CHAPTER III 



To bring nearer home the farmers' competition for 

 labor, I would say that in commenting on the decision 

 rendered about the first of April, 1918, by Judge Alt- 

 schuler of Chicago, as arbitrator between the packers 

 and their employees, Mr. Murphy, manager of one of 

 the two largest packing houses in the world, is quoted 

 in the Omaha Bee of April 3, 1918, as saying among 

 other things, " It means that on and after May 5, 

 common labor employees, working ten hours a day, 

 will receive an increase of 52 per cent, as compared 

 with what they were getting previous to January 14, 

 which was at the rate of 27^ cents per hour. Instead 

 of receiving $2.75 for 10 hours' work, they will re- 

 ceive $4.20. Women employees will receive a 59 per 

 cent, increase down to 37 per cent, to those who were 

 getting 60 cents an hour for a lo-hour day. The lat- 

 ter will be paid $8.33 for a zo-hour day." This means 

 that by working ten hours a day during the entire 

 year, Sundays excepted, a man and woman will earn 

 $3821.89, which, as I have shown elsewhere, is five 

 times the gross receipts of the average eighty acres of 

 land in Nebraska during the twenty-seven years end- 

 ing December 31, 1917, and four times the gross in- 

 come from the average eighty acres throughout the 

 country during the eighteen years prior to the passage 

 of the Adamson Law, as shown by reports of the Fed- 



13 



