The True Cost of Living
A haunting poem from the era exposes the impossibility of supporting a family on a mill worker's starvation wage.
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.
Five twenty-three in dollars and cents. Curious figures. What do they mean? An item, perhaps, in your daily expense, but dropped from your books betwixt and between. A box of cigars—a trinket—a bet—losses at auction—roses, maybe—scarcely worth serious notice and—yet—tragedy's writ in that five twenty-three. See that gaunt creature—hulk of a man. Toes peering out and clothing in rents? Of course he's unshaven, of course he's unclean, of course he is hungry—so would you be if you mortgaged your life in return for a lien to keep up a home on five twenty-three. That specter? His wife. Those heaps on the ground? Children too young to work in the mill. The wage of a week in his trembling hand lies. Count it, my brother—five twenty-three! Rent, food and clothing—how can she pay? Only four babies—I leave it to you. You in your wisdom shall tell her the way. No? Suppose they are ill or they die? Death's a good landlord; his dealings are free. Why do they shun him? Why do they try with life in the balance on five twenty-three?
“Tragedy's writ in that five twenty-three.”
This 1912 poem from the Labor Journal captures the brutal reality of the 'working poor' in Everett's mill-dominated economy. Over a century later, the tension between stagnant wages and the rising cost of basic survival remains the central, unresolved argument of the city's civic life.
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