Walsh: Is $27.50 a month enough to keep a man in shape to
perform the duties of a porter as you describe them?
Hungerford: We can get all the men required at those wages.
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Tuesday April 6, 1915
Chicago, Illinois -Walsh Grills Pullman Manager on Wages of Porters and Conductors
L. S. Hungerford, general manager of the
Pullman Co., yesterday came before Frank P. Walsh, Chairman of the U. S.
Commission on Industrial Relations, now in session at Hotel Sherman. Walsh grilled the Pullman manager to a crisp on the subject of wages:
"Is $27.50 a month enough to keep a man in shape to perform the duties of a porter as you describe them?"
"We can get all the men required at those wages,"
"Please answer the question-do you think these men are able to live on $27.50 a month?"
"I don't know. Perhaps they must have perquisites."
"Have any of the officers of the company ever made an investigation to find out whether that is enough money for the employes to live on?"
"No."
Not only is $27.50 not enough for a family to live on, but out of these meager wages, we find that the porters and conductors must purchase their uniforms exclusively at Marshall Fields & Co. at the cost of $24.50 each, nearly one month's salary.
Whether or not a man can support his family on the wages paid him does not seem to concern the Pullman Co. one little bit. For under the capitalist system, the labor of a human being is merely another commodity to be purchased at the lowest price possible.
From The Day Book of April 5, 1915:
PULLMAN EMPLOYES FORCED TO BUY
AT FIELD'S IS TESTIMONY
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First Hearing of Industrial Relations Commission Brings Out
Interesting Evidence-
Pullman Manager Placed on Stand
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All porters and all conductors working for the Pullman Sleeping Car Co. buy their clothes from Marshall Field & Co. There is a contract between the Pullman Co. and the Field store which says all the 6,500 colored porters and each of the 2,500 conductors must pay $24.50 to Field's whenever they need a new uniform.
Every new man hired by the company must pay nearly a month's salary at the start for blue clothes with brass buttons. There were 2,335 new men hired in 1913 and 1,130 in 1914 among the porters. Among conductors about one out of five is fired every year and a new man hired in his place.
These figures were given today by L. S. Hungerford, general manager Pullman Co., before the U. S. industrial relations commission at hotel Sherman.
It was only by asking questions over again and sometimes in six new and different ways that Chairman Frank P. Walsh was able to squeeze any information out of the general manager. A porter's pay is $27.50 a month. Walsh asked: "Do you consider that the social respect of your employe is protected by a wage of $27.50 a month?" "I wouldn't be sure," said Hungerford.
"Is $27.50 a month enough to keep a man in shape to perform the duties of a porter as you describe them?"
"We can get all the men required at those wages,"
"Please answer the question-do you think these men are able to live on $27.50 a month?"
"I don't know. Perhaps they must have perquisites."
"Have any of the officers of the company ever made an investigation to find out whether that is enough money for the employes to live on?"
"No."
Walsh: Having admitted that it is necessary for the porters to accept tips, what do you think, Mr. Hungerford, of the social aspect of this? You take a new race and place them in a position where they are compelled to depend on anther race for a living? Do you think it is good for them as men to ask tips for strict personal services?
Hungerford: As I say I don't feel competent to answer that.
Walsh: The Pullman company frankly expects the traveling public to pay the difference between the wages and the amount required a by porter to live, does it not?
Hungerford: There is a waiting list of 800 men at the present time who want jobs on sleeping cars.
Hungerford said he isn't opposed to labor unions. He admitted that an officer of the Federation of Pullman Conductors and Porters was discharged for activity in organizing.
"I didn't pay much attention to the union," he said. "I don't think [it] represented the men. The man discharged was making an undesirable agitation in the matter."
Chauncey Keep, of the Marshall Field estate, and Robert T. Lincoln, son of President Abraham Lincoln, both men directors of Pullman Co., are witnesses Tuesday.
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[Photograph added.]
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SOURCE
The Day Book
(Chicago, Illinois)
-Apr 5, 1915, Last Edition
http://www.newspapers.com/...
IMAGES
Pullman Porters and Conductor
http://projects.aljazeera.com/...
Pullman Porters
http://projects.aljazeera.com/...
Note: I could not find a date for these photos, used here
to represent the porters and conductors of 1915.
See also:
Industrial relations: final report and testimony
United States. Commission on Industrial Relations,
Francis Patrick Walsh, Basil Maxwell Manly
D.C. Gov. Print. Office, 1916
Volume 10: 9057-10,066
https://books.google.com/...
9545-Testimony of Mr. L.S. Hungerford
https://books.google.com/...
A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum
http://www.aphiliprandolphmuseum.com/
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Workers Song - Dropkick Murphys
We're the first ones to starve the first ones to die
The first ones in line for that pie-in-the-sky
And always the last when the cream is shared out
For the worker is working when the fat cat's about
-Ed Pickford
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