| No. of women with average weekly cost of living ($)
| (food, shelter, heat, light, laundry)
------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+------
Average |Un- |1.00|1.50|2.00|2.50|3.00|3.50|4.00|4.50|5.00|5.50|6.00|6.50|
weekly |der | to | to | to | to | to | to | to | to | to | to | to |and |Total
earnings |1.00|1.49|1.99|2.49|2.99|3.49|3.99|4.49|4.99|5.49|5.99|6.49|over|
------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+------
$1.00: $1.49| .. | .. | 1 | .. | .. | .. | 1 | 1 | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 3
1.50: 1.99| .. | .. | .. | 1 | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 1
2.00: 2.49| .. | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 6
2.50: 2.99| .. | 1 | .. | 2 | 1 | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 4
3.00: 3.49| .. | .. | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 7
3.50: 3.99| 1 | .. | 1 | 2 | 1 | .. | 3 | .. | .. | .. | 1 | .. | .. | 9
4.00: 4.49| 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 13
4.50: 4.99| 1 | 5 | 4 | 6 | .. | 5 | 3 | .. | 2 | .. | 1 | .. | .. | 27
5.00: 5.49| 2 | .. | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | .. | 1 | .. | .. | 19
5.50: 5.99| .. | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | .. | 2 | .. | .. | 17
6.00: 6.49| .. | 3 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | .. | .. | .. | 1 | .. | 20
6.50: 6.99| .. | .. | .. | 2 | 1 | .. | 1 | 2 | 2 | .. | .. | .. | 1 | 9
7.00: 7.49| .. | 1 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 2 | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 16
7.50: 7.99| 1 | .. | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | .. | .. | 2 | 1 | 1 | 22
8.00: 8.49| .. | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 2 | .. | 1 | .. | .. | 23
8.50: 8.99| .. | .. | .. | .. | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | .. | .. | .. | .. | 5
9.00: 9.49| .. | 1 | .. | .. | .. | 2 | .. | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | .. | 1 | 10
9.50: 9.99| .. | .. | .. | .. | 1 | .. | 1 | 1 | 1 | .. | .. | 1 | .. | 5
10.00: 10.49| .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 2 | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 2 | 4
10.50: 10.99| .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 1 | .. | .. | .. | .. | 1
11.00: 11.49| .. | .. | 1 | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 1 | .. | 1 | 3
11.50: 11.99| .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 1 | .. | .. | .. | 1 | .. | .. | .. | 2
12.00: 12.99| .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 1 | .. | .. | 2 | .. | 1 | 1 | .. | 5
13.00: 13.99| .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 1 | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 1
14.00: 14.99| .. | .. | .. | .. | 1 | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 1 | .. | .. | 2
15.00 & over| .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 1 | .. | .. | .. | .. | .. | 1 | 2
------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+------
Total | 7 | 17 | 29 | 32 | 26 | 36 | 29 | 19 | 16 | 2 | 12 | 4 | 7 |236[A]
------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+------
[A] 16.6% of those for whom the information necessary was secured. In
the cities investigated (New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis,
Boston, Minneapolis, and St. Paul) there were, in 1905, 400,000 women
employed in stores, mills, factories, and other similar establishments.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
NUMBER OF WOMEN WAGE-EARNERS KEEPING HOUSE WHO HAVE SPECIFIED
NUMBER OF PERSONS WHOLLY OR PARTIALLY DEPENDENT
ON THEM FOR SUPPORT, BY WAGE GROUPS
--------------+-----------------------------++----------------------------
| No. of women having || No. of women having
| wholly dependent || partially dependent
| on them || on them
+-----------------------------++----------------------------
Average | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | || 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
Weekly | per-| per-| per-| per-| || per-| per-| per-| per-|
Earnings | son | sons| sons| sons| Tot.|| son | sons| sons| sons|Tot.
--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----++-----+-----+-----+-----+----
$ 1.00: $ 1.49| .. | .. | .. | .. | .. || .. | .. | .. | .. | ..
1.50: 1.99| .. | .. | .. | .. | .. || .. | .. | .. | .. | ..
2.00: 2.49| .. | .. | .. | 1 | 1 || 1 | 3 | .. | .. | 4
2.50: 2.99| .. | .. | .. | .. | .. || 1 | .. | 1 | .. | 2
3.00: 3.49| 1 | .. | 1 | .. | 2 || 2 | 1 | .. | .. | 3
3.50: 3.99| 1 | .. | .. | .. | 1 || 1 | 2 | .. | 1 | 4
4.00: 4.49| 2 | .. | 1 | .. | 3 || 2 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 9
4.50: 4.99| 1 | .. | 2 | 2 | 5 || 4 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 11
5.00: 5.49| .. | .. | 1 | 1 | 2 || 7 | 1 | .. | 2 | 10
5.50: 5.99| 2 | 1 | .. | .. | 3 || 4 | 1 | .. | .. | 5
6.00: 6.49| .. | 1 | 1 | .. | 2 || 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 10
6.50: 6.99| .. | .. | .. | .. | .. || 4 | 1 | 1 | .. | 6
7.00: 7.49| 3 | 1 | .. | .. | 4 || 1 | 1 | .. | 1 | 3
7.50: 7.99| .. | 3 | 2 | .. | 5 || 10 | .. | .. | 1 | 11
8.00: 8.49| 6 | .. | 1 | .. | 7 || 4 | .. | 2 | 1 | 7
8.50: 8.99| 2 | 1 | .. | .. | 3 || 2 | .. | .. | .. | 2
9.00: 9.49| .. | .. | .. | .. | .. || 2 | 2 | 1 | .. | 5
9.50: 9.99| 1 | .. | .. | .. | 1 || .. | .. | 1 | .. | 1
10.00: 10.49| .. | .. | .. | .. | .. || 2 | .. | .. | .. | 2
10.50: 10.99| .. | 1 | .. | .. | 1 || .. | .. | .. | .. | ..
11.00: 11.49| 1 | .. | .. | .. | 1 || 1 | .. | .. | 1 | 2
11.50: 11.99| 1 | .. | .. | .. | 1 || .. | .. | 1 | .. | 1
12.00: 12.99| 1 | .. | .. | .. | 1 || 1 | .. | 1 | .. | 2
13.00: 13.99| .. | .. | .. | .. | .. || .. | .. | .. | .. | ..
14.00: 14.99| 1 | .. | .. | .. | 1 || .. | .. | .. | .. | ..
15.00: over | 1 | .. | 1 | .. | 2 || .. | 1 | .. | .. | 1
--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----++-----+-----+-----+-----+----
Total | 24 | 8 | 10 | 4 | 46 || 54 | 21 | 15 | 11 | 101
--------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----++-----+-----+-----+-----+----
But bad food and bad housing are not the only enemies of the workman's
health. The nature of his daily toil and the conditions under which it
is performed are often against him. Even ventilation becomes important
when one has to spend ten, eleven, or twelve hours a day in one room,
and yet this is almost entirely neglected.
In 1908 a special officer was appointed in New York State to make tests
of the atmospheric conditions in places of business. One hundred and
thirty-six factories were examined, and in some printing establishments
as many as forty parts of carbonic-acid gas (CO_{2}) in ten thousand
volumes of air were found, though a legal limit of twelve is
recommended. One cigar factory, with windows partly open, had eighty
such parts. The following table will exhibit the results of this
investigation.[66]
------------------+----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
Parts of CO_{2} in| | | | | | | |
10,000 vols. air |5-12|13-20|21-25|26-30|31-40|42-60|65-70|75-80
------------------+----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
Factories in | | | | | | | |
each class | 82 | 166 | 80 | 67 | 30 | 8 | 3 | 3
------------------+----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
Sometimes the exigencies of the trade require that there should be no
draft, as in the handling of carbon filaments for incandescent lamps,
and then the conditions of the atmosphere become acutely unhealthy. In
addition, in some of the rooms numerous bunsen burners are always
lighted and all currents of air carefully excluded to prevent their
flickering.[67]
Elsewhere, the process of manufacture often vitiates the air, as the
"blow-over" in bottle shops. "In some factories, at times the air is so
full of this floating glass that the hair is whitened by merely passing
through the room. It sticks to the perspiration on the face and arms of
the boys and men and becomes a source of considerable irritation.
Getting into the eyes it is especially troublesome" (l. c., p. 66).
Something similar occurs in etching glass by a sand-blast. Unless a
hood and exhaust are provided, a pressure of from fifty to ninety pounds
scatters fine sand and glass dust through the air and is breathed in by
the operator (l. c., p. 440). Even worse, however, is the acid etching,
as the fumes of hydrochloric acid cause severe irritation to the throat
and lungs (l. c., p. 442).
Even when there is no such irritant in the air as just mentioned,
extreme differences in temperature between the work-room and the
outside, or between various parts of the shop, may be a source of
serious danger to health. In the glass industry, many persons have to
work in temperatures ranging from ninety to one hundred and forty
degrees, and as high as fifty degrees above the outside air (l. c., p.
75). Industries where an artificial humidity is required, such as silk,
cotton and flax spinning, are likely to induce rheumatism, pleurisy,
etc. After working ten hours in a room filled with live steam to prevent
breaking of threads, to pass into a New England blizzard is apt to
produce serious results. The boys in bottle-making shops are obliged to
pass continually from a temperature of 140 degrees at the "glory-hole"
to one of 90 degrees or less in other parts (l. c., pp. 49ff.).
And even if conditions of atmosphere and ventilation are good, the mere
fact of continuing work for thirteen hours seven days a week tells
seriously upon the physical endurance of the strongest.[68] When night
work is required in addition to the day's labor, as in the glass
industry, the consequences are likely to be worse, especially where
children are concerned.[69] Night work frequently means a presence in
the factory of at least twenty hours out of the twenty-four. "During the
course of the investigation there were found two cases of recent death,
both children, which could be directly attributed to exhaustion due to
double-shift work in the furnace room" (l. c., p. 122).
In the clothing trade, "some piece and task-workers reported that they
commonly worked seventy-two and even seventy-eight hours a week during
busy periods" (l. c., p. 115). "There were instances where women said
they worked from 6 or 7 o'clock in the morning to 9, 10, or 11 o'clock
at night" (l. c., p. 241). For store girls, "thirteen and one-half hours
on Saturday is not only excessive but works considerable hardship."[70]
"One girl worked 24-1/2 hours at one stretch with but two half-hour
intermissions for meals.... Four girls working in one establishment on
the 'night force' one day for each week reported their 'longest day's'
labor as 16-3/4, 20-1/4, 22-1/2, 24-1/4 hours" (l. c., p. 205). On the
elevated railways in Chicago, at the time of the investigation, 1907-08,
women worked for 80-1/2 hours a week (l. c., p. 208).
When the business requires the maintaining of practically one position
all day, whether standing or sitting, such long hours are bound to have
a bad physical effect. This is the case, for example, in department
stores (l. c., p. 178); in the glass industry where many growing boys
are cramped before the furnace holes all day long;[71] in many processes
in the manufacture of incandescent lamps (l. c., p. 482-483); and
numerous other occupations.
But there is frequently added to mere length of hours a feverish haste
in working induced by starvation piece-rates or by the necessity of
keeping up with a machine. When a woman perforates 3100 bulbs a day and
welds tubes to them, there must be a constant nervous tension to attain
such rapidity (l. c., p. 469). The even more complex operation of
stem-making for these bulbs proceeds at a rate varying from 2600 to 3500
a day (l. c., p. 467). Three thousand stems and bulbs are assembled each
day (p. 470), while in one day, an expert will test the candle-power of
5000 lamps (p. 472). The operation of mounting Tungsten filaments in
small copper wire is very much like threading an exceedingly small
needle. If one imagines this repeated 3000 times a day, with thread that
has to be handled with the greatest care to prevent breaking, he will
have some idea of the strain on eyes and nerves (p. 478). Twenty
thousand completed lamps are tested daily at a piece rate of 6c. per
thousand lamps (pp. 486-487).
Very frequently, too, these long hours at an intense strain must be
spent at work positively dangerous on account of the process, such as
matchmaking[72] or painting lamps.[73] Chemical poisoning is frequent in
hatters' and furriers' work, and plumbism, which is very similar to
phosphorous poisoning, besets any trade in which lead is used. This is
the case, in the production of white, red, or yellow lead, industries in
which goods dyed with them undergo the process of building, winding,
weaving, etc., and such an apparently innocuous occupation as the
manufacture of earthenware and pottery. "One of the first symptoms of
plumbism is a blue gum, followed by loosening and dropping out of the
teeth. Blindness, paralysis, and death in convulsions frequently follow.
Besides plumbism there are serious indirect results from lead-poisoning
in a number of industries."[74] Readers of George Bernard Shaw will
remember that Mrs. Warren adopted her profession through fear of
contracting this disease. Her sister had fallen a victim to it and the
frightful ravages made among her friends drove her to this course. In
other industries such as wool sorting, blanket stoving and tentering,
and warp dressing, lock-jaw is an incident.
Closely allied to a question already discussed, that of ventilations, is
the insidious injury wrought by dust in the air. Some trades in which
this condition is pronounced, seem materially to shorten life, as shown
by a bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor for May, 1909, on
"Mortality from Consumption in Certain Occupations." The proportion of
those reaching the age of 65 and over among tobacco and cigar factory
operatives was 1.8%; glove-makers, 2.3%; bakers, 2.4%; leather curriers
and tanners, 2.9%; and confectioners, 3.1%: as against 4.7%, the average
expected normal on the basis of all occupied males in the United States
(l. c., p. 623).
Eighty-nine per cent. of the clergymen who died in 1900 were over 44,
and 55% over 65 years of age; 76% of the lawyers dying in this year were
over 44, and 41% over 65; 73% and 41% of the physicians had passed these
respective ages; 80% and 37% of the bankers, officials of companies,
etc., were over 44 and 65: yet more than half of the compositors dying
in the United States for the year were under 49 years of age. About
one-half of these died of pulmonary tuberculosis. Only 18% were over
60.[75] Between 1892 and 1898, 32% of the deaths of glass bottle-blowers
were due to tuberculosis, largely induced, probably, by the strain on
the lungs, the "blow-over," and conditions of temperature.[76]
Industrial mortality insurance statistics show that 23% of the deaths of
those employed in trades exposed to organic dust are from consumption
and 14% from other respiratory diseases, as against 14.8% and 11.7%, the
expected respective averages for the United States.[77] The following
table taken from the bulletin just quoted will probably exhibit the
results more strikingly (p. 626):
-------------+--------------------------------------------
| Per cent. of deaths due to consumption
| among:
Age at death +---------------------+----------------------
| Occupations exposed | Males in registration
| to organic dust | area, 1900-1906
-------------+---------------------+----------------------
15-24 years | 40.1 | 27.8
25-34 years | 49.0 | 31.3
35-44 years | 35.3 | 23.6
45-54 years | 21.6 | 15.0
55-64 years | 11.0 | 8.1
65 and over | 4.5 | 2.7
-------------+---------------------+----------------------
It will be seen from this table, that deaths from consumption in these
trades exposed to organic dust were more than half again as much as
might reasonably have been expected. And it must be remembered that
statistics indicate, "that general organic dust is less serious in its
fatal effects than mineral or metallic dust, and as a result the
proportionate mortality from consumption and other respiratory diseases
in this group is more favorable than in the groups of occupations with
exposure to mineral and metallic dusts" (l. c., p. 627).
More evident dangers of occupation, because more directly traceable to
their causes, are industrial accidents. Manufacturers and employers
sometimes wantonly, sometimes through ignorance, neglect the precautions
and appliances necessary properly to safeguard their workmen. The
introduction of complicated machinery, the use of high-power explosives,
the strenuous conduct of production, without corresponding efforts to
offset the natural tendencies of these conditions and tools, has made
peace more horrible and dangerous than war.
Of all such sources of accident, mines are probably the most prolific.
"The percentage of miners killed in this country is greater than in any
other, being from two to four times as large as in any European
country."[78] "Every year of the past decade," 1890-1900, "has seen from
500 to 700 Pennsylvania miners killed and from 1200 to 1650 injured. By
comparing these figures with the total number employed, it will be found
that on the average about one man in every 400 employed in the mines is
killed yearly and about one out of every 150 injured."[79]
In 37 New England cotton mills in 1907, 1428 employees were injured.[80]
The Bethlehem Steel Works alone had a record of 927 accidents in
1909.[81] In New York State, during a year of industrial depression,
1907, there were 14,545 accidents recorded,[82] and we know that they
are more numerous in prosperous years.
Time and again we find in the succinct official reports such terse
statements as: "While working on top of boiler was overcome by gas: dead
when found," "struck by pieces thrown from bursting emery wheel, died
from injuries ten days later," "heavy piece of machinery was being moved
by crane which broke, allowing machinery to fall against tank, which in
turn fell against deceased, crushing his legs and injuring him
internally: death occurred one hour later," "caught in belt and whirled
around shafting; death occurred before machinery could be stopped,"
"struck in face by broken belt; eyeball broken: death ensued two days
later at hospital from effects of anæsthetic," "broken elevator shaft
caused elevator to fall with operator; skull fractured and ear
lacerated: death ensued later at hospital" (l. c., pt. I, pp. 109-113).
Such are the official reports. They give no idea of the suffering of the
families, the struggles of widows and orphans when the head of the
family has been struck down; they do not show the carelessness or greed
that subjects men to the danger of working with worn-out cranes, or
defective emery wheels, or weak belting; but they do show, in connection
with the other data quoted, in a cold official way, that hundreds of
thousands of men and women in this country are working for excessive
hours, amid unsanitary surroundings, and without proper protection from
the dangers of their work: judging by the standard which for the time
being has been accepted as just.
Such conditions are hard enough for grown men and women to face, they
are harder still for children. And by taking children away from school
and putting them at work, frequently beyond their capacity, they are
handicapped mentally and physically for making enough later on to
support a family. The percentage of children so injured cannot be
definitely arrived at, but they are employed in considerable numbers in
a large variety of occupations. Sweatshops, glass factories, the making
of neckties, cigars, paper and wooden boxes, picture frames, furniture,
and shoes are a few of the widely different trades that take their
quota. In the Southern cotton mills, twelve appears to be the age at
which children are ordinarily expected to begin work; but some of the
mills employ children under that age, now and then, in fact, as young as
nine, eight, and even six years.[83]
"Probably the most serious and far-reaching effect of child-labor is the
prevention of normal development, physical and mental. Besides being
deprived of the schooling they would otherwise get, children are injured
by confinement and sometimes worn out by work. In other cases the work
is demoralizing because it does not call out the best faculties of the
children, or leaves them altogether idle for a part of the year.
"It has been found that children are much more liable to accidents in
factories than adults. Thus a recent report of the Minnesota Bureau of
Labor shows that boys under sixteen have twice as great probability of
accident as adults, while girls under sixteen have thirty-three [_sic_]
times as great a probability of being hurt as women over sixteen.... It
has also been found that overstrain of the muscular or nervous system is
much more serious in children than in adults, and that children are also
more susceptible to the poisons and injurious dusts arising in certain
processes than grown persons."[84]
FOOTNOTES:
[63] U. S. Bureau of Labor, "Men's Ready-Made Clothing," p. 297.
[64] U. S. Bureau of Labor, "Glass Industry," p. 607.
[65] U. S. Bureau of Labor, "Wage-Earning Women in Stores and
Factories," p. 134.
[66] Cf. Report of Commissioner of Labor of New York for 1908 Vol. I,
pp. 76-93.
[67] U. S. Bureau of Labor, "Glass Industry," p. 500.
[68] U. S. Commissioner of Labor, "Strike at Bethlehem Steel Works," p.
10, 1910.
[69] U. S. Bur. Lab., "Glass Industry," p. 118.
[70] U. S. Bur. Lab., "Women Wage-Earners in Stores and Factories," p.
127.
[71] U. S. Bur. Lab., "Glass Industry," p. 48.
[72] U. S. Bur. Lab., Bulletin No. 68, Jan., 1910: "Phosphorus Poisoning
in the Match Industry."
[73] U. S. Bur. Lab., "Glass Industry," pp. 485-486.
[74] U. S. Indus. Comm., Vol. XIX, p. 901f.
[75] Rep. N. Y. State Bur. Lab., 1906, pp. CVII-CXXXV.
[76] U. S. Bur. Lab., "Glass Industry," p. 240.
[77] Bull. U. S. Bur. Lab., May, 1909, p. 626.
[78] "Monthly Catalogue U. S. Public Documents," Nov., 1909, p. 184.
[79] U. S. Indus. Com., Vol. XIX, p. 906.
[80] U. S. Bur. Lab., "Cotton Textile Industry," p. 383.
[81] U. S. Commissioner of Labor, "Report on Strike at Bethlehem Steel
Works," p. 121.
[82] Report of Commissioner of Labor of N. Y., 1908, pt. I, p. 62.
[83] L. c., pp. 45, 65, 83, 85, 86: U. S. Bur. Lab., "Cotton Textile
Industry."
[84] U. S. Industrial Commission, Vol. XIX, p. 917f; cf. also U. S. Bur.
Lab., "Cotton Textile Industry," p. 385f.
CHAPTER SEVEN
INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS: MORALS
Industrial conditions, as at present constituted, not only injure the
health of the body; they also endanger the soul. The Chicago Vice
Commission has thus summarized these influences: "Among the economic
conditions contributory to the social evil are low wages, unsanitary
conditions, demoralizing relationships in stores, shops, domestic
service, restaurants and hotels: the street vending of children in
selling papers and gums, collecting coupons and refuse; the messenger
service of boys, especially in the vicinity of disorderly houses,
vicious saloons, dance halls and other demoralizing resorts; employment
agencies which send servants to immoral places; the rest rooms or
waiting places where applicants for work resort; too long hours and the
high pressure of work; the overcrowding of houses upon lots, and of
persons in single rooms" (Report, 1911: p. 230).
When inability to secure decent lodging forces men and women to occupy
the same sleeping rooms, there must be an inevitable lowering of moral
standards. One case is recorded in "Packingtown," where eight
persons--men and women--were sleeping in a room approximately ten by
fifteen feet.[85] When a woman pays less than $1.50 a week for board and
lodging, as many are forced to do (see page 71f) she can have no
privacy. "If there are men lodgers in the house, the entrance to their
room is sometimes through the girl's room, or vice versa. In one house
visited, the women received the agent about nine P.M. in the room of a
man lodger who had already gone to bed. This seemed to be the only
available sitting room and disconcerted no one save the agent" (l. c.,
p. 62).
The girl who lives away from home in a cheap boarding house is no myth.
In Pittsburgh, "in the garment trades she numbers 38% of the total
force; in the wholesale millinery trade 10%; in the mercantile houses
20%. On the lowest estimate, there are 2300 of her kind in
Pittsburgh."[86]
It is not only low wages, as leading to a lack of decent housing, that
has a bad moral effect. All are born with a natural craving for
happiness, and long hours of work under a nervous strain intensify this
desire. Economic conditions have kept most of those in the grip of such
a situation from developing the higher side of their nature until they
can find pleasure and recreation in a symphony concert or an epic poem.
The jaded nerves need a stronger stimulus to cause pleasure. "The desire
for ecstasy," says Algar Thorold, a keen psychological observer, "is at
the very root and heart of our nature. This craving, when bound down by
the animal instincts, meets us on every side in those hateful
contortions of the social organism called the dram-shop and the
brothel."[87]
As a consequence of this insatiable longing for pleasure and the
inability to pay for it, thousands of young women in our big cities
patronize public dance halls and other questionable places of amusement.
The code of their social set has come to sanction accepting tickets for
such places, refreshments, etc., from men met haphazard at these
resorts.[88]
Dance halls are such a serious menace to public morals that legislation
has become necessary. Elizabeth, Paterson, Newark and Hoboken, New
Jersey, Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Louisville,
Minneapolis, Seattle, San Francisco, Kansas City, and Cleveland are all
agitating the question of their regulation (Survey, June 3, 1911, p.
345). A. B. Williams, general secretary of the Humane Society of this
last city, is quoted as declaring that "one out of every ten children in
Cleveland is born out of wedlock. In nine out of every ten cases that we
handle, the mothers tell us, 'I met him at a public dance'" (l. c., p.
346).
In Chicago alone there are about 306 licensed dance halls and nearly 100
unlicensed. Among these, "one condition is general: most of the dance
halls exist for the sale of liquor, not for the purpose of dancing,
which is only of secondary importance. A saloon opened into each of 190
halls, and liquor was sold in 240 out of 328. In the others--except in
rare instances--return checks were given to facilitate the use of
neighboring saloons. At the halls where liquor was sold practically all
the boys showed signs of intoxication by one o'clock" (l. c., p. 385:
Louise de Koven Bowen).
And just as women who have toiled hard all day long, crave some strong
excitement such as can only be afforded by the dance hall or a similar
place, so men in the same circumstances naturally turn to the saloon. It
is in the cheerfully lighted, comfortably heated gin-shop, in the
temporary stimulus of liquor, that insufficient food, unhealthful
surroundings at home and at work, a cold, uninviting house are
forgotten. It is often said that workmen would have enough to live on
comfortably if they did not squander their wages in drink, and that to
raise their pay would only be to increase the profits of saloon-keepers.
In some cases this may be true. But in the vast majority, it is probable
that to increase their power of getting the comforts at home that they
find in the saloon would be to lessen the drink evil, rather than
increase it. The marvel is not that laborers who come home day after day
from hard, long toil to poor food, cold rooms, a generally comfortless
home should seek out the gin-palace, but that they drink as little as
they do.
These are some of the indirect, though important, moral results of
economic conditions. Oftentimes the direct influences of a person's
occupation also make for evil. The messenger boy, for instance, on the
streets at all hours and in all sections, can hardly fail to see and
hear much that no parent would want a child of fourteen, sixteen, or
eighteen to know. Indeed, a great part of his employment at night comes
from those indulging in debauchery, and it is his most profitable source
of tips.[89]
From the nature of the case, women are probably more exposed in their
work than men. Such occupations as will occur to every one, are manicure
parlors where girls are peculiarly exposed to danger and insults. But
most important, because employing the largest numbers, are the
department stores. It has been charged over and over again, that many
employers knowingly pay wages that are insufficient to support a girl in
the expectation that she will be subsidized by some "gentleman friend."
How far this is true is hard to say; and it is just as difficult to
determine how many department-store employees are really immoral. The
report of the United States Bureau of Labor on "Wage-Earning Women and
Children" combats the idea that immorality among them is widespread.
Nevertheless, there is a strong opinion that store girls are not all
they should be, and many careful observers have enumerated quite a
startling array of individual instances where a girl's fall can be
largely traced to her employment as a sales-woman.
An investigator for the Chicago Vice Commission, for instance, gives in
the report of that body quite a number of cases which are said to be
typical. "Violet works in a department store, salary $5.00 per week. Was
seduced and left home. Baby died and she solicits on the side to support
herself.... Mag 18 years old. Works in department store. Salary $5.50
per week. Tells parents she receives more. Helps support parents and
'solicits' at dances for spending money. Father is sickly.... Marcella
(X913), alias Tantine (X904). Came to (X905) about three years ago, and
started to work in the (X916) department store. One of the managers
insisted on taking her out, which she finally had to do 'to hold her
job,' as she asserts" (pp. 187, 195).
Miss Elizabeth Butler, investigating for the Pittsburgh _Survey_,
reports the same thing in that city. "Vera ----" she says, "is twenty
years old. Four years ago she was employed as a salesgirl at $3.50 a
week. After a year she left for another store where she was employed as
a cashier at a salary of $10.00 a week, for making concessions to her
employer. After two years she left the store for a house of
prostitution.... Jennie ---- came to Pittsburgh from Akron, Ohio. She
had no friends in the city and was obliged to be self-supporting. She
obtained a position at $6.00 a week as a sales-woman. After five months
in the store she consented to be kept in an apartment in the East End.
She still keeps her position in the store.... A girl whose father was
killed by an electric crane was the only one of the family old enough to
work. Forced by financial needs to accept a wage fixed by custom at a
point below her own cost of subsistence, much more below the cost of
helping to maintain a family of dependents, she drifted into occasional
prostitution."[90]
These are only particular instances, it is true, and one must not
generalize too widely. But there is undoubtedly considerable foundation
for the charge so often made and so firmly fixed in the public mind. And
if many of the girls exposed to such dangers have hitherto remained
pure, we must thank the sterling characters inherited from those raised
under different conditions, not conclude that the system needs no
improvement.
All these and certain less tangible economic influences making for evil
have been well summarized by the Minneapolis Vice Commission. It points
out that the advent of great numbers of young girls into industry has
produced conditions that lead to the blasting of thousands of lives
yearly. "The chance for the making of promiscuous male acquaintances,
the close association of the sexes in employment, the necessary contact
with the general public, the new and distorted view of life which such
an environment compels, taken with the low wage scale prevailing in so
many callings and affecting so many individuals, combine to create a
situation that must inevitably weaken the moral stamina and lead to the
undoing of many. The fault is plainly not so much in the individual; it
is rather the results of the industrial system. The remedy lies in large
part in the reforming of the system" (Report, 1911, p. 126).
Some of the remedies suggested by this commission are higher wages,
better sanitary conditions, and "_the education of public opinion in
this field to the point where it will demand a living wage and proper
working conditions and social conditions for those who serve them in
industry_."[91]
Nor is this commission alone in attributing a great moral influence to
economic conditions and in looking to the public for a large part of the
remedy. In fact, it was simply following in the steps of the New York
and Chicago Vice Commissions.[92] And all merely voiced a widespread
conviction among social workers and the public generally.
"Are flesh and blood so cheap," asks the Chicago Commission, "mental
qualifications so common, and honesty of so little value, that the
manager of one of our big department stores feels justified in paying a
high school girl, who has served nearly one year as an inspector of
sales, the beggarly wage of $4.00 per week? What is the natural result
of such an industrial condition? Dishonesty and immorality, not from
choice, but necessity--in order to _live_. We can forgive the human
frailty that yields to temptation under such conditions--but we cannot
forgive the soulless corporation, which arrests and prosecutes this
girl--a first offender--when she takes some little articles for personal
adornment.... Prostitution demands _youth_ for its perpetration. On the
public rests the mighty responsibility of seeing to it that the demand
is not supplied through the breaking down of the early education of the
young girl or her exploitation in the business world" (Report, pp.
43-44).
This insistence upon the _public_ as being really responsible for these
economic and moral conditions is significant. For the Consumers are the
public. Each individual of which the public is composed is, in one
aspect, a Consumer, and it is important to notice how widespread is an
insistence upon his responsibility in the matter.
From this discussion it may be reasonably concluded: (1) that many
persons in many industries are receiving less than a living wage, in the
present acceptation of that term; (2) that many persons are being
injured in health and limb by long hours, unsanitary workshops, and
improperly guarded machinery; (3) that the conditions of work often tend
to produce vice.
The treatment has been largely statistical. No matter how thorough,
therefore, it is subject to the limitations of this method. Sissy Jupe
long ago called statistics "stutterings," and newer editions of
Gradgrind have not perfected their articulation. Statistics are
necessarily quantitative. They do well enough for computing rainfall, or
something of the sort, but human life with its pleasures and pains, its
joys and tragedies, refuses to be labeled and ticketed. It is intangible
to such gross systems of classification.
"All the world's coarse thumb
And finger fail to plumb"
the depths of happiness and suffering in the least of human creatures.
FOOTNOTES:
[85] U. S. Bur. Lab., "Women Wage-Earners in Stores and Factories," p.
119.
[86] E. B. Butler, "Women and the Trades," pp. 320-1.
[87] Preface to "Dialogue of St Catherine of Siena," p. 13: London,
Kegan Paul, 1896.
[88] U. S. Bur. Labor, "Women Wage-Earners in Stores and Factories," p.
75.
[89] Cf. Report of Chicago Vice Commission, p. 242f, and unpublished
reports of the National Child Labor Committee, Washington, D. C.
[90] "Women and the Trades," pp. 305-306, 348.
[91] Italics added. Cf. pp. 114, 115, 126.
[92] Survey, Apr. 15, 1911, p. 99; May 6, 1911, p. 215.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WHAT SHOULD THE INDIVIDUAL CONSUMER DO?
The question now arises, even supposing the conditions are bad and that
a duty of improving them rests upon the Consuming Class; what is the
individual Consumer bound to do? Making all due allowances for the fact
that we have assumed what is a just or unjust wage, and without any
intention of forcing this standard upon the conscience of individuals,
there will be times when a particular Consumer is convinced, e.g. that
those employed at stores he patronizes are not being paid anything like
what they have a right to receive. What should he do? Does any
obligation devolve upon him?
In answering this question, the general principle must be kept in mind,
that a Consumer is not bound to act under a disproportionately grave
inconvenience. He is not bound to sacrifice considerable personal good
to do a very little good to the laborers making the articles he buys;
nor is he obliged to put himself to any inconvenience if no good
whatever is going to follow.
But if he can conveniently buy goods made under just conditions rather
than under bad, and the price is no higher, then he is bound to do so.
And if he is well off and can easily afford to pay a little more for the
justly made goods, he ought to buy them, provided he can be reasonably
sure that the increase in price will go to maintain good working
conditions and not simply to swell the manufacturer's profits.
As Father Cuthbert, a Capuchin, says, not the employers only are
responsible for the oppression of workingmen, "but all who patronize
such labor contribute to the sin. The insatiable yearning to buy cheap
without any thought as to how cheapness is obtained, this is the
incentive which tempts men to buy cheap labor and to underpay workmen.
Were people in general not willing accomplices, there would be no
sweating system, no unfair competition. The sin falls not on the few
[manufacturers] but on the many [patrons] who too readily condone the
sin of the few for the sake of the resultant advantage to themselves.
They pay half a penny less for a pound of sugar or a shilling or two
less on a ton of coal: what does the public care that the shop
assistant or the miner is unable to get a human wage?"[93]
The purely individual action of Consumers, however, can have but little
effect for good. For only comparatively few have sufficiently developed
social consciences to realize the desirability of such action; and even
if more had, their means of discovering which goods are justly made are
so limited as seriously to hamper their activity.
The remedy for this difficulty would seem to be organization among
Consumers. There can be little doubt that if they united in sufficient
numbers in patronizing only those shops that maintained good working
conditions their action would exert considerable pressure. The labor
unions have shown that the boycott is a powerful weapon. How efficient
it can be, may be guessed from the sums spent by employers in opposing
it. Astute business men do not tilt at windmills, and if they have
fought the legality of the boycott in every tribunal in the land,
including the Supreme Court, it was only because they realized the
compelling power it placed in labor's hands.
But some greater animus than pure philanthropy seems necessary to make
Consumers band together in this way on a large enough scale. They need
the class spirit, the enthusiasm of industrial warfare afforded by the
trade unions. For though an organization of Consumers has been in
existence now for more than twenty years, it is forced sorrowfully to
admit that the good accomplished simply through the economic pressure of
its members has been but slight.
But if it had been possible so to unite Consumers in a powerful society
for the collection of information and the distribution of patronage, it
has been asked: Would it not have become wofully corrupt? Can we safely
trust an irresponsible club with such power? And, therefore, is it wise
for conscientious individuals now to join this league? For either it
will remain practically powerless, or else it will become so strong as
to be a menace.
The answer must be that if the Consumers' League ever does become strong
enough to exercise a great influence in the industrial world, it will
probably abuse and sell its power. Rich unfair firms may be able to
bribe those in control to give them a recommendation they do not
deserve, and various other kinds of corruption will most likely creep
in. But such an argument proves too much. If we are to give no authority
where it will not be misused, we shall come to anarchy at once. For have
not political parties, and states and employers and trade unions--all,
at one time or another, abused power. Seldom have men enjoyed power for
long without using it for selfish ends.
But we must not, therefore, destroy all authority and power. Rather we
should embrace the dictum of de Maistre, that power must be balanced
against power, one organization set to watch another. And if it should
happen that a league of Consumers became too strong and abused its
strength, it would be time enough then to set about checking it by
building up power somewhere else.
So far, however, there has been no danger of such a contingency. The
Consumers' League has been active, earnest, and honest--and sufficient
for the day is the evil thereof. The League has embraced all work that
came to hand whether strictly within the economic field first marked out
for it, or extending to other preserves. Its activity in the Legislative
domain has not been inconsiderable, and it is probable that the
influence of Consumers will be most marked here in the future.
There is much talk now of minimum wage legislation to guarantee laborers
a certain standard. If we look upon compulsory arbitration as
practically the same thing, we can say that it has already been
extensively tried. Canada, England, Australia, and New Zealand have
shown that it is possible in some fields but the controversy always
aroused by a new project has not yet subsided sufficiently to enable one
to speak definitely concerning its success. The elaborate system of
state insurance against sickness, accident, old age, and unemployment,
now in operation in England and Germany is another governmental attempt
to secure a certain standard of living for all. And the public-schools,
in which rich and poor are put on a plane of equality regarding
elementary education, are so familiar that we are apt to lose sight of
the fact that they are really only one link in this chain of state
intervention to provide the means for everybody enjoying certain
advantages that have come to be looked upon as necessities in our
civilization.
In our own country during 1911, there was much discussion, some action,
and every prospect for still further activity along these lines. A
conspicuous feature was the movement to introduce a more equitable
system of compensation or insurance for industrial accidents.[94] There
was a non-compulsory minimum wage law passed recently in Massachusetts,
and several States prescribed the rate of pay for public work done by
contract. An amendment to the Charter of San Francisco fixes the minimum
of employees on street railways at $3.00 per day, with one and one-half
pay for overtime. Vermont, Wisconsin and South Dakota have given wages a
preference over other debts (l. c., pp. 876, 878, 881).
It would seem then that the legislative field is the one in which most
success is to be expected. And since the Consumers are the beneficiaries
of labor's exertion, they are especially bound to effort in this
direction. Those who have influence and leisure are more bound than
those who have but little power or opportunity, but all are obliged to
do something.
The results of our examination of this question may be summed up in the
following conclusion:
I. Assuming that employers are violating the rights of their laborers
then there is a duty incumbent upon the _Consuming Class_ to do what
they can to secure these rights.
II. Employers are violating the rights of their employees to such an
extent as to create a serious social problem.
III. The individual Consumer is bound to do what he can without serious
inconvenience to remedy these conditions. He can act individually, by
joining an organization, and through legislation.
Should it be asked which is the most effective way, the answer would
certainly incline towards legislation. If we survey the industrial
history of the last quarter century, we can see gain after gain by this
method;[95] while the Consumers' League, in its strict capacity of an
organization of _purchasers_ has done but little. What it has
accomplished has been largely through the advocacy of legislation,
rather than by merely economic pressure. And so, while Consumers could
doubtless effect tremendous changes if they wished, it seems impossible
to get them to co-operate in sufficient numbers.
Nevertheless, the Consumers' League is founded on a great and noble
principle, and for the moment I want to put aside the judicial attitude
and enthusiastically chronicle what it has done, and what could be done
along the same lines. The Consumers' League is unique in the field of
philanthropy as affording an opportunity to everyone no matter how big
or how little. For by its original principle of buying only goods made
under fair conditions, it gives a chance to the unimportant individual
to share in a great philanthropic movement, somewhat as a private does
in an imperial army; and by its activity in the legislative field, it
opens up an opportunity for those who have the time, and talent, and
position necessary for effectiveness there.
And whether or not we look upon the dictates of charity and justice as
clearly indicating a duty, whether or not one's "moral resonance"
responds to what has been said, surely we cannot deny that here is a
splendid opportunity. Here is a practical way for each and everyone to
play the Good Samaritan. Not all of us can meet men along a road who
have been set upon by thieves, bundle them into an automobile, and carry
them to a hospital. We cannot all give thousands in charity. We cannot
all engage in publicly urging reforms by legislation, nor give
generously of time in philanthropic ministration to the poor. But we can
see to it in the way already outlined that some at least of our
expenditures go to ward off misery rather than foster it. We can see to
it that we prevent misery from spreading at least in one little sphere.
[96]This is no mere theory. Reforms have actually been accomplished in
some places by the Consumers' League. Realizing that to be effective
they must be organized, it is the object of members of this League to
act as a sort of inverted megaphone gathering up the weak whisperings of
each individual purchaser and blending them with thousands of others
until they all become one mighty concerted shout that must be heard.
Laborers have known the strength of combination in fighting industrial
conditions for more than a generation; the aggregations of capital have
been growing larger and larger; why should not the most powerful of all
the elements of industrial society, the Consumer himself, learn by their
experience?
Organized in 1891 in New York City, the Consumers' League now has almost
a hundred branches in eighteen of the United States, in France,
Switzerland, Germany, and Belgium. To Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell is due
the credit of its inception. An investigation during 1889-90 into the
conditions of work among sales-women and cash-children, which she
directed for the Working Women's Society, forced upon her the futility
of starting reform from the producing end. The competitive system of
industry ties the hands of the employer, while it seems impossible
successfully to organize a union among women. There was but one element
of the economic world left to work with--the Consumer.
Therefore, in May, 1890, a public meeting was called in Chickering Hall,
New York, to discuss the organization of this all-powerful factor of
industry. It was decided to found the Consumers' League upon the
following platform:
"I. That the interest of the community demands that all workers should
receive, not the lowest, but fair living wages.
"II. That the responsibility for some of the worst evils from which
wage-earners suffer, rests with the Consumers, who persist in buying in
the cheapest markets, regardless of how cheapness is brought about.
"III. That it is therefore, the duty of Consumers to find out under what
conditions the articles they purchased are produced, and to insist that
these conditions shall be, at least, decent and consistent with a
respectable existence on the part of the workers.
"IV. That this duty is especially incumbent upon Consumers in relation
to the product of women's work since there is no limit beyond which the
wages of women may be pressed down, unless artificially maintained at a
living rate by combinations, either of the workers themselves or of the
Consumers."[97]
The first step taken to carry out these objects was to prepare a "white
list" of stores coming up to a certain standard. Since it is illegal to
boycott, or to urge persons not to deal with stores placed on a "Black
List," the Consumers' League accomplishes the same results by
persuading persons to buy from firms on a white list. Once published,
merchants feel the effects of such a list, and, to get the patronage of
the League, volunteer all the good points about themselves, not to
mention the bad ones about their competitors. The list itself thus
becomes an invaluable means of getting information not otherwise
obtainable.
Necessarily this list had to be somewhat elastic and considerably below
the ideal. The people at the head of the Consumers' League were
practical persons of wide experience and they went on the principle that
half a loaf is better than none at all--that every little bit helps.
After consultations with the employers and the Working Women's Society,
a standard was adopted from which no retreat has been made. Whatever
changes have been made, have been on the side of greater strictness.
To-day it stands as follows:
WAGES
A Fair House is one in which equal pay is given for work of equal value,
irrespective of sex, and in which no sales-woman who is eighteen years
or over--and who has had one year's experience as sales-woman receives
less than six dollars a week.
In which wages are paid by the week.
In which the minimum wages for cash-children are three dollars and a
half per week, with the same conditions regarding weekly payments.
HOURS
A Fair House is one in which the number of working hours constituting a
normal working day does not exceed nine. At least three-quarters of an
hour is given for luncheon. A general half-holiday is given on one day
of each week during at least two summer months.
A Vacation of not less than one week is given with pay during the summer
season.
All overtime is compensated for.
Wages are paid, and the premises closed for the seven principal legal
holidays, viz., Thanksgiving Day, Christmas and New Year's Day,
Washington's Birthday, the Fourth of July, Decoration Day, and Labor
Day.
PHYSICAL CONDITIONS
A Fair House is one in which work, lunch and retiring rooms are apart
from each other, and conform in all respects to the present Sanitary
Laws.
In which the present law regarding the providing of seats for
sales-women is observed, and the use of seats permitted.
OTHER CONDITIONS
A Fair House is one in which humane and considerate behavior towards the
employees is the rule.
In which fidelity and length of service meet with the consideration
which is their due.
In which no children under fourteen years of age are employed.
In which no child under the age of sixteen years works for more than
nine hours a day.
In which no child works, unless an employment certificate issued by the
Board of Health has been first filed with the employer, and the name,
etc., of the child has been entered on a register kept by the employer.
In which the ordinances of the city and the laws of the State are obeyed
in all particulars.
When it is remembered that in 1891 only eight stores in New York were
eligible for the standard (then less strict), while to-day there are
more than fifty; that then overtime was never paid for, and fines often
reduced the pay to almost half, while to-day fines go to a benefit fund,
and overtime is paid for, or a corresponding time off is given; that
then the child-labor law was openly violated, and many grown women
received less than four dollars-and-a-half, sometimes less than two
dollars, a week, while the standard now is six; that the chair law,
providing one seat for every three girls, was disregarded, or the girls
never allowed to use them, while to-day inspectors of the State Labor
Bureau strictly enforce its regulations; that the year after the
influence of the Consumers' League passed the Mercantile Employers' Bill
providing for the essentials of the above standard, there were twelve
hundred infractions reported, and nine hundred under-age children
released from drudgery as shipping clerks, etc.: when this advance
towards a decent standard of living, and the considerable part of the
Consumers' League in bringing it about, is kept in mind, the power of
the purchaser is seen to be no day-dream of an idealist, no mere pretty
theory of an arm chair economist.
As one reform after another was accomplished, the League turned itself
to new labors. To-day it is agitating strongly against the cruelties of
such seasons as Christmas, that should mean peace and joy to all. "Glad
tidings of great joy" sounds like a hollow mockery to the sales-women
and children who work from eight in the morning until midnight.
Therefore the League sends out thousands of post-cards, and advertises
in newspapers, magazines, and street-cars, urging persons to shop early
out of consideration for the employees of stores. The first large
success from this movement came in 1910 when the leading department
stores of Philadelphia, employing 35,000 persons, decided to close at
six o'clock during the entire Christmas season. Late on the evening of
December 1, the head of one of the largest retail firms in the city
called up the Consumers' League to say that he had good news. "I thought
that you should certainly be the first to hear that we are going to
close early," he said. "I congratulate you and the women you represent
on what you have enabled us to do."[98]
All this activity, however, is concerned with the retailer; in the
meantime manufacture was not neglected. The League early saw the evils
prevailing in many factories, and therefore decided to carry the
white-list idea under a slightly different form into this field. After a
thorough investigation by its own representatives and consultation with
the State factory inspectors, the League, where the situation is
satisfactory, allows the use of its label guaranteeing that the goods
are made under clean and healthful surroundings. The conditions under
which the label is issued are:
1. The State factory law is obeyed.
2. No children under the age of sixteen are employed.
3. Work at night is not required, and the working day does not exceed
ten hours.
4. No goods are given out to be made away from the factory.
Similar to the Consumers' League label are the labels of various trade
unions. These latter, indeed, were in the field many years before the
Consumers' League was even organized. They are based upon exactly the
same principle. When a factory maintains the conditions demanded by the
union, it is allowed to use the label on its goods. Anyone, therefore,
who buys union-made goods at a store where the employees are protected
by the retail-clerks union can be sure that those engaged in both the
production and distribution of these articles have obtained their just
rights so far as this is possible.
By having firms on the white list handle labeled goods and, recently, by
establishing a store of its own in New York, a market is created for
them among the members of the League. The practicalness underlying the
whole management of the League is very clearly shown here both in the
dove-tailing of its activities in manufacture and distribution and in
the appeal made to the self-interest of purchasers to buy white goods,
wrappers, etc., made in clean factories rather than germ-carrying
sweatshops goods. It has been the aim of the League all along to make it
to the Consumer's personal advantage to buy labeled goods at white-list
stores. The idea is to give him a better article and better service for
the same money, the increased cost to the manufacturer and retailer to
come out of the increased sales.
In 1898 the various local Leagues that had sprung up in different
sections were united into one national organization and the activities
became even more important. The sweatshop, child-labor, excessive hours
for women, were attacked with considerable effect. In many States the
public conscience was sufficiently aroused by reform agencies with which
the League zealously co-operated to pass stringent laws, and the
League's representatives, either as private individuals or as honorary
inspectors of the State tried to see that they were carried out. If New
York to-day has the strictest child-labor law in the United States, a
good share of the honor is due to the untiring labors of an enlightened
Consumers' League.
Here one concrete instance of these activities must suffice. England had
as early as 1844 enacted laws protecting women, but, owing to the
Constitution of the United States various State Supreme Courts had held
that any restriction of the right of free contract of adult women was
unconstitutional. Therefore when the State of Oregon proceeded against a
laundryman for violation of a State Law by working women longer than
allowed by that Law, the laundryman promptly appealed from the State
Court to the United States Supreme Court. The local Consumers' League
thereupon notified the National League, with headquarters in New York
City, that information concerning the effect of work upon women was
necessary to win the case before the highest tribunal of the United
States. Expert counsel was obtained, and Miss Josephine Goldmark, of the
League, was detailed to collect the information. She employed ten
readers, some of them medical students, and special privileges were
granted her at Columbia University Library, the Astor Library of New
York City, and the Library of Congress in Washington. The result was a
sweeping verdict sustaining the State.
* * * * *
There are two great classes of the poor--those who for some reason or
other do not work, and those who, while working, do not receive enough
to support themselves and their families. To the former the Church has
been a staunch friend. It is one of her glories that her enemies accuse
her of fostering pauperism by too lavish charity. Her hospitals and
orphanages, her homes for the fallen and aged, her refuges for the sick
of soul and body are dotted over the whole land, and are administered
with a devotion and self-sacrificing heroism compelling the admiration
of all. As John Boyle O'Reilly said, hers is not
"Organized charity scrimped and iced
In the name of a cautious, statistical Christ."
But what are we doing for that other great class of poor, those who work
but do not receive a just compensation? What are we doing in the way of
preventive philanthropy, to keep these men from becoming utterly
destitute? It is for the sublime struggle of the underpaid workman that
our sympathies need now to be aroused. No Crusader ever fought for the
Sepulcher with more heroism than many a poverty-stricken laborer to
support himself and family. Day after day he takes up the hopeless task,
while nearer and nearer yawns the slough of pauperism where four million
human beings who were once self-respecting workmen like himself, now
crawl in lethargic content.[99] No waving pennons and blare of trumpets,
but a factory whistle at 6 A.M. and a chimney puffing black smoke summon
him to battle with powers stronger than Saladin in his might. What
Robert Southwell wrote of himself during imprisonment might to-day be
applied to millions of wage-slaves:
"I live, but such a life as ever dies,
I die, but such a death as never ends;
My death to end my dying life denies,
And life my living death no whit amends."
Yet notwithstanding the workman's almost superhuman efforts to avoid
pauperism, once he reaches that abyss he loses all desire to rise from
it. You cannot drive him back into that industrial war which is daily
crushing better and stronger natures.
Such being the situation, is it not an inspiration to the Consumer who
longs to do something for humanity to feel that he is contributing his
mite to keep some workmen from becoming paupers? There are persons, I
know, to whom their utter helplessness in the face of all the social
evils oppressing us to-day, has been the keenest suffering. To them this
doctrine of the responsibility of Consumers and the plans of fulfilling
it have come as a gospel of good news. They have felt that they could
now find rest from their tortures of conscience: they have felt that
they could now have a purpose in life worth living for.
And what if in our sober moments we must admit, that the good we
individually accomplish as regards the workman be small? What if we are
tempted to look upon it as useless? Let us take courage from the fact
that we are members of an organization, that everything that the group
accomplishes is in some way attributable to us. One hundred men
associated together can accomplish much more than those same men
working separately for the same ends. This fact is evident in the case
of a religious community. If the members of these communities were
scattered as individuals over the earth, how paltry would be the results
of all their self-sacrifice and devotion compared with what it is
to-day. And so each individual Consumer, banded with others in an
organization, can feel that all the work of the whole body is to some
extent his. His powers of doing good are multiplied, and the mere fact
of his association with others multiplies their capacities too.
But even if this were not so, the mere fact of realizing this principle
and co-operating with other noble-minded persons in its fulfillment will
be an immense gain to ourselves and will finally result in unexpected
good to society. Simply to know that we are accomplishing some little
mite in the field of preventive philanthropy will be an inspiration in
our lives.
To ask ourselves, not whether a hat be exactly the latest style, not
whether it be absolutely the cheapest we can get, but how it was made,
what effect is our buying it going to have upon the workers and society
in general, will beget an invaluable spirit of self-effacement. A
social conscience will be generated and grow until it becomes a dominant
note in our lives. And from us this gospel of charity and justice, this
good news to men of good will, will spread until it becomes a mighty
force for social amelioration.
We have passed through ages of autocratic tyranny; the individualistic
democracy of the last century is waning; there is approaching an era of
social effort, social morality, a recognition of social interdependence.
"The quick and sensitive ear," to quote Miss Scudder, "hears the beat of
a new music, to which men begin to rally.[100] It is a concerted
harmony, no mere solitary bugle call; and those who march to it are more
or less consciously swayed by a new rhythm. For it is notable that the
rhythms of life are coming more and more to connote harmony rather than
melody, or rather to weave many melodic phrasings into one complex
whole. Association--or to use the fairer word, fellowship--becomes a
term of increasing modern cogency."
What matter, that to any but the superficial observer, the situation
looks dark. It may be that the more we study it, the blacker it grows.
As we look back upon the history of man's strivings for some better
social organization, the conflict may seem hopeless. We may be tempted
to reflect with William Morris, "How men fight and lose the battle, and
the thing they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when
it comes it turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to
fight for what they meant under another name."
But it is nobler to say with Mrs. Browning:
"We will trust God. The blank interstices
Men take for ruins, He will build into
With pillared marbles rare, or knit across
With generous arches, till the fane's complete.
This world has no perdition if some loss."
FOOTNOTES:
[93] Father Cuthbert, O.S.F.C., "Catholic Ideals in Social Life," p.
211: N. Y., 1904.
[94] Bulletin of U. S. Bur. of Lab., Jan. 1, 1911, p. 869.
[95] Cf. Mrs. Florence Kelly, "Some Ethical Gains through Legislation,"
N. Y., Macmillan, 1905; Bulletins of U. S. Bur. Lab. giving resumé of
labor legislation.
[96] The next few pages appeared substantially as here given in The
Month, March, 1911, under the title "The Consumer's Opportunity." The
author thanks the editor of this magazine for kind permission to
reproduce this matter.
[97] "Historical Sketch of the Pioneer Consumers' League," p. ii,
Consumers' League of New York City, 1908. For further information
address Mr. V. P. Kellogg, 105 E. 22nd St, New York City.
[98] Cf. _The Survey_, Dec. 17, 1910.
[99] Cf. Hunter, "Poverty," New York, 1906.
[100] Hibbert Journal, Apr., 1909.
APPENDIX
1 Constans et perpetua voluntas jus suum unicuique tribuendi;
voluntaria laesio et violatio juris alieni: De Lugo, De just. et
jure, Disp. VIII, Sec. I, n. 1.
2 Debitum rationale ex necessaria connectione mediorum cum fine
necessario resultans: Theologia moralis fundamentalis, ed. 2a,
Bruges, 1890, p. 188.
3 "Quoties aequalitas non servatur ut venditor ultra supremum
pretium, vel emptor emat infra infimum ... injustitia commititur."
L. c., Tr. VII, n. 380.
4 In hac re cooperator est, qui simul cum alio est causa damni,
sive immediata sive positiva sive negativa. Non enim in omnibus
eadem est ratio cooperationis, sed hoc est omnibus commune, quod
cum alio concurrant ad damnum seu injuriam damnosam.
Ballerini L. c., Tr. VII, n. 128: cf. De Lugo, L. c. XVII, II, 37.
5 Praeferendum est enim commune bonum privato. Pt. I, Tr. III, Tom.
IX, Sec. IV, p. 1171.
6 Cum enim unus homo sit pars multitudinis, quilibet homo hoc ipsum
quod est, et quod habet, est sicut et quaelibet pars id quod est,
est totius; unde et natura aliquod detrimentum infert parti, ut
salvet totum: 2a 2ae, Q.96, A.4.
7 Haec potestas est necessaria ad bonam rei publicae humanae
gubernationem.
Op. cit., Pt. I, Tom. V, Lib. III, Cap. 21.
8 Ex damno et periculo, quod bono publico publicaeque securitati
inferretur si impune id agere liceret.
Theol. Mor., Pt. I, Lib. I, Div. II, Par. 4, n. 761.
9 Tota difficultas consistit in assignanda ratione hujus veritatis:
nam licet turpitudo haec statim appareat, non tamen facile est ejus
fundamentum invenire: unde (quod in aliis multis quaestionibus
contingit) magis certa est conclusio, quam rationes, quae variae a
diversis afferuntur ad ejus probationem. De Just. et Jure, Disp. X,
Sec. I, Num. 2.
10 Fatendum est esse aliquas practicas vertitates humano convictui
necessarias, quas homines instinctu quodam rationali percipiunt et
sentiunt, quarum tamen rationem prorsus demonstrativam, cum eam
iidem analytice quaerunt, difficulter inveniunt. Videtur voluisse
natura sive auctor naturae hujusmodi instinctu aut sensu rationali
supplere defectum rationis se exercentis: ... Inter hujusmodi
veritates haec quoque forte, qua de agimus, invenitur. Theologia
Moralis, Tr. VI, Sec. VI, Num. 119, Vol. II, pp. 727-728.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
J. Kelleher, Private Ownership, Dublin, 1911.
Capecelatro, Cardinal, Christ, the Church, and Man. St. Louis,
1909.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, secunda secundae.
De Lugo, Cardinal John, De Justitia et Jure.
Bouquillon, Theologia Moralis Fundamentalis, ed. 2a, Bruges, 1890.
Liguori, Alphonsus, Theologia moralis.
Noldin, H., Theologia Moralis, 3 vols., 8th ed., N. Y., 1911.
Ballerini, Antonio, Theologia Moralis.
Cuthbert, O. F. M. Cap., Catholic Ideals in Social Life, N. Y.,
1904.
Cunningham, W., Christianity & Social Questions: London, 1910.
Clark, J. B., Essentials of Economic Theory, 1907.
United States Bureau of Labor: Report on the Condition of Woman &
Child Wage-Earners in the United States, 19 vols., 1910-1912.
Charities Publication Committee, The Pittsburgh Survey.
Minneapolis Vice Commission, Report, 1911.
Chicago Vice Commission, Report, 1911.
Seligman, E. R. A., The Social Evil, N. Y., 1912.
United States Bureau of Labor, Industrial Hygiene, 1908.
Kelly, Florence, Some Ethical Gains through Legislation, N. Y.,
1905.
Hunter, Robert, Poverty, N. Y., 1905.
Le Play, F., La Reforme Sociale, Tours, 1878, 3 vols.
Missiaen, Berthold, O. M. Cap., L'Appauvrissement des Masses,
Louvain, 1911.
Clark, J. B., The Distribution of Wealth, N. Y., 1889.
Woods, Robert A., ed., Americans in Process, Boston, 1903.
Bliss, Wm. D. P., ed., New Encyclopedia of Social Reform, N. Y.,
1908.
Clark, Sue Ainslie, & Edith Wyatt, Making Both Ends Meet, N. Y.,
1911.
Streightoff, Frank Hatch, The Standard of Living among the
Industrial People of America, Boston, 1911.
Butler, Eliz. Beardsley, Saleswomen in Mercantile Stores, N. Y.,
1912.
Ryan, John A., A Living Wage, N. Y., 1906.
Devine, Edw. T., Principles of Relief, N. Y., 1904.
Bousanquet, Helen, The Standard of Life, London, 1908.
Chapin, Coit, The Standard of Living among Workingmen's Families in
New York City, N. Y., 1909.
Journal of Political Economy.
Economic Journal.
Quarterly Journal of Economics.
Journal of the American Sociological Society.
Annals of the American Academy of Political & Social Science.
The Survey.
International Journal of Ethics.
INDEX
Accidents: 90ff.
Alphonsus, Saint: See Liguori
Aquinas: 11, 18, 28, 29, 46
Ballerini, Antonio: 22, 27, 28, 29, 45
Bouquillon, Thomas: 11
Bowen, Louise de Koven: 98
Browning, Eliz. B.: 132
Butler, Eliz. B.: 4, 43, 51ff, 67, 96, 101, 102
Capecelatro, Card.: 9
Capital punishment: 28
Carlyle, Thomas: 35f.
Carver, T. N.: 60
Chapin, Coit: 43
Charity:
Consumers' obligations of, 31ff;
duties of, 11
Cheapness: demand for, 58ff.
Chicago Vice Commission: 95, 100, 101, 104
Child-Labor: 93f.
Child-Labor Committee, National: 100
Clark, J. B.: 65
Common good: Scholastic conception of, 28ff.
Competition: 19ff, 47ff, 55f.
Compulsory Arbitration: 112
Conscience, Social: 131
Consumers:
Duties of, 13ff, 16f, 129ff;
individual action, 107, 109, 114;
organization among, 109, 110, 130;
responsibility of, 5ff.
Consumers' League: 110, 111, 114ff.
Consumption (disease): 88ff.
Co-operation in evil: 13, 23
Costs of production: 60ff.
Crawford, Hanford: 60
Cunningham, W.: 20, 58, 63
Cuthbert, Father: 108
Dance Halls: 97f.
Dangerous occupations: 86ff.
De Lugo, Card. John, S. J.: 25, 26, 44
Department Stores: 100, 103
Devine, Edward T.: 66f.
Dust: 87f.
Duty:
definition of, 11;
devolution of, 13ff.
Employers:
duties of direct, 12;
liability of, 17
English Poor Law: 62
Expenses of production: 59ff.
Food, Insufficient: 78ff.
Goldmark, Josephine: 127
Green, T. H.: 32
Gury, J. P.: 10
Hibbert Journal: 131
Hours of work: 4, 84f.
Housing conditions: 77ff, 95f.
Hunter, Robert: 128
Industrial Commission, U. S.: 68, 87, 94
Injustice, definition of: 11
Innocent: indirect killing of, lawful, 28
Interest: 15
Interest-takers, duties of: 15
Justice:
Consumers' obligations of, 13ff;
definition of, 11;
duties of, 11
Kelleher, Rev. J.: 9
Kelley, Florence: 114
Label: See White List
Labor, N. Y. S. Bureau of: 68f, 74ff, 88
Labor, N. Y. S. Commissioner of: 82, 91
Labor, U. S. Bureau of: 16, 42, 43, 52ff, 61, 68, 70ff, 77ff, 89ff, 96, 97, 113
Labor, U. S. Commission of: 84
Law: binding force of civil: 28
Lehmkuhl, Aug.: 29
Leo XIII: 8
Liguori, Saint Alphonsus: 18, 23, 27, 28, 29
Living, Standard of: 9, 38ff, 66
Lowell, Josephine Shaw: 117
Maistre, de: 111
Mazzini, Giuseppe: 5
Mercantile Employers' Bill: 122
Middle Ages, Medieval system: 19f.
Minneapolis Vice Commission: 54, 103
Morris, William: 132
Mouth, The: 116
Necessity: definition of, 33
Neighbor: meaning of, 31
Night work: 84f.
Noldin, H.: 29
O'Reilly, John Boyle: 127
Packingtown: 96
Paine, Thomas: 5
Pittsburgh Survey: 51, 52, 66
Pius X: 8
Poisoning: 86f.
Poverty: 127ff.
Price: 18ff, 57f, 60
Property:
justification of private, 29;
superfluous, 1, 33
Prostitution: 95, 101ff.
Rent-takers: duties of, 14
Right: definition of, 10ff.
Ryan, John A.: 15, 42f.
Saloon, The: 99
Scudder, Vida: 131
Seager, H. R.: 61
Sidgwick, H.: 61
Social argument: 13, 27ff.
Southwell, Robert: 105, 128
Speeding-up: 85f.
State: authority of, 28
State-Insurance: 112
Suarez, Francisco, S. J.: 27, 28, 46
Subsistence standard: 39
Suicide: 29f.
Survey: 67, 98, 101, 104, 123
Thomas, Saint: See Aquinas
Thorold, Algar: 97
Title, just: 22f.
Tuberculosis: 88ff.
Ulpian: 11
Unemployed: 66
Unemployment: 68f.
Value: 13, 17ff.
Ventilation: 79ff.
Wage, Minimum: 42, 46, 112, 113
Wages: 4, 48ff, 62ff, 66ff, 70ff;
right to living, 9;
standard of living, 8, 9
War: 29
White List: 55, 118, 124, 125
Williams, A. B.: 98
Women:
conditions of work, 4;
hours of work, 4;
wages, 4, 67
Work:
conditions of, 4, 51ff;
right to, 9
Working Women's Society: 117, 119
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