Lumber Prices Jump as Seattle Mills Confront a Labor Shortage
Seattle lumber dealers will raise prices $1 per thousand on August 1, blaming higher wages, scarce mill hands, costlier logs—and Chinese laborers who struck for $1.50 a day.
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.
The Seattle lumber dealers have given notice that on and after August 1st the price of all grades of lumber will advance one dollar per thousand. A representative of this journal called on several of the leading mill men to learn the causes which led to this advance in the price of building material. They all told about the same story, which, in substance, was as follows: 'This move was deemed necessary for our own protection. Everything that we use has advanced, and why not lumber. Labor is higher than ever before, and most of the mills are running short-handed, because they cannot get men at any price, and we are paying more for logs than at any previous period. Chinese laborers, who a few months ago were glad to work for one dollar per day, have struck for $1.50.' It will be seen that a combination of circumstances rendered this slight advance necessary.
“Labor is higher than ever before, and most of the mills are running short-handed, because they cannot get men at any price.”
The mill men's litany—labor scarcity, higher wages, rising input costs—could be lifted from a modern Seattle business page. The brief mention of Chinese workers striking for $1.50 a day is a reminder that immigrant labor was not passive in the boom economy, even when the era's press barely credited it.
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