Transcriber’s Note: Italics text is enclosed in _underscores_, boldface
in =equals signs=.
[Illustration:
Press Illustrating Service.
CUTTING STEEL FOR SHIPS WITH GIGANTIC SHEARS.
These workers are the servants of civilization and without them we
would have no such trade as we have to-day.]
MEN AND THINGS
BY
HENRY A. ATKINSON
SECRETARY, SOCIAL SERVICE DEPARTMENT OF THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES
AND ASSOCIATE SECRETARY OF THE COMMISSION ON THE CHURCHES
AND SOCIAL SERVICE OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL OF THE
CHURCHES OF CHRIST IN AMERICA
NEW YORK
MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT
OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA
1918
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY
MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT OF THE
UNITED STATES AND CANADA
CORRESPONDENCE CONCERNING MISSION STUDY
Send the proper one of the following blanks to the secretary of your
denominational mission board whose address is in the “List of Mission
Boards and Correspondents” at the end of this book.
=================================================================
We expect to form a mission study class, and desire to have any
suggestions that you can send that will help in organizing and
conducting it.
Name ............................................................
Street and Number ...............................................
City or Town ..................... State ........................
Denomination ..................... Church .......................
Text-book to be used ............................................
=================================================================
We have organized a mission study class and secured our books.
Below is the enrolment.
Name of City or Town .................... State .................
Text-book ......................... Underline auspices under
which class is held:
Denomination ......................
Church Y. P. Soc.
Church ............................ Men Senior
Women’s Soc. Intermediate
Name of Leader .................... Y. W. Soc. Junior
Sunday School
Address ...........................
Name of Pastor .................... Date of starting ............
State whether Mission Study Class, Frequency of Meetings .......
Lecture Course, Program Meetings,
or Reading Circle ............... Number of Members ...........
................................. Does Leader desire Helps? ...
Chairman, Missionary Committee, Young People’s Society ...........
............................................................
Address ....................................................
Chairman, Missionary Committee, Sunday School ....................
............................................................
Address ....................................................
TO MY FATHER
THE REV. THOMAS A. ATKINSON
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
Foreword xiii
I The World of Work 1
II The World of the Rural Workers 17
III The World of the Spinners and Weavers 33
IV The World of the Garment Workers 49
V The World of the Miners 65
VI The World of the Steel Workers 79
VII The World of the Transportation Men 95
VIII The World of the Makers of Luxuries 113
IX The World of Seasonal Labor and the Casual Workers 135
X The World of Industrial Women 155
XI The World of the Child Workers 173
XII The Message and Ministry of the Church 191
Bibliography 211
Index 215
ILLUSTRATIONS
These workers are the servants of civilization _Frontispiece_
PAGE
The work which men do inevitably groups them together 10
Not many of us stop to consider the man who made possible the
white bread that we eat 18
The worker in these mills is a worker and little or nothing else 42
The workers on the sidewalks of Fifth Avenue 50
We forget the men who are toiling underground 66
The New U. S. Bureau of Mines Rescue Car 74
Commerce and transportation are dependent upon the steel workers 82
The church must preach from the text “A man is more precious
than a bar of steel” 90
Living upon the canal-boats and barges are the families of the
workers 106
The cigarmakers carry no moral enthusiasm into their trade 122
The casual workers are the true servants of humanity 146
In the army of laborers the girl and the woman are drafted 162
Thousands of children in America are doing work which they
ought not to do 186
A Russian Forum in session in the Church of All Nations, Boston 194
The Church of All Nations provided a sleeping place for the
unemployed 202
“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.”
FOREWORD
A friend said to me this last week, “There are two things that I
instinctively distrust, one is prophecy, the other is statistics. Now
that the war has lengthened into the fourth year and America has taken
her place by the side of the Allies, I find my gorge rising every time
any one attempts a prophecy and quotes statistics. All prophecies have
proved false and statistics are utterly unreliable. Even the clocks
have been made to lie by official decree.”
Granted that my friend is pessimistic, at the same time we must
all sympathize with him in this feeling. In writing this book, I
have tried to keep out of the realm of prophecy and have used just
as few statistics as possible. Most of the facts were secured by
investigations made prior to August, 1914. I have endeavored to check
up every statement with all the reports I could secure from the
Department of Labor at Washington, through the _Survey_ and the _New
Republic_, and through other sources. I feel reasonably certain that
all the statements concerning conditions will bear investigation and
are substantially correct. If there are discrepancies, it will be found
after making due allowance for the judgment of others, that they are
due to changes brought about by unusual conditions in industry. The
principles are unchanged and it is upon these that I have attempted
to place the most emphasis. Concrete facts are but illustrative of
the principle involved. Conditions affect cases but leave principles
undisturbed.
I am greatly indebted to the help in research given me by Miss Lucy
Gardner, of Salem, Massachusetts. As far as possible I have given
credit to the proper authorities for material used. If I have failed to
do so I take this opportunity of acknowledging my indebtedness to all
unknown authors and authorities who have contributed in any way.
This book goes forth to the young people of America in the hope
that they will find in it some small inspiration that will prove
an incentive to them to give themselves to the cause of humanity,
realizing that through service, and through service alone, can any one
make the fullest contribution to his generation.
“Men and Things,”--a nation is great only in its citizens. The great
task before the church to-day is to help to readjust the conditions
existing in all industries so that men and women may labor and enjoy
the fruits of their labor and profit physically and spiritually in the
wealth which they help to create.
HENRY A. ATKINSON.
New York, May, 1918.
CHAPTER I
THE WORLD OF WORK
One of the commonest sights in the city is that of the people going to
work in the early morning; the streets are thronged with men carrying
dinner pails, and girls and women carrying bundles. Many are hurrying
with a worried look on their faces as if fearful of being a minute or
two late. At night the same people are again on the streets with their
faces turned in the opposite direction going home after the day’s work.
A few hours’ rest, then a new day, and the same people may be seen in
the same streets, hurrying to the ever unending tasks.
The country holds the same urge of work. Nothing is more interesting
than a trip through the country early in the morning. With the first
hint of dawn you see a thin pencil of smoke begin to stream from the
chimneys of the farmhouses. Bobbing lanterns appear by the barn. You
hear the clanking of chains and the rattle of harness as the teams are
being made ready for the day’s toil. As the morning grows older, you
meet the workers out on the road with their faces set sturdily toward
the field of their labor.
All night long from a thousand centers massive trains are rushing
toward other centers. In each engine two men, with nerves alert and
eyes peering out into the darkness ahead, guide the power that pulls
the train. Every few minutes the door of the firebox is opened and a
gleam of light makes an arc through the darkness of the night as the
fireman mends his fire.
During the daytime thousands of trackmen have inspected the rails;
other thousands have been at work repairing the ties, putting in new
rails, and improving the grade. Telegraphers are continuously flashing
their messages along the wires; their invisible hands guide these
flying trains. In factories, workshops, mills, mines, forests, on
steamships, on the wharves, wherever there are human beings, there is
work being done. Work is as ceaseless and persistent as life itself.
=The Song of the World of Work.= You remember, perhaps, the first time
that you visited a big city. From your room in the hotel you could hear
the roar of the streets. That roar is made up of hundreds of separate
sounds. It is the voice of work from the throat of the city. It changes
with each hour of the night. Just before dawn there is a lull and the
voice is almost quiet but only for a short period; then it takes on a
new volume of sound and grows in intensity to the full force of its
noonday chorus. What is this voice saying? It is telling the story, and
pouring out the complaint, and singing the song of the world of work.
The idler or the parasite is the exception. People can live without
working, but such is human nature that the person is rarely found who
is willing to bear the odium of being a member of the class that never
toils.
=Work and Life.= “What are you going to do when you grow up?” This
is a common question asked of every girl and boy. Very early in our
lives we begin to try to answer this question. Our environment shapes
our attitude toward life, and helps us to choose the type of work to
which we think we are adapted, but, having once settled the question
of the kind of work we are to do, that choice eventually determines,
in a large measure, our character. Work is so much a part of our lives
that it marks us and puts us in groups. All ministers are very much
alike, doctors are alike, lawyers are alike, business men are alike,
business women resemble each other, so do miners and woodsmen. In fact,
the work that we do groups us automatically with the others in the
same profession or trade. Work creates our world for us and also gives
us our vocabulary. A man who made his fortune on a big cattle-ranch
in the West moved with his family to Chicago. His wife and daughter
succeeded in getting into fashionable society and with the money at
their command made quite a stir in the social world. Foolishly they
were ashamed of their old life on the ranch. They had difficulty in
living down their past, and the husband never reached a place where his
family could be sure of him. He carried his old world with him into the
new environment. One of the standing jokes among their friends was the
way in which this man told his cronies at the club how his wife had
“roped a likely critter and had him down to the house for inspection.”
This was his description of a young man who was considered eligible
for his daughter’s hand. The men who have been brought up in mining
communities use the phraseology of the mines. One of the most prominent
preachers in America was a miner until he was past twenty years of age.
His sermons, lectures, and books are filled with the phrases learned in
his early life. A preacher in a fishing village in the northern part
of Scotland, in making his report to the Annual Conference, stated:
“The Lord has blessed us wonderfully this year. In the spring, with the
flood-tide of his grace, there was brought a multitude of souls into
our harbor. We set our nets and many were taken. These we have salted
down for the kingdom of God.” Needless to say, he and his people were
dependent upon the fishing industry for a living.
=Purpose of Work.= Life is divided into work and play. Work is the
exertion of energy for a given purpose. People accept the claim of
life as they find it with little or no protest because one must work
in order to eat. The compulsion of necessity determines the amount of
work and the amount of play in the average life. Even a casual study of
the industrial life of to-day convinces one that work absorbs a large
part of the time and conscious energy of all the people. The letters
T. B. M. meaning “Tired Business Man” are now used to typify a fact of
modern life. Business takes so much time and effort that it leaves the
individual so worn out at the end of every day that he is not able to
think clearly, or to render much service to himself or to his friends.
He is simply a run-down machine and must be recharged for the next
day’s work.
In one of the American cities a group of nineteen girls formed
themselves into a Bible study class, and met at the Young Women’s
Christian Association building on Thursday nights. A light, inexpensive
dinner was served and the pastor of one of the churches was asked to
teach the group. All of these girls were members of the church and were
engaged in work in the city. One was in a secretarial position, four
were stenographers, two were saleswomen, and thirteen were employed
in a department store. The hours of work were long for the majority of
the class. On Saturday nights they were forced to work overtime. The
average wage for the group was $7.25 a week. Out of this they had to
buy their food, pay for their rooms, buy their clothes, and pay their
car-fare. Whatever was left they could save or give away just as they
pleased. After the classes had been meeting for about six weeks, it
developed that only four of the girls went to church with any degree
of regularity. Ten of them gave as a reason for not going that they
were so tired on Sunday mornings that they could not do their work
and get up in time to go to church. When they did get up, there were
dozens of hooks and eyes and buttons that had to be sewed on, clothes
which had to be mended, and the week’s washing to be done. In telling
of their experiences one girl said, “Sunday is really my busiest day.”
These girls can be taken as typical of a large number of workers, men
and women. Life to the majority becomes simply the performance of
labor. Work is the whole end of existence. All brightness and cheer is
squeezed out by the compulsion of labor.
In a Pennsylvania coal town the employees of the company live in a
little village built around the coke ovens. There is not a green thing
in the whole village. A girl from Pittsburgh married one of the men
who was interested in the mines. They moved to this town, and she took
all her wedding presents and finery with her. In three weeks the smoke
had ruined her clothes, had made the inside of her little home grimy,
and the dirt and soot had ground itself into the carpets and floor,
till she said, “I feel that all the beautiful life that Frank and I had
planned to live together has become simply an incidental adjunct to the
coke-ovens.” We often hear it said that the minds of people are stolid,
stodgy, or indifferent, and that they do not appreciate the best things
in life. The wonder is that the masses of the people appreciate them as
much as they do.
=The Purpose of Life.= A well-known catechism teaches that, “The
chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.” Herbert
Spencer says, “The progress of mankind is in one aspect a means of
liberating more and more life from mere toil, and leaving more and
more life available for relaxation, for pleasure, culture, travel, and
for games.” The struggle for existence consumes so much time that it
becomes an end in itself. This ought not to be. The true purpose of
life is not work, nor wealth, nor anything else that can be gained by
human striving, but it is life itself. Therefore, the work that people
do ought to contribute to an enrichment of life. We are indebted to
Henry Churchill King for the splendid phrase, “The fine art of living.”
William Morris said that whatever a man made ought to be a joy to the
maker as well as to the user, so that all the riches created in the
world should enrich the creator as well as those who profit by the use
of the riches. Under the old form of production, where every man did
his own work with his own tools, it was easy for him to take pleasure
in the thing that he was making. The factory system breaks the detail
of production into such small parts that no one worker can take very
much pride in the actual processes of his work. It is not a very
thrilling thing to stand by a machine and feed bars of iron into it
for ten hours a day, and to watch the completed nuts or screws dropping
out at the other end of the machine. The pleasure in the work must be
secured from the conditions under which the work is performed--the
cooperation in the production, and the feeling that the worker is a
part, and is being blessed by being a part, of the modern industrial
system.
=Specialization in Work.= Specialization has been carried so far that
to-day there are very few skilled workers in the sense in which this
term was used several years ago. Shoemakers very rarely know how to
make shoes, for they now make only some one part of the shoe. The
automobile industry, by methods of standardizing, is organized so that
each worker performs some simple task. He repeats this over and over,
but his task added to that done by the others, produces an automobile.
In the glove factory one set of workers spend their lives making
thumbs; another group stitch the back of the gloves. In the clothing
industry some make buttonholes, others sew on buttons; some put in
the sleeves, and others hem; each has a very small part to do. This
specialization in industry has been carried so far that it is seldom
that a worker knows anything about the finished product.
A study of the organization of labor shows to what extent
specialization has been carried. One of the chief complaints of the
American manufacturer is that his men and women are not loyal. There is
undoubtedly ground for this complaint, but on the other hand it must be
conceded that it is very difficult for a worker--in the garment trade,
for instance--to be loyal to a long succession of buttonholes; and for
glovemakers to be loyal to a multitude of thumbs. The lack of loyalty
comes largely from the failure of the directors of modern industry to
bring their workers into that relationship with the business which
would give them a feeling that they are an essential part of the
industry. Loyalty grows by what it feeds on. The specialization that
has been going on has been the very force which has made the worker
simply a part of the machine, and as such, detaches him from the
business of which he ought to feel himself an integral part.
=Unity of the Workers.= The extent to which specialization has been
developed has had another effect. While the process of differentiation
has been carried on at a rapid pace, and the individual worker has
known but little about the finished product, he has come to know a
great deal about the other disintegrated units in the workshop, the
mine, the factory, and the mill. Consequently, with the differentiation
in the work there has been a growing solidarity or feeling of unity
among the workers themselves. Evidence of this is found in the
philosophy that there are only two classes of people in the world, the
people who work and the people who do not work, and which is used by
the revolutionary groups with tremendous force. We do not like to think
of classes in America, but the forces of industrial life have created
classes in spite of ourselves.
=A World Apart.= The workers live in a world apart. Unconsciously they
drift together. They talk each other’s language; they understand each
other’s point of view. In every town and city we find groups of the
workers living to themselves. The work which men do inevitably groups
them together; and social life centers so completely about their work
that it is really the factory and mill that mark out the lines and
define the limits within which the classes must live. Consequently,
in our American cities we find such designations as these: “Shanty
Town,” “Down by the Gas Works,” “Across the Tracks,” “Murphy’s Hollow,”
“Tin-Can Alley,” “Darktown,” “On the Hill,” “Out by the Slaughter-Pen,”
“Over on the West Side,” and “Down in the Bottoms.” Just think of
your own town, and you probably can add some new phrase that tells
where your laboring group lives. In one Western town the community
was divided by the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks. The boys in the
school on the north side of the tracks were all known as “Sewer Rats.”
On the opposite side of the town they were known as “Depot Buzzards.”
Whenever one group met the other there was always a war. A friend tells
of a similar condition in a Canadian village where the Scotch boys were
banded against the Irish and the Irish against the Scotch. Whenever
the Macks met the Micks, or the Sandys met the Paddys, there was a
row. A large part of this classification is temporary and need not be
considered very seriously. Underlying it, however, is the deeper fact
that we have come to recognize that there is a world of the workers,
and that it is a world apart. In this world of the workers the rewards
and the profits of toil are barely adequate to take care of the needs
of the families of the workers.
It is assumed that in pre-war times it required from $800 to $900 a
year to support a family in the average American community. Since
1914 the cost of living has increased approximately 60 per cent. It
is estimated that even to-day with the advances that have been made
in the wages by nearly all industries, 61 per cent. of the workers of
America are receiving an average wage of less than $800 a year. “Shanty
Town” and that section “Down by the Gas Works” have been built of poor
material and allowed to become dilapidated not because the people
living there like that sort of thing, but because the returns for the
labor of these people are totally inadequate for their needs. The
housing and living conditions of the people who live in the world of
the workers is determined by the wages which they receive.
[Illustration:
McGraw-Hill Company.
The work which men do inevitably groups them together.]
=The Interdependence of All.= Now, if we do recognize that the
world of work is a world apart, we must not fail to recognize also
that behind this disintegration that has been going on, there is an
integration of society more comprehensive than we have ever known
before in the history of the world. While the people may be allowed
to live by themselves in a part of the town that is less desirable as
a dwelling-place than other parts, yet we are all dependent one upon
the other. There is an old story which illustrates this point. A boy
complained to his father about being poor and said that he wished that
he had been born in a rich man’s home. The father told him that he
was mistaken, for he really had wealth which he had never considered.
That night the boy had a dream. It seemed to him that there came and
stood at his bed a little fellow dressed like a farmer. The boy asked
him who he was. He replied that he was the soul of all the farmers
that were working to produce the flour that went into bread. Another
little figure appeared beside the first, a black man with a turban on
his head; he was the spirit of the workers in the tea and spice
gardens of India. Another black man dressed in the rough clothes of a
day-laborer joined the others; he was the spirit of the workers on a
Southern plantation who make the cotton and produce the sugar. Other
workers appeared so fast that the boy could hardly keep up with their
approach--the coal-miner, the iron-miner, the woodsman, the carpenter,
and the girl workers in the flax-mills of Dublin, who produce the linen
in the rough, red-checked tablecloths. When they had all gathered
together there was a multitude, and all were in reality the servants of
this one boy.
Our dependence upon each other was clearly illustrated in the shut-down
of non-essential industries on certain days in the winter of 1917-18.
In order to keep people from starving and freezing, the government of
the United States ordered the suspension of certain industries so that
the conservation of fuel might protect the lives of the people.
=The Good Neighbor.= We are “members one of another.” The basic
industries provide the necessities of our lives--feeding, housing,
clothing, warmth, means of traveling, and the things which are part
and parcel of our very being. The workers who are engaged in producing
these things are true servants of humanity, and we are all under deep
and abiding obligations to them. Just in the proportion that we produce
something that adds to the wealth and happiness of the world, we are
discharging the obligation which others by their labors have placed
upon us. The division into classes, and the setting off of groups by
themselves, the creating of the world of labor as a world apart, makes
the practise of neighborliness a difficult thing. Now neighborliness
is the very essence of Christianity. To be a friend of man ought to
be the supreme desire of every individual. In the parable of the
Good Samaritan Jesus defined the meaning of Christianity in terms of
neighborliness. The church must answer this question: How can Christian
people be good neighbors in modern industrial society?
=Neighbor to the Group.= We recognize the call to neighborliness in
individual cases. If a man is knocked down by an automobile when he
is crossing a street, people will run to help him to his feet, will
call a cab or an ambulance, and he will be cared for just as carefully
by the stranger as if he were a near relative. The individual idea
of neighborliness is thoroughly appreciated. We have learned how to
practise it. When it comes to a group, however, we find it difficult.
The same men that would rush into the street to help an individual that
is hurt, will live in a community and not appreciate the needs of the
people living in the same block. The industrial class may be knocked
down by adverse social conditions, and no one will recognize just what
the situation means; or, recognizing it, will know how to apply the
remedy, or even how to offer intelligent assistance.
In a small city in Ohio there lived an old man and his wife. Their
children had married and moved away, leaving the old people to shift
for themselves. The man was nearly blind and his wife was paralyzed
and unable to take care of herself. The neighbors used to go to see
them once in a while but no one felt any special responsibility for
them and the community knew very little about the conditions under
which they lived. One of the neighbors remarked one day that he had not
seen anybody around the house and no smoke coming from the chimney.
An investigation was made and it was found that the old man had been
dead three days and was lying in bed with his paralyzed wife who could
not help herself, nor could call for assistance. For three days she had
been suffering unspeakable agony beside the form of her dead husband.
The whole community was shocked. No one could believe that such a lack
of neighborliness could exist. No one was particularly to blame; it was
merely one of those things that occur because the man and his wife had
dropped out of the main-traveled path of the city’s life.
The church is making every effort to meet the needs of the individual,
but when it preaches the need of regeneration, it must meet the group
needs as well, and the minister of a church for a world of labor must
be minister to the group as well as to the individual. The world war
has impressed upon us many facts, none with more insistence than
this--that we are living in a very small world; and that nations, as
well as groups of people everywhere, must learn to appreciate each
other for what they are, and for the contribution which they are making
to the well-being of humanity. Recognizing this, however, does not mean
that we are all to try and think alike, to be alike, or to live alike.
As Americans we are very likely to think that our way of doing things
is entirely right, and that enlightenment comes in proportion to the
degree in which other people copy our example in clothes, methods of
living, and even our manner of speaking.
=A Specialized Program for Group Needs.= The church’s program for a
world of work must be a specialized program. It must be based upon a
thorough knowledge of the facts incident to the life of the people, an
appreciation of their view-points, and must take into consideration
the ultimate ends to be achieved, the means by which these ends can be
reached, and a willingness to subordinate the program of the church
to the needs of the group. The program of a city church appealing to
well-to-do, middle-class people, will utterly fail in the average rural
community. A program for a mining community must consider the needs as
well as the character of the miners, and the quality of their work. The
church is sharply challenged by the specialization in industry, and by
the fact that there are classes who do not hear, or at least fail to
heed its appeal. In the growing demand for democracy, the church must
not only be the most democratic of all institutions but it must be the
leader in setting before the people the ideals and in keeping before
their minds the great ends of democracy.
=Approach to the Subject.= In the following chapters are set forth
some of the conditions under which the workers in the basic industries
toil and live; also the great needs of each group and what the church
is doing, what it ought to do, and what it can do. We will consider
each group in relation to the contribution it makes to the life of us
all. Food is a first need of each individual, therefore, we will study
the rural workers first, for they are the ones who feed the world.
Next we will study the makers of our clothing; then the mines, for
they provide for our warmth and shelter; then the steel workers, who
are the real builders of our material civilization. We are a restless
race, and demand the labor of thousands of men and women to move us
from place to place, so we will study the lives of these providers of
transportation. We will also think together of that large group who
amuse us and who labor to produce the luxuries which we enjoy. There
are certain groups that we will find in each of these larger groups,
such as the seasonal workers, the women in industry who toil. We will
take a glimpse at these.
=Men and Things.= Men produce things, and often the created thing
seems to become greater than its creator. We will hope through these
discussions to show that man is infinitely greater than all the things
which he produces. We will also endeavor to arrive at some decision
as to what constitutes a proper message and ministry for the church
in the midst of a world of work, so that working men and women may
be protected in their toil, and freed from the incessant and always
present danger of becoming slaves to the wealth they create.