Is It Fair?
The Railroad Wage Commission has recommended that the wages
of all railroad employees receiving less than $250 a month (and that, too, for
12 months in every year), should be increased. Such increase was ordered by the
Director of Railroads.
In Illinois the average monthly wage of 15 miners, as shown
by the payroll at the mine, was $217.78; the average monthly salary of the 15
school teachers in the same town was $55.
The average yearly salary paid public school teachers in the
U.S. in 1918 was $630.64; an Australian alien, a miner, earned more than $2,700
during 1918.
Why this discrimination against our public school teachers?
Size of a Dollar
Ever since the war began in 1914 the size of our dollar has
been diminishing until now it takes two to two and one half dollars to buy as
much of life’s necessities as one dollar would buy five years ago. While the
teacher has been given, in some cases, an increase of 10, 20 or 25 percent in
salary, the cost of board, clothes, transportation, etc., has increased from 75
to 100 percent.
Consequently any teacher with good sense and decent training
is looking for some other work to do. In fact it is estimated that 120,000
untrained, inexperienced teachers were turned loose on our schools this past
year.
Looking Ahead
Nor will this condition grow better unless we decide to pay
our teachers a decent living wage. On the contrary the situation will grow
worse and we shall have a flood of inexperienced, untrained, tramp teachers
hearing lessons in our public schools and keeping school in our districts.
This is not fair to our boys and girls. We must immediately
plan to increase teachers’ salaries by not less than 75 percent. Who will be
the first so to report?
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