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If we deduct from the final value not only the materials purchased but also the miscellaneous expenses reported by the census, none of which represent values created in these industries, the proportion received by the laborers advances to about 65 per cent. And still no allowance is made for replacement of capital.
Mr. Deegan’s proposition for regulating wages proposes to award the laborers a minimum of 33⅓ per cent. It is evident that they are much better off than this under the present regime and without any state regulation of wages.
Mr. Deegan further states that the report referred to “also shows that after all expenses and charges are levied, there still remains over $2,000,000,000 surplus to be divided as profits among the employers.” It is true that after deducting from the value of the products reported by the census, the aggregate of all reported expenses, the remainder is a little over $2,000,000,000; but the census report is careful to point out that this difference can not be regarded as representing profits for the simple reason that the expenses reported by the census did not include all the expenses incidental to the process of manufacture. Among the expenses left out of account is the important item of depreciation.
If Mr. Deegan had consulted the census report itself, such statements as he made would be reprehensible as well as inexcusable; but I presume that he got his information at second hand from some newspaper paragraph or article originating no one knows how or where.
But THE SURVEY, however, ought not to be made the agency for the further promulgation of such misinformation. It might be said, perhaps, that such gross misstatements do not deceive thinking and well-informed people; but even well-informed people do not always know the facts which refute such statements; and thinking people do not have time to think about everything.
More than that it seems to me that some consideration should be shown for the unthinking people that they may not be deceived or misled.
Some of them have a vote.
JOSEPH A. HILL.
[Bureau of the Census.]
Washington.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] The report is for free distribution and may be had by writing to the Commission to Study the Question of the Support of Dependent Minor Children of Widowed Mothers, State House, Boston, Mass.
[5] See THE SURVEY for March 8, page 809.
JOTTINGS
HALVING THE TAX RATE
The Salant-Schaap lower rents bill, which provides for submitting to a referendum vote the gradual lowering of the tax rate on all buildings in New York city to one-half the rate on land, was killed in committee in the New York Legislature. This is the bill which was advocated at the Lower Rents Exhibit described in THE SURVEY of March 15 last.
RELIEF FOR BEDFORD REFORMATORY
In the final hours of the New York Legislature the sum voted to Bedford Reformatory to relieve overcrowding was $414,000 and not $500,000 as was stated in THE SURVEY of last week.
THE ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION
By unanimous vote both the Senate and the Assembly in New York passed the bill to incorporate the Rockefeller Foundation for the dissemination of knowledge, the prevention of suffering, and the promotion of the well-being and civilization of the peoples of the United States. The bill which is very similar to the one urged before Congress in 1910 has not yet been signed by Governor Sulzer.
HUNGARY PROTECTS ABANDONED CHILDREN
Hungary maintains seventeen institutions for indigent, abandoned, delinquent and abused children. It is the custom to receive every child applicant, to give him a bath and clean clothes, and then to investigate his condition. If the investigation warrants the state’s interference the child is admitted. Seventeen thousand children were thus received in 1908. Most of them are placed out in the country or smaller cities with farmers or artisans of good character and in moderate circumstances. Five reformatories have been established for delinquent or absolutely unruly children. They have room for a thousand inmates, who live together in family groups of twenty-five, learning a trade under the supervision of the head of the household. Corporal punishment is still administered. Up to 1908, 2,331 inmates had been released on parole, 86.6 per cent had worked steadily and had kept straight, 5.4 per cent had committed crimes and 8 per cent had disappeared.
Country Property
Owners having Property For Sale or To Rent for the coming season are invited to write for our advertising rates.
THE SURVEY 105 East 22d Street, New York
Transcriber’s Notes
pg 247 Changed: be reckoned as the most throughly to: be reckoned as the most thoroughly
pg 255 Footnote removed due to no anchor: See The Survey, February 8, 1913, p. 653.
pg 256 Changed: institutions for indigent, abandoned, deliquent to: institutions for indigent, abandoned, delinquent