The lowest total for human conditions for an individual in Boston is thus seen to be $8.28. This amount is lower than that of $8.71 tentatively arrived at by the board early in its proceedings. It makes no allowance for savings or insurance, and is not therefore a true living wage. Allowing for variations between individuals, the wage board is convinced that the sum required to keep alive and in health a completely self-supporting woman in Boston is in no case less than $8, and in many cases may rise to $9 or more.

D. Making Ends Meet, 19031

Two investigations have been made by the United States Commissioner of Labor into the cost of living, the first in 1891 and a second more comprehensive one in 1903. From the second of these is given a short extract showing the extent to which wage-earners were able to adjust their expenditures to their incomes, and how they disposed of the surplus or met the deficit at the end of the year. As these conclusions were based upon a study of 25,440 families living in 33 states, they may be regarded as fairly representative of American conditions. This investigation is probably the most comprehensive of its kind ever made. With this reading should be compared extracts H and I of Part III of the previous chapter.

The total income per family for the 25,440 families covered

by this inquiry was $749.50.

The total expenditure per family for all purposes was $699.24. . . . The average income for the year of the 25,440 families exceeded their average expenditure by $50.26. This does not take into consideration payments made during the year on the principal of mortgages upon homes, which, if distributed among all families would show an increase in average savings of about $7. . . .

A surplus at the end of the year was reported by 12,816 families or about one-half of the whole number of families. The average

1 Eighteenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor. (Washington, 1904), 57, 60-1, 89.

surplus for these families was $120.84. A.deficit was reported by 4,117 families, the average deficit for these families being $65.58. Of the total there remained 8,507 families, and these reported that they came out even at the end of the year; that is, that as nearly as they could account for their income and expenditure, they had used up all they had earned or otherwise obtained during the year. This report does not pretend to show the assets and liabilities of the families at the end of the year. Probably few families would show a balance sheet exactly like that of the preceding year. Presumably many of these families went forward or backward at least a little in their assets; they most likely had more or less of furniture, clothing, fuel, and food on hand than at the close of the preceding year.

The largest precentage of families having a surplus was in the State of Washington, where 90.50 per cent reported a surplus. Except in the States of Kentucky, Maryland, and Tennessee there were more families reporting a surplus than families reporting a deficit. . . .

Of the total 2,567 families which reported their income and expenditure in detail, 1,480 families had a surplus, 507 families had a deficit, and 580 families reported that they came out even at the end of the year that is, their expenditure equalled their income.

Of the families reporting a surplus, 491 had the surplus on hand in cash, 682 had deposited the surplus in bank, 63 had placed it in building associations, 42 had invested it in real estate, 5 had invested it in shares of stock, 3 had loaned it, 60 had paid preexisting debts with it, I had disposed of it in some other way, and 133 made no report as to what they had done with the surplus. Many of the families that had put money into bank or had invested it in some way also had more or less cash left on hand. . . . Seventy-nine of the 1,480 families which reported a surplus had also made payments on the principal of the incumbrance on the home.

Of the 507 families which reported a deficit for the year, 244 had met the deficit by obtaining credit, 94 had drawn on former savings, I had mortgaged real estate, 2 had mortgaged furniture, 1 had sold real estate, 13 had borrowed money, 2 had met the deficit in other ways, and 150 made no report as to the method of meeting the deficit. Nineteen of the families which reported a deficit for the year had made payments on the principal of the incumbrance on the home.

Of the 580 families which used up their whole income during the year, 22 had in reality saved some money by making a payment on the debt on the home.

E. Extravagance and Waste, 19101

The existence of a deficit in the wage-earner's budget may be due to the insufficiency of his income, but it may also be due to unwise expenditure or to downright waste. Some of the principal items in which individual extravagance or waste may take place are described in the following extract. This is the dark side of the picture.

INDIVIDUAL WASTAGE

A. Drink

It has long been known that the excessive use of alcoholic liquor is a menace to the happiness and an injury to the welfare of those peoples among whom it is prevalent, but not until the science of statistics was applied to the problem was the magnitude of its economic importance appreciated. Of late we have come to know that by sapping vitality, by bringing accident, disease and death, it causes economic waste of enormous proportions.

The economic effect of all this shows itself in two directions: first, in the expense entailed on the community in costs of government and charity; and second, in the injury to the productive efficiency of the community. . .

The use of alcoholic beverages in this country has rapidly increased. That of distilled spirits remains about stationary, the average retained here for consumption having been 1.45 gallons per capita in the years 1871-78, and the same in the years 1901-08; but the average for malt liquors in the same periods rose from 6.72 gallons a year to 18.88 gallons. In 1908 it was 20.97 gallons.

Observation leads us to believe that there has been in Massachusetts a material diminution of public drinking by the well-to-do in the last generation, with less use of wine at banquets, of punch at college reunions, less resort by business men to public bars, less consumption of hard liquors in clubs. But the statistics indicate that there must have been great increase in the use of malt liquors in homes, and of resort to saloons by wage earners.

With the spread of education and the general progress of society, there ought to be a lessening of the evils produced from such a cause as this. We are not of the belief that the primary cure is to be found in legislation. Men cannot be made good by law. The most important thing is to elevate the standards of the community, for its

1 Report of the Massachusetts Commission on the Cost of Living. (Boston, 1910),

239-51.

moral sense is the most powerful of all agencies. But the strong arm of the law often has to be called upon to enforce the common will.

Per Capita Consumption of Alcoholic Beverages in the United States

Per Capita Consumption of Alcoholic Beverages in other Countries, 1902

The recent period of rising prices has been marked by a tendency toward extravagance among all classes, never before shown in this country. . .

In the twelve years since the use of self-propelled road vehicles became mechanically perfected and commercially profitable, it is estimated that a million automobiles have been produced, and sold for more than a billion and a half dollars. In this production France, until 1907, led the world, when it was passed by the United States,

which is now in the lead. The production of automobiles in the United States this year will easily approximate $250,000,000. The great bulk of this output represents pure luxury production, which has taken at least 100,000 workers out of employments in which they were producing commodities that were useful and of benefit to all the people, into an occupation in which the product may be termed an economic

waste. . . .

The progress of civilization has demonstrated that the luxuries of to-day are considered the necessities of to-morrow. The production of automobiles for commercially economical and purely pleasurable purposes is not likely to diminish, but rather to increase. Yet it must be said that the present tendency toward luxury production entails a penalty that must be paid by the whole community in an advance of the prices of the necessary things of life. Three hundred years ago an English writer said that such luxury "hath honey in her mouth, gall in her heart, and a sting in her tail"; and in this age the tendency toward universal extravagance, pleasant as its approaches are, and greatly as it throws its gilded charms on the world, may enslave men more than the most active vices.

C. Amusement

In considering the subject of amusement, among the many phases of social and individual waste, the character and value of amusement as an aid to individual and economic efficiency must be reckoned with and estimated. . . .

. . . To put the matter in the proverbial phraseology of the race, which expresses a homely wisdom gathered in the experience of the ages, "All work and no play make Jack a dull boy." Relaxation from labor is not in itself enough to compensate man for the physical exhaustion and waste incident to daily work. The mere resting of muscle and brain must be supplemented by some form of amusement, some pleasure, which makes the worker forget the sweat and fret of the day, and carries him into imaginary regions and conditions where labor and its exhaustion are forgotten. . .

The increase in the number of theaters and show houses from 75 in 1900 to 242 in 1910 indicates a growth vastly out of proportion to the growth of population in this Commonwealth, and a tendency to extravagance. . . . In 1910 we find only 50 theaters and houses devoted to drama and vaudeville, while 192 are given over to "moving pictures" and cheaper forms of vaudeville. . . .

It should be observed, furthermore, that the increase in the number