ABSTRACTS OF TESTIMONY 
 
 PROM FIFTH AND SIXTH HEARINGS 
 
 GEO. DRAPER, ROYAL E. ROBBINS AND W. P. ANDERSON, 
 
 REMONSTRATING AGAINST 
 
 More Frequent Payments of Wages, 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 COMMITTEE ON'LABOR 
 
 OF THE 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE, 
 
r 
 
 3 ■a t- 2 . 
 
 ’HtVXo. 
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/abstractsoftestiOOdrap 
 
13*// 
 
 TESTIMONY OE GEORGE DRAPER, 
 
 9 
 
 Mr. Chairman: It has been my privilege to appear "before this 
 committee, year after year, in regard to the matter of more frequent 
 pay'ments. I stand now where I stood to begin with, to protest in 
 the interest of the laboring men against such forms of legislation as 
 this. I am told that it is only corporations that you are legislating 
 for. There are two sides to this question. It is not the corpora¬ 
 tions alone, but y T ou are selecting out such men as do, and want to, 
 work for corporations, and branding them as not able to make their 
 own contracts, as to how often they shall receive their pay. I say 
 thst this is a species of guardianship in which the State is under¬ 
 taking to put these men into, a condition where they cannot make 
 their own contracts; the Legislature fixing the conditions on which 
 they shall be allowed to labor. I have been an operative for so 
 many years that I think I know something of the effect it may have. 
 I read not long ago a written contract—I happened to come across 
 it—which I made with Edward Harris in 1842. In that contract I 
 agreed to work for him a year at $1.75 a day ; to receive one-half of 
 my pay as I wanted it along, and the balance at the end of the year. 
 Now you propose to say to any operative in the State of Massa¬ 
 chusetts that he is not at liberty to make such contracts with any 
 corporation. It is taking away their liberty. It strikes exactly at 
 the root of their liberty. This order speaks of employers and em¬ 
 ployes. The only definition in the dictionary which I have been 
 able to find is that employes are those that are employed. Under 
 thrt system I am an employ'e, the gentleman at my left is an em¬ 
 ploye ; and Mr. Dalton, who testified before you, is just as much an 
 employm of the Merrimack Manufacturing Company' as the poorest- 
 paid hand who works there. But you are saying to him, and you 
 are saying to me that I cannot make an arrangement with that cor¬ 
 poration, that I am not to receive my pay once a month if I choose. 
 If you look into this matter you will see that if y ou pass this law, 
 you are passing it so that these people are to be included, in their 
 inability' to make contracts with a corporation. Then we are told 
 in regard to this matter that this affects corporations, and not in¬ 
 dividuals. Certainty, y'ou say', the employe must be paid. But 
 suppose the employe don’t want to be paid ; supposing the employee 
 says, “I don’t want to be paid.” Supposing he goes along a week or 
 two after that and you are going to make up a case—I don’t suppose 
 you are playing legislate; I suppose you expect these laws to be 
 
 
 
4 
 
 carried out and enforced. Suppose I refuse to take my pay, and 
 you pass this law affecting the Hopedale Machine Company, of 
 which I am the agent. Suppose I say I don’t want my pay, and 
 the}" break the law if the}^ don’t pay me; what is going to be done? 
 Now, in regard to this matter of employes, I want to tell }’ou that 
 out of these men have come some of the best business men you have 
 got in Massachusetts. Let me illustrate this. There is a member 
 of this committee whose chair is vacant today, with whose father 
 and mother some twent}* years ago, when Gen. Banks was in com¬ 
 mand at Fort McHenry, in Baltimore, I had a letter of introduction 
 to. We called upon Gen. Banks there. His father and mother and 
 Gen. Banks were old acquaintances. There were six of us present 
 who had been operatives in cotton mills, not only the men but the 
 women. Gen. Banks you know, he has been Speaker of the House 
 of Representatives; he has been Governor of the State, and he is 
 U. S. Marshal here now; he is a man that grew up from an opera¬ 
 tive in the old time, when they worked 14 hours a day, and got their 
 pa} T once in three months. The father of the member of the com¬ 
 mittee to whom I have alluded, is one of the largest business men in 
 the State of Maine; he has built, a ver} T extensive manufacturing 
 establishment in Massachusetts, and another in Maine, and is re¬ 
 puted to be worth $2,000,000. The most I can say is, that I have 
 been a hard-working man, and I have had a good deal to do with in¬ 
 dustrial operations, and have something to do with them at present. 
 The Legislature undertook to fix it that nobody should charge more 
 than six per cent, per annum for interest; they were not at liberty to 
 make any contract in regard to it. The Legislature found out the 
 wisdom of allowing people to make contracts in writing for differ¬ 
 ent rates. Now, if the Legislature thinks it is best to let the people 
 say that if there is no contract made, the payment shall be weekly, 
 that will be in consonance with regard to interest, and so far I see 
 no objection to it; but, in heaven’s name, why should we single out 
 a corporation and those who work for it? If }"ou are going to benefit 
 people, wh}’ do you want to benefit one-third part of the wage work¬ 
 ers only? Why do } T ou except associations, partnerships and in¬ 
 dividuals, and so assume to say, We will make such contracts as we 
 please with our help, but we are going to compel you and }’our oper¬ 
 atives to make just such a contract, and no other, as we dictate to 
 you. Now, in regard to the effects of this legislation upon corpora¬ 
 tions, I want to tell you a slight circumstance ; it is not given from 
 fancy or anything of the kind, for 3 ’ou can find the records in the 
 other end of the State House. When I was here a year or two ago, 
 I said that this legislation about corporations was doing the State 
 what I thought was a great injury. Now, to illustrate: I, with 
 some associates, owned a cotton mill in the State of Connecticut. 
 We put in $125,000. There was a man by the name of Briggs and 
 
5 
 
 his son ; they had a cotton mill up in Haydenville, where they had 
 put in $125,000. We made up our minds that it was important to 
 get this property together, as we thought we could do much better 
 with it. Mr. Briggs had grown up from the operative class that I 
 was speaking of; had worked as long hours as anybody ever worked 
 in a cotton mill, and as faithfully. He has been manager of millions 
 of dollars’ worth of property and very successful, and he is a man 
 that it would be very desirable to have as a business man in the 
 State of Massachusetts. After talking the matter over, as he was 
 to manage the mill, the question was whether we should move the 
 machinery we had in Connecticut into Massachusetts, or whether 
 we shou d move from Massachusetts, in order to combine. Said 
 he: “I have undertaken to run that mill there in Massachusetts, 
 and I don’t like the regulations there in regard to corporations, and 
 I would prefer to remove this property to Connecticut.” The result 
 of it has been that we have built new tenements in Connecticut for 
 the help, and built a new mill, and moved the machinery there, 
 taking $125,000 worth of property from Massachusetts. The mill 
 in Massachusetts has been sold for a mere trilie, and the tenements 
 are empty. We have since added $50,000 more to the Connecticut 
 mill, so that you have $300,000 of capital there in an industrial 
 establishment which might have been in Massachusetts, if Massa¬ 
 chusetts had been a more attractive place. Now, those aye facts 
 that you would do well to consider. There has been something said 
 here about the matter of wages, as though the foreign help, which 
 have come in here, were putting wages where nobod} 7 could get 
 a living. Now, 1 had a report of a speech made before the 
 New England Cotton Manufacturers by Mr. Burke of Lowell, in 
 which he had gone to the records and got the amount paid to 
 operatives in 1838, and the amount paid then, in 1876. (1 have the 
 
 books I kept, showing what was paid to the operatives at that 
 time.) The records showed that they were paying in Lowell, in 
 1876, 77 per cent, more per hour to the foreign as well as native 
 operatives, than we were paying the best American girls—and we 
 scarcely had any other—in 1838. 
 
 I am speaking of facts of my own knowledge. There have been 
 questions asked here about the fraud there is in keeping back wages. 
 Was there an} 7 fraud committed upon me by Edward Harris 
 when I made that contract and signed it with him, to receive my pay 
 at the end of the year? Is there any gentleman here who will say 
 there was any fraud about it? If not, where is the fraud in any case 
 where a man deliberately says: I will work a month and receive 
 my pay once a month. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Russell.) Will you please state who the person was 
 who claimed there was any fraud? 
 
 A. I say that some member of the committee used that word and 
 used it in my hearing. 
 
6 
 
 Mr. Russell. I don’t think the report will show it. 
 
 Mr. Draper. I don’t know about the report, but I am talking 
 about what I heard and know. 
 
 Mr. R. D. Smith. Defrauding the laborer of his interest. 
 
 Mr. O’Sullivan. I don’t think it is a question of fraud any- 
 way. 
 
 Mr. Draper. Well, I don’t; that is what I was undertaking to 
 make out. 
 
 Mr. O’Sullivan. We can give it another name that will be just 
 as bad. 
 
 Mr. Draper It is an intelligent contract made by intelligent men 
 and properly carried out; and the operative has the right to say that 
 he Will wait a year for his wages, if he don’t defraud anybody by 
 doing so. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Russell.) How much contract is there to it if a 
 person has got a family to support and has got no money and has 
 got no means of getting a living, and has got to go to work, and he 
 comes to you and asks you for work ; you say there is work, under 
 my rule ; and he has got to wait six weeks under your rules before he 
 can get a single cent; he has got to do it or else starve his family ; 
 how much contract is there to that? 
 
 A. Let me reply to you by asking you whether the Legislature 
 is to say that I must hire that man whether I want him or not. I 
 say most emphatically that a man is under no obligation to hire men 
 that he don’t want, and pa} 7 them what they don’t earn. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Russell.) I say what is the contract on the part of 
 the poor man who has got to go to work in order to keep alive, and 
 save his family from starving? 
 
 A. I say there is no man but what is or ought to be capable of 
 making a contract. If the State has got paupers we have got to 
 take care of them. I say your legislation will make them feel that 
 they are paupers, and that is why I object. 
 
 Q. It is a question of existence, is it not, instead of a question 
 of contract? 
 
 A. It is the business of the Legislature to provide for paupers. 
 It is not the business of any individual or of any particular employer. 
 They want to get this thing down fine, apparently, so as to make 
 political capital out of it, or to mislead, as they do, laboring classes 
 by putting wrong views about certain things into their heads. They 
 are now trying to cut out the railroad corporations, because they 
 have so much influence. The real thing is to bring this thing down 
 so fine that they can legislate so that it won’t affect the people gen¬ 
 erally, and they can gain political capital by making the people who 
 work for a living think they are their special friends. Now, as far 
 as I am concerned, I stand here as the president of a railroad com¬ 
 pany ; I am running about 20 miles of railroad, costing about 
 
1 
 
 $700,000, and I individually own nearly one-half of the concern, and I 
 say to you, and I know what I am talking about, that if we are going 
 to be compelled to pay weekly, the railroad I am connected with can 
 pa} r weekly as well as any other corporation; there is no doubt about 
 that. 
 
 Mr. O’Sullivan. We will bring that railroad in. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Russell.) Is there any part of this railroad going 
 into Connecticut? 
 
 Mr. Draper. I don’t undertake to say that we should move the 
 City of Boston or the streets of the same into Connecticut; but I do 
 undertake to say, and I have brought up a case where there has 
 been corporate property taken out of the State and carried into Con¬ 
 necticut. 
 
 Mr. Russell. And I inferred from that that if such measures 
 passed, business will be removed. 
 
 Mr. Draper. I have no doubt but what legislation will cause 
 more or less business to be moved out of the State. 
 
 Mr. Russell. Then it would be the loss of the business of the 
 railroad as much as the loss of the business of the mills, wouldn’t it? 
 
 Mr. R. D. Smith. I wanted to suggest something for your inquiry, 
 and that is that some of the new mills at Fall River are built on 
 Rhode Island soil for the purpose of avoiding our laws, and their 
 operatives are still living in Fall River. Is that so ? 
 
 Mr. Stratton. If the gentleman will allow me, I will say that 
 there is a very strong movement in Rhode Island for the passage of 
 the 10-hour law, and they want the weekly payment system, too. 
 
 Mr. Sargent. That will make it better for Massachusetts if we 
 don’t have weekly payments. 
 
 Mr. Draper. If we had a law like an act of Parliament that 
 would apply to all the States, it would allow one State to compare 
 with another very much better ; there is no doubt about that. I was 
 talking with a gentleman from Rhode Island day before yesterday— 
 and by the way he is connected with three or four corporations in 
 Massachusetts—he is one of those that grew up in the mill, he was 
 a back-boy in the mill. Now he controls a large amount of manu¬ 
 facturing machinery and would not have to add much to it to make 
 him the largest manufacturer in the world. They own mills at Read- 
 ville, Dodgeville, at Hebronville and a very extensive establishment at 
 Munchaug, and that is only a portion of the property he owns to-day ; 
 he was speaking about Massachusetts legislation, and the influence 
 it exerts in regard to its industries, and he don’t want to have it work 
 the same way in Rhode Island. To show .you something of the 
 amount of business he is doing at the present time, he asked me to 
 supply him with a certain appliance we manufacture, for 2,000 new 
 looms. The 2,000 looms would probably mean an investment of 
 $1,500,000. 
 
8 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Russell.) What State does he propose to invest that 
 in ? 
 
 A. In Rhode Island. Some member of the committee said they 
 had no right to legislate in regard to associations, partnerships and 
 individuals. If I understand the matter, what they propose to legis¬ 
 late about is employes on one hand and corporations on the other. It 
 is an old saying that it takes at least two to make a bargain. Sup¬ 
 pose the law enacted as contemplated ; then suppose an employe 
 says to the corporation : “I will not trouble myself to receive my 
 wages weekly, I prefer to receive them once a month.” Suppose the 
 corporation says : “The law requires us to pay you once a week, so 
 you must receive your pay or the law is broken, for which the pen¬ 
 al ty is to be paid.” Would you sue the corporation or the individual 
 in that case ? The plea that your legislation refers to corporations 
 alone will not hold ; your legislation is intended to prevent the free¬ 
 dom of contracts between corporations and individuals. It was ab¬ 
 surdly claimed before the committee that it was a fraud to keep back 
 the pay of operatives four weeks before payment because the wages 
 were due as soon as earned. Then it is the same kind of a fraud to 
 keep it back one week or one day, only to a less extent. The aver¬ 
 age operatives of Massachusetts know better than this. They know 
 when the}* go to work for a concern that pays once a month and tells 
 them so before the}' go to work, that that is one of the terms of the 
 contract, and consequently no money is due them till pay day comes 
 round. You might as well say when I give my note for 30 days for 
 $100, I owe the man $100 and ought to pay him the day after the 
 note is given. But suppose there is a loss of interest to the labor¬ 
 ing man, between a contract to be paid once a month instead of 
 once a week, and you compel the parties to contract for once a 
 week, and in consequence of this you compel the corporation to as¬ 
 sume large additional expense to pay weekly, does any intelligent 
 man suppose that they have taken the amount of interest referred to 
 from the corporation and given it to the operatives permanently , be¬ 
 sides putting the corporation to the extra expense of frequent pay¬ 
 ments to the operatives, without sooner or later changing the amount 
 paid to the operatives? If so, he must be very fresh indeed, to say 
 the least; if not, the operation would be raising wages by an act of 
 the Legislature. Suppose it should prove that the amount of inter¬ 
 est and additional expense would just equal the amount of profits 
 made by the corporations, do you not suppose they would cut the 
 wages down to get it back again, if they could get help at a lower 
 price ? The Legislature cannot afford to try to make the corpora¬ 
 tion pay any given rate of wages for any great length of time. Now, 
 I feel in my bones that the real, true objection to this thing is that 
 you are taking away the freedom of these men, many of whom will 
 be men who will tower above us by-and-by. It is the glory of our 
 
9 
 
 operatives that they can rise up, and this treating them as though 
 they could not help themselves and talking about them in this whin¬ 
 ing way, is the worst thing you can do. They can help themselves. 
 Abraham Lincoln helped himself. He got up from a miserable posi¬ 
 tion, as it is ordinarily looked upon. And when I hear men of edu¬ 
 cation and means talk as though these men were so poor and so ab¬ 
 ject that they cannot help themselves (when I have been in their 
 places long enough to know better), I despise all that sort of talk. 
 These men can take care of themselves, and they can take care of 
 themselves better than the Legislature can by singling them out and 
 undertaking to be their guardian. 
 
 Q. (Ety Mr. Stratton.) I would like to ask the gentleman if he 
 thinks the sentiment in his town, in Milford, is in favor of weekly 
 payments ? 
 
 A. Well, I have no special means of knowing any further than 
 this : That I believe there are several of the boot and shoe manufac¬ 
 turing concerns there that are paying once a week, and their help un- 
 doubtedl} r prefer it. I see no objection to that. As far as England 
 is concerned, I have never heard of anything but custom as regards 
 the matter of paying weekly there. I don’t believe there is any law on 
 the statute book that fixes that thing at all, and I think you could 
 just as proper^, perhaps, go to work and say that just as quickly as 
 they got their week’s pay, they must go and pay their store bills, 
 that they shall not get a month’s credit when they get their pay once 
 a week. I think that would be a species of legislation that would 
 be as beneficial as the other. Now, as far as Milford is concerned, 
 I say there are in cities and in thickly populated places—very prob¬ 
 ably if I was coming down to the city of Boston and was going to 
 establish a factory here, unacquainted with all the help, very likely 
 I should commence paying every week. I presume some of the cor¬ 
 porations in which I have stock do pay every week. I am inclined 
 to think so. I think that is a matter which will take care of itself. 
 When I commenced they settled once in six months. I worked 
 afterwards when they settled once in three months. We have come 
 down to where they settle once a month. People who choose, settle 
 once in two weeks or once a week. I think that is fast enough 
 where it is for the interest of the employer and the employe. I think 
 they can find it out as well as the Legislature and can fix the time. 
 I don’t object to weekly pay, if you don’t undertake to compel people 
 to make such contracts and live up to them. Now in regard to my 
 help, I have never had any application to pay weekly, or oftener 
 than once a month, except those who get short and want money, 
 and they always get it. I employ quite a large number, as an indi¬ 
 vidual. * I employ a very much larger number in connection with 
 partnerships. 1 presume I own in corporations in this State and 
 others, where there are 30,000 or 40,000 employed. 
 
10 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Stratton.) You never knew that to be said to the 
 operatives of the Hopedale Machine Company? You never made 
 that your business to tell them that they could have their pay week- 
 
 iy? 
 
 A. I never have. I certainly have never seen any occasion to. 
 
 Q. Well, you didn’t think it was particularly your business ; any 
 more than some of the other directors or trustees, or perhaps your 
 son, or some of the other parties? 
 
 A. I think if there had been any general demand for it I should 
 have heard of it. 
 
 Mr. Stratton. My point is just what the gentleman indicates. 
 That while he would look after the interests of those whom he direct¬ 
 ly employs, and say that he would pay them every week, 3 7 et in a 
 corporation he would feel that somebody else was quite as responsi¬ 
 ble as he, and therefore it is not his particular business to ask them 
 if they want to be paid oftener. For that reason 1 believe it should 
 apply to corporations ; that is the reason I have always taken that 
 stand. 
 
 Mr. Draper. It does seem to me that the men we employ have 
 the right to be independent of you, gentlemen ; that 3 7 ou should dot 
 interfere to make their contracts. 1 don’t know why the}^ are not as 
 competent as you are, for my part; and I am acquainted with a 
 good many of them. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Carleton.) Among the various corporations with 
 which 3 t ou are connected, if there was a vacancy and I should apply 
 for it, would they take me if they found I wanted m 3 7 pa 3 T weekly ? 
 
 A. I presume they T would say to \ T ou what their custom was 
 about pa3'ing, and if 3 t ou had any objection to make you would 
 make it. 
 
 Q. Supposing I should say T I would not work unless I was to re¬ 
 ceive my pay T weekty ? 
 
 A. Well, as far as 3 T our working there is concerned, that would 
 depend upon whether you wanted to work or not. 
 
 Q. It would not be a matter of contract on m 3 T part? 
 
 A. I consider it a matter of contract on 3 7 our part. I don’t 
 consider that either side is compelled to close with what the other 
 side wishes unless they choose. 
 
 Q. That is what I wanted to know, whether I would have the 
 chance to make a contract? 
 
 A. You might have a chance to make such a contract as 3 t ou 
 wished; I could not compel you to make any, nor you me. 
 
 Mr. Carleton. I have got m3 7 answer. 
 
 Mr. Draper. Yes, I think 3 T ou have. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Smith of West Newbur 3 7 .) Your objection to 
 weekly payments is not because 3 t ou are opposed to them, but be¬ 
 cause you are opposed to legislation ? 
 
11 
 
 A. I am opposed to legislation in a matter of this kind on the 
 ground that it takes away the freedom of the individual. 
 
 Q. There is no difficulty about paying them ? 
 
 A. Well, there are cases where it is exceedingly difficult, and 
 there are cases where it is ver 3 r easy. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Russell.) A corporation matter is not an individual 
 matter, is it? 
 
 A. It is the corporation on the one side and the individual on the 
 other that I am talking about. If you can fix it so that you can 
 do anything with a corporation that don’t affect the individual, that 
 is another matter. 
 
 Q. Can’t a corporation have their rules in regard to the admis¬ 
 sion of an} r person who comes and applies for work ? He has got 
 to submit to those rules or not work, hasn’t he? 
 
 A. It depends upon how particular the corporation is. If a man 
 should come to me and say he wanted to work for our corporation, 
 we are now paying once a month ; if he didn’t care to receive it but 
 once in six months, I think we could accommodate him. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Smith of West Newbury.) On the other hand, 
 could you accommodate him once a week ? 
 
 A. On the other hand, I have no doubt we could, if he was a 
 valuable man. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Russell.) If you wanted him badly enough to break 
 3 r our rules? 
 
 A. Why, it is just here. Is it not unnecessary to talk about com¬ 
 pelling men to hire what they won’t hire ? I hear so much twaddle 
 about that. They will get something in the paper that there is a 
 law in regard to hiring women and minors, and the community are 
 finding fault because he won’t pay them more than he can afford to; 
 and not one of them will hire them themselves. Now that is cheap. 
 
 Q. There are corporations that will not pay their employes ex¬ 
 cept on pay days, or when they are through work? 
 
 A, That is your statement. 1 don’t know. 
 
 Q. Now is there any matter of contract about that, except on 
 one side? 
 
 A. There would be a contract if somebody accepted it. You 
 seem to talk as if somebody was obliged on the other side. Sup¬ 
 pose you go to a store and a man says : “I won’t sell you sugar 
 for less than ten cents per pound.” Are you in distress because he 
 won’t sell it to you for five cents per pound ? Do you want me to 
 compel him to let 3 'ou have it for five cents per pound ? Or if 30 U 
 want to go there and get a month’s credit— 
 
 Mr. Russell. I didn’t ask for illustrations. 
 
 Mr. Draper. I thought I would give you some, sir. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. R. D. Smith.) Why would they ask Mr. Russell 
 so much as that? 
 
12 
 
 A. That is a conundrum. 
 
 Mr. Russell. You seem to carry the idea that a working man 
 is in that position where he can contract or not as he sees fit. 
 
 Mr. Draper. I know a good many working men who can, 
 don’t 3 T ou ? 
 
 Q. (Bj t Mr. Russell.) Contract as they see fit? Now is it not 
 a fact that a working man must work? It is a matter of necessity 
 with him, that he must work, and therefore he must submit to the 
 rules of the corporation in order to sustain life in himself and family? 
 
 A. I have seen a good many men— 
 
 Q. Is not that a fact? Give me an answer. 
 
 A. There is a difference in men. I have seen a good many 
 men I don’t believe the Legislature could make work. Now talking 
 about people- 
 
 Q. That is a direct question : Is not the working man obliged 
 to work and to submit to the rules of the corporation in order to sus¬ 
 tain life for himself and his family ? 
 
 A. I don’t think they all are. There may be some men in that 
 condition. Now look here. It is cheap talk to say that people are 
 obliged to work for corporations. Suppose a corporation should 
 offer them two cents a day, are they obliged to work for that cor¬ 
 poration? I say they are not obliged to. American citizens, Amer¬ 
 ican employes have some choice as to what they will do and whom 
 they will work for, and I hope the Legislature will not prevent them 
 from making their own terms. 
 
 Q. You say you came here to protest in the interest of the labor¬ 
 ing men. Have you ever been asked by any body of them to appear 
 here? 
 
 A. I didn’t think that was necessarj 7 . Being a laboring man 
 m} r self and one of those concerned on the employes’side, I thought 
 I had a right to be here. 
 
 Q. Doesn’t it savor of cheap talk when you have not been asked 
 to come here- 
 
 A. Haven’t I a right as an individual to take an interest? I 
 paid out thousands of dollars towards liberating the slaves. They 
 never asked me to do it. 
 
 Q. I understood you to say you had appeared here year after 
 year. Has it not been for the corporations and to oppose this leg¬ 
 islation ? 
 
 A. It has been for the express purpose of opposing this compul¬ 
 sory legislation, and for the reason I believe it is against the interest 
 of the Commonwealth, against the interests of the corporations, and 
 against the interests of the employes that you are undertaking to 
 legislate for. 
 
 Q. There are no personal interests involved ? 
 
 A. I am not aware that there is any personal interest involved 
 
13 
 
 otherwise than as a citizen of the Commonwealth opposed to com¬ 
 pulsory legislation. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. R. D. Smith.) Are you a member of the Knights 
 of Labor ? 
 
 A. I am not a member of any secret society whatever. I am 
 open and above-board and ready to answer any question about this 
 matter. It is really a serious matter, if gentlemen will look at it as 
 I do. You can legislate on what conditions a man and wife may 
 get married, but it is not this Legislature or all the Legislatures in 
 the world that can make a man treat his wife as he ought to, or that 
 can make a wife treat her husband as she ought to. And so in re¬ 
 gard to corporations, there may be corporations that will treat the 
 help as they ought to, and there may be corporations that will not 
 treat them as the} 7 ought to. 1 believe that corporations, as a rule, 
 treat their help better than individual employers do, so far as my 
 experience goes. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Bennett.) In regard to the question of railroads, I 
 think you spoke about it? • 
 
 A. Yes, sir. 
 
 Q. Is it your opinion that railroads ought to pay weekly as well 
 as any other class of corporations in this Commonwealth? 
 
 A. I think they can, as well as man}’ others, and that they ought 
 to, whether they can conveniently or inconveniently ; if you are 
 going to make a law, let us cover as much as possible. I don’t be¬ 
 lieve in singling out single institutions and legislating to their ad¬ 
 vantage or disadvantage. 
 
 Mr. R. D. Smith. Mr. Anderson wanted to state one thing 
 about the pay roll which he thought you misunderstood. 
 
 Mr. Anderson. It was simply this : Mr. Bennett told me he 
 didn’t understand my answer at the time, and I wanted to make it 
 clear to all the members of the committee. So far as weekly pay¬ 
 ments are concerned I said that the labor each week as compared 
 with the labor of the month I thought would be, in making up the 
 pay roll, from one-half to two-thirds—am I understood, Mr. Ben¬ 
 nett? So far as putting up the money and paying out the money is 
 concerned, which is another branch, it would be multiplied by as 
 many times as the number of payments are multiplied. It is just as 
 much work to pay out seventy-five cents as to pay out seventy-five 
 dollars. And so far as putting it up is concerned, the labor would 
 be increased as many times as the payments are increased. Per¬ 
 haps the matter of making up the pay roll would not be increased in 
 proportion. That is all with this exception: That it has struck 
 me as a little incongruous that a large number of those appearing 
 here from year to year and applying for this matter are those now 
 enjoying it, and are not the operatives in our mills who are at pres¬ 
 ent paid monthly. 
 
TESTIMONY OF ROYAL E. ROBBINS. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. R. D. Smith.) You are treasurer of the American 
 Watch Compan} r . How many men do you employ there? 
 
 A. At the present time about 2,000. 
 
 Q. Are you running on full time ? 
 
 A. Yes, sir; on full time, but not full handed. 
 
 Q. Will you state whether in your judgment it would be a benefit 
 to the State to have payments made weekly instead of monthly, 
 whether it would be a benefit to operatives in general, and how it 
 would work in your form of manufacturing? 
 
 A. I cannot see how it would be of any benefit to the State. 
 On the contrary I think it would have a tendency to drive away new 
 manufactories. I can hardly say that old manufacturers established 
 here would be so far discouraged by such a law as to move to another 
 State, but I think it would have a very decided tendency to check 
 the establishment of new enterprises, because it would be an addi¬ 
 tion to the number of laws which seem to favor other States rather 
 than Ours, already existing here. Then as to our people, I am very 
 sure they don’t want it and don’t need it. I have been treasurer 
 there twenty-seven years, and I have never had a single individual 
 ask me for more frequent payment than he gets, which is once a 
 month. Our system is to pay on the thirteenth of every month when 
 that does not occur on Sunday. That gives us eleven days on the 
 average—two of them being Sundays—in which to make up our pay¬ 
 roll for the month. The first three or four days, and sometimes five 
 days, are taken up by departments, our factory being divided into 
 twent 3 ’-four different departments. The accountants in these several 
 departments are, the first three or four days, necessarily engaged in 
 making up the accounts of the working people in their several de¬ 
 partments. Their reports, exactly as they make them in their own 
 hand-writing, are then returned to the main office. (Producing cer¬ 
 tain pay-rolls.) These are pay-rolls for a number of months which 
 I have brought here to show the committee, to show them more par¬ 
 ticularly the method we follow, the magnitude of the account, and 
 the intricacy of it. I should be very glad to have the gentlemen 
 look at them. These are two pay-rolls ; they are taken at haphaz¬ 
 ard, without an} T selection whatever, to show two or three things. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Stratton.) Thoseworking upon machinery work by 
 the day? 
 
 A. Those working upon machinery work by the day. I should 
 
16 
 
 say that about one-quarter of all our force work by the day, and 
 three-quarters b} 7 the piece. These very sheets of which these books 
 are composed are reports from the several departments ; and they 
 are taken by our head accountants and formulated into that book. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. R. D. Smith.) As I understand, in the beginning 
 there are certain reports of machine^, and they are paid by the day. 
 
 A. One of the departments is the machine shop, and they will 
 find there several sheets of the pay-roll which relate to the machine 
 shop. The machine shop sheets are included, with all the rest of the 
 shop sheets, in the pay-roll for the month. 
 
 It takes three or four days to prepare these sheets originally in the 
 department rooms. Then they come to the main office, where thej T 
 have to be examined, checked, carried out and footed up by two 
 different hands. Then the receipts have to be prepared. That 
 work having been done the last two or three days of the previous 
 month, the time having been added up, the amount ascertained, and 
 the money drawn from the bank, about two days are consumed in 
 counting the money and putting it in envelopes ; a part of the da} T , 
 which is the thirteenth, is taken up with distributing the mone} 7 to 
 the hands. We have some good accountants out there, and they 
 can pay off our hands in two hours, the whole 2,000 or 2,100. We 
 can pay them off by a system we have adopted within the last year. 
 
 Q. How is that done? 
 
 A. We take a receipt and deliver it to each hand before pay day. 
 We send it around by the foreman. He takes it home with him, 
 signs it and brings it back, ready for the paymaster when he 
 comes around ; the paymaster comes around with his wagon, with 
 the envelopes all numbered, so that 2,000 people are paid in two 
 hours. Ninety-eight thousand dollars were thus paid this morning 
 before ten o’clock. It is a system which certain!}’ is a great im¬ 
 provement on anything I have ever heard of. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Gunn.) Do your men pass by in lines? 
 
 A. No ; they sit at their benches at work, and it don’t take but 
 a few seconds to exchange their receipts, already signed, for their en¬ 
 velopes. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. R. D. Smith.) Do you think you could pay four 
 times a month? 
 
 A. No, sir. I should regard it as physically impossible to pa} 7 
 four times a month in that room. 
 
 Q. Why? 
 
 A. We could not apply the clerks to the one duty of preparing 
 the pay-roll so as to bring it out possibly within a week. It has all 
 got to be done within a week. Of course there is nothing abso¬ 
 lutely impossible. I mean it is substantially impossible. We would 
 have to employ too many hands to do it; they would be running 
 over each other, and then the work would not be half done. To 
 
17 
 
 have it done in an orderly, decent and respectable way, it cannot be 
 done any quicker, in our opinion, and we have the best men about 
 it that I know of. It cannot be done any quicker than we are now 
 doing it. The system would not allow of our paying once a fort¬ 
 night. Now the reason why it could not be done in our shop, even 
 once a fortnight, is this: You will see, if you look over those 
 books, that a large number of people are working on piece work; 
 for the most part they are working on monthly jobs. The whole 
 system of our factory is a month taken as a unit of labor and of 
 time. We work by the month, we buy and pay by the month. The 
 work is given out originally from headquarters as a month’s duty. 
 The superintendent makes out his cards like this : There is a pro¬ 
 gramme for all the departments to follow. They have to take that 
 up, dissect it and see what their duties under it are, and proceed to 
 give out the work to the hands. They give this man a job that will 
 last a week, this one a job that will last a month, and another 
 a job that will last two weeks, just according as the stock on 
 hand may be, all off the same piece; so that there is a great 
 variety of work and a great difference in the time required for 
 different people to do their work. Some, I say, have to take 
 a whole month about it; they cannot be interrupted in their 
 work; thej 7 must go right along with it as they get it. We 
 take out blanks enough for the object in hand, which is to produce a 
 certain number of watches, or parts of them ; and they must follow 
 it up in order to do the work economically, without let or hindrance. 
 Those cards, each number that you see there, represent ten watches 
 that are all stamped. They are then started on their career in the 
 shop, the first room being the plate room. The man begins to de¬ 
 liver his goods according to that programme, strictly, to the next 
 department, which, meantime, has been engaged in making, so far 
 as it can, the pieces appropriate. They are all served with these 
 same cards, and they know what is coming. So the work goes 
 through the shop, according to this monthly system, until eventually, 
 these watches will begin to come out, just exactly as they are put in. 
 And to interfere with that s} 7 stem would reduce us to chaos ; it 
 could not be done ; we could pay once a fortnight. Practically we 
 could make up our pay-roll, but we could not reorganize our shops 
 so that it should be brought down to a system of an account once a 
 week or once a fortnight without destroying the whole administra¬ 
 tive economy that we have established after twenty-five or thirty 
 years of work. I should rather pay almost any amount of fine that 
 you might attach for the violation of any such law, than to attempt 
 to change this S3 T stem, either of work or of pay. 
 
 Q. Your objections to this are not based at all upon the fact that 
 3 r ou would have to pa 3 T the mone 3 T an 3 T oftener, but simply as a matter 
 of inconvenience and impossibility in doing y T our business, is it not? 
 
18 
 
 A. The mere matter of money is of no account. We always 
 have money in the bank to pay off the workmen as fast as it is due. 
 I don’t think there would be much trouble about that. There would 
 be a certain expense. I think it would cost §4,000 or $5,000 a year 
 to pay once a fortnight, by the addition of more accountants. But 
 I should not care anything about that. That is not the question at 
 all. Nor is it a question of enjoying the use of our operatives’ 
 money. In point of fact, that is a very small aftair, if you will con¬ 
 sider how much could be saved in that direction. A man earning 
 $50 per month, at the utmost, could not claim that he should be 
 allowed over twenty da} 7 s’ interest. That is to say, if he is to be 
 paid once a week, at the end of the first week there is nothing due 
 to him in the way of interest, there would be one week’s interest 
 due on the first at the end of the second, and so on. So that if we 
 pay him on the first day of the following month there would be 
 about ten days of real interest due him. If he be detained or de¬ 
 layed in his pay until the tenth, sav, there would be about twenty 
 da} T s’ interest, and a man earning $50 would be entitled to sixteen 
 and two-thirds cents additional interest. 
 
 Mr. Robbins. It strikes me that does not enter into this at all, 
 the use of the operatives’ money. 
 
 Q. It is a mere matter of bargain ? 
 
 A. That is it. Every man who comes into our employ, comes 
 with the understanding that he shall be paid as other people are 
 paid. I am paid once a month. I take my pay like any other work¬ 
 man. It is a matter of pride and self-respect with the workmen ; 
 they don’t want to be treated as day laborers ; they would not have 
 their money once a week. I would not want to be the man to go 
 around through that factory with a petition for weekly payments. 
 I don’t think I would be well treated. They are not paupers or 
 imbeciles ; they are well-to-do people of the Commonwealth ; the} 7 and 
 all others in this class, of which the American Watch Company is 
 one ; the class of metal workers, metallic goods makers, workers in 
 machinery, in stone, furniture, straw and leather. There are seven 
 different trades I have had the curiosity to figure on. There are 
 seven different trades whose pay will average $11.99 a week, ac¬ 
 cording to Col. Wright’s report; not that all of them are employed 
 by corporations. I have no means of getting at what proportion 
 are employed by corporations and what not; but there are 123,000 
 men—not women or young persons—in Massachusetts working at 
 these seven trades. They earn on an average, as I sa} 7 , $11.99 per 
 week. I have gone through the figures m} T self, just out of curiosity. 
 Now I say these men are in circumstances of comfort. 
 
 Q. How many are there of these operatives ? 
 
 A. One hundred and twenty-three thousand three hundred and 
 seventy-five. 
 
19 
 
 Mr. R. D. Smith. Well, 130,000 would be half of all the wage 
 laborers in the state. 
 
 Mr. Robbins. I have the list here, and I will let you take it. 
 Now I say those men have not been heard from at these hearings ; 
 not one of them, that I have heard of. You have heard from some 
 of the industries, and a most admirable statement from Mr. Dalton, 
 with every word of which the American Watch company would agree. 
 But you have not heard from the men who are the native born 
 Yankee workmen of Massachusetts. Mr. Dalton and those compan¬ 
 ies which he represents, employ, I believe it is well known—I want 
 to speak with the highest respect of all working people—Mr. Dalton 
 employs Canadian Frenchmen and foreigners generally, in the main 
 body of his mills. But these people I am speaking for, those Wal¬ 
 tham people and those I suppose to be in sympathy with them 
 throughout the state, are the native born of Massachusetts, the in¬ 
 genious Yankees. The} 7 are the people who have made mostly the 
 reputation of this State in the mechanical arts. The} 7 are the men 
 who fill the churches, who fill the schools, who support local trade 
 and all local traditions. They don’t want any such legislation as 
 • this, I am certain. They can take care of themselves. They can 
 make their own bargains. They ought to make their own bargains. 
 Why shouldn’t they ? They make something to sell that we have 
 got to have. We can do nothing without them. And I say we meet 
 on perfectly equal terms when we come to make a bargain in regard 
 to their work in the shop. I have as often to yield to working 
 people as they do to me, in any bargain. Now I say it is a work 
 of supererogation to provide that they shall have their pay once a 
 month, once a fortnight or once a week; I think they may be 
 trusted to take care of themselves. They know enough : they know 
 more than most of us. 
 
 Mr. R. D. Smith. Except the committee. 
 
 Mr. Robbins. Well, except the committee. 
 
 Mr. Russell. Perhaps you had better except the people that 
 sent us here. 
 
 Mr. Robbins. They are the respected and respectable people of 
 this Commonwealth, and I say they don’t want any such pauper 
 treatment as is proposed by this legislation, and don’t need it. They 
 have got money in the savings banks. I will be bound to say there 
 is not ten per cent, of the people employed in our works at Waltham 
 who have not got their money laid by, and who could not just as well 
 do without their pay for six months as I could. Now, I want to 
 say to you further that there is no suffering amongst our people, any 
 more than there is among Mr. Dalton’s people, for the want of 
 money. (Producing a blank form.) There is a form upon which 
 any man who needs money can dra\y it without leaving his seat, any 
 time during the lponth. 
 
20 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Smith, of West Newbury.) No questions asked? 
 
 A. No questions asked except whether he needs it. Of course 
 it is not open for any man to come and get just as much money as 
 he wants on no pretence or on any pretence whatever, but if he 
 shows his foreman that he is in need of money for anything like sick¬ 
 ness or distress, all he has to do is to tell his foreman as he comes 
 along that he wants to draw five or ten dollars ; the foreman makes 
 out that piece of paper, he signs it, and the mone}' is brought back 
 and delivered to him at his bench. Now I want to show you how 
 much that is availed of in our shop, in order to show you that they 
 don’t need their money. You will see on those pay-rolls there a 
 column “paid on account.” Now that column includes, first, the 
 charge of rent, which is in red ink, to those people who hire of us 
 their houses ; next, payments to those who are paid in full by reason 
 of their leaving during the month ; third, it includes those who have 
 drawn money on account. You will see that in the month of June, 
 if you were to take pains to figure it out, that there were only $302 
 drawn in that month ; which is less than three-eighths of one per 
 cent, of the pa} T -roll. In the month oftOctober there were $631 
 drawn by thirty-one people, which is less than one-half of one per 
 cent, of the pay-roll. And that with perfect freedom of asking for 
 all the money they want on any reasonable occasion. I don’t know 
 that I have anything further to say. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Stratton.) Can you give any reason why they 
 should not ask for more money in the month of June? 
 
 A. No, sir. 
 
 Q. Don’t you have a vacation about July ? 
 
 A. No, sir ; not oftener than trade ordains. 
 
 Q. Do you have any part of the year for vacation? 
 
 A. Not a day, if we can help it. 
 
 Q. I thought you gave the employes two weeks every }^ear? 
 
 A. We don’t unless we are obliged to. 
 
 q. (By Mr. R. D. Smith.) From want of work? 
 
 A. Want of work. If trade is bad we give them, as we did this 
 year, thirty days at a time. The year before we gave them four¬ 
 teen days ; the year before that we would not give them one, not 
 one in the whole } T ear. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Bennett.) Do you do your work upon the piece 
 system ? 
 
 A. About three-quarters of it, as you will see by the pay-rolls. 
 
 Q. How many parts are there to the parts that you give out? 
 
 A. Average about 140 ; and the number of processes or opera¬ 
 tions which these pieces pass through is 3,740. 
 
 Q. Do you carry 140 parts through your books? 
 
 A. Yes, sir; more than that, a good deal; because all watches 
 are not alike. One hundred and forty parts would be about the 
 
21 
 
 number that some watches would take, but these parts would not 
 necessarily be the same, exactly, as go into other watches, because 
 we make about forty different varieties of watches. 
 
 Q. What I want to get at, is, the number of parts you carry 
 through your books, so as to get some idea of the amount of labor 
 you have in making up your paj’-roll. You say you carry through 
 about 140, and that is the average perhaps. 
 
 A. That is the average of all the watches,but I sa} r there are forty 
 different sorts of watches, some of which would take just the [same 
 parts in just the wa} T they are ordinarily made. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Bennett.) Here is a man who takes out a certain 
 part. Perhaps he may go through one, two or three performances 
 upon that one aiticle, but still it goes out as one. Is there any such 
 thing as that ? 
 
 A. Well, yes. We have, for example, pinions. The}’ are in the 
 first place cut off from wire. Then they are given to girls, mostly, to 
 begin the turnings upon them. They ordinarily have to turn about 
 nine different turnings, which they do by a diagram. 
 
 Q. Does the same girl do that? 
 
 A. Yes. 
 
 Q. There are nine turnings, but it don’t necessarily go through 
 the hands of nine girls ? 
 
 A. One girl will do those nine turnings, and those are one- 
 ninth of the piece. It would then go to those who cut the leaves b}^ 
 machinery. From there it would go to those who do some turning 
 bv hand ; a little guttering has to be made to prevent the oil from 
 running. Then it has got to go to the polisher. All different parts 
 of the same piece. So that a pinion, probably, before it is finished 
 as a pinion, before it is attached to a wheel, will have gone through 
 a dozen or fifteen different hands—that same pinion. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Russell.) I understood you to say you could not 
 stop at any other time except a month to make up the pay-roll, or 
 the account of any man’s work ? 
 
 A. It is frequently so. 
 
 Q. (Referring to the pay-roll.) I want to know if you cannot 
 stop this piece work any minute }’ou go in there and ascertain just 
 where that man stands in regard to his work ? 
 
 A. No, it would not be practicable to do that. 
 
 Q. Not practicable, perhaps, but can’t you do it? 
 
 A. I can shut up the shop if you like. 
 
 Q. Can’t you get to any man’s overseer and find out just how 
 that man stands ? 
 
 A. No, sir; not any time during the month. We will suppose 
 a man has taken a monthly job. 
 
 Q. Suppose he has taken a weekly job? 
 
 A. He would take it at a higher price. It could be sub-divided, 
 
22 
 
 but the man would charge a higher price for doing it. It must be 
 so or else we must get a less amount of work. I want to say that 
 the man who takes his monthly job has got a great variety of 
 work to do on the pieces he has taken. He goes along on them 
 as fast as he can. B}’ the time he gets some of his pieces on 
 one stage, others will be at another stage, and he intends to bring 
 it all out at the end of the month as finished work. Theil he can 
 count up all the different operations that he has gone through and 
 make his return properly. But I don’t think it would be practical 
 or possible to break in upon his work, done only in a small propor¬ 
 tion, it may be in some cases, and a larger proportion, in another, 
 and find out just what is due to him. The calculation never has 
 been made in our shop that I know of. A man has taken 35,000 
 pieces ; he may have arrived at the 34,000th piece, but he won’t 
 know that he has arrived there. He keeps along. So with all the 
 rest of his pieces Other people in his employ will have got hold of 
 some other piece of work. They are all pushing it along so that at 
 the end of the month it shall be brought out as finished. 
 
 Q. It seems that in these accounts 100 is the unit of amount and 
 that the price is so many cents. Therefore, at any time you can 
 find out what is due to the men ? 
 
 A. There is no difficult}" in figuring out the amount; it is the 
 work that we cannot figure. 
 
 Q. Will you explain the fact that individual firms usually pay 
 weekly, if you think that weekly payments will drive business out 
 of the State ? 
 
 A. I can suppose that people located here in Massachusetts, if 
 they had an opening for an enterprise, would not be deterred by the 
 difference in the cost of paying weekl}" or monthly ; they are not 
 going to pull up stakes and go to some other State. 
 
 Q. I don’t think you understand it. We have no law here now, 
 yet a great many individual firms are paying their men weekly as a 
 matter of polic}’. 
 
 A. It may be convenient for some people to do it. If we were a 
 small concern and our work was not complicated in this way, I 
 should not have any objections to paying weekly, not at all; that is, 
 if our work people wanted it. It is on account of the practical dif¬ 
 ficulties in our case and in the case of all large corporations making 
 complicated work, that I object to it. 
 
 Q. I wish to ask you in regard to those seven trades }"ou have 
 named—do you know of any corporation engaged in those trades? 
 
 A. Yes, a good many. 
 
 Q. Will you name them? 
 
 A. Well, tlie Oliver Ames Plow company for one; and the 
 Washburn & Moen company of Worcester for another, 
 
 (^. Untjer wbat heading have you got them ? 
 
23 
 
 A. They are both metallic goods. They are corporations. 
 
 Q. Please name any others. Please name as far as the data 
 you have got there, and give us your opinion about corporations 
 working at those trades. You have given us two instances. 
 
 A. I have drawn those figures from Col. Wright’s report. 
 
 Q. Several of these have come up before the committee before 
 and it has been stated that the 3 r were not generally corporations, 
 and that they didn’t paj r but seven, eight or nine dollars per week 
 for adult male labor. 
 
 A. Well. I have no means of separating those incorporated from 
 those not incorporated. I naturally infer .that the larger proportion 
 of this is distinguished from boots and shoes, which I have not 
 included here; and from clothing, which I have not included, and 
 which is a very large item. 
 
 Q. I beg your pardon. Is the detail of }’Our work reported to 
 your office before the end of the month? 
 
 A. No, sir; not to the main office. It is kept track of by the 
 subordinate officers all the time. 
 
 Q. It is reported b}^ the overseers to the subordinate officers ? 
 
 A. Yes, sir. 
 
 Q. How often? 
 
 A. When a man has finished his work, or when he has got a job 
 so far along that he $ees he can report it, he reports it. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. R. D. Smith.) It is inspected, I suppose? 
 
 A. It is all inspected. 
 
TESTIMONY OE WILLIAM P. ANDERSON. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. R. D. Smith.) Mr. Anderson, you are paymaster 
 of the Pacific Mills? 
 
 A. I am. 
 
 Q. How many are employed at the Pacific? 
 
 A. There are at present on the books something over 5,300. 
 
 Q. Plow often do you pay? 
 
 A. Once a month. 
 
 Q. I wish to ask you in the first place whether it would be very 
 difficult for you to pay weekly ? 
 
 A. Practically it would be impossible. 
 
 Q. Will you tell why, to the committee? 
 
 A. Because of the labor and because of the risk. I have brought 
 with me to-day the papers which I used in making up a single pay¬ 
 roll. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. R. D. Smith.) What kind of manufacture is this? 
 
 A. Cotton and worsted. The pay-roll has upon it the name of 
 the operative, the number of the room in which he works—we don’t 
 number from one up to 5,000, but we number them by rooms for 
 convenience, and for keeping the numbers as small as possible—the 
 number of hours worked by the operative, the amount of work done 
 by the operative, with the price for piece work and for work done 
 by the hour, the gross amount due to the operative, the deduction 
 due for rent, if they are in our tenements, and the net amount due 
 each operative. 
 
 Q. That is all shown on the book before Mr. Russell, is it? 
 
 A. It is all shown on one book before one of the gentlemen of 
 the committee. In paying, a time bill is given to each operative, and 
 I have brought the time bills here, of which this is a sample. There 
 are seven boxes. Each operative is given a time bill upon which is 
 written the name, the number on the pa}’-roll, the number of the 
 operative, the hours worked, the piece work done, with the price for 
 each piece, and that is signed by the operative. I have brought 
 here these seven boxes containing the receipts for one pay-roll. The 
 boxes are all classified and they are all full. The seven boxes con¬ 
 tain over 5,000 receipts. These time bills are made up before the 
 pay-roll is paid. They are looked over by the operatives, are signed 
 by the operatives, and then are handed to me, as I go from room to 
 room. In exchange for these receipts I give each operative an en¬ 
 velope containing the money due them ; each operative has an oppor- 
 
26 
 
 tunity for seeing whether the work for which he or she is to be paid 
 is correctly stated, and whether the}" are to receive the amount 
 which is properly due them. These seven boxes contain simply the 
 receipts for one pay-roll, and they will be the same under a weekly 
 or fortnightly system of pay as they are under the monthly system 
 of paying. In connection with making up the pay-roll you will see 
 by looking over the boxes that there are more or less yellow bills. A 
 yellow bill denotes that the operative is through working and re¬ 
 ceives his pay at the time of leaving; and that necessitates a list 
 being kept of all these operatives who receive their pay before the 
 time books are received and the pay-roll is made up. Those are 
 kept in this book. (Another book). And I was surprised,on talk¬ 
 ing with some gentleman, not of this committee, but of a previous 
 committee, at the misconception that was in his mind as to the num¬ 
 ber of operatives leaving in the ordinary course of business, from 
 time to time. This book contains the daily payments of those who 
 leave immediately prior to the time of payment. Here is a month ; 
 —I take it without knowing anything about it—in that month there 
 were about 350 who had left before the time of payment. If the 
 gentlemen would like to see this book, it contains simply the daily 
 record of those who are paid before the regular time of payment. 
 You will notice in the margin of the pay-roll dates against some of 
 the names. Those represent those that were paid before the time of 
 leaving. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. R. D. Smith.) You mean that they were paid be¬ 
 fore they left? 
 
 A. Yes; before the time of paying the roll. I have brought 
 with me this pile of books which represents the books which we 
 have to go through with each month in making up the time and the 
 amount of those employed simply in the print works. This con¬ 
 tains the daily time and work of each, and has to be figured up and 
 carried into the pay-roll. In the print works the work is all paid by 
 the day ; there is no piece work. These books contain the record of 
 each man’s time, each day, which has to be footed up and carried 
 into the pay-roll. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Smith of West Newbury.) About how man} 7 are 
 employed in this department? 
 
 A. I think there are in the vicinity of 800. I take the mill as a 
 whole, and I don’t always classify the different sections, because it 
 is not paid in that way. These papers here represent the books and 
 the papers which are required each month. These sheets which I hold 
 in my hand contain the daily record of the product of each loom in 
 the cotton mill; these sheets are hung up in the room and the oper¬ 
 atives have access to them each da} 7 to compare the cloth taken off 
 the loom with the amount recorded upon these sheets, which are 
 called cut-sheets. They are the record of the pieces taken off, or 
 woven, in each loom. 
 
27 
 
 Mr. R. D. Smith. I would like to have you show these sheets 
 to the gentlemen of the committee. 
 
 Mr. Anderson. I have enough, almost, to give each one a 
 sheet. Those sheets do not show the amount of work by any means, 
 because they simply contain the number of pieces taken off of each 
 loom. There is nothinf by which you would designate that the cloth 
 taken off was not all the same as regards character, quality and 
 price. That is marked here in a wa}^ that is known to the overseer 
 or to the one who has the matter in charge. On turning over the 
 first sheet 3 ’ou will fiud a summary—on the back of the first sheet— 
 which has to be drawn off each week, showing the classification of 
 the work that it may be put on to the pay-roll as regards the price to 
 be paid for doing the work. 
 
 Q. ( By Mr. Bennett.) The work you refer to here is piece work ? 
 
 A. That is piece work in the weave room. Now as regards the 
 carding room or roping room, the work is somewhat the same, where 
 the work is done b}^ the piece. Also as regards the spooling and 
 warping of the 3 r arn. That is, to a large extent, done b} T the piece, 
 and that has to be kept somewhat in the same way. The spinning 
 of the yarn is also the same so far as the mule spinning is con¬ 
 cerned. We can give you an} T amount of details so far as the work 
 is concerned. This is, simply as regards the cotton mill. Now I 
 have got something more that may interest you. So far I have only 
 spoken of the cotton mill, the print works, and the simpler portion 
 of the mill. I come now to something which has still more detail to 
 it, and that is, our worsted department, which comprises not only the 
 manufacturing but the dyeing and finishing. It is equal in detail 
 to both of the other departments of which I have spoken, and I have 
 here simply the monthly papers required in making up the monthly 
 pay-roll. 
 
 Q. (B}’ Mr. Smith of West Newburj'.) Do these columns here 
 represent the week’s work ? 
 
 A. No, sir, each column represents a day and the total of that 
 represents a week. You must remember that these numbers here 
 represent the looms and that the operative will run all the way from 
 4 to 6 or 7 or perhaps 8 looms in the cotton department on plain 
 work. Where it is engine work or jacquard work, of course they 
 can’t run as man} T . 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Stratton.) Do }*ou say that is a summary of the 
 week’s work? 
 
 A. This is a summary of the week’s work, if you would like to 
 see it. (Another book.) This book which I hold in my hand repre¬ 
 sents the time book of the repair shop. It is simply a monthly 
 book, and represents the time of the mechanics, carpenters, ma¬ 
 chinists and laborers that work. (Another book.) This package 
 of books represents the time of each section in one spinning room. 
 
28 
 
 There are in the vicinity of 400 in that room, and these books each 
 represent the time of each section. This little package of books 
 (another package) represents the time of the work done in the wool 
 sorting room. These figures here show the amount of wool 
 sorted by each of the different hands ; there are, however, different 
 prices for each of the different classes or qualities of wool. This 
 little package of books (another package) represents the time of the 
 dyeing department in the worsted mill. This is all hour work or 
 day work. This is the packing room, which is all da}^ work, and 
 this is the wool combing and drawing room, and represents the time ; 
 that being done by time or by the machine which is its equivalent. 
 This little package (another package) represents the work in the 
 dressing room, which comprises the warping and spooling ; and this, 
 being part time and part piece work, is recorded in this large book. 
 The large book is not all for one month, but has to be used for each 
 month. This book (another book) represents the spinning room, 
 in what we term the little cotton mill, which is down in the worsted 
 department, and makes the yarn to go into the worsted cloth. These 
 two books (two other books) represent the carding in the little cot¬ 
 ton mill similar to this spinning room. It cards the cotton for this 
 spinning room. And this being part time and part piece work ne¬ 
 cessitates the overhauling of these books. Now I have come to a 
 small package here which comprises the labor of simply the weav¬ 
 ing in the worsted department for one month, similar in character to 
 those papers which you have before you, but comprising very much 
 more detail, as the prices are very numerous, as you will see. If 
 one of these gentlemen will turn to the latter part of that pay-roll— 
 I might turn to it for you, being more familiar than you are, I can 
 show you at a glance what I mean—this being the name of the op¬ 
 erative, with the number against it on the left hand side of the page, 
 you will notice the hours which are put here, which comprises the 
 hours of work for each week ; and in connection here on the line 
 corresponding to the name of each operative, is the amount of cloth 
 woven by that operative during that month, put under the price 
 which is paid. There are 22 prices on that page. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Bennett.) Let me ask } r ou one question. Is it first 
 divided into weeks ? 
 
 A. We first start with the da} T s, sir. 
 
 Q. Then it is compiled and made up into weeks? 
 
 A. Yes. 
 
 Q. Then from that you carry it out into months ? 
 
 A. Yes. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Russell.) Now, you speak of the number of prices. 
 Each individual does not do work at so many prices? 
 
 Mr. Bennett. There are not over five for any one operative. 
 
 A. They will get sometimes 8, 9 or 10. 
 
29 
 
 Q. From one to ten? 
 
 A. Yes, sir. I judge a majority will run from one to five. 
 
 Q. An average of four or five? 
 
 A. An average of four or five prices, yes, sir ; and that is likely 
 to occur each week. I will open these sheets if you would like to 
 see them. They are similar in character to what you have there ; 
 only it is quantity. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Bennett.) If I understand, you employ 5,200 hands. 
 
 A. Yes, sir, a good deal over 5,000 right along. 
 
 Q. An average of 5,000? 
 
 A. It would be more than 5,000 on each pay-roll. I don’t 
 know of a pay-roll that has run under 5,000 and I have known them 
 where the}’ have run up to 5,000 or 5,700 ; perhaps 5,000 or 5,300 
 would be an average. 
 
 Q. How long does it take to make up your monthly pay-roll? I 
 mean how many days? 
 
 A. We seldom get these books out of the mill till the last of the 
 week. 
 
 Q, Each week? 
 
 A. No, at the end of the pay time. We should not expect to 
 get these until—perhaps we might get one Thursday afternoon, but 
 Friday or Saturday we should expect them. Sometimes we haven’t 
 got them until the week following. There is so much detail work 
 upon it, and care is necessary to avoid mistakes, that it requires a 
 good deal of time, and it is work which, with our rooms being so 
 large, cannot be spread over a great number of people. 
 
 Q. Now, how much time do you consume in making up the pay¬ 
 roll? How many days? 
 
 A. We seldom get the pay-roll finished until Tuesday or Wednes¬ 
 day of the second week ; that is eight or ten days. 
 
 Q. Commencing when? 
 
 A. Saturday. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Gunn.) For the previous month? 
 
 A. Yes, sir, for the previous month. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Bennett.) How many men do you employ to make 
 it up? 
 
 A. That is a question that 'is very difficult to answer, because 
 these books up to a certain point are made up in the mill, each room 
 making up its own books. 
 
 Q. They are being made up each day? 
 
 A. Each week. 
 
 Q. Each day, are they not? 
 
 A. Well, the work is being done. 
 
 Q. And it is largely made up at the end of the week? 
 
 A. So far as the gross amount of work done is concerned, it is 
 footed up each week, so that we know how much has been produced 
 in that room. 
 
30 
 
 Q. And it is also classified? 
 
 A. It is classified also. 
 
 Q. Here is a sheet here with 180 looms ; at the end of the week 
 3 ’ou know just what has been done. 
 
 A. We know so far as the whole room is concerned. 
 
 Q. It is really made up once a week? 
 
 A. Yes, sir. 
 
 Q. At the end of the month you put the four weeks together? 
 
 A. Yes, sir, four or five. 
 
 Q. Really, you first get it into weeks, anyhow ? 
 
 A. Certainly, certainly ; but let me state right here, in order that 
 you may understand it, the aggregate amount of work done each 
 week is made up ; at the end of the month lhat work has to be di¬ 
 vided as to the prices to be paid for that work, and that is different 
 from simple totals. 
 
 Q. Well, substantially the same? 
 
 A. No, sir, not substantially the same, because it is very differ¬ 
 ent. If the weaver has got off during the month 100 pieces the ag¬ 
 gregate is 100 pieces; if the weaver is to be paid five or six or seven 
 prices, that work has to be gone through and classified as to the 
 character of the work done, and the price to be paid for doing it, 
 which multiplies the work. 
 
 Mr. Bennett. • Certainly. 
 
 Mr. Anderson. And that would be the same in a weekly sj’stem 
 of pa^ ment as in a monthly system ? 
 
 Q. (By Mr. R. D. Smith.) It would be as much work? 
 
 A. No, sir ; it is not so much work because it would not be so 
 many kinds, but the same formula of work would have to be gone 
 through week b} r week as is now gone through month b} r month, with 
 the simple exception of adding the different weeks together, that 
 would be all. 
 
 Q. Well, Mr. Senator Bennett was asking you how much time 
 it took, and you said that so far as the work of making up the ac¬ 
 counts of the work was concerned, it would be very'difficult for } r ou 
 to estimate. I wish to follow the inquiry of Mr. Bennett, and ask 
 what force of clerks you employ"? 
 
 A. From the time the pay-roll is closed, that is, from the time 
 that we call “Pay is up,” there are two and sometimes three at work 
 on it until it is completed. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Bennett.) Now, give us in days’ w T ork, as near as 
 you can, the amount of time; I would like to get at the amount of 
 time. 
 
 A. You mean so far as my office is concerned ? 
 
 Q. The entire labor. 
 
 A. Well, that is what I told you. It is very difficult to estimate 
 the amount of time that goes into the making up of a pay-roll. 
 
31 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Stratton.) Do you keep a clerk specially in each 
 room ? 
 
 A. No, not specially ; in some rooms the overseers make up the 
 time, and in one department there is a clerk who has the carding, 
 spinning and dressing, which comprises five rooms. So far as the 
 weaving room is concerned, there is a clerk for each room And 
 from the weaving room, as I told you, these books do not get around 
 to us for nearly a week after the pay time is up. The time books 
 have simply the time each day, and these are carried into my office 
 and carried on to the pay-roll, and everything is done there. Where it 
 is piece work it is simply done in the room, and we simply get the 
 results which we have to figure up in the office ; so that it is diffi¬ 
 cult for me to tell how much time is taken up, because the overseers 
 and clerks, so far as there are an} T clerks, work many times late into 
 the night in order to get the sheets out to us ; and then when they 
 get into the office they have to be gone all over and examined, and 
 the detail of the office attended to so far as discharges have been 
 made or operatives have left and have been paid. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Stratton.) Well, your overseers keep an account 
 every day of the operatives and of the work they do ? 
 
 A. Oh, yes, indeed. 
 
 Q. Do they return that once a month, or once a week, or every 
 day? 
 
 A. They give that once a month. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Russell.) Well, the majority of your work is day 
 work or hour work, as near as I can judge by looking over these 
 bills. Three-quarters of it is hour work? 
 
 A. No, sir ; I should think fully one-half of the work was piece 
 work. You will see the piece work on the left hand ; it does not 
 show upon the right. 
 
 Q. If it is made out a certain price per hour, that would indicate 
 that it was hour work ? 
 
 A. Not necessarily, because an operative may work part by the 
 hour and part b} 7 the piece. 1 should think fully one-half was upon 
 piece work. Running over the pages would not assist you in de¬ 
 termining ; it might mislead you. I speak from practical experience 
 in that matter ; it is not a matter of guess work. 
 
 Mr. Russell. Well, a book is pretty practical evidence. 
 
 Q. (By the chairman.) There seems to be a great deal of work 
 in making up the pay-roll. I suppose you have made some effort to 
 simplify it? 
 
 A. Yes, sir ; we have made a good deal of effort to simplify it, 
 and I can assure you that we do no work for the sake of doing 
 work; there is plenty of work to be done without multiplying it. 
 The great matter is all the time to see how the work can be sim¬ 
 plified and at the same time correctly kept. The matter of correct- 
 
32 
 
 ness has as much to do with it as the matter of simple manual labor. 
 It is hardly a question of a little extra work—that does not signify 
 so much as the matter of correctness. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Stratton.) You pay your operatives by the month? 
 
 A. We pay them every month ; yes, sir. 
 
 Q. What do I understand you to mean by a month; I want you 
 to define what you constitute a month ? 
 
 A. I say we pay them ever}’month. Our month ends the last 
 Saturday of each month. We pay them twelve times a year. 
 
 Q. I notice here Sarah Young, 300 hours, 128 pieces at 36 cents 
 a piece. The number of hours, 1 presume, you keep for some rea¬ 
 son of your own ; now, if you pay by the month I only wanted to 
 know how you got in 300 working hours in a month for that lady. 
 
 A. That happens to be five weeks. You cannot pay twelve 
 times a year and pay every four weesk. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Smith of West Newbury.) How many hours do you 
 reckon for a month ? 
 
 A. Four weeks is 240 hours, and 5 weeks is 300 hours. 
 
 Q* And this was for five weeks ? 
 
 A. That was for five weeks. 
 
 Q. There is one for 282 hours, and there are several for 300 
 hours ; that means a little more than a month, I suppose ? 
 
 A. That is what I say ; there will be four times in a year when 
 they will be paid for five weeks ; you cannot avoid that in paying 
 monthly. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Russell.) You do that because it is easier to get at 
 a weekly account? 
 
 A. It fixes the time and makes the month come regularly ; the 
 operatives all understand it, and the time is not changeable as it 
 would be if we paid every four weeks. 
 
 Q. Excuse me, but isn’t that paying by the week? Your sys¬ 
 tem is a weekly not a monthly system ? 
 
 A. No, it is a monthly system ; we pay every month. 
 
 Q. No, it is only once in a great many months that you pay to 
 the end of the month. 
 
 A. If the last Saturday of a month happens to be the 30th or the 
 31st, then we pay to the end of the month. 
 
 Mr. Russell. That is very seldom. 
 
 Mr. Stratton. He says he pays once a month, and then he says 
 he pays for five weeks in a month; that is not a month, is it? 
 
 Mr. R. D. Smith. Yes, it is ; in the month of March. 
 
 Mr. Stratton. They figure their books by the week, and make 
 their payments once in four weeks or five weeks ; that is all the point 
 I wanted to make. 
 
 Mr. Anderson. We pay 12 times a year, and so far as time is 
 concerned, it ends the last Saturday in the month? 
 
33 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Russell.) You call that your month? 
 
 A. It is not the calendar month. 
 
 Mr. Rdssell. There is no need of any misunderstanding. It is 
 a question of four or five weekly payments with you. 
 
 Q. Mr. Stratton.) Is it a question of monthly payments, 
 
 or is it a question of weekly payments? 
 
 Mr. Russell. That is what I asked. 
 
 A. You can have it to suit yourselves as fir as that is concerned. 
 It is simply a matter of words ; I say we pa} T once a month, or 12 
 times a year, and the month ends, as a matter of convenience, on 
 even weeks, the last Saturday of the month. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Smith of West Newbury.) This system of accounts 
 is founded on a weekly account, isn’t it? 
 
 A. No, sir. 
 
 Q. (B}' Mr. Russell.) You say “the” month. Will you tell me 
 what month it is that has five weeks in it? 
 
 A. It is the month where from the last Saturday of the previous 
 month to the last Saturday of the present month ther e will be five 
 Saturdays. 
 
 Q. Then you establish another month, which is composed of 
 parts of two months, do you not? 
 
 A. I don’t exactly understand the meaning of } T our question. 
 
 Q. You establish a month which is composed of two calendar 
 months, do you not? 
 
 A. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it is not. I tell you that our 
 month ends the last Saturda} 7 '. 
 
 Mr. Russell. If you call it “our month” that is all right. 
 
 Mr. Anderson. Well, the mill month as is usual in all mills— 
 you could call it Wednesday or an\ T other day, but for convenience 
 of reckoning Saturday is taken, and the last Saturday of the month 
 ends the month so far as reckoning is concerned. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Russell.) Now, through all this part of the book, 
 apparently more than half, I find very little, if any, piece work. 
 
 A. Well, it is there. 
 
 Q. Now, the day work is carried out so mail}” hours at 7J, 8, 10, 
 14 cents an hour. 
 
 A. Yes, sir. 
 
 Q. Now, in your judgment, is that the simplest form of work in 
 accounting that 3 T ou can make out? 
 
 A. Well, is that a fair question? I am perfectly willing to an¬ 
 swer any question, but that is a matter of opinion entirely. 
 
 Q. 1 wish to get at your opinion as an expert. It is just what 
 we are sitting here for. 
 
 A. Yes, sir ; I should say, most decided^, that it is. Our time 
 is kept by the hour, and it is as good a system as could be. 
 
 Q. Then, passing from that to the piece work, I find here—there 
 is not so much as I thought there was— 
 
34 
 
 A. Well, it is there. 
 
 Q. Here is 21 at 24 cents, and 26 at 24 cents, and it is carried 
 out as a month’s work ; now, that is not very intricate work. 
 
 A. No, it is not. 
 
 Q. A good bookkeeper could make pretty rapid work at that? 
 
 A. Yes, sir. 
 
 Q. Now, another point; this book, at the end of the month, goes 
 into the different rooms to be made up ? 
 
 A. No, sir; it comes out. 
 
 Q. This book ; not the amount? 
 
 A. Not entirely ; some part of it is done in my office. 
 
 Q. A gentleman told me that this book was made out in a differ¬ 
 ent room and never w T ent into the office. I didn’t know how it was 
 made, but he kindly came round and told me that this book went out 
 into the different rooms to be made up. 
 
 A. Part of that book is made up in the rooms, and part of it is 
 made up in my office ; after the sheets come into my office they don’t 
 go back into the mill again. 
 
 Q. Whj" I asked the question is this : You say it takes several 
 days to get returns from the different rooms ; now, 1 thought if this 
 book had to go into a certain room and remain there until the work 
 was carried on to the books, and was then passed from that room 
 to another and remained there, that accounted for the long time re¬ 
 quired in making up the pay-roll. 
 
 A. That would cause delaj' and trouble, but nothing of that sort 
 is done. This book is simply bound after the pay-roll is finished. 
 It is all in sheets. This first part of the pay-roll is all in one hand¬ 
 writing, and that is done in my office. 
 
 Q. (By the Chairman.) From the time the books are received 
 from the mill, how long a time and how many clerks are employed 
 in making up the pay-roll ? 
 
 A. From two to three are employed a little over a week. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. O’Sullivan.) After it leaves the room? 
 
 A. After it leaves the room. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Bennett.) In other words, it takes about 18 days’ 
 time ? 
 
 A. Yes, sir. 
 
 Q. That is the outside ? 
 
 A. Yes, sir. 
 
 Q. From 15 to 18 days is consumed by making up your pay-roll? 
 Now provided you made up this pay-roll once a week, how much 
 time would it require to make up the pay-roll ? 
 
 A. So far as the time is concerned, it would not require quite as 
 much. It would not require quite as much time to makeup the pay¬ 
 roll each week as it requires to make it up each month. 
 
 Q. You mean four times as much? 
 
35 
 
 A. Let me be understood. To make up the pay-roll in one week 
 for one week, would not require as much work as it does to make up 
 the pay-roll for the entire month. 
 
 Q. Proportionately? 
 
 A. No, sir. It would not require as much work; it would be 
 less work. 
 
 Q. Well, how much less? 
 
 A. Well, I should say from a half to two-thirds. 
 
 Mr. Anderson. Mr. Bennett, that you may understand what I 
 mean, I am taking one week, and I am taking one month on our 
 pay-roll. I am not taking four times a month, but simply one week 
 and the time it would take to make up the pay-roll; one week as 
 compared with the labor required for making up one pay-roll as now, 
 a mouth ; and I say that for making up one pay-roll at the end of 
 the week, simply making up the pay-roll, would require, in my opin¬ 
 ion, from one-half to two-thirds as much labor as is required now 
 for making up the pay-roll at the end of the month. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Bennett.) It don’t seem to me possible when this 
 is all sent in practically to your office. 
 
 A. No, this don’t come into the office; these are kept in 
 the weave rooms. 
 
 Q. Well, the}’ might as well be ; they are made up weekly. 
 
 A. Mr. Bennett, please understand—and I thought I was under¬ 
 stood—the numbers there represent simply the number of the loom, 
 —each loom. This is the product of each loom. Now, a person 
 working in a room may work two, three, four, five, six, or more, 
 looms, and there is nothing on that sheet which shows who is run¬ 
 ning that loom ; it is simply the loom product; in order to get at the 
 amount of work done by the individual, the overseer must take that 
 sheet and draw it off against the individual’s name, and give the in¬ 
 dividual the total amount of work for the total number of looms the 
 individual is running. 
 
 Q. Then your idea is that if it takes from 15 to 18 days’ time 
 to make up your pay-roll monthly, if it were made up weekly it 
 would take about twice as many days ? 
 
 A. Well, two or three times as many. 
 
 Mr. R. D. Smith. Twice or twice and a half as many. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Bennett.) Which would be from 30 to 36 days? 
 
 A. Yes, sir, that would be it. 
 
 Q. And It would cost that amount of money more for your large 
 corporation ? 
 
 A. Yes, sir ; simply the making up of the pay-roll. Of course 
 the next thing would be the handling of the money. 
 
 Q. That could not be very considerable. 
 
 Mr. R. D. Smith. How long does it take you to pay off? 
 
 Mr. Anperson. Before I went to the Pacific mill I was an exam- 
 
36 
 
 iner of mills, going from one mill to another, and I thought I knew 
 something about them, from going into them year after year, but I 
 found that there was a good deal more than I had any idea about. 
 
 Q. Now, just how many men do you employ in paying off? 
 
 A. In just handling the money ? I pay every operative employed 
 by the Pacific mills. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Bennett.) How much time do you consume in pay- 
 ing off? 
 
 A. Well, sir, in actual time in paying off it takes from eight to 
 nine hours. 
 
 Q. Then, if you paid off four times a month, it would take you— 
 
 A. Eight or nine hours every single time and more ; I say more, 
 and I speak from experience. 
 
 Q. About forty hours’ time, if you paid weekly 7 ? 
 
 A. Well, that is hardly fair; I said I did it in 8 or 9 hours. 
 
 Q. I am giving you from one to two hours extra each week. 
 
 A. Yes, sir, but I say more ; I can pay very rapidly at the first 
 of the pay, but during the last of it I can’t pay so fast. The money 
 is put up in the office in these envelopes, which I have brought here 
 and would like to show to y'ou. I told the clerk to copy just one 
 page of the pay-roll, and here are the envelopes that we put the 
 money up in. I take these envelopes in trunks into the mill with the 
 money due to the operatives. The operative hands me a pay bill, 
 such as I showed you here, and in exchange for it he gets the en¬ 
 velope having the money due him. 
 
 Q. Now, if I understand y 7 ou, if you were to pay 7 off once a 
 week in place of once a month, it would cost y T our factory 7 or corpo¬ 
 ration 18 days at the outside in making up the pay-roll, and three 
 days’ time in prying off; so that 21 days’ labor would be the extreme 
 figure. I am only taking your own system. 
 
 A. Well, the money has to be put up in the envelopes, and it 
 takes a good deal of time. 
 
 Q. Well, you didn’t include that part? 
 
 A. No, sir. In handling the money it is three good, solid, tire¬ 
 some days’ work to count that money and put it into the envelopes, 
 for one man to count it, and another to verify it. 
 
 Q. That would add nine day's more? 
 
 A. Yes, sir, twelve ; it would take three days to put the money 
 up, and it takes eight or nine hours to pay it out. 
 
 Q. Well, then, call it twelve ; that would be 33 days? 
 
 A. Twelve and 3 are fifteen; 3 days to count it out, and eight or 
 nine hours to pay it out, and there is not any man that can follow 
 that weekly. 
 
 Q. Do you know whether it is any more fatiguing than for a man 
 to handle money 7 at a railroad station ? 
 
 A. Yes, sir ; it is more fatiguing than to handle money' at a rail- 
 
37 
 
 road station, because there are no breaks at all; I sit down in the 
 morning to count mone}', and I count money right straight along 
 until it comes night, and there is not a break. It is very close figur¬ 
 ing right along; more so than a railroad station, because the amounts 
 are to a point, and in the case of the railroad station the amounts 
 are on the decimals ; it makes a very material difference. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Gunn.; Do you take receipts from the operatives? 
 
 A. Yes. 
 
 Q. How do they get the pay-bills? 
 
 A. Those are given them by the overseers before I come around ; 
 sometimes in the morning and sometimes two or three days ahead ; 
 giving the operatives an opportunity for seeing that the amount for 
 which they are to receive their pay does not accord with their ac¬ 
 count or tally as they have kept it, and the matter is reconciled 
 before they are paid. Speaking of this matter of putting up money 
 and paying out mone}', 3-011 cannot alwa}’s multipl}' the amount b}’ 
 the time ; that is, a certain amount of work done in a given amount 
 of time, you cannot do four, five, six or seven times the amount of 
 that work in the same amount of increased time. 
 
 Q. Now, } t ou know something of the Lowell corporation, at 
 Lowell, I suppose? 
 
 A. Oh, 3 ’es, sir. 
 
 Q. Is 3 ’our system of manufacturing more complicated than the 
 manufacture of carpets ? 
 
 A. Well, sir, I don’t know about the manufacture of carpets. 
 
 Q. How often do the Lowell carpet mills pa 3 ? 
 
 A. The 3 ~ pa 3 T once a fortnight. 
 
 Q. What I want to know is whether the 3 T have any difficulty in 
 making up their pay-roll, or in paying once a fortnight, more than 
 the 3 r formerly did ? 
 
 A. I don’t know. 
 
 Q. (B 3 ’ Mr. R. D. Smith.) Mr. Bennett, it has been suggested 
 to me that it was desirable to know, and perhaps you asked, how 
 many varieties of work 3 ’ou pay for as piece work ? 
 
 A. Well, sir, in the cotton mill I should think there were 100, 
 but in the woolen mill it is so very varied that L could not form any 
 conception ; I onh' know that I have found on one page of the pay¬ 
 roll 40 prices. 
 
 Q. All different kinds of work? 
 
 A. No, sir ; prices simply, and that does not give, b} T any means, 
 the kind of work, because there may be two, three, five, 20, 50 
 kinds for the same price. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Russell.) That preliminary work is done by the 
 overseers, isn’t it; the setting down of the kind of work and the 
 price is done by the overseers, isn’t it? 
 
 A. It is done under the supervision of the overseers. Our work 
 
38 
 
 is changing all the time. To-day we may 7 have orders to change 
 over a lot of looms that may* carry with them 20 or 30 different kinds 
 or styles of goods, but it may not carry more than two or three 
 prices. It may cover 20 different kinds of work. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Russell.) How is it that it is practically a different 
 kind of work when it is so many 3 'ards at such a price ? What has 
 style to do about it, when it is simply a certain price for so much 
 cloth ? 
 
 A. Well, sir, the work has all to be kept separate, and we have 
 to take each style and keep that separate, and work that up and ag¬ 
 gregate i he pay. 
 
 < 4 . That is preliminary work which the paymaster has nothing to 
 do with. 
 
 A. The paymaster has nothing to do with it, though it has di¬ 
 rectly a bearing on the amount of work that has to be done. 
 
 Q. Can you go to an overseer aud find out at any moment how a 
 person’s work stands? 
 
 A. I can find out what it is at present, by taking time for it. 
 
 Q. I see y*ou state that you take out deductions for rent, and so 
 I suppose you don’t have any connection with any grocery 7 store? 
 
 A. No, sir, we haven’t any connection with any grocery’ store ; 
 not even an assignment. In the whole city there is not an assign¬ 
 ment that is binding on the Pacific mill. I am free to pay every 
 single dollar that is due to every operative without regard to grocery’ 
 stores or any’ others. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. R. D. Smith.) Arey’ou free from the law of trustee 
 process, too? 
 
 A. No, sir. I would say we have very few trustees, and a year or 
 two ago I had the figures here that I made up about this matter of 
 trustees, and it is even less now than it used to be. I have a sys¬ 
 tem by which, if a trustee is sent, I fill out a blank and send it di¬ 
 rectly’ to the operative, giving the name of the party’ and also of the 
 lawyer bringing or serving the writ. I find that it has obviated 
 almost entirely the trouble that formerly’ arose from this matter of 
 trustees. In the last three or four months 1 don’t remember but one 
 writ that was entered in court. 
 
 Q. (By 7 Mr. Smith of West Newbury’.) If an operative should 
 assign his wages would y ou honor it? 
 
 A. No, sir. 
 
 Q. Then your rule is not to pay* them ? 
 
 A. My rule is to pay’ the operative. The operative is the one I 
 look to; the operative is the one I am working for, and it is not the 
 store people. 
 
 Q. The operative can make an assignment if he wants to? 
 
 A. Yes, many of them do assign their pay’, but that is a matter 
 between themselves and their store-keeper. 
 
a9 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Russell.) Do you discharge an operative who as¬ 
 signs his wages? 
 
 A. No, sir. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Smith of West Newbury.) I suppose it is because 
 they understand you will not take any notice of them ? 
 
 A. If they come in, I tell them it is their legal right to have that 
 assignment, and it is the operative’s legal right to make it; and it is 
 my legal right to break that assignment, which I will do with the 
 greatest pleasure, and I do it. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Russell.) Can you tell us how you do it? 
 
 A. 1 send word to the overseer to discharge that person for the 
 sake of breaking that assignment and to hire him in again at once. 
 That is, to discharge him as he goes out to dinner, and to hire him 
 as he comes in from dinner. 
 
 Q. Do the}’ always hire him over again ? 
 
 A. I never knew of an instance where the discharge was for that 
 purpose where they didn’t hire him over again ; the overseers under¬ 
 stand it perfectly. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Smith of West Newbury.) I have heard it said that 
 if an operative assigned his wages he was discharged. 
 
 A. Well, I say no; but at the same time, the assignment is 
 broken, and I think that you lawyers will admit that a discharge of 
 that kind will break an assignment. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Gunn.) I would like to know if your operatives 
 are content under the present system of payment? Or whether they 
 desire more frequent payment? 
 
 A. Well, sir, I suppose there is no one who has a better oppor¬ 
 tunity of getting at that than I do, and I say so somewhat modestly 
 —I say it because it is a matter that I have honestly tried to get at. 
 My belief is that what is for the welfare of the operative is for the 
 welfare of the corporation. 
 
 Mr. Smith of West Newbury. I agree with you there, sir. 
 
 Mr. Anderson. I have their entire confidence and they believe 
 that I am a friend of the people, the working people there in our 
 mill. It is something that I have labored to attain, and it is some¬ 
 thing that I feel very happy in believing to be a fact. There are 
 cases where some of the people would like to receive their pay more 
 frequently, but I state it here, gentlemen, believing it fully, that a 
 very, very, very large proportion of our people are satisfied with the 
 present arrangement. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Smith of West Newbury.) I suppose if an opera¬ 
 tive wished for his pay once a week or once a fortnight as an ex¬ 
 ceptional case, you might pay him, if he found himself in a tight 
 place and wanted some money? 
 
 A. Well, that is a matter personal; I have a great deal of lati¬ 
 tude given to me, and there have been cases where operatives have 
 
40 
 
 been in trouble, where they have had sickness or some disaster has 
 overtaken them, and I have paid them theii wages. I have, in cer¬ 
 tain cases, paid them their wages in advance. That is a matter en¬ 
 tirely personal, and I say 1 have latitude in the matter. 
 
 Q. You do that on your own responsibility? 
 
 A. I do it because I believe 1 have a right to do it. 
 
 Q. It is simply a matter between you and the operatives? 
 
 A. Wherever the case comes certified to me by an overseer, 
 that the operatives should have their money due them, I pay it. 
 
 Q. You do it on your own responsibility? 
 
 A. I do it because I believe I have a right to do it. 
 
 Q. It is simply on your own responsibility and not a rule of the 
 mill ? 
 
 A. No, it is on my own responsibility, doing what I believe to be 
 an act of justice for the operatives and for the welfare of all con¬ 
 cerned. 
 
 Q (By Mr. R. D. Smith.) Whether you think you have lati¬ 
 tude enough, discretion enough, so that the directors would pay you 
 the money in case he ran away or died ? 
 
 A. I have no doubt of it. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Sargent.) Y r ou always pay every time-bill that is 
 presented to you ? 
 
 A. Every time-bill has been paid that has been brought into the 
 office up to the present time. 
 
 Q. Then the overseer has some discretion ? 
 
 A. Yes, sir. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. O’Sullivan.) Did you find time to read the letter 
 published in the “Journal” from Mr. Wainwright of the Arlington 
 mills ? 
 
 A. I did. 
 
 Q. Could you give the committee your opinion about it, in re¬ 
 gard to the practicability, or what you think about it as applied to 
 your corporation ? 
 
 A. I say that Mr. Wainwright is not competent to decide a ques¬ 
 tion or express an opinion which is of any very great value in regard 
 to the Pacific mills. 
 
 Q. They pay something like 2,000 people at the Arlington? 
 
 A. They have two paymasters to two mills. The worsted mill 
 have on their books,—we will give them their figures,—somewhere 
 in the vicinity of 1,400. They pay weekly. They pay every Friday 
 for the preceding week. The week ends on Saturday and they pay 
 the following Frida}*. And, as I have said, you can get a man to run 
 half a mile in a certain time, but lie can’t run five miles and keep 
 that up. Why, just think of it; putting up money and paying it 
 out for 5,000 people, carries my hand in the motions over 10 miles 
 every month. By the weekly system it has got to be done every 
 
41 
 
 week. There is a certain amount of headwork and handwork which 
 can be done up to a certain point, but cannot be multiplied. 
 
 Mr. O’Sullivan. I would cheerfully give assent to what Mr. 
 Anderson has said about his obtaining the good wishes of the opera¬ 
 tives and trying to subserve the best interests of his help. That is 
 a fact. But you see, Mr. Anderson, that I flatter our State on hav¬ 
 ing a superior quality of operatives, and you possess your share of 
 that class. Don’t you think it is more universal than you state to 
 the committee, this desire for more frequeut payments ? 
 
 A. No, sir. 
 
 Q. Honestly—I don’t question your honesty—but has your ob¬ 
 servation led you so far that you can say, actually not? 
 
 A. I say not, not from an}’ opinion, but from the actual expres¬ 
 sions of opinion to me by the operatives. As I see them in and 
 around the rooms, as I see them in and out of the mill, I have asked 
 a great many of them, and they don’t want it. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. R. D. Smith.) Let me ask you a question upon 
 this point. It is rather against our side perhaps, but whether the 
 people who came to you to express their views on this subject were 
 acquainted with your opinion so that they would be likely to ex¬ 
 press their opinion against monthly payments rather than in favor 
 of them, and in favor of weekly payments, because they know how 
 you feel about it ? 
 
 A. In talking with the operatives many and many a time, I have 
 talked in favor of weekly payments with a view to drawing them out 
 and trying to get at the true inwardness of their opinion, and I think 
 that in view of that conversation I am fully warranted in expressing 
 my firm belief from actual contact with the operatives and knowing 
 fully what I am talking about, that the statement is true which I 
 made, that a very, very large majority of our operatives do not want 
 more frequent payments. 
 
 Mr. O'Sullivan. The reason that I repeated that question was 
 that it seems very problematical to me, knowing from the reputation 
 that Mr. Anderson bears, that it would not be looked at in the light 
 of intimidating or bulldozing them, how these very people who, he 
 6tates, express that desire to him, or not a desire for more frequent 
 payments to me and to others who have for a long time inquired of 
 them, should express just the opposite opinion. 
 
 Mr. R. D. Smith. The} 7 are afraid of you and they are not 
 afraid of Anderson. 
 
 Mr. O’Sullivan. Not in my district at all. 
 
 Mr. Anderson. No, Mr. Smith, that is not it. But they know 
 what Mr. O’Sullivan’s opinions on that question are, and they know 
 what he wants to get at; he meets more of that class of people, and 
 does not meet the other class as I do. I suppose I meet more opera¬ 
 tives, and I know I meet with more of the traders in Lawrence than 
 
42 
 
 perhaps any other paymaster, or all the other paymasters put to¬ 
 gether. 
 
 Mr. O’Sullivan. Or any other man or all of them put together. 
 I will put it as far as that. 
 
 Mr. Anderson. Starting out with my idea, that what is for the 
 welfare of the operatives is for the welfare of the corporation. I 
 have gone to work honestly upon that basis. If it is for the benefit 
 of the operatives, let us have it; if it is not going to benefit them 
 any, what is the use of legislating? If it is not for their benefit for 
 God’s sake don’t legislate. Now, from what I have learned from 
 meeting with the operatives you have got my 7 opinion. On meeting 
 with the trade I have taken pains for several years to ask those that 
 I have met when they came into the office, what would be the effect 
 of weekly payments, as carried on at the Arlington mills; and I 
 think, if I should let some of the traders have lull scope, the air 
 would be blue in the office when they 7 have told me of the amount of 
 money they- have lost from operatives working at the Arlington mills 
 who receive their pay weekly. You know Mr.-? 
 
 Mr. O’Sullivan. Yes, sir. 
 
 Mr. Anderson. He was in the office the other day and he told 
 me as regards the people employed by 7 him, that through the summer 
 they 7 were employed by the city and received their wages every 
 
 week; they received from $1.50 to $1.75 a day 7 ; and Mr. - 
 
 said his life was almost hounded out of him by those men who came 
 to him now and said they must have work or else they had got to go 
 onto the town for support, and in order to keep them off' the city 7 , 
 he had picked out the poorest of the men, and was giving them work 
 just for that purpose, because they are worthy 7 parties. This is a 
 matter of fact; it is not a matter of opinion. Furthermore, Mr. 
 
 - said that from time to time operatives working with us at 
 
 the Pacific would go to the Arlington mills. Up to the time that 
 they 7 left us they had been honest and good pay 7 . After they had 
 gone up to the Arlington mills as a rule those operatives got behind 
 hand. They say it was a rule with the operatives there to run 
 their accounts monthly 7 , although they received their pay weekly, 
 and then at the end of the mouth come in with one week’s pay in 
 their pocket and want to give part of that week’s pay on account; 
 and it had got so bad that the first of this last January, he gave his 
 bookkeeper orders to trust no one who received pay weekly, be¬ 
 cause he could not get the money 7 out of them. 1 mention him 
 because you know him perfectly 7 well, and he is a very 7 fair man; he 
 didn’t tell that to be repeated. When I say 7 that I say what has been 
 stated to me over and over again, by 7 storekeeper after storekeeper. 
 
 Mr. O’Sullivan. By men of Mr.-’s calibre and standing? 
 
 Mr. Anderson. No. Well, we will take Mr. Shattuck. He is 
 an incorruptible man. He will say the very same thing. Mr. Shat- 
 
43 
 
 tuck has been down here to say 7 it, and he will say it today. I am 
 simply talking to you because you know the names; and it carries 
 more weight where it is not a matter of opinion, but where it is the 
 name of a person you know. 
 
 Q. (By 7 Mr. Russell.) You say you argued for weekly pay¬ 
 ments in order to learn the opinion of the operatives ? 
 
 A. I said 1 talked that side. 
 
 Q. Now, is it surprising that the operative should be a little 
 cautious and a little suspicious in talking with a man who is talking 
 against his convictions? 
 
 A. No, I don’t think that would follow at all, because in order 
 to get at the opinion of a person, it is not every person who can ex¬ 
 press his opinion, and you have to draw it out by conversation. 
 You know that perfectly well. Sometimes in talking of a measure 
 you will get an intelligent opinion out of a person which they are 
 not able to express, and it was in order to help them in formulating 
 an expression of opinion that I talked with them. 
 
 Q. Don’t you believe that operatives are a little suspicious of 
 conversation with an office man in regard to this matter? 
 
 A. Perhaps Mr. O’Sullivan could answer that question. 
 
 Q. I ask you if you don’t believe it is so? 
 
 A. No, sir ; I don’t think there is an operative that is suspicious 
 of me in the least. 
 
 Mr. O’Sullivan. I don’t believe they are. 
 
 Q. Would you blame him if he was, when you talked with him 
 and argued contrary to your candid convictions ? 
 
 A. I didn’t say I talked with him or argued with him against 
 my conviction. I said I sometimes talked in favor of weekly pay¬ 
 ments. I believe., sir, that I can get at as considerate, as honest, 
 as true an opinion from the operatives as anyone here. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. O’Sullivan.) Well, if it should appear, Mr. An¬ 
 derson, notwithstanding your opinion in the matter, that it would 
 be for the benefit of the great majority of the people, and if it 
 should also appear that the matter was practicable— 
 
 A. The old saying is: “If you put ifs enough in you can move 
 the world.” It is not for the benefit of the majority, and it is not 
 practicable so far as the Pacific mills are concerned. 
 
 Q. That is your opinion? 
 
 A. No, sir; it is not a matter of opinion. So far as practicabili¬ 
 ty of carrying it out in the Pacific mills is concerned. I say it cannot 
 be done. 
 
 Q. How long have you been paymaster, Mr. Anderson? 
 
 A. I have been paymaster going on 6 years, and before that I 
 was an examiner of pay-rolls at mills. 
 
 Q. By 7 (Mr. II. l3. Smith.) One thing I want to ask you be¬ 
 cause the committee, some of them know you, and they know you 
 
44 
 
 bear this relation to the operatives, and that they have confidence in 
 3 *ou. I want to know whether it is a fact that witnesses are terri¬ 
 fied and kept from appearing here by fear of being discharged. 
 
 A. There is not a person in the Pacific mills who is in any ter¬ 
 ror or has ever had any threat, or basis of a threat, or shadow of a 
 threat, or any intimation or information that would keep him from 
 here if he wished to come. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. O’Sullivan.) Would you let a petition go through 
 your mill? 
 
 A. No, sir; we don’t let any petitions go through the mill. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Sargent.) Or a remonstrance? 
 
 A. No, sir. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. R. D. Smith.) Have }*ou refused a remonstrance? 
 
 A. I don’t know that there had been anything of the kind start¬ 
 ed. We don’t allow book agents or subscription agents ; we don’t 
 let subscription papers of any sort go into the mill; we keep them 
 entirely out. 
 
 Mr. Bennett. You conveyed to me the idea that a man who re¬ 
 ceived his pay once a week was poor pay, and a man who receives 
 his pay once a month would be better pay? 
 
 A. Yes, sir. 
 
 Q. Now, I want to ask 3 * 011 , in that connection, do 3 *ou think 
 that an operative, or, in fact, any man not accustomed to handling 
 money in large quantities, could take care of a large sum of money 
 better than a small sum, and handle it more judiciously for his own 
 purpose ? 
 
 A. Well, Mr. Bennett, 3*011 are asking two or three questions in 
 one, begging your pardon. 
 
 Q. Well, answer it in 3 * 0111 ’ own wa}\ 
 
 A. So far as the matter of credit is concerned ; the operative that 
 is working for us, and receiving pa}* eveiy month, receives credit 
 and deserves credit, the expectation being that at the end of the 
 month he will come in and pa}* the month’s bills. The storekeepers 
 know when pay day comes, and the operative comes around and 
 pays his bills. An operative during the month goes and buys a bar¬ 
 rel of flour, buys in quantities which are larger than he could buy if 
 he was receiving his pay weekl}*, and he has better credit for the 
 reason that, at the end of the month, he will receive an amount 
 which will be sufficient to liquidate the entire month’s indebtedness. 
 The first week he may have received credit on the books of the 
 storekeeper to the amount of an entire week’s pay, and perhaps to 
 the amount of two weeks’ pay, but it is with the knowledge that at 
 the end of the month he will receive an amount which will be suffi¬ 
 cient to cover that indebtedness, and do something over and above 
 for the family. While under the weekly system, the amount to be 
 received at the end of the week would not be enough to pay. Cases 
 
45 
 
 have been cited over and over again, where persons have left our 
 corporation and gone to the Arlington mills,where the}' have received 
 their pay weekly. They had come from other corporations, and it 
 is said that under the system of weekly payments they cannot pay 
 their bills. Somehow or other the money went. You know how it 
 is. Money in the pocket goes out before you know it. If they got 
 their monthly stipend— 
 
 Q. It is your opinion they would not go round and pay their bills 
 weekly as quickly as they go to pay them once a month? 
 
 A. Well, sir, the storekeepers—the grocers and butchers—they 
 tell me that very many of the Arlington mill operatives—I don’t 
 say all; I am saying simply what they told me—very many of the 
 Arlington mill people run their accounts just exactly the same. 
 
 Q. Well, if they all paid weekly and the stores all would com¬ 
 mence the practice of running weekly accounts, wouldn’t they get 
 in the habit of paying their bills weekly? 
 
 A. Well, there comes up the very question that I told you of; 
 oftentimes a man with family wants to buy more at a time than his 
 weekly wages will pay for. What the storekeepers would do is a 
 matter for them to consider. 
 
 Q. You look upon the question of weekly payments as perfectly 
 experimental ? 
 
 A. I do, so far as the corporations are concerned that are prac¬ 
 tising it. It is an experimental thing as to its feasibility and as to 
 its effects upon the operatives. 
 
 Q. Of course you are aware that there are a large portion of 
 the employes in the Commonwealth that are paid once a week, 
 now? 
 
 A. I know there are ; and I know, too, that it is a very singular 
 coincidence that a large proportion of the labor troubles that have 
 arisen, have arisen in the communities where the pay is more 
 frequent. 
 
 Q. Do } r ou think it is in consequence of weekly payments? 
 
 A. I don’t know, but I had an English operative talking with 
 me the other day, and he said it was singular that the two worst 
 features of the English system had been imported and were trying 
 to be brought into our manufacturing communities; one was the 
 system of weekly pay, and the other was the system of strikes. He 
 put them both together. That was suggested to me by an English 
 operative. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. O’Sullivan.) I have talked with a number who 
 have given me a contrary opinion. 
 
 A. Whether it is so or not it is not material. I have had some 
 very interesting experiences with these English people. They re¬ 
 ceive their pay at home evert week, and they don’t get as much. 
 Here is simply one case : We had a man come to us in oue of our 
 
46 
 
 departments of skilled labor ; it happened to be a five-week payday; 
 that week I was paying off in gold ; when that man got that money 
 in hand, I don’t know of anything that was a more interesting sight 
 than that man’s face. Ashe stood there I said to the overseer: 
 “He seems pleased.” “Yes,” he said, ‘-I don’t believe he ever had 
 so much money before. Did you, sir?” The operative replied: 
 “My man, I never had so much money as that of my own in my 
 hand before. I never had so much m >ney. And that is mine. 
 Why, I tell you I can pa}’ all my bills, and there is something there 
 that can go into the bank.” That is a sample; that is one case. 
 Over and over again where people have never been paid other than 
 weekly , they have come to our mill, have received their pay accord¬ 
 ing to our present system, and to-day own places in the city of Law¬ 
 rence, that they themselves say the}’ never could have owned in 
 England, and never would have had in England or anywhere under 
 the weekly system. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Kussell.) Is not the reason that the wages that 
 they earn in England are not sufficient to leave them a margin over 
 and above the necessary family expenses? 
 
 A. Well, sir, if you take the statistics of the labor bureau, you 
 will find them to say that the wages in England and here are not so 
 very different. I am simply stating the fact; I am not arguing 
 from it. These are simple facts that have come under my observa¬ 
 tion. People have said to me little pleasant things, where I know 
 that our own operatives have bought and owned their places, and 
 this very man that I paid that money to, has bought a place up in 
 Methuen, and he has got it very nearly paid for. I have talked with 
 him about it from time to time. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Bennett.) Then, is it the inference that if they had 
 weekly payments your people would not be able to buy any more homes ? 
 
 A. I don’t think they would. 
 
 Q. Now, do you know anything about the city of Lynn? We 
 have operatives there. 
 
 A. Oh, well, let Lynn people talk about Lynn ; it is not fair to 
 ask my opinion about Lynn. 
 
 Q. 1 want to say to you that in the city of Lynn the weekly pay¬ 
 ment system has been in practice twenty 3 ears or more. Don’t 
 you know—you probably do know—that the operatives are better 
 housed, in houses of their own, than they are in any other city of 
 the Commonwealth? 
 
 A. I know this: that the city of Lynn keeps stealing some of 
 our best operatives. 
 
 Mr. Bennett. We pay them more money than you do, and we 
 are glad to do it. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. II. D. Smith.) In what occupations? 
 
 A. I don’t know what they go into; they go into some of the 
 
47 
 
 shoe factories there. Some of the smartest operatives we have had 
 have gone down there. 
 
 Mr. Bennett. I am much obliged to you. 
 
 Mr. Anderson. Well, the)’ have; I was talking with a girl the 
 - other day, who went from Lawrence to Lynn, and she said she earns 
 more money down there. She told me what she was doing, but I 
 don’t remember. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Bennett.) Did you say that laborers in your city 
 of Lawrence don’t earn any more pay than they do in England? 
 
 A. Did 1 say so? No. He asked the question, and I said if 
 you took these labor bureau statistics you would find them to state 
 that there was not a very great difference. 
 
 Mr. Bennett. I was surprised. 
 
 Mr. Anderson. Well, look at the envelopes if you want to see 
 what they earn. 
 
 Q. What do your operatives average to earn? 
 
 A. Well, an average is not fair ; some of our weavers earn more 
 than $1.50 a day, and some do not earn a dollar. 
 
 Q. What is the average? 
 
 A. Our weavers will average from $1.07 to $1.15 a day. 
 
 Q. How much do your men earn? 
 
 A. In what department? Well, we have men all the way from 
 a dollar a day up to $4 and $5. 
 
 Q. Well, a great majority of your help earn something like $1, 
 or $1.25? 
 
 A. Somewhere from a dollar to two dollars. But you cannot 
 average it. 
 
 Q. What is the gross amount? 
 
 A. Well, you have the pay-roll here; this happens to be a five 
 weeks’ pay-roll; this pay-roll was for $164,341.26. 
 
 Q. For 5,500 men. 
 
 A. It will run between $30,000 and $40,000 a week. Last 
 month’s pay-roll was for five weeks, and it was for about $164,000. 
 I have had it up to over $190,000, but it will run somewhere to between 
 less than $40,000 and over $30,000 a week. And right here I want 
 to say that in talking with the banks, the officers of the banks have 
 stated that it is a very serious matter so far as they are concerned, 
 and they question whether they would be able to furnish the bills which 
 we would require—one and two dollar bills. They could not do it. 
 
 Q. (By Mr. Russell.) I see by the pay-roll for the weave room 
 that the wages are from $13.72 up to $33 for five weeks. 
 
 A. I am giving you the average. It is with great difficulty that 
 we get all the small bills, the one and two dollar bills, that we require 
 for the pay-roll now; and when I could not get them for a few 
 months I had to use silver. It took six hundred pounds in weight 
 of silver every month to pay what I use, and if we should pay every 
 weeO it would take more than that. 
 
48 
 
 Q. (By Mr. R. D. Smith.) I want to know whether there has 
 been any effect, so far as you have learned, from weekly payments, 
 upon the intemperance of operatives? 
 
 A. If I should say yes, somebody else would say no. I don’t 
 think, as a rule, that our operatives are intemperate. Not but what 
 they might take something occasionally*, but I don’t think as a rule 
 that operatives are what you may call intemperate ; no more than 
 I think, as a rule, they are immoral. I think operatives as a class 
 are both temperate and moral. I am speaking simply of Lawrence 
 now. It is a fact—I don’t draw any deductions from it, but you take 
 the Arlington mills, which are doing so # much in the direction of 
 weekly payments, and a gentleman competent to know about the 
 matter quietly walked up around the Arlington mills the other day, 
 and I am told, and I have no reason to doubt it from my observa¬ 
 tion riding by, that on the street running from the Brown mills, 
 almost within a stone’s throw, there are nine shops that sell rum and 
 liquor. And almost within a stone’s throw of Goodrich’3 and the 
 entrance to the Arlington mills,—and that is not a very great thor¬ 
 oughfare,—it is what would be called a small street,—there are 15 
 places that sell liquor, and that is a fact which don’t obtain, so far 
 as I can judge, in any other locality in the city. 
 
 Mr. O’Sullivan. I would just qualify that a little by saying 
 that the sudden upgrowth of these rumshops is equally* as large, if not 
 larger, in some other places. Even in the district surrounding y r our 
 corporation, or on the main street, y ou can count as many* in the 
 same period of time that they have been built up on Park street. 
 
 Mr. Anderson. I should not question y*our statement, Mr. O'Sul¬ 
 livan, but I didn’t know the rumshops were so prevalent anywhere 
 except on Common street. 
 
 Mr. O’Sullivan. I speak from observation and an inspection 
 of the records at the City Clerk’s office, which it was my business 
 the other day to look at. 
 
 Mr. Anderson. Well, they have sprung up and congregated 
 more around the Arlington mills than in any other portion of the 
 city. I don’t wish to draw any inference. 
 
 Mr. O’Sullivan. I will say right here while it is fresh in our 
 
 minds, in regard to this man who has been spoken of as Mr,-— 
 
 and it is a very apt name—this man, who, unfortunately—and L wish 
 this to remain with the committee—has been to the commission a 
 useless appendage—this man’s books, if submitted to this com¬ 
 mittee as non-partisan men, simply interested in getting at the log¬ 
 ical outcome, are a monument to the stupidity and ignorance of that 
 man, and of that class of grocers and liquor dealers, that class that 
 sell liquor in connection with their grocery* shops, and that is almost 
 the curse of Lawrence and Lowell, or anywhere else where they 
 exist—this man who talked about what he had suffered in losing his 
 
49 
 
 bills, he ought to lose them. I say that, Mr. Anderson, entirely 
 apart from anything } T ou have stated. 
 
 Mr. Anderson. I didn’t go into the matter personally, I simply 
 stated what he said to me. Shattuck Brothers, who are by no 
 means of that class, but are in every respect worthy of the utmost 
 credence, state the same thing, only more so. 
 
 Mr. O’Sullivan. Well, the}’ might; they are in a certain quarter, 
 and differ essentially from the rest. 
 
 Mr. Anderson. They have been down here and stated it, and 
 Joseph Shattuck said he would come down and tell the whole thing. 
 
 Mr. O’Sullivan. I wish they would come down. We can put 
 in matter about that which would answer them fairly and fully. 
 
 Mr. Anderson. I have endeavored to give } r ou simple facts, and 
 not opinions. 
 

 
 
 
A