00, third edition, 1905 (Louisville, n.d.), sec. 43.]

The cost of the exemption of dues in none of the unions is large. The
following table gives the chief facts concerning the benefit in the Iron
Molders' Union for the period 1900-1906:

OUT-OF-WORK RELIEF IN THE IRON MOLDERS' UNION.
==========================================================
Year. |Number of Stamps| Value of | Cost per Member
|Issued Yearly. |Out-of-work[184]| per Year.
| | Stamps |
----------------------------------------------------------
1900 | 23,436 | $ 5,859.00 | $0.12
1901 | 26,349 | 6,587.25 | .12
1902 | 10,389 | 2,597.25 | .04
1903 | 26,073 | 6,518.25 | .04
1904 | 92,685 | 23,171.25 | .27
1905 | 24,906 | 6,226.50 | .07
1906 | 16,676 | 4,169.00 | .04
----------------------------------------------------------
Average| 31,502 | $7,875.50 | $0.10
----------------------------------------------------------

[Footnote 184: Approximate number only. Data furnished by Mr. R.H.
Metcalf, financier of the union.]

The great variations in the number of out-of-work stamps issued is due,
of course, to variations in the amount of unemployment. The annual
amount of unemployment per capita, so far as it is measured by the
number of stamps issued, varied from less than one fourth of a week in
1902, 1903 and 1906 to one and one half weeks in 1904. The per capita
cost of maintaining the benefit varied from four cents in 1902, 1903 and
1906 to twenty-seven cents in 1904.

In the history of certain of the principal unions a system of loans or
travelling benefits has preceded the out-of-work benefit. The travelling
benefit may indeed be termed the first stage of out-of-work relief. The
following unions maintain the travelling benefit either in the form of a
loan or of a gift: the Cement Workers, Chain Makers, Cigar Makers,
Compressed Air Workers, Deutsch-Amerikanischen Typographia, Flour and
Cereal Mill Employees, Fur Workers, Glass Snappers, Hod Carriers, Lace
Curtain Operatives, Leather Workers on Horse Goods, Machine Printers and
Color Mixers, the Mattress and Spring Bed Workers, Shipwrights, Slate
Quarrymen, Tile Layers and Helpers, and the Watch Case Engravers. The
travelling benefit and the out-of-work benefit are complementary in
several of these u