Marshall Field III., still in knickerbockers, receives $60,000 a week; his brother Henry, $40,000 a week. The sum in both cases automatically increases as the interest on the principal compounds. What do many of the workers who supply this revenue get? Patterson gives this authentic list of wages:
Pullman Company blacksmiths, $16.43 a week; boiler-makers, $17; carpenters, $12.38; machinists, $16.65; painters, $13.60, and laborers, $9.90 a week. As for the lower wages paid to the workers in the Field stores, we have already given them. And apart from the exploitation of employees, every person in Chicago who rides on the street or elevated railroads, and who uses gas, electricity or telephones, must pay direct tribute to these lads. How decayed monarchial establishments are in these days! Kings mostly must depend upon Parliaments for their civil lists of expenditure; but Capitalism does not have to ask leave of anybody; it appropriates what it wants.