Perhaps the employment of mothers too close to the time of childbirth,
both before and after, is almost as important as the subsequent neglect
and intrusting of children to the tender mercies of ignorant and
irresponsible caretakers. Élie Reclus tells us that among savages it is
the universal custom to exempt their women from toil during stated
periods prior to and following childbirth,[32] and in most countries
legislation has been enacted forbidding the employment of women within a
certain given period from the birth of a child. In Switzerland the
employment of mothers is prohibited for two months before confinement
and the same period afterwards.[33] At present the English law forbids
the employment of a mother within four weeks after she has given birth
to a child, and the trend of public opinion seems to be in favor of the
extension of the period of exemption to the standard set by the Swiss
law.[34] So far as I am aware there exists no legislation of this kind
in the United States, in which respect we stand alone among the great
nations, and behind the savage of all lands and ages.
Wherever women are employed in large numbers, as, for example, in the
textile industries and in cigar-making, the need for such legislation
has presented itself, and it is impossible, unfortunately, to think that
the absence of it in this country indicates a like absence of need for
it. Cases in which women endure the agony of parturition amid the roar
and whirl of machinery, and the bed of childbirth is the factory floor,
are by no means uncommon. From a large mill, less than twenty miles from
New York City, four such cases were reported to me in less than three
months. Careful personal investigation in each case revealed the fact
that the unfortunate women had begged in vain that they might be allowed
to go home. One such case occurred on the morning of June 27 of this
year, and was reported to me that same evening by letter. The writer of
the letter is well known to me and his testimony unimpeachable.
A poor Slav woman, little more than a child in years, begged for
permission to go home because she felt ill and unable to stand.
Notwithstanding that her condition was perfectly evident, her appeal was
denied with most brutal oaths. Cowering with fear she shrank away back
to her loom with tears of shame and physical agony. Soon afterward her
shrieks were heard above the din of the mill and there, in the presence
of scores of workers of both sexes,—many of whom were girls of fourteen
years of age,—her child was born. Perhaps it is fortunate that the child
did not live to be a constant reminder to the poor woman of that hour of
unspeakable shame and suffering! The young daughter of my correspondent
was one of the witnesses of this shameful, inhuman thing. Subsequently I
secured ample corroboration of the story from the local Slav priest who
knew the poor woman and visited her soon after the occurrence. When I
showed the letter of my informant to a local physician, he acknowledged
that he had heard of other similar cases occurring and begged me to see
one of the principal owners of the mill and secure the discharge of the
foreman whose name was given. As if that could do any good! What good
would be accomplished by securing the discharge of the man, and possibly
bringing him and his family to poverty? That it would salve the
conscience of the mill owner is probable. That it would be a
well-deserved rebuke of the foreman’s inhumanity is likewise true. But
it would not contribute in any way to the solution of the problem of
which the case in question was but one of many examples.
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