THE SAW-MILL CHECK SYSTEM.
THE ICONOCLAST receives frequent complaints from laboring
people in the lumber districts of Texas and Louisiana,
that their employers are robbing them by compelling them
to accept orders on mill stores, where they are charged
exorbitant prices for all they purchase. I have been unable
to visit the lumber districts and make personal investigation
of these complaints, while letters of inquiry have
elicited conflicted evidence. The following statement by
a disinterested party, a gentleman of unusual intelligence
who has traveled extensively in the lumber districts of the
two states, is doubtless a fairly correct account:
The system of issuing checks to saw-mill employees, as
practiced in some places, is, in my opinion, an advantage
to the laborer. Each mill has a pay-day, monthly, and
the checks issued at intervals between pay-days, redeemable
in merchandise, pass current among merchants at par.
You can buy a big glass of beer for a 5-cent check as you
can for a nickel, and buy it anywhere it is sold. You can,
in fact, buy anything at any place in these towns for mill
checks. The merchants either use them in trading at the
mill stores, which are large and complete, or sell them, at
a discount of 5 per cent. to parties who engage in building
and who use them in paying for lumber, which is sold
at the same price for checks as for cash. No one is
required to take these checks, which are merely in the
nature of an advance payment on wages. Each employee can
wait until pay-day and get all that is due him in cash.
Many of the mills are large concerns with A1 credit, and
being able to buy as cheaply as anybody, can, and I
believe do, sell as cheaply. Such is the case with the
Beaumont mills and the mills on the Sabine and East Texas
road owned by Beaumont parties; but as much cannot be
said for saw-mills at some other points. There are some
saw-mills in Texas that never have a pay-day; they issue
checks on the commissary and charge enormous profits, so
that the people who work at these mills are virtually peons.
A party told me some time ago that on the H. E. & W. T.
railway mill checks of reputable institutions can be bought
for 20 cents, 30 cents and 40 cents on the dollar. I do not
know that this is so, but I believe it. As for the mills at
Orange and Lake Charles, they have no commissaries
attached, but I have been told that certain merchants in
those towns pay the mill owners 10 per cent. on all orders
sent them, and the mills go so far as to turn in each evening
to the merchant the time made by each employee to
govern them in giving credit. This looks like a fraud on
the employee and it is wrong for the employer to pocket
money which should rightfully go to his employee. But he
reasons that he has an established pay-day, and if his
employees will insist on demanding money or its equivalent
every evening, and thus force him to retain an extra man
to attend to the check-issuing business it is right that the
employees should bear that expense. I believe the mills at
Westlake have commissaries, but I know the mill-owners
and do not believe they practice any extortion. They pay
off in checks. They have a monthly pay-day, and if, like
railway employees, these should wait until the first Saturday
after the 5th or 10th of each month they could draw
their wages in cash. No mill at either place mentioned
pays off in checks. You might roast such mills as those on
the H. E. & W. T. referred to, as they rob not only their
employees, but, by thus being able to manufacture lumber
cheaper than those who pay wages, force down the price
in the open market and compel the honest manufacturer
to meet it."
