Unequal Remuneration

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Title:     Unequal Remuneration
Author: Lemuel K. Washburn [More Titles by Washburn]

A great many small men draw large salaries, and a great many large men draw small salaries. Of course we measure men by their ability to do something of value to their race. It is a sorry fact that one person is paid ten thousand dollars a year for playing base ball or riding a race-horse, and that another person in unable to earn seven hundred and fifty dollars for the same length of time by performing some useful labor. A mechanic, who actually adds to the wealth of the nation, who produces something of value, is paid less than a jockey or a base ball pitcher whose business (?) is chiefly maintained for purposes of gambling.

But there are other phases of this question that present equally disproportionate features. An actor, who merely repeats the words of another, receives one thousand dollars a night for his performance, while a lecturer who imparts original knowledge to his hearers, is paid twenty dollars and his expenses for his thought and labor. A singer is given five thousand dollars for appearing three nights of a week upon the stage, and a reformer is allowed what her audience will drop into the contribution box. One explanation of this is: “There is only one Caruso.”

There is another explanation, and that is: People will pay more to be entertained, to be pleased, than to be instructed, to be enlightened or to be told what is right and best.

It is a sad fact that many are paid too little for what they do. As a rule the actual laborers, the real workers of the world, both male and female, do not receive fair compensation for their work, while thousands of people who merely hold an office are paid far more than they are worth. Teachers, writers and professors are all underpaid. The highest work that man or woman is doing is the work of education, training the human mind to think truly, to act nobly, and yet a lawyer receives more in a day than a teacher in a year.

The world that will pay one thousand dollars an hour to hear the voice of Melba, will grumble at paying ten cents an hour to a washerwoman. The world that will give a person ten thousand dollars a year for pitching base ball will object to raising the wages of our mill operatives five per cent. The world that will pay ten thousand dollars a year for riding a horse, wants a woman to teach school for fifty dollars a month.

We say, pay talent well and genius generously, but pay well also the arm that toils; pay the needle, the saw, the spade, the hoe, the mop.

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Every man who claims the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” is bound to show that he deserves this right.

[The end]
Lemuel K. Washburn's essay: Unequal Remuneration

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