PART I.-GENERAL CONDITIONS OF RAILWAY EMPLOYMENT.

§ 3. NUMBER OF RAILWAY EMPLOYEES IN THE UNITED STATES, BY CLASSES.

From the statistics published by the Interstate Commerce Commission it is estimated that the number of persons employed by the railways of the United States for the year 1900 was 1,017,653, or an average of 529 employees per 100 miles of line. This was an increase of 88,729, or 34 per 100 miles of line, as compared with the year ending June 30, 1899. The following table gives a classification of these employees and the totals by classes for each year of the period of 11 years ending June 30, 1900:

On the basis of special returns made to the secretary of the Interstate Commerce Commission it is stated that the number of switchmen, flagmen, and watchmen, included in the aggregate given above under that head for the year 1899, could fairly be assigned in the proportion of 6, 3, and 2, respectively.

The geographical distribution of railroad employees and the relative intensity of railroad operation, as indicated by the number of employees per 100 miles of line, is indicated by the statistics for the 10 territorial groups of States and Territories adopted by the Interstate Commerce Commission in all its statistical reports, as follows:

Classification of employees, by groups, and per 100 miles of line, on June 30, 1900.

1 For the boundaries of each of these areas, see map in Statistical Reports of Interstate Commerce Commission; also reproduced in Exhibit I of this report.

2 Decrease.

Classification of employees, by groups, and per 100 miles of line, on June 30, 1900—

It should also be noted that for all classes the number of employees is determined from the pay rolls for June 30 of each year, and that the railroads are not supposed to include laborers engaged in the construction of new lines. Also, in making comparisons with European statistics, it should be remembered that these figures give the number of employees upon a specified day of the year, while the figures for most foreign countries give the average number of men employed during the year. Bearing this limitation in mind, it is interesting to note that the railways of the United Kingdom (Great Britain and Ireland) employed in 1895, 465,112 men, or about 5 times as many per mile of line as the American railways at the same time. Dr. Walter E. Weyl, in his report on the Condition of Railway Labor in Europe1 (from which these figures for the United Kingdom are taken), assigns two causes for this difference.

"In the first place, the British railways do a great deal of work that in America is delegated to subsidiary corporations, and many men are employed in the express business, or in collecting and delivering goods, or even in the manufacture of railway materials, a portion of whom would not be considered in America as railway employees. The chief cause of the difference, however, is to be found in the character of the British roadbed, rolling stock, and general equipment, and in the intensity of British railway traffic. In the United States we find similar differences corresponding to the variations in the intensity of traffic. Thus, while there are 454 men (1896) employed per 100 miles of line for the whole of the United States, the proportion amounts to 1,048 per 100 miles in the Middle States, 832 in the New England States, and sinks as low as 248 in the Pacific States. The employment for the whole of the United Kingdom, however, is considerably denser than for any group in the United States, and in fact for any country in the world, in 1895 there being 2,197 men employed per 100 miles of British railways."

From the same report the figures for France for the year 1896 show 251,971 persons employed on French railways (excluding those of Algiers and Tunis). about 11 per mile, as compared with 22 per mile in 1895 in the United Kingdom, and 44 per mile in 1896 in the United States. About one-tenth of the employees on

1 Published in Bulletin of Department of Labor, No. 20, January, 1899, Washington, D. C,
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French railways were women, and over one-third workmen employed by the day. The statistics for Belgian railways for 1896 show that 48,415 persons were employed on state railways, or 23.3 men per mile of line-a greater density than for any other country in the world. In Prussia the statistics for the state railways for the year 1896-97 show 109,204 employees, or 6.4 per mile; but this includes only a portion of the labor force, there being, besides this number, 188,262 persons classed as workmen who were employed in operation and maintenance and in the workshops. The term "workman" includes railway servants whose work consists of manual labor requiring no previous training except that of a skilled trade, persons engaged as helpers to minor officials, and persons temporarily employed for special work, and all female employees. They are paid by the day or piece, and are subject to dismissal without notice.' Statistics of railway employees in Saxony and Switzerland, where conditions of comparison are still more difficult, may be found in Dr. Weyl's report.

While the density of railway employment, as measured in the number of employees per mile of line, varies considerably in the United States-ranging from 11.4 in the Middle States for the year 1900 to 3 in the Northwestern States-the magnitude of the railway industry as a source of employment for the American people may be measured by the percentage which the total number of railway employees bears to the total population. In 1890 the population of the United States, according to the Eleventh Census, was 62,622,250, and the number of railway employees on the 30th of June, 1890-the day on which the census was takenwas 749,301, which is 1.2 per cent, or 12 per 1,000 inhabitants, which tallies with the number of railway employees per 1,000 inhabitants in the United Kingdom in 1895, and is about double that in France in 1896. The Twelfth Census gives the total population of the United States on June 30, 1900, as 74,610,523. The ratio therefore, of railway employees to the total population, taking the total number on June 30, 1899, as 928,924, gives us exactly the same relative proportion as the figures for 1890 gave, namely, 1.2 per cent, or 12 per 1,000 inhabitants.

A fairer estimate, however, of the importance of the railway industry, so far as the employment of labor is concerned, is to be found in the ratio which the total number of railway employees bears to the total number of persons engaged in gainful occupations. The census of 1890 records the total number of persons 10 years of age and over engaged in gainful occupations as 22,735,661; the number of railway employees in the year 1890 being 749,301, gives 3.3 per cent, or 33 per 1,000 persons, engaged in gainful occupations. Probably, next to the single occupation of agriculture, more people in the United States were engaged in some branch of railway employment than in that of any other well-defined pursuit.

The Interstate Commerce Commission calls attention in its Thirteenth Annual Report on the Statistics of Railways to the fact that, while the number of men employed on the railways of the country per 100 miles of line was greater for the year ending June 30, 1900, than it was in 1893, the last year of the previous period of prosperity, this is true for the first time since 1893; and the increase in passenger and freight traffic shows that notwithstanding this marked increase, employment has increased at a less rapid rate than the increase in traffic. The ton mileage accomplished per engineman in 1893 was 2,413,246 miles, while that for 1900 was 3,305,534 miles, thus indicating that the necessary economies of hard times have resulted in permanently greater intensity and efficiency of labor and therefore in permanent advantages to the railways and to the public.

§ 4. AVERAGE DAILY WAGES AND ANNUAL INCOME OF RAILWAY EMPLOYEES.

The average daily compensation of each of the following groups of employees for each of the 9 calendar years from 1892-1900, based upon the returns made to the Interstate Commerce Commission for the whole of the United States and covering 99 per cent of all railroad employees, is given in the following table:

1 See article by Dr. Walter E. Weyl on "The condition of railway labor in Europe." Bulletin of the Department of Labor, January, 1899, p. 88.

Comparative summary of average daily compensation of railway employees for the years ending June 30, 1900 to 1892.

It is possible also from other statistical tables furnished in the reports of the Interstate Commerce Commission to make a comparison of the average daily wages for each of these classes of railroad employees in the different sections of the country.

Inasmuch as the factors determining wages and the cost of living vary so greatly over so large an area of territory, it is all the more necessary to analyze these figures. For this purpose all the statistics in the reports of the Interstate Commerce Commission are classified for 10 territorial areas, made up of groups of States and parts of States. A map showing the exact boundaries of these areas and a comparative summary of the average daily wages of each class of railroad employees in each group are given in Exhibit I of this report.

An average wage where there are so many grades of service within each class must not be expected to serve as other than a very rough estimate of general improvement or general decline in the class, as changes in the averages are noted from year to year. In no case do these average wages serve as a fair index or basis for a scale of wages for the several classes. For example, it would be quite misleading to suppose that the average as quoted in the above table for enginemen in 1899 as $3.72 could be adopted by a trade union as a fixed or minimum wage to be guaranteed by the union to all its members. To classify wages so as to separate out all of the services which are really separate occupations would require about 400 grades in place of the 18 general classes enumerated in the tables of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Even if all the distinct classes of service could be itemized, an average would still be misleading if it were used as the basis of a wage scale. Thus an engineer on a fast express train between New York and Philadelphia may make a return trip within 5 hours and be paid nearly $6 and may choose to work only alternate days, which would make his average $3; or, again, he may choose to do more than the one run in a day and put the average up. Wages are of course affected by anything that affects the earning power of the corporations, as in other industries, and usually vary with rates paid in other occupations in the same locality. The lack of anything like uniformity in pay for same grade of service in different parts of the country is plainly evident, and will probably never be attained. On this point Mr. Wm. H. Baldwin, jr., president of the Long Island Railroad, and an officer who has had large experience in railroad management in 27 States, says:1

The great railroad systems of the present day in performing their government function must so administer their property that the wages paid will be the standard railroad wage, the standard wage being the average wage paid by lines similarly situated, with similar traffic conditions. There is no standard wage for any class of railroad labor for the whole country. Any attempt to make a standard wage would prove futile. The difference in opportunity for steady work,

1 Paper on "Railroad relief and beneficiary associations." Publications of American Economic Association. Third series, vol. 1, No. 1, p. 226, February, 1900.