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WHITE SLAVES
OR
THE OPPRESSIONS OF THE WORTHY POOR
BY REV. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS, D.D.
To My Father and Mother,
Who instilled into my mind and heart, in the days of a happy boyhood,
their own love for liberty and hatred of oppression, this volume is
gratefully dedicated.
TO THE MERCY AND HELP DEPARTMENT OF THE EPWORTH LEAGUE
Mr. Edison tells us that ninety per cent of the energy that there is in
coal is lost in the present method of converting it into a usable
force. May I, without being considered a croaker, say that almost the
same amount of spiritual power goes to waste in our average church
life? One is startled at times as he notes the manifestations of fervor
and warmth in the devotional meetings of the present day, and the
meagre results that follow in the transformation of society into the
likeness of the kingdom of heaven. Exactly what we have to do, however,
is to help hasten the answer to the prayer our Lord taught us, "Thy
will be done on earth as it is in heaven," and not to be forever
seeking to build tabernacles on some Mount of Transfiguration.
This book of Dr. Banks's is a positive stimulus to this work of social
transformation. The young men and women of our Epworth League could not
do better than to carefully and thoughtfully study its vivid pictures
of every-day scenes in our great, and even in our lesser, cities.
Such study will open their eyes to sad deformities in their own
communities, to which too many have become strangely indifferent
through custom and wont. True, it is not pleasant to consider these
distressing matters; but is it the business of the Christian to avoid
that which is unpleasant? Consideration leads to sympathy, and sympathy
wonderfully quickens the inventive faculties; and the aroused intellect
and active affection are leavening forces that alter social conditions
always for the better.
I take great pleasure, therefore, in commending this work, because it
stirs all who read it. It may make you indignant. What of it? Would
that more were alive enough to be indignant with the indignation of our
Lord at the forces of unbrotherliness at work in our midst! It will do
more than rouse your indignation; it will help you to utter the prayer
that gave the accent to the life of Paul: "Lord, what wilt thou have
_me_ to do?" When in works of Mercy and Help our tens of thousands of
Epworth Leaguers are loyally living this prayer, the problem of Edison,
as applied to spiritual dynamics, will be solved, and the latent forces
of spiritual energy used to their utmost. Then, as slavery has passed
away, war and tyranny and idleness and poverty will be no more, and the
end to which Christ leads us, and for which He died, will be attained.
WILLIAM INGRAHAM HAVEN,
_Vice-President for Mercy and Help Department_.
INWOOD LODGE, PINE ISLAND N.H. _August_ 1893
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
This volume had its origin in experiences which came to me in the daily
duties of a city pastorate. The inadequate wages received by some of
the members of my own congregation, and the impoverished and unhealthy
surroundings of many of the poor people who came for me to christen
their children, pray with their sick, or bury their dead, so aroused my
sympathy for the victims, and my indignation against the cruel or
indifferent causes of their misery, that I determined upon a thorough
and systematic investigation of the conditions of life among the worthy
Boston poor. By the word "worthy" I do not mean to indicate a class of
saints, but the poor people of the city who are willing and anxious to
exchange honest hard work for their support. I have not, in the series
of studies here presented, entered into a discussion of the vicious and
criminal classes. I have tried to perform, as it seemed to me, a far
more important task--to make a plea for justice on behalf of the
crushed, and often forgotten, victims of greed, who work and starve in
their cellars and garrets rather than beg or steal.
The larger part of the matter contained in these pages was originally
delivered in a series of discourses from the pulpit of St. John's
Methodist Episcopal Church, South Boston, and retains here the direct
form of the spoken address.
I desire to make a personal acknowledgment to some who have given me
great assistance in making the investigations, the results of which are
here recorded. I am greatly indebted to Mr. B. O. Flower, Editor of
_The Arena_, for many kindnesses, and especially for the use of several
interesting illustrations originally prepared for the magazine over
which he so ably and gracefully presides. The Rev. Walter J. Swaffield,
of the Boston Baptist Bethel, the Rev. C. L. D. Younkin, of the North
End Mission, the Rev. Geo. L. Small, of the Mariners' House, the Rev.
John G. May, of the Italian Mission, and that indefatigable reformer,
Mrs. Alice N. Lincoln, have each put me under great obligations by
their unwearying kindness and willing assistance. I am also greatly
indebted to Mr. Sears Gallagher, the brilliant young South Boston
artist, and to the veteran photographer of Boston Highlands, Mr. W. H.
Partridge, for many courtesies in connection with the illustrations
which illumine these chapters.
LOUIS ALBERT BANKS. BOSTON, _September_ 15, 1891.
CONTENTS
I. THE WHITE SLAVES OF THE BOSTON "SWEATERS"
II. LETTER OF CRITICISM
III. REPLY TO A CRITICISM ON "THE WHITE SLAVES OF THE BOSTON SWEATERS"
IV. THE PLAGUE OF THE SWEAT-SHOP
V. THE RELATION OF WAGES TO MORALS
VI. THE WAGES AND TEMPTATIONS OF WORKING-PEOPLE
VII. BOSTON'S UNCLE TOM'S CABIN
VIII. SOCIAL MICROBES IN BOSTON TENEMENT HOUSES, AND HOW TO DESTROY
THEM
IX. OLD WORLD TIDES IN BOSTON
X. OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS, THE BOSTON PAUPERS
XI. COMMENT ON "OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS, THE BOSTON PAUPERS"
XII. THE GOLD GOD OF MODERN SOCIETY
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PORTRAIT OF AUTHOR
PORTUGUESE WIDOW IN ATTIC
PORTUGUESE WIDOW AND CHILDREN
LITTLE CHILDREN FINISHING PANTS
INVALID IN CHAIR
POSTAL UNIFORMS
A TENEMENT-HOUSE COURT
SUNDAY ON NORTH STREET
CLARK'S MISSION
NORTH END JUNK SHOP
HOME OF THE MATHERS
THE PEANUTTER
INSIDE A SWEAT-SHOP
PAUL REVERE HOUSE, NORTH SQUARE
REAR OF NORTH END TENEMENT HOUSE
COMMONWEALTH AVENUE
DRYING "THE FIND"
THE NORTH END MISSION
A BOSTON "BRIDGE OF SIGHS"
COURT OFF NORTH STREET
CELLARWAY LEADING TO UNDERGROUND APARTMENTS
SICK MAN IN UNDERGROUND APARTMENT
AN ANCIENT TENEMENT
ITALIAN FRUIT-VENDERS AT HOME
COCKROACHES BY FLASH-LIGHT
BANANA SELLER
UNDERGROUND TENEMENT WITH TWO BEDS
TWO O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING
EXTERIOR OF A NORTH END TENEMENT HOUSE
WIDOW AND TWO CHILDREN IN UNDERGROUND TENEMENT
THE BANK OF THE UNFORTUNATE
OUT OF WORK
A CHEAP LODGING-HOUSE
THE "GOOD LUCK" TENEMENT HOUSE
THE SAND GARDEN
CHRIST CHURCH TOWER
ON THE CUNARDER
ON THE WAY TO THE RABBI
PASSING THE QUARANTINE DOCTOR
SURGICAL THEOLOGY
BUILDING USED BY THE BRITISH AS A HOSPITAL
VICTORIA SQUARE
OAK DOOR AT ENTRANCE
READING-ROOM AT FACTORY
FERRIS BROTHERS' CORSET FACTORY
QUARTER SECTION OF ONE OF THE WORK ROOMS
THE QUEEN OF THE DUMP
TRAMPS WOMEN'S
HOSPITAL WARD AT LONG ISLAND
GETTING A BREATH OF FRESH AIR
ATTIC AT RAINSFORD ISLAND
MARINERS' HOME
CHILDREN PLAYING IN COPP'S HILL BURYING-GROUND
DIGGING IN THE ASH-BARRELS IN WINTER
FOUR SHINERS
SOUTH BOSTON RAG-PICKERS
I.
THE WHITE SLAVES OF THE BOSTON "SWEATERS".
"Hard work is good an' wholesome, past all doubt;
But 'tain't so, ef the mind gits tuckered out."
--JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL: _Biglow Papers_.
A wise man of the old time, after a tour of observation, came home to
say, "So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done
under the sun: and behold the tears of such, as were oppressed, and
they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was
power; but they had no comforter." If this report had been written by
one who had been climbing with me through the tenement houses of not
less than a score of Boston streets, conversing with the sewing-women,
looking on their poverty-lined faces and their ragged children,
breathing the poisonous air of the quarters where they work, and
listening to their heart-rending stories of cruelty and oppression, it
would be an appropriate summary of our observation. It is my purpose,
at this time, to take you with me on a tour of observation. As
well-lighted streets are better than policemen to insure safety and
good order, so I believe that the best possible service I can render
the public is to turn on the light, and tell, as plainly and simply as
I can, the story of what I have seen and heard and smelled in the white
slave-quarters, which are a disgrace to our fair city. I shall confine
myself at this time entirely to the work of women and children in their
own homes. Most of this work is parcelled out to them by middlemen who
are known as "sweaters." That word sweater is not in the old
dictionaries. It is a foul word, born of the greed and infernal lust
for gold which pervade the most reckless and wicked financial circles
of our time. The sweater takes large contracts and divides it out among
the very poor, reducing the price to starvation limits, and reserving
the profits for himself.
Some of the women whose story I shall tell do not work for sweaters,
but are treated almost as badly by the powerful and wealthy firms who
employ them. In these cases the firm itself has learned the sweater's
secret, and through an agent of its own is sweating the life-blood out
of these half-starved victims.
Let us begin near at home with a South Boston case, which came to my
notice through the dispensary doctor for the district. It is a widow
with one child--a little boy scarcely three years old. The child is
just recovering from a troublesome sickness, through which the doctor
became acquainted with her. She has been sewing for a good while for
one of the largest and most respectable dry-goods houses on Washington
Street--a firm whose name is a household word throughout New England.
Her sewing has been confined to two lines--cloaks and aprons. For some
time she has been making white aprons--a good long apron, requiring a
yard, perhaps, of material; it is hemmed across the bottom and on both
sides, the band or "apron string" is hemmed on both sides, and then
sewed on to the apron, making six long seams. For these she is paid
fifteen cents _a dozen_! And besides that, this great, rich firm, whose
members are rolling in wealth and luxury, charges this poor widow
fifteen cents expressage on her package of ten dozen aprons, so that
for making one hundred and twenty aprons, such as I have described, she
receives, net, one hundred and thirty-five cents! If she works from
seven o'clock in the morning until eleven o'clock at night, she can
make four dozen; but, with the care of her child, she is unable to
average more than three dozen, for which, after the expressage is taken
out, she receives forty cents a day for the support of herself and
child.
Her rent for the one little room is one dollar per week. It is idle to
say that this firm is compelled to do this by competition, for the
material and making of these aprons cost less than ten cents, and the
firm retails them ordinarily at _twenty-five cents apiece_. On cloaks
she did better, receiving from fifty to seventy-five cents apiece, she
furnishing her own sewing-silk and cotton. On these she could make, by
working from seven A.M. till eleven P.M., nearly a dollar a day, but
she could never get more than six cloaks a week, so that the income for
the week was about the same.
[ILLUSTRATION: PORTUGUESE WIDOW IN ATTIC.]
Now come with me a little farther around the harbor. Let us climb up
three flights, to a little attic suite of two rooms, so low at the side
that, with my length of anatomy, I have to keep well to the middle of
the room in order to stand upright. Here live a Portuguese mother and
five children, the oldest thirteen, the youngest not yet three, a poor,
deformed, little thing that has consumption of the bowels, brought on
by scanty and irregular food. Its tiny legs are scarcely thicker than
my thumb, and you cannot look at its patient, wasted, little face, that
looks old enough to have endured twenty-five years of misery, instead
of three, without the heartache. I ask the mother how she earns her
living, and she points to a package that has just come in. Picking it
up, and untying the strings, I find there six pairs of pants, cut out
and basted up, ready for making. Looking at the card, we are astonished
to find that it bears the name of one of the largest firms in the city
of Boston, a firm known, perhaps, as widely as any. Three pairs of
these pants are _custom-made_; they are fashionable summer trousers,
with the names and addresses of the men for whom they are made tacked
on them. The other three pairs are stamped with "New York" as customer,
from which we infer that they are made for a New York house, the Boston
firm acting as sweater. This woman and her little children must finish
these pants by the same hour to-morrow, when the messenger from the
store will bring a new lot and take these away. She receives _ten cents
a pair_--three pairs being _custom-made_ pants! In order to finish the
six pairs in the twenty-four hours, she must get to work at six in the
morning, and improve every available moment until eleven or twelve in
the evening, and sometimes, if the sick child is fretful, until one
o'clock in the morning. Her wages for this tremendous strain that is
wearing her very life away, until she looks almost as frail as her
dying child, is _sixty cents!_ Her rent for these two small attic
pockets is one dollar and fifty cents per week. She has one bed for
herself and five children. Only through the aid of the Boston Baptist
Bethel is she able to keep up the struggle. And yet, O my brothers!
this is in sight of the old North Church, and the tower where they hung
the lanterns for a signal to Paul Revere, when he rode through the
darkness to arouse the Fathers to fight against oppression. God help us
to hang another light for liberty in the midst of this cruel slavery!
Perhaps you are tired now, and want to rest, but I am insatiable, and
will go on. Let me give you the record of six families found in the
same tenement.
Family No. 1. They are Italians. The wife and mother is finishing cheap
overcoats at four cents apiece. She can finish from eight to ten in a
day. She has two finer coats, lined with handsome satin; of these she
can complete only five a day, and receives eight cents apiece. There
are three in the family, and they pay a dollar and a half per week for
their one room. I asked about the husband, and a neighbor woman from
the next room remarked contemptuously, "He is no good."
No. 2. These are Poles. The woman makes knee pants of grammar-schoolboy
size; she receives sixteen cents a dozen pairs. Two dozen are as many
as she ever gets done in a day.
No. 3. They are Italians here, and are at work on knee pants. This
woman receives sixteen cents a dozen pairs for most of them, but for
some extra nice ones she gets eighteen cents a dozen. She has two dozen
brought to her from the sweater's shop every day about two o'clock. She
works from two in the afternoon until ten at night, and from six in the
morning until noon the next day, to complete her allowance, for which
she receives from thirty-two to thirty-six cents. The rent is a dollar
and seventy-five cents per week; she has two children.
No. 4. This woman makes men's pants at twelve cents a pair. Formerly,
when she was stronger, she could drive herself through six pairs a day;
but now, with a little babe to look after, she can get only four pairs
done. The room is intolerably dirty; but how can you have the heart to
blame her?
No. 5. Polish Jews. The woman makes knee pants, working from seven in
the morning till ten o'clock at night, and nets from twenty-seven to
forty-four cents a day.
No. 6. Italians. This woman is an expert seamstress. She is finishing
men's coats at six cents apiece; and with nothing to bother her,
working sixteen hours a day, she makes fifty-four cents. The rent for
the narrow little back room is one dollar and thirty-five cents per
week.
If you want variety, we will climb four flights of stairs, with half
the plastering knocked off the walls, and talk with an English woman.
She is working on fine cloth pants; she gets thirteen cents a pair; by
working till very late in the evening, she can complete four pairs a
day, and thinks it would be almost a paradise if she could make her
fifty-two cents every day; but it is one of the characteristics of a
sweater to systematically keep all his people hungry for work, and she
seldom is able to get more than twelve pairs a week. She lives alone in
a little sweat-box under the roof, for which she pays a dollar and a
quarter per week.
Not far away, up two flights, we find a Portuguese widow, with four
little girls, the eldest fifteen, the next thirteen, and the younger
ones three and six, respectively; they are all dwarfed by hardship and
insufficient food, so that the one who is fifteen is not larger than an
average girl of twelve. The mother is sick, and the girls are trying to
keep the wolf from the door by carrying on the sewing. They are all
hard at work; they carry the pants back and forth themselves, and so
for the most of their work receive twelve cents, though for some they
get only ten cents a pair. They have only two little rooms with the
most meagre furniture; the rent is one dollar and a half per week, and
the sick mother and four girls huddle together in the one bed at night.
They are pretty, bright-faced, intelligent girls, and with a fair
chance would grow into strong, noble women; but one shudders when he
takes into consideration the fearful odds against which they will have
to struggle in this poverty-stricken, crime-cursed alley.
[Illustration: PORTUGUESE WIDOW AND CHILDREN.]
[Illustration: LITTLE CHILDREN FINISHING PANTS.]
Here is another case of a similar description only a few blocks away.
We go up three narrow flights, steep and dark, for space is as
important in a low-class Boston tenement house as in a sardine box. The
stairway is slippery from filth on the last flight, for on a small
bench at the top, in a dry-goods box, a little boy is raising squabs
for the market, and the pigeon business, however much it may help to
pay the rent, is not conducive to cleanliness. We find here a suite of
three little rooms, the largest of which is not more than 10x10; the
others are much smaller. In these three little pigeon boxes eight
people live, at least sleep--five men and boys, and a mother and two
girls. The men are off most of the day, and work at such jobs as they
find; the mother and little girls make pants for another leading Boston
clothing house. The two little girls, the younger only three years, are
both overcasting seams. The three make on an average sixteen pairs of
pants a week, for which they get thirteen cents a pair; the young
pigeon fancier, already spoken of, carrying the goods to and fro. The
rent of these crowded quarters is two dollars and a quarter per week.
In the same building, down-stairs, we went into a room which could not
have been more than 10x12, where an American woman, with seven young
women helping her, was at work dressmaking. We could not discover
whether they were working for the stores or not, but the air was
poisonous, and the workers had that deadly pallor which comes from
habitually breathing bad air and from lack of sufficient food.
[Illustration: INVALID IN CHAIR.]
Sickness, to be dreaded anywhere, is especially pitiful among these
sweaters' slaves in the city. In the country the fresh air, fragrant
with the breath of new-mown hay, or sweetened from ten thousand clover
blossoms, is free to the poorest, but to be sick in a tenement house is
something terrible. Yet crowded quarters, poisonous air, and filthy
clothing make sickness a common guest in such places. I climbed one day
up two flights into a dirty little room, the smell of which was
sickening to me in three minutes, and yet there I found a man on a
little cot (that had been given by the charitable missionary who guided
me) who has been lying there for more than three years. For two years
and more he had not even a cot, but lay on the floor in his dirt and
pain. There are two children, too young to be of much assistance; the
wife and mother sews, finishing pants for a rich Washington Street
firm. She gets twelve, and sometimes, on fine, custom-made pants,
thirteen cents a pair. She has worked so hard and continuously on poor
food and with insufficient clothing, that rheumatism has settled in the
joints of her fingers and stiffened them, till she is only able to turn
off nine or ten pairs a week. Last week she could only make a dollar
and fifteen cents; the rent was a dollar and a quarter. They have
absolutely none of the ordinary comforts of life; the sick man has no
sheets for his cot, and the rheumatic mother sleeps with her children
on the floor.
Down-stairs, we look in on a mother and two grown daughters who are
finishing pants for another fashionable firm, one which does a large
business with clergymen. They are paid thirteen cents a pair,
ordinarily, and for the very finest custom-made pants they receive as
high as twenty cents, but complain, as it takes so much longer with the
fine pants, that from two to three pairs is as much as one woman can
complete in a day. There is a helpless air about this mother and her
daughters that is very depressing.
[Illustration: POSTAL UNIFORMS.]
There has been quite a controversy recently as to where the new United
States postal uniforms for the Boston carriers were made. I settled
this question to my own satisfaction during the past week, when, in
company with Dr. Luther T. Townsend, of Boston University, and two
other gentlemen, one of them being an Italian interpreter, I climbed
the rickety stairs of an old North End tenement house, and found the
pants for these same uniforms being made by Italian women at _nine and
a half cents a pair_! They received them from a Jewish sweater. One of
these women says that, by beginning at four o'clock in the morning and
frequently working until twelve o'clock at night, she can make six
pairs of these pants in a day. She has five children; the rent is two
dollars per week. The husband has been out of work for eight months;
the only one of the children who is able to earn anything is a boy who
is a bootblack, and can earn, in fine weather, three dollars a week.
Another woman at work on these postal uniforms, who was not able to
labor quite such long hours, could only make four pairs a day. She also
had five children, the only one able to earn anything being a daughter,
fourteen years of age, who works in a sweater's shop for two dollars a
week.
On the walls of the rooms in this building where the postal uniforms
were being made, the cockroaches were crawling, and in some places were
swarming as thick as ants about an anthill.
I have my note-books full of many other cases, including Portuguese,
Italian, English, Polish, and a few Irish and American women, of the
same general character as those already related; but a similar wicked
scale of prices runs through the making of other clothing. I called on
a woman in South Boston last week who was making overalls for a city
firm at sixty cents a dozen pairs. They are the large variety of
overalls, such as expressmen and such workers use, with straps going
over the shoulders. I took a tape-line and carefully measured the
sewing on one pair of these overalls. When they come to the seamstress,
there has not been a stitch taken in them--they are simply cut out.
There are thirty separate and distinct seams to be sewed, making in the
aggregate thirty-two and a half feet of sewing, for which she receives
the gross amount of five cents, out of which she has to pay the
carrying to and fro. If she goes after them herself, she can bring only
two dozen at a time, which will cost her ten cents car-fare, going and
coming. When sent by express in a package of five or six dozen--the
number she is able to make in a week--she is charged fifteen cents
expressage each way, so that the expressage eats up the making of six
pairs. In addition to this, the stiff cloth is very hard on machine
needles, and she will break about ten cents worth per week. This
woman's story is a sad one. Her husband, who was a strong, hard-working
man, fell ill through an over-strain, and died after fifteen months'
sickness, two months ago. She has three little children, the oldest
four years and the youngest a little over a year. Work as hard as she
can, driving her machine until late into the night, she is able to make
only five dozen pairs of overalls a week, which, when expressage and
breakage of needles are taken out, leaves her two dollars and
sixty-five cents. The rent is a dollar and a half, which leaves one
dollar and fifteen cents for the food and clothing of a mother and
three children. Of course she cannot live on that, and would starve to
death if she were not assisted by charity. And yet there is a firm
doing business in South Boston mean enough to take advantage of the
fact that people living in this part of the city are compelled to pay
car-fare or expressage on work secured in the city proper, and so has
reduced the price for work given out in South Boston to _fifty cents a
dozen pairs_.
I talked with another young woman, who has made overalls for both these
firms, and has been compelled to give it up through sickness brought on
from the confinement and strained position of sitting so many hours a
day over a sewing-machine. This poor girl told me that both of these
firms were now giving a great part of this class of work to the public
authorities in charge of the House of Correction, to be done by the
prisoners, and that a daily stint for a woman in prison is only eight
pairs. This sick, discouraged girl, in a most heart-breaking way, said
she thought she would better commit some crime in order to procure a
place in the House of Correction, for there she would have much better
quarters, a great deal nicer food, and would only have to make eight
pairs a day, while at home she must force herself to make at least a
dozen pairs a day, or starve.
Fellow-citizens, what do you think of this? Is there not something
wrong in a system of things that permits the authorities of the State
or city to enter into competition with the sewing-women of Boston at
such a cruel and heartless rate that no woman can work at it and keep
out of prison, unless she is assisted by charity? This same South
Boston firm gives out men's shirts to be made at sixty cents a dozen.
The material for one of these shirts costs twenty-three cents, the
making five cents--a total of twenty-eight cents. They retail these
shirts at fifty cents apiece, making a net profit of twenty-two cents
on an investment of twenty-eight cents for a few weeks' time.
During the last few weeks, as I have gone about among these women, my
ears have been haunted with that old song of Thomas Hood, as
appropriate now, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, in the
city of Boston, as it ever has been anywhere, at any time, in the
history of human greed.
With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread--
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt;
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
She sang the "Song of the Shirt!"
"Work! work! work!
While the cock is crowing aloof!
And work--work--work,
Till the stars shine through the roof!
It's, oh! to be a slave
Along with the barbarous Turk,
Where woman has never a soul to save,
If this is Christian work!
"Work--work--work
Till the brain begins to swim!
Work--work--work
Till the eyes are heavy and dim!
* * * * *
Stitch--stitch--stitch,
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,--
Sewing at once, with a double thread,
A shroud as well as a shirt!
"But why do I talk of death,
That phantom of grisly bone?
I hardly fear his terrible shape,
It seems so like my own--
It seems so like my own
Because of the fast I keep:
O God! that bread should be so dear,
And flesh and blood so cheap!
"Work--work--work!
My labor never flags;
And what are its wages? A bed of straw,
A crust of bread--and rags,
That shattered roof--and this naked floor--
A table--a broken chair--
And a wall so blank my shadow I thank
For sometimes falling there!
"Work--work--work
From weary chime to chime!
Work--work--work
As prisoners work for crime!"
If Thomas Hood had lived in our day, and could have gone around with me
in Boston, he would have had to make it stronger yet, for among us the
good, honest sewing-woman must work at least one-third harder than the
"prisoners work for crime." And on such wages the prayer with which he
continues must be forever unanswered:--
"Oh! but to breathe the breath
Of the cowslip and primrose sweet--
With, the sky above my head,
And the grass beneath my feet!
For only one short hour
To feel as I used to feel,
Before I knew the woes of want,
And the walk that costs a meal!
"Oh! but for one short hour,--
A respite, however brief!
No blessed leisure for love or hope,
But only time for grief!
A little weeping would ease my heart;
But in their briny bed
My tears must stop, for every drop
Hinders needle and thread!"
With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread--
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt;
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,--
Would that its voice could reach the rich!--
She sang this "Song of the Shirt."
II.
LETTER OF CRITICISM.
"Slavery ain't o' nary color,
'Tain't the hide that makes it wus,
All it keers fer in a feller
'S jest to make him fill its pus."
--JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL: Biglow Papers.
BOSTON, June 29, 1891.
REV. Louis ALBERT BANKS, _St. John's M. E. Church, South Boston, Mass._
Dear Sir:--In the sermon which you preached yesterday, the title, as
given in the newspapers, is "_The White Slaves of Boston Sweaters_."
Under the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States
there can be no such thing as "_slave_" in this country. Under the
decision of Judge Parsons there has not been a slave in Massachusetts
since the adoption of the Constitution. I therefore venture to ask you
some questions.
1. How do you justify the term "_white slave_" when applied to the
persons whose condition you describe?
2. "Climb three flights to an attic suite of two rooms, and there one
would find a mother and five children" doubtless in very bad condition;
the mother trying to support them; the tenement doubtless very bad.
Suppose we condemn the tenement,--pull it down,--then these people
would have _no_ roof over their heads. Is _no_ roof better than _some
kind_ of a roof? Suppose we refuse to trust her to make pants? Is _no_
work better than _some_ work?
3. The mother earns her living, or part of it, by making "pants." Pants
made in this way are sold at a very low price at retail, after being
subjected to the cost of distribution in the customary way. There is
great competition in this business. That competition leads every
employer to pay the highest wages that can be recovered from the sale
of the pants, also allowing the sweater's charge. If the cost of making
is advanced on this class of pants, they cannot be sold at all; then
there would be no sweater, and the woman would get no work. Is _no_
work better than _some_ work?
4. The sweater deals as a middleman with the manufacturer and the
worker. If he did not deal with this kind of work, it would cost the
manufacturer more to reach the worker than it does now; no sweater
would be employed if he did not earn what he makes; then the
manufacturer, or clothier, could pay _less_ for making the pants,
because he now pays _all that the trade will bear_. If it cost him more
to reach the worker, he _must_ pay less. Suppose we abolish the
sweater, or middleman, then he would not distribute the work, and there
would be _no_ work. Is that better than _some_ work?
5. Suppose this woman had not come here with her children and had
stayed, perhaps, in Italy or in Russia, instead of coming here. Is
_some_ work _here_ better than _no_ work in _Italy_?
6. If the mother cannot support the children,--being now in this
country without having been sent back,--she is entitled to go with her
children to the almshouse, where suitable shelter, clean rooms, and
good food would be provided. Is it better for her to _try to support
her children_ under existing conditions _than to go to the almshouse_?
7. There is an ample supply of money available for purposes of true
charity. Does not true charity consist in refusing to give alms to
those who can or may support themselves? Is it better to give alms to
those people in their attic, or to give alms to them under the
conditions of the almshouse? Which course would be most sure to
pauperize them utterly?
8. The use of the term "slave" implies a slave-owner and a
slave-driver. In this series of (1) _the manufacturer_, (2) _the
sweater or middleman_, and (3) _the working-woman with her children_,
which is the slave-owner and which is the slave-driver? Under what
authority does the slave-master force this woman to render her labor
for all that it is worth?
9. If her work is worth more than she gets, can she not get it?
A little inquiry into the condition of the clothing trade, and some
examination of the fact, might disclose to you that the poor
sewing-woman is poor because she sews poorly, and that there is always
a scarcity of skilful and intelligent sewing-women, at full wages.
My final question is, how do you propose to help those who are
incapable of helping themselves, without pauperizing them yet more than
they are pauperized under their present conditions? What will you do
when you have destroyed the house and done away with the sweater?
Are you justified, as a Christian minister, in creating a prejudice and
arousing malignant passion by the use of the term "_slave_?" Can you
defend or justify this term, under the conditions that are reported, as
they are stated in the printed report of your sermon?
I venture to put these questions to you because I think that the
dangerous class in this community is to be found among persons who,
without intelligence, create animosity, and by their method of
preaching tend to retard rather than to promote the progress of the
poor and ignorant in this country.
Very sincerely yours, *****
III.
REPLY TO A CRITICISM ON "THE WHITE SLAVES OF BOSTON SWEATERS".
"Freedom's secret wilt thou know?--
Counsel not with flesh and blood;
Loiter not for cloak or food;
Eight thou feelest, rush to do."
--RALPH WALDO EMERSON: _Freedom_.
Among the scores of thankful letters which I have received, commenting
on the discourse on "The White Slaves of the Boston Sweaters," there is
one of an entirety different character, written by a distinguished
writer on social questions, a gentleman for whom I have always
entertained the highest respect. I should be very glad to give the name
of the author of this letter; but as it is marked "personal," I cannot,
in honor, do so.
This letter so clearly and unswervingly outlines and defends the
extreme conservative side of this question, that I feel I cannot do a
better service to the cause of the "sweater's victim" than to answer it
in this public way. My critic begins by assailing the title of the
discourse. He says: "In the sermon which you preached yesterday, the
title as given in the newspapers is 'The White Slaves of the Boston
Sweaters.' Under the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the
United States, there can be no such thing as 'slave' in this country.
Under the decision of Judge Parsons there has not been a slave in
Massachusetts since the adoption of the Constitution." Wonderful Judge
Parsons! who is able, by the magic wand of his decision, to unshackle
all the slaves who, under the cruel whip of necessity,--more unmerciful
than any slave-driver's lash,--have sweated under the burdens imposed
by avaricious task-masters in every city of the commonwealth.
Can you make men free by constitution simply? Are there no slaves
except those who, like the African thirty years ago, are bought and
sold at the auction block? Ay, indeed! for every black man liberated by
President Lincoln's proclamation, there is, to-day, a white man robbed
and degraded and brutalized by some gigantic trust or other equally
soulless, unfeeling, corporate power.
For every mother whose heart was broken by having her children wrenched
from her arms in the African slave-market, there is a white mother,
whose very soul is crushed at the sight of her hungry, ragged, little
ones. For every black babe torn from its mother's breast by the
iniquitous system of negro slavery, the slums of our great cities have
a white child, whose future is equally dark and hopeless.
My critic's first question is, "How do you justify the term 'white
slave' when applied to the persons whose condition you describe?" My
answer is very simple. If a widow with little children to care for, who
cannot go out to do other kinds of work, and is compelled to work
eighteen hours a day for fifty cents, and dares not give this up for
fear of starvation to her children, is not a slave, then will somebody
tell me what element is lacking to make slavery?
[Illustration: A TENEMENT-HOUSE COURT.]
The second question is as follows: "'Climb three flights to an attic
suite of two rooms, and there one would find a mother and five
children,' doubtless in very bad condition; the mother trying to
support them; the tenement doubtless very bad. Suppose we condemn the
tenement,--pull it down,--then these people will have no roof over
their heads. Is _no_ roof better than _some_ kind of a roof? Suppose we
refuse to trust her to make pants--is _no_ work better than _some_
work?"
To the first part of this question, relating to the roof of this bad
tenement house, I answer frankly: Yes, no roof is better. This poor
woman, working at starvation-wages, is furnishing from twelve to twenty
per cent interest on the money invested in this miserable old rookery,
whose heartless landlord, like the unjust judge of the Gospels, fears
not God and regards not man. If we condemn this disease-breeding
death-trap, it will not be a question of this woman having "no roof"
over her head, but she may have a decent roof, with healthful, sanitary
regulations, at a less rent than she now pays, and still pay an honest
interest on the investment to the landlord. As to the second part of
the question, "Is no work better than some work?" that is not a fair
putting of the question. Our modern Christian civilization does not
dare to put it that way. It is not a question of no work, or some work.
We must furnish this woman some work, at such, just and rightful wages
as shall give her and her children bread to eat and raiment to put on,
and a decent, though it be humble, roof over their heads.
We pass to our critic's third question: "The mother earns her living,
or a part of it, by making 'pants.' Pants made in this way are sold at
a very low price at retail, after being subjected to the cost of
distribution in the customary way. There is great competition in this
business. That competition leads every employer to pay the highest
wages that can be recovered from the sale of the pants, also allowing
the sweater's charge. If the cost of making is advanced on this class
of pants, they cannot be sold at all; then there would be no sweater,
and the woman would get no work. Is _no_ work better than _some_ work?"
The trouble with a great deal of this is, that it is incorrect both in
its premise and in its reasoning. It is indeed true that there is great
competition in the clothing business, but it is not true that the
result of this competition leads every employer to pay the highest
wages that can be recovered from the sale of the pants. It is also a
remarkable statement to make, that if the cost is advanced, then there
will be no more pants made. Can my critic really believe that the whole
of mankind would suddenly go "pantless" if the price for making them
were raised to a point where the sewing-woman could make a decent
living? It is also a curious statement to make that "If there were no
sweater, the woman would get no work." The sweater is a comparatively
recent institution, and I devoutly believe an institution of the devil.
Before the sweater came to be a factor in the situation, the woman had
work, and better pay than she now receives. The incoming of the sweater
has not resulted in more work, but in less wages.
If my critic will take the trouble to examine the testimony given
before the committee appointed by the English House of Lords, which may
be found in the Public Library, he will see that it is the universal
testimony of hundreds of witnesses that the sweater is an unnecessary
factor in the manufacturing trades, and that in every department of the
labor world where the sweating system has been introduced, the wages of
the laborer have been reduced from forty to seventy per cent.
The fourth question is similar to the third: "The sweater deals as a
middleman with the manufacturer and the worker. If he did not deal with
this kind of work, it would cost the manufacturer more to reach the
worker than it does now. No sweater would be employed if he did not
earn what he makes. Then the manufacturer, or clothier, could pay less
for making the pants, because he now pays all the trade will bear. If
it cost him more to reach the worker, he must pay less. Suppose we
abolish the sweater, or middleman, then he would not distribute the
work, and there would be _no_ work. Is that better than _some_ work?"
I have already answered this question in part. It is not correct that
it would cost the manufacturer more to reach the worker without the
sweater than with him. It is also ridiculous to suppose that if the
sweater were abolished there would be no work. The demand for clothing
would be just the same without the sweater as with him. Besides that,
everything that takes the employer away from the people who do his
work, and removes him from contact with them, is a bad thing, and
always bodes ill to any harmonious relation between capital and labor.
I am satisfied that there are proprietors in Boston firms, who, if they
could go around with me, and see, as I have seen, the poverty and
suffering of the sweaters' slaves who are making up their goods, would
revolt against the whole system. It is only the sweater who comes in
contact with these people, and the sweater is, as a rule, greedy and
avaricious, and hardened against all humane feeling.
[Illustration: SUNDAY ON NORTH STREET.]
We pass to the fifth question: "Suppose this woman had not come here
with her children, and had stayed, perhaps, in Italy or in Russia,
instead of coming here. Is _some_ work _here_ better than _no_ work in
_Italy_?" Very likely it is true that the woman is as well off here as
she would be in Italy. But is _Italy_ to be the standard of our
American civilization? I stood on a bridge over the Tiber, fronting the
famous castle of St. Angelo in Rome, on a hot Sunday morning in July,
and watched a company of people on a barge who were driving piles in
the river. There were about eighty men and women, the sexes about
equally divided, pulling and tugging away, in the hot sun, at ropes and
pulleys, in order to lift the heavy iron hammer and drop it on the head
of the piling. In Boston there would have been a little donkey engine,
and one or two men to look after it all the crew that would have been
needed. Shall we go back to Italy for a model? Furthermore, this
Italian woman is setting up a standard of life for all laboring women.
It is not enough to say she is as well off here as in Italy. We cannot
afford to permit the establishing of little Italian centres throughout
the Republic, with which every American laborer in the land must enter
into competition. No matter where people came from, nor what they have
suffered in their native land, if we permit them to come to us, we are
compelled, in sheer self-defence, to see that they are treated fairly
and justly, and receive a sufficient compensation for their toil to
support them in cleanliness, intelligence, and morality.
Question six raises a different problem: "If the mother cannot support
the children,--being now in this country, without having been sent
back,--she is entitled to go with her children to the almshouse, where
suitable shelter, clean rooms, and good food will be provided. Is it
better for her to _try to support her children_, under existing
conditions, than to go to the almshouse?" It is, of course, better for
the woman to try to support her children. The almshouse is for the sick
and helplessly infirm; Such may go there in all honor, without
disgrace. I doubt not there are men in the almshouse who have done more
service to humanity than many others who die amid luxury and wealth.
But nothing can be more vicious than to speak of people who are able
and willing to work as candidates for the almshouse, because the cruel
oppression in their wages makes it impossible for them to support
themselves. It is not charity these people need or want; it is justice.
True, Christ said, "The poor ye have always with you," and it is
probable that we shall always need to support by charity the crippled,
the insane, and the unfortunate, but it is a certain indication of
rottenness in any civilization that makes charity necessary for a man
or woman who is able and willing to work.
The seventh question continues this same thought with variations:
"There is an ample supply of money available for purposes of true
charity. Does not true charity consist in refusing to give alms to
those who can, or may, support themselves? Is it better to give alms to
these people, in their attic, or to give alms to them under the
conditions of the almshouse? What course would be most sure to
pauperize them utterly?" For once, my critic and myself are in
agreement. I believe it is better for one to partly support himself
than not to do anything towards it. Nothing is more demoralizing to any
one than to become accustomed to receive charity. But, after all, you
may pauperize people almost as rapidly in the attic as in the
almshouse. It is against the whole system that I make war. I do not
admit, for a moment, that it is necessary for the sewing-woman to
receive such wages as to compel her starvation, unless alms be given to
her in her attic.
In the discourse which is thus criticised. I showed plainly that the
aprons for which the seamstress received, net, one cent for making,
returned a profit of fifteen cents, on an investment of ten cents by
her employer. Now, I do not admit that the rigors of competition are so
great that it compels this manufacturer to make one hundred and fifty
per cent profit while this woman toils sixteen hours a day to make
forty-five cents.
I showed that the women who make shirts made only fifty cents a day,
and yet the proprietor made on every shirt twenty-two cents profit on
an investment of twenty-eight cents. I do not admit that competition is
so stern that it is necessary for this shirt manufacturer to make
seventy-eight per cent profit while the woman who works for him must
beg assistance of the Provident Association, or see her children cry
for bread.
Or, take the case of the poor girl, whose mother finishes pants for the
postal uniforms at nine and one-half cents a pair, slaving eighteen
hours for fifty-seven cents; and she, the daughter, toils all day long,
in the midst of the physical and moral stench of a Jewish sweater's
shop, for sixteen and two-thirds cents. But she is better off than the
orphan girl that works beside her, whose condition some poet has
described:--
"Left there, nobody's daughter,
Child of disgrace and shame,
Nobody ever taught her
A mother's sweet saving name.
Nobody ever caring
Whether she stood or fell,
And men (are they men?) ensnaring
With the arts and the gold of hell!
Stitching with ceaseless labor
To earn her pitiful bread;
Begging a crust of a neighbor,
And getting a curse instead!
All through the long, hot summer,
All through the cold, dark time,
With fingers that numb and number
Grow, white as the frost's white rime.
Nobody ever conceiving
The throb of that warm, young life,
Nobody ever believing
The strain of that terrible strife!