and steel with him. In those days we measured the hours by the shadow of the sun on the floor. Clocks were very rare. Costing from $40 to $60, few could afford them. To-day who does not carry a watch' And as to clocks, you can buy them by the cart-load that cost to manufacture sixty-two cents apiece. Almost the only books in the household, in those days, were the Bible. the almanac, and some text and school books, with a Walker's Dictionary, about 4 by 4 inches square and inch thick. I had the curiosity to ascertain from the printers of the two unabridged dictionaries the number of those dictionaries printed, and while they did not wish to give exact numbers, they gave approximately the number, between 600,000 and 700,000, which would give one to every sixty or seventy inhabitants of this country. In the libraries that contain over 10,000 volumes (college and public libraries there are 10,650,000 volumes. It is estimated that, including the books in the Sundayschool libraries, there are at least 20,000,000 volumes in the libraries of this country which have been brought in mainly since 1830. In those days we could only obtain clothes by the long process of the manufacture of the cloth at home, the tailoress coming around to make the clothes. Now we can obtain ready-made clothing, neatly fitting, better than the best that could have been obtained in those days, by stepping into any clothing shop.

This change of social condition has been brought about by the improvements in manufacturing. The first power-loom was set up in Waltham, Mass., in 1816, and by 153 the spinning-wheel had pretty nearly disappeared. In 1830, the female help employed in my father's house received 50 cents a week. The girls went to Lowell, Mass., where they received from $3 to $4 a week, or $2 above board. The wages of agricultural laborers in 1830 were from $5 to $10 a month, with their board. In 1845 I worked on a farm in New Hampshire, receiving $10 a month and board, and on that same farm last

year the hand received $18 a month and board for doing not the same work; he rode the mowing-machine, whereas I swung the scythe.

The CHAIRMAN. In regard to the purchasing power of the $10 and the $18; which would be able to buy the most supplies, the $10 then or the $18 now?

Mr. COFFIN. I will show you that before I get through. Now, did the introduction of machinery throw men ont of employment? Let us see what was called for to build manufactories, and who were set to work. First came the inventor, then the capitalist, who employed brick-makers, stone-quarriers, masons, hod-carriers, wood-choppers, lumbermen, blacksmiths, millwrights, carpenters, joiners, miners, puddlers, coal-heavers, machinists, brass-founders, coopers, tool-makers, the whole fraternity of trades, to build the manufactory. Then when the manufactory was erected, the operatives were called from the country. Girls in my father's kitchen who had been receiving 50 cents a week went to the manufactory and there received from $2 to $3 a week. Men were called to be overseers, superintendents, architects, clerks, accountants, machinists, inventors, experimenters, chemists, and dyers. What were they doing before they were thus called forth by capital? They were on farms, they were in coopers' shops, blacksmiths' shops, carpenters' shops; they were behind counters, they were doing ordinary work, but they were competent to do something higher and better, and to receive higher pay. Thus we see first, invention; second, capital setting labor at work; third, labor receiving higher wages and advancing to a higher plane of life; and fourth, skill commanding a premium.

From 1820 to 1830 may be taken as the beginning of manufactures. In 1870 the factory system had developed so that by the census it appears that there were employed in all the manufacturing industries of the country 2,053,993 persons; the capital invested was $2,118,208,000, and the wages paid per annum amounted to $775,587,000. The wages of all farm laborers in this country, by the census of 1870, aggregated $310,286,000-less than half the amount of wages paid to laborers in the other gainful occupations. The increase in manufactured products has been altogether disproportionate to the growth of population. From 1850 to 1870 the population increased 65 per cent., while manufacturing increased 322 per cent. It is proper to say that a part of this increase may have been due to an increase of values, and it is fair to say that manufacturing increased three times faster than population.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not know how to arrive at that. Of course values fluctuated very much from year to year. Take the iron business, for instance, and it is well known that there has been a reduction year by year, and so with many other branches of business.

Mr. COFFIN. I make the suggestion on the authority of the notes to the last census. I think there has been so much cheapening in the cost of manufacture as to make the rise in product much less than is generally supposed between 1860 and 1870.

The CHAIRMAN. I should be very doubtful about it, because you simply take the year 1870; that year was before very high prices. I should think it was an average

year.

Mr. COFFIN. Perhaps I am wrong in my statement.

The CHAIRMAN. I doubt whether it is necessary that you should make any qualification of that kind.

Mr. COFFIN. In 1832 there were 1,200,000 cotton spindles in this country; in 1845 there were 2,500,000; in 1875, 9,500,000; and in 1878 there were 11,000,000. In Great Britain there were, in 1832, 9,000,000; in 1845, 17,500,000; in 1875, 37,500,000. In Europe, outside of Great Britain, there were, in 1832, 2,800,000; in 1845, 7,500,000; and in 1875, 19,500,000. The total for the world in 1879 is about 71,000,000 spindles. The result has been, that while between 1830 and 1875 our population increased between threefold and fourfold, the amount of cotton manufactured and used increased thirteenfold, because each person uses three to four times as much as they used to.

Coincident with this development came railroad construction. In 1830 we had 29 miles of railroad; in 1878 we had 81,000 miles. There was not labor enough in this country to carry on this construction, and we sent abroad for it. And here let me call the attention of the committee to the remarkable correlation between emigration and the development of these industries. We had no statistics of emigration prior to 1820, and it is stated that the emigrants in one year did not then reach 8,000. Between 1820 and 1830 there was a considerable increase of emigration. In 1830 the number of emigrants was 23,322. I have here a table showing the statistics of emigration in connection with the number of miles of railroad in operation.

It will be seen that we reached the maximum of emigration in 1854, when the number of emigrants was 427,833, and at that time we had in operation 16,728 miles of railroad. Then we began to decrease in emigration, the next two years being only 200,887 and 200,436. Then in 1857 it amounted to 251,316. But the construction of railroads was going on rapidly during those years, running down to 1861, when the number of miles in operation was 31,286. From 1862 emigration began again to increase, until it again reached its maximum in 1869, when it was 395,922, and then we had 47,208 miles of railroad in operation. In 1871 the emigration was 367,789 and the number of miles of railroad in operation 60,568. The total number of emigrants that arrived in this country from 1820 has been a little over 9,000,000.

The CHAIRMAN. Your proposition is that the railroads of this country were principally built by foreign labor, and your reason for that is that American labor could find something better to do?

Mr. COFFIN. Yes; that is the proposition. We wanted this foreign labor. American labor went in the first place into the manufactories, but there again foreign labor has superseded it in those branches requiring the least skill and intelligence.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you aware that the Southern railroads have been chiefly built by slave labor?

Mr. COFFIN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Then your statement will be limited in the main to Northern railroads?

Mr. COFFIN. Yes, sir; but there were comparatively few railroads in the South and no manufacturing industries to call for labor. In order to induce this foreign labor to come here, we advertised our cheap lands, which probably were an attraction, aside from the high wages paid for labor; we advertised our high wages; we advertised our political institutions; we advertised our citizenship; we advertised our freedom. The railToad companies sent agents all over Europe and established emigration agencies. While this great development is going on here, a similar development was going on in Europe. Millions there were called from the farm and the shop to do something higher and better, and to receive higher wages. Everywhere there was an advance of wages, and of course an increase of production. Let us see how three great nations have advanced since 1827. Here is a half century of progress contained in a few figures. I give the foreign trade, the imports and exports, by decades, of Great Britain, France, and the United States. It is an exceedingly instructive table, for it enables us at a glance to see how three great nations, by the use of the forces of nature, through discovery and invention, the employment of machinery to do the work of human hands, have added to the wealth of the world:

The total trade of Great Britain has within those five decades increased six times. that of France six and a half times, and that of the United States five and a half times, What are the results? It has equalized the world's markets, given low prices to the consumer, taken business out of the hands of the few and given it to the many, distributed wealth, elevated the masses, enlarged the area of civilization, and contributed to the comfort and happiness of the human race.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you not omit to state that pauperism has increased?
Mr. COFFIN. I am not sure about that. Is it a fact?

The CHAIRMAN. You are stating one side of the question, and stating it wonderfully well and in a forcible way, but you have omitted to ascertain the fact that on the other side the allegation is constantly made to the committee that with all this progress one portion of the human race has been placed in a very wretched condition-a hopeless condition almost-that pauperism and want and destitution have increased in England. In this country pauperism was unknown in many of the years which you have described, through which years all have been able to live. Now we have a great mass (variously estimated at from five hundred thousand to two million of persons) absolutely suffering for want of the necessaries of life, and living on charity.

Mr. COFFIN. I can refer you to one illustration. In my native town in New Hampshire, the population never exceeded twenty-four hundred, and in former d ys the poor supported by the town varied from eighteen to thirty individuals; now the poor are supported by the county, but I think that not more than three or four ar credited to the town.

Mr. THOMPSON. Is it a manufacturing town?

Mr. COFFIN. No, sir; it is almost wholly agricultural, but it is in a manufacturing community which pays high enough wages to keep agricultural towns even as prosperous as my own from growing, by attracting away the labor which agriculture cannot employ.

The CHAIRMAN. That fact does not meet the main question. The fact of pauperism being now a strong element in the present constitution of society is admitted. A comparison, however, would be interesting of the present state of society in England, with its condition, for example, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, when the poor laws