The Price of Company Towns
A reporter sneaks into a Washington logging camp to expose how the company store system trapped workers in a cycle of debt and misery.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A reporter from the paper visited a logging camp operated by Cooper & Hewitt, situated near the shore of the lake. The foreman was absent, and the men were resting. They spoke freely, believing the reporter was one of their own. One man said, 'Cooper & Hewitt own the store. We have to eat when we are idle as well as when we are working, so that we simply eat up our wages as fast as they are earned. The prices charged at the store are far higher than any other place. They pay us from $15 to $20 a month, and our bill runs up so much we feel the sharp breath of that store when we go for our food. In three years, I have never had more than $5 in cash after my bill was paid, and I never touch liquor.' The reporter discovered that the firm utilized a system of payment where laborers were paid in 'store scrip' or credit at the company store rather than in cash, effectively keeping workers and their children in permanent debt. Before the reporter left, he witnessed a worker being reprimanded for throwing away a piece of bread, a reminder of the rigid control the firm maintained over every scrap of resources in their domain.
“We have to eat when we are idle as well as when we are working, so that we simply eat up our wages as fast as they are earned.”
This 1888 account of 'scrip' wages and company-owned housing echoes the modern struggle with 'gig' labor and the high cost of living in Seattle, where workers often find their wages immediately absorbed by the very corporations that employ them. It serves as a reminder that the tension between corporate consolidation and labor autonomy is a foundational struggle in Washington history.
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