BI.ACKMAR: experiments in Scn.UTION OF LAIIOR I'ROI'.LE.M. 1 9 



No. Rentals. Amt. per Mo. Xo. Rentals. Amt. per Mo. No. Rentals. Anit. pei- Mo. 



106 ^-50 3 22.00 I 55-00 



226 g.oo 2. . .. 22.50 I 60.00 



68 10.00 6 23.50 I 70.00 



4 9- 50 4 23.00 2 65.00 



38 10.50 I 24.00 2 75- 00 



53 ii-oo 45 25.00 I...... 77.25 



The average monthly rental of 1799 tenants was $13.50; of 1200 

 the average rental was $10.00, and of 600 it was $8.00. Not all of 

 the Pullman employees were renters, though fully 35 per cent, of 

 them were direct renters, 30 per cent, sub-renters, and the remain- 

 ing 35 per cent, had lodgings outside of the town of Pullman. The 

 rents ranged from S4. 00 a month to $77.25 a month, although a 

 large proportion, as the above statement will show, ranged from 

 $8.00 to $18.00 per month. A flat of Ave rooms on the first floor 

 with interior water closets, and a basement capable of use for 

 washing and cooking, on one of the best streets, rented for $14.00 

 per month, with street water rents of 71 cents per month. It 

 would seem that this was not an extravagant rent. Yet the ten- 

 ants sublet one room for $9.00, and another for $6.00, retaining 

 the other three for themselves, thus living practically rent free for 

 three rooms in the house. However, it will be seen by a careful 

 examination that the rents conformed fairly well to the income of 

 laborers before the reduction, but after the reduction they were 

 too high. The average normal rent expenditure of a laboring man 

 in the state of Illinois, according to economic laws, would be about 

 17 per cent, of his income: but we find after the reduction of wages 

 that the relation of rent to income had changed so that the rent 

 amounted to from 20 to 25 per cent, of the income. 



So the company which agreed to furnish superior conditions to 

 the laboring man and free him from the burdens of unjust pressure 

 and to raise his standard of life, had finally succeeded in placing 

 these same laborers in a condition which would not support the 

 standard of life which had been practiced. The result was dis- 

 content, distrust and inharmoii}-, the very things which the Pullman 

 company sought by its plan to avoid. It is not sufficient for the 

 Pullman company to say that laborers were unreasonable and 

 therefore the plan did not work. It does not free the plan from 

 the stigma of failure, simpl}- because the originators of it miscalcu- 

 lated the conditions of human labor. 



For the improvement of the social conditions of the laborer, 

 there was established a well equipped library, with fine furnishings, 

 containing standard works wliich the laborer h.id the privilege of 



