VAST PROFITS AND LOW WAGES.
That the company's profits were great at the identical time the workers were curtailed to a starvation basis, there can be no doubt. The general indignation and agitation caused by the summary proceedings during the strike, compelled President Cleveland to appoint a commission to investigate. Cleveland was a mediocre politician who, by a series of fortuitous circumstances, had risen from ward politics to the Presidency. After using the concentrated power of the Federal Government to break the strike, he then decided to "investigate" its merits. It was the shift and ruse of a typical politician.
The Special Commission, while not selected of men who could in the remotest degree be accused of partiality toward the workers, brought out a volume of significant facts, and handed in a report marked by considerable and unexpected fairness. The report showed that the Pullman Company's capital had been increased from $1,000,000 in 1867 to $36,000,000 in 1894. "Its prosperity," the Commission reported, "has enabled the company for over twenty years to pay two per cent. quarterly dividends." But this eight per cent. annual dividend was not all. In certain years the dividends had ranged from nine and one half, to twelve, per cent. In addition, the Commission further reported, the company had laid by a reserve fund in the form of a surplus of $25,000,000 of profits which had not been divided. For the year ending July 31, 1893, the declared dividends were $2,520,000; the wages $7,223,719.51. During the next year, when wages were cut one-fourth, the stockholders divided an even greater amount in profits: $2,880,000. Wages went to 4,471,701.39.4
If Field's revenue was so proportionately large from this one property—the Pullman works—it is evident that his total revenue from the large array of properties which he owned, or in which he held bonds or stock, was very great.