From the outset—­the first benefit was paid on January 22, 1890[160]—­this system has been successful in operation.  The report of the international president to the nineteenth session, September, 1891, showed that 2286 members out of 24,624, or less than ten per cent. of the total membership, drew out-of-work benefits during the first year, to the amount of $22,760.50; while during the first six months of 1891, the second year of its operation, 1074 out of 24,221, or less than five per cent., received assistance to the amount of $13,214.50.[161] During 1892 the per capita cost of the benefit was 65-1/2 cents, as compared with 92 cents and 87 cents in 1890 and 1891, respectively.  These years were immediately preceding the great industrial and financial depression of 1893-1897, and in consequence during the following years the per capita amount paid showed considerable increase.  In 1894 the unemployed cost the Union $174,517.25, or $6.27 per capita of membership, and in 1896, $175,767.25, or $6.43 per capita.[162] Since 1897 the yearly amount paid has gradually decreased with the exception of 1901 and 1904.  During sixteen years of operation, ending January 1, 1906, $1,045,866.11 has been paid to unemployed members.[163]

[Footnote 160:  Cigar Makers’ Journal, Vol. 15, February, 1890, p. 9.]

[Footnote 161:  Ibid., Vol. 17, October, 1891, p. 5 (Supplement).]

[Footnote 162:  Proceedings of the Twenty-first Session, September, 1896; in Cigar Makers’ Journal, Vol. 22, No. 1.]

[Footnote 163:  Cigar Makers’ Journal, Vol. 31, April, 1906, p. 13.]

Even before the Cigar Makers, the Deutsch-Amerikanischen Typographia, the small union of the German American printers, had established an out-of-work benefit.  The Typographia began to pay an out-of-work benefit in 1884, eleven years after the organization of the national union.  The new preamble adopted at the first national convention in Philadelphia, 1873, declared one of the purposes of the union to be the support of members “when unable to obtain work."[164] In 1884, when the union nationalized its system of benefits, the out-of-work benefit was fixed at five dollars per week.  In 1888, owing to the prosperous financial condition of the Union, it was increased to six dollars per week, but in July, 1894, because of the strain upon the funds of the organization caused by the introduction of typesetting machines and the general business depression, it was reduced to the original sum.[165]

[Footnote 164:  American Federationist, Vol. 2, No. 4, p. 61.]

[Footnote 165:  Ibid.]