FINANCIAL RELATIONS IN FAMILIES.
The women of education who attempted to make the conditions of
working-men's families better, found their own education advanced, their
values of essentials greatly modified in some respects, greatly enlarged in
others. This was due to the bravery, the unselfishness, the contradictions
of character forced on their attention through the natural, familiar
intercourse made possible through neighborhood and club relations.
Probably the most astonishing experience in working-girls' club life is the
revelation of the entire lack of self-consciousness on the part of working
girls as to anything remarkable in their giving up wages not only week
after week, but year after year, for the benefit of their families. The
closer one gets to the poorest paid of the working girls, the more common
is this unconscious unselfishness. In fact, the girl at this level who
would attempt to hold or even to introduce a business relation in her
family relation, would find herself an object of contempt, even when the
personal habits of those who controlled the use of the money she earned
were of such a character as to certainly mean waste of the money, perhaps
worse.
However one's judgment may at times condemn this unselfishness and
recognize in it a positive evil, one's heart is thrilled by the spirit of
loyalty and devotion of which it is the evidence. Three sisters belonged to
a working-girls' club. They were all employed in one establishment and
earned good wages, yet they never had clothes that made them even
comfortable. It was a mystery. They did not belong to the race which too
frequently make thrift a vice, but were descendants of one the world counts
thriftless. The months passed on. One of the sisters became indispensable
to the club. She had the rarest tact, while straightforward and frank. When
the second winter came, the pressure of life on these girls was very
evident. How to relieve it, how even to approach the subject without
appearing intrusive and meddlesome, was the wearing problem of the club
directors. After the holidays the influence of one of the directors was
asked by one of the sisters in behalf of a brother. Then the cause of the
pressure was unconsciously revealed. There were five brothers and a father
in the family.
The story unfolded. For years these three girls had supported the family;
the six men had always been the victims of cruel "bosses." Worthy,
industrious, anxious to work, looking for work all the time, they never
succeeded in finding work under conditions that made it possible for them
to continue. The years of self-sacrifice had not shaken the faith of these
sisters in the smallest degree. "What would happen if your foreman would
become arbitrary and cross?" was asked. The reply revealed the whole
conception of woman's relation to life as they held it. "It's different
with women; they have to bear things."
Another year passed without any change, except that the sisters grew old
faster than they should. A quiet, determined effort was made to influence
these girls to pay board to their mother instead of giving all their wages.
They listened to the argument that as long as they continued their present
system the brothers would not work steadily. The sisters listened, but the
system did not change. Every penny was handed to the mother for
disbursement.
One morning in the early spring, three years after these girls had joined
the club, word came that the sister who had grown dear to the club
directors, to every member of the club, was dead. She had dropped to the
floor at her bench the day before, and died in the night. "Greater love
hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." The
sacrifice was complete. Standing in the room of death with the six
able-bodied men for whom this girl had given up her life, the sacrifice
seemed barren, for its fruits had been garnered in her own character and
had gone out of this life.
A year later the mother sent for one of the directors of the club to have
her plead with the sisters remaining that they would give her their wages
as formerly. "They only pay board now; they refuse to do anything for the
poor boys. 'Twas a bad day when ---- died. Shure, she gave me every cent.
Not one did she keep back. Ever since she died, the girls just pay board,
not a cent more. See how comfortable they are. They bought waterproofs,
both of them, last week, and Jim has no overcoat. ---- would have bought
him an overcoat."
"Yes, doubtless she would. I remember the winter before she died she wore a
spring jacket all winter, and that her shoes had been broken for weeks
before she died." "Shure, I know." Tears fell from the woman's eyes, and
her face bore every evidence of sorrow. "The boys could not get work that
winter. God knows they tried. They had to have clothes, and ---- was a good
daughter. 'Twas a bad day for me when she died." The mother had not the
slightest conception of the sacrifice her daughter had made--a sacrifice
that had cost her her life. Her thought was for her sons; their comforts
were to be secured through the daughters, who were a secondary
consideration.
When her visitor protested against the sisters working to support the
brothers in idleness, the mother was indignant. When she tried to show the
woman that if the boys were forced by hunger and cold to go to work it
would be their moral salvation, the mother insisted that they did try to
get work, but that it was their "fate" to have unreasonable "bosses," who
made it impossible for them to work under them.
"Do you think the girls always work under conditions that are easy?"
"No; but it is easier for a woman to stand a hard 'boss,'" was the mother's
answer, without any expression of sympathy. Again she urged that the
visitor use her influence with the two sisters for them to go back to their
old method of giving the mother their wages. When the visitor refused, the
amazement of the woman at her refusal was pathetic. When the visitor
confessed that she was largely responsible for the change in the girls' use
of their wages, the mother's indignation rose to the point of abuse. That
her boys were robbed was the idea fastened in her mind. That the club was
the enemy of that home was the mother's conviction.
The mental attitude of this mother is by no means unusual. It is a common
thing to find mothers who insist on controlling the wages of daughters who
make no exactions in regard to the wages of sons. The effect is to lessen
the self-respect of the girls and the sense of personal responsibility of
the boys. In the family referred to the experiment of paying board to the
mother was watched carefully. It was a success. The effect on the girls was
positive. They developed a sense of personal responsibility; they grew more
dignified and more reliable; above all, they developed self-respect. The
fight was a hard one, but the moral victory was won. The brothers either
found work under men who were fair, or they learned to endure control and
discipline under a "boss," which was probably what they needed. The girls
grew to have a care for their father's and mother's appearance and bought
them clothes. Never as long as the mother lived did her feeling of her
resentment against working-girls' clubs die out.
After her death, the father and brothers agreed to pay one of the sisters
so much each week if she would stay home and keep the house. The sister did
it, though it meant hours of loneliness, and, from her point of view,
dependence. She had taken courses in cooking and sewing in the club; she
had listened to talks on sanitation and hygiene; she had learned the value
of money through the management of her own wages. She created for that
family a far better home than it had ever known under the shiftless,
thriftless management of an undisciplined mother.
The daughter was able to pay more rent from the money given to support the
house, and the pride and self-respect of the family were greatly increased
by the possession of a parlor, which was furnished on the installment plan
out of the weekly sum paid to the sister. The home became a social center
for the friends. The boys bring even their girl friends to their home,
because it possesses more attractions than any other place to which they
have access. A banjo lies on top of a piano--hired--and two of the boys
take music lessons. In a family of seven wage-earners, even though the
wages of each may be small, the combined income is large in proportion to
the standards of outlay, and secures more than comfort, if rightly managed.
In this family a home maintained at a social level is of greater importance
than clothes, and all work to keep it. Sacrifices are made to buy things
for the home by every member of the family. The sisters are to these
brothers the finest type of women, and no girl whom they meet quite comes
to their level. The sisters will never marry. The home, the father and
brothers fill their cup of interest. There is still a latent suspicion that
men are non-dependable, and they must be in a position to meet emergencies;
the unjust "boss" may appear at any time, and they may be needed. Their
brothers are a trust and must be guarded.
A visit was made to a home in which a girl of sixteen was dying of
tuberculosis. The plaint of the mother, even in the presence of the girl,
was, "She was such a good child. She always brought home her envelope
unopened." To the visitor this was at the time incomprehensible, as the
advantages of the envelope to her were two-fold, that it could be opened as
well as closed. The child had worked nearly three years, had been paid her
wages in a sealed envelope, which she always gave to her mother as she
received it. This is the measure of goodness for husband and child in
thousands of working-men's homes. This mother was unconsciously brutal.
Whether from lack of sensitiveness, or because of a life spent in fighting
just homelessness and hunger, to the very last hour of her child's life her
moan was, "What will I do without her wages?"
Not once did that little girl hear her mother give expression to any sense
of personal loss for her companionship. The child herself became weighed
down with the sense of responsibility, and resented the lack of strength
because it added to her mother's burdens. This was her regret, the only
thing she mentioned: "I wish I could have helped mother till the others
grew up. I've cost such a lot being sick so long and not earning anything."
That was her estimate of life at sixteen.
A son went wrong in that family, and as the time approached for his return
home, the mother moved, lest he should be annoyed by questions and comments
on his absence by neighbors. No power could be brought to bear on that
mother to make her move that the daughter might sleep in a room having an
outside window. One influence came within the range of her experience, the
other was beyond her comprehension, and her daughter died in an absolutely
dark, unventilated bedroom, in which she had slept eight years.
She was a dainty girl, in spite of the bad taste with which she dressed,
this second victim. She floated, rather than walked, and her cheeks were
like carnations. The girls in the club all liked her, and their young men
friends at the receptions showed at once how attractive they found this
girl. She was reticent as to her affairs, except in the question of work.
When out of work, she did not hesitate to speak of it and ask to be
remembered if any of the club members knew where she could get work. At
last she came quietly one morning to the director and said the doctor told
her she must stop working for three months. The expression in her eyes
filled the listener with fear. In a voice that trembled, she said: "I am
the only one working. Mother has a baby and cannot work, and--and"--her
voice lowered and her eyes fell--"my father will not be home for three
months from last Monday. He got into trouble. He would not if he had been
sober," she added, in proud defence. Two months later the end was near, and
the girl knew it. All that could be done under the conditions had been
done. It was little, for an unreasonable, drunken mother had to be reckoned
with all the time. She would stand railing against the girl for not going
to work when the girl could not walk across the floor for lack of strength.
The girl was under eighteen, and her mother was the controlling power in
her life.
One of the young men who had been frequently a guest at the club receptions
worked in an office near the girl's home. He passed one day as she sat by
the window, and she saw him. "If he knew where I lived, he'd come in and
see me," she said with a smile, full of friendship as the young man turned
down the street. "I'll run after him. I know he would like to see you. He
asked about you at the club last night." She clutched convulsively at her
visitor's hand, saying: "Oh, don't! I wouldn't for the world have him see
this place." She closed her eyes, after a searching glance about the room.
Of course, the mother broke out in wailing about how hard she tried to do
for the children and how ungrateful they were--ashamed of their home.
The girl gathered her strength and sat up, her eyes blazing with
indignation. "Mamma, I'm dying. I'll not be here another week. There are
three more girls; I don't want them to live through what I have." Slowly,
solemnly, she continued: "You have not been good. Papa earned good wages,
enough to keep us all comfortable; you know what you did with the money. He
stopped giving it to you, and you got what you wanted on credit. You kept
that up. You know what happened to him. I went to work. You know what you
did with my money. I could not keep it from you even when I knew the little
ones were hungry, for you beat me and took it, unless I had spent it for
groceries and meat and coal before I came home pay-day. I heard what the
doctor said, that I was dying because I have not had food and have to sleep
in that hole, or holes like it." She pointed to the horrible bedroom. "I am
dying. You are planning with the insurance money to have a big funeral.
Have your own friends, but not one of the girls from the club or their
friends, even when I am dead. I don't want them to come here. Promise me,"
she panted to her visitor, "that you will not let them come." The promise
was given.
The mother was shrieking, whether from grief, or rage, or remorse the
visitor could not determine. That night death came.
The girl was buried from the church she attended. When the club members
were requested not to go to the house, there was scarcely concealed
indignation. "Did she ever ask you to call on her when she was well?" There
was no assent. "Have you any right to intrude there when she is silent? The
church is open to all." No comment was made. At the church early in the
morning the young men and women friends met. The mother could not even that
morning hold herself in control. The girl's secret was out, and a great
sympathy was added to the love her friends bore her. Her memory was an
incense because of what her life must have been. Her unconscious
unselfishness, her devotion to her little brothers and sisters, was
revealed to them when they saw her mother. Good fathers and mothers found
new expressions of affection for awhile at least, while the sharpness of
contrast stood out between the dead girl's parents and their own, her life
and theirs.
[Illustration: A STREET ON THE EAST SIDE.]
The girl who presents the most difficult problem in club life is the one
whose social impulses are dominant. Noise, activity, excitement, seem
inseparable from her presence. This type of girl arouses enthusiastic
friends. She leads because she is daring; because she does not in any
experience question results. One such girl had been studied for months.
There was a superficial response to the efforts to win her regard, but the
response was too transparent not to be understood. The girl would speak to
any man who looked at her. One day she was playing "tag" with the other
girls in front of the factory where she worked. A rag-picker pushing a cart
made some remark as he passed. The girl, Molly, gave a spring and alighted
on the man's shoulders like a cat. She clung there. He began to run, but he
could not throw her off. She twined her fingers in his hair, made him turn
back and carry her to the place where her shrieking, laughing companions
stood. She sprang off. Still holding the man, she made him get down on his
knees on the curb to the girls and apologize. Like a bird she flew to the
place where he had dropped his push-cart, and, pumping the handle up and
down to make the bells jingle, she brought it back to the man, still
exhausted by his unwonted exertions, and with a mocking bow placed the
handle of the cart in his hand. Then she stood up straight and ordered him
to move on, adding: "If you ever show your nose around here again, you'll
get more than you got this time." The man ran as if for his life.
Molly then turned and saw the friend whom she had promised she would be
more quiet on the street. Her face crimsoned as she came toward her. "I
could not help it. You don't know what he said. He won't never speak to
another girl minding her own business as he spoke to us. I won't tell you
what he said; it was too bad." The girl was about seventeen years old. She
had cut off her hair, and it was bleached. She wore the gayest hats, which
only served to emphasize the poverty and shabbiness of the rest of her
clothes. One day she passed her friend's house without a jacket. She ran,
holding her hands under her arms. Her jacket had been bought with money
earned by working overtime, a result secured by the most persistent effort
and argument.
Now the jacket was gone, and the slack season coming. As five o'clock
approached, the girl's self-appointed guardian took her station at the
window to watch for the girl on her way home. She came skipping along,
slapping her arms to keep warm. She entered the house reluctantly in
response to the call, "Where is your jacket, Molly?"
"I ain't cold. I ain't a bit cold."
"Where is your jacket?"
"Really and truly, I ain't cold. I'm thin, but I don't feel the cold as
much as other girls. I ain't a mite cold."
It was impossible for the girl to stand still. She was shivering with cold,
and her teeth, which were beautiful, were chattering. After a time the
explanation was given.
There were five in family. The girl's mother, a stepfather about fifteen
years younger than the mother, a brother one year younger than the girl,
and a feeble-minded sister of fourteen. The girl was the only regular
wage-earner in the family. The brother was a worthless fellow, who bore
every evidence of degeneracy and rarely worked. The stepfather drank, and
worked only occasionally. Molly earned six dollars a week, except in the
slack seasons, two a year, when she earned about three dollars a week for
four weeks each time. She began working when she was fourteen, and had
never kept back one penny of her wages. Her mother had bought her new hats,
but in all her life no other new garment except the jacket had ever been
bought for her. She never asked any questions about the money, but she
supposed the rent was paid. When she reached home the night before
everything was on the sidewalk, and her feeble-minded sister was watching
them. The jacket was the only thing owned on which money could be raised;
it was pawned. "Molly, may I call on your mother?" A reluctant consent was
given.
The home now was in a rear basement, the ceiling just above the level of
the yard. The mother and husband occupied the bedroom; Molly and her sister
slept on a narrow lounge covered with Brussels carpet, every spring broken.
It was a series of humps. It was impossible to sit on it. In reply to a
question, the mother acknowledged that no provision was made to make it
more comfortable. The brother slept on the floor. The rooms were dirty and
overcrowded. Food was of necessity poor, and because of the mother's
indifference and ignorance, was poorer than it need have been.
This was what Molly received for six dollars a week. The moment the mother
knew who the visitor was, she began abusing the girl. One special cause of
offense was the keeping back of overtime money to buy a new jacket. She
evidently imagined that she did not get all the girl's money every week.
When it was pointed out to her that the new jacket had paid half a month's
rent, she refused to be mollified, because the money paid for it would have
paid the rent for a month and a half. Of course, this extra money would
have gone like the regular wages if it had been given to the woman.
The walls were covered with pretty advertising cards and pictures cut from
papers. Not a vulgar nor ugly picture was on the walls. "Who put up those
pictures?" "Molly. Shure, that's all she's good for when she's home,
a-cutting and putting up these things." This was one more charge against
the girl. Evidently the girl gave her wages, and gave them willingly; but
that ended her interest in her home and measured the mother's in her.
It was decided to move the family into one of the model tenements and
furnish a room for the girl and her sister, paying the difference in rent
for one year, to see what the result would be in health and morals in that
family. When the proposition was made one evening to Molly, her face
lighted and she emitted a sigh of perfect consent. But the light died out,
and an expression of almost self-pity supplanted it.
"No, I must not let you do it. It would be lovely to have a room for Katie
and me alone. I must not let you do it." She was silent for some minutes;
then, with eyes cast down, she said in a quiet voice that indicated that
persuasion was useless: "I know them houses. They're awful nice. I'd like
to live in them. They're awful particular. They won't let no noisy people
in. They make them move right out." Then slowly, with burning cheeks, she
said in barely distinct tones: "Mamma is noisy sometimes, and when she's
noisy she gets into fights with people. There ain't no use of moving in
there; they'd not let us stay. Then, Billy"--the stepfather--"and I fight.
I never speaks to him, excepts when he speaks ugly to Katie or mamma. He's
drunk a lot now, most all the time, and then he's ugly to them. He ain't to
me, 'cos he knows I'd break his head; but he is to them, and then I has to
shut him up. I ain't spoke to him since he struck mamma, just after they
was married."
"But your wages give him a home and food."
"Yes, I know it, but I can't help that, 'cos he's married to mamma and must
be where she is." There was silence again, and then the girl continued:
"Mamma didn't do it so much till she married him; she's worse now. I wish
I was dead;" and the head of many shades was buried with the limp,
"frowzled" feathers in the sofa cushion. "No, I can earn enough to keep
them where they are. I must not move; but it would be lovely," she added
with a sob.
A couple of weeks later she came in the evening. It was raining hard. After
a moment's silence, she announced, with shining face: "We have the
loveliest baby at our house, born last night week. I wanted to tell you
before, but I had to do the work night and morning. He's lovely." She
fussed at her pocket and brought out a pair of baby shoes of worsted. "I
got them with some money I earned overtime. You say I ought to get what I
want with that money." The eyes of the hostess followed the lines of
Molly's dress to her feet. Her swollen, purple foot was seen through the
broken upper of her shoe. Molly was looking with pride and love at the tiny
shoes on her knee. "I named the baby Willie, and I'm his godmother," she
added with pride, without the slightest conception of the relation between
"Billy" and "Willie."
"Billy? Oh, he's drunk; been drunk a week. I ain't let him in yet; I'm
goin' to wait until the baby's bigger and mamma's up. She'll let him in,"
she added, with disgust.
Matters grew worse with the advent of the new baby, for Molly had to fight
with her mother to get it cared for. At last it died, to Molly's pathetic
grief. The mother had consented to Katie's removal to an institution, where
she could receive care and training. Molly was persuaded she owed a duty to
herself. No impression was made until her mother had been arrested twice.
Then Molly consented to leave home. It was deemed best that she should
contribute part of the rent to insure her mother a home and to maintain a
natural human tie. Molly did this _for three years_. Then she married a man
controlling a good business. Molly is a quiet, devoted wife. She married a
man old enough to be her father. When the wisdom of this was questioned,
she said, with emphasis and a nod of her curly head: "No young man for me,
thank you. Look at Billy!"
It was Friday morning--a warm, sultry morning in August. The bell rang. A
mother in black and a young daughter of eighteen were in the
reception-room. The daughter had evidently been crying. "I've come to tell
yer that Annie can't go to the country to-morrow. She's sick'm. She's cried
all night. Her brother was discharged'm. He do be havin' a bad man for a
'boss.' He's discharged'm, and Annie can't go to the country with the girls
to-morrow. I can't spare her wages. It's all I got. Shure, if I could get
work in washin', or anything to do, I'd do it, but I can't'm. I'll look all
the week; and the boy'll get somethin', perhaps. She can't go this week;
will yer let her go next? Shure, the rent is due, and her wages is all I
got for three of us. Yer can go to work to-day, even if it be a bit late,
and yer can go next week to the country."
[Illustration: A COOKING CLASS OF MOTHERS AND CHILDREN.]
"Oh, mamma! the girls talk nothing but country. I can't go to-day," was the
sobbing response.
The girl did not go that summer. There was no room for her until September.
By that time the work at the factory had increased and not one girl could
be spared. Patiently Annie commented: "It wouldn't be any good if they
could spare me. My brother is out of work yet. He's awfully unlucky."
The quiet heroism of thousands of working girls can be appreciated only by
those who become familiar with their lives in the natural intercourse of
club life. There is, of course, the other type of girl--the girl who
insists on spending the major portion, if not all, of her wages for
clothes; who assumes no responsibility for the family, and who has conceded
to her the right to spend her money for clothes. She would make life most
uncomfortable if she were compelled to share what she earned, even when the
family live under conditions that make the home merely a place of
shelter--conditions that make even decency impossible. The fathers and
mothers seemingly have no rights that this type of girl feels she is bound
to respect. When such girls marry, the mothers will do the washing for
their daughters, hold the menial relation, and neither mother nor daughter
questions the justice of the relation. Sometimes the daughter will pay the
mother for doing the washing, "to," as she expresses it, "help her mother
out." Such families usually cannot be helped through any influence but the
evolution that comes through environment and neighborhood development.
There is a superficial difference in the social development of such parents
and children. The parents concede the higher position to their children,
and the children take it as a matter of right.
The wages of skilled workmen enable them to keep their children in school
until they are sixteen or seventeen years old, if the children will stay.
These fathers can support their families, but not dress them as they
desire. The girls go to work for the sole purpose of dressing better than
their fathers could dress them. This indulgence creates false standards,
and is a serious blot on the American working-man's life. It prevents
marriage. Both young men and young women understand that the wages of one
cannot buy luxuries for two that the wages used for one bought. The army of
clerks on small salaries increase yearly. This class, through association,
develop tastes and standards of living that make impossible the
establishment of homes on their incomes and at the same time the continued
indulgence of developed tastes. No type of family develops less that adds
to the wealth and attainment of the country than this type. The children
are selfish; they marry; they discover that the wages that bought clothes
to suit the extravagance of one is wholly inadequate to support a family.
Discouragement, friction, ennui follow, and life becomes a grind, without
hope, without inspiration. The second family slips backward, and it is but
two generations from shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves, with this difference,
that the arms covered by the shirt sleeves of the third generation lack the
muscles of the first, as the spirit lacks its moral fiber. It is this type
of family that keeps alive the most vexing of social problems. The skilled
working-man's family, the family of the small salaried men, present the
most difficult problems not only in the use of money, but the use of time.
Their daughters are often far more helpless than the daughters of men of
wealth. During their school days, except in the exceptional home, they are
not trained to do housework; do not learn to sew. As soon as school days
end, office or store work begins, and then there is no time to learn the
household arts. If in these homes the money-saving value of time were
taught, independence and freedom impossible in wage-earning would be
secured; the standards of life would be the essentials, not the
non-essentials, that so often rob life of what is best and most valuable.
Hundreds of girls become wage-earners because they dislike housework.
Anything else is preferable. Dean Gill, of Barnard College, New York, in an
address recently delivered, said there were three types of college girl:
The girl who never could learn any of the arts of home-making. She advised
that that girl be allowed to choose a career, and that men make no attempt
to interfere with it. The girl who had in her the latent qualities that, if
developed, would make her a home-maker. Such a girl it might be wise to
keep home for one year between Sophomore and Junior year. And the third
girl had the home-making gifts so well developed naturally that no amount
of college training would modify them. This classification holds good of
the daughters of men earning small salaries, wages, and no wages.
As the Domestic Science department is developed in our public schools, the
homes of working men of the better class will benefit by it. This distaste
of housework will disappear, because it will have gained a place equal in
value to geography and mental arithmetic, and these will have value because
a knowledge of them adds to the home-maker's ability.
There are homes of thrift and order where all must be wage-earners; homes
where the claims of parents on the wages of children are conceded. There is
a bank account, but on this the children have no claim, no matter how much
of their wages may have gone into it, or how much educational opportunity
they may have lost because its demands have been paramount. When the
children marry they establish homes without any or very little help from
their parents. They do not expect it. Home, food, clothes have been given
them; all claims have been met. They are as free as their parents when they
began. Usually there is a gift of a piece of furniture or table linen; but
money to start a new bank account is not expected. Without doubt, much of
the inability to use money to prepare for future emergencies is due to the
fact that financially the new home-makers from these homes are infants in
practical experience. The marvel is that they keep homes as well as they
do, and meet the future as well as they do without planning to meet it.
The second generation of this type of thrifty families rarely carry the
habits of thrift of their parents into their home-making. The new financial
freedom is a novelty, and presents in itself enjoyment that the new
home-makers use. Here and there is a recovery from the danger of
extravagance by a young couple, but the recovery is rarely so complete as
to repeat the restrictions that the thrift of the parents compelled in
their homes. The new generation demand better clothes and better furniture.
Food and rent are regulated to meet these demands.
One stands appalled sometimes at the degree of vitality, the hope and the
cheerfulness that prevail in the homes protected only by the muscles of one
man; what they can buy representing all that the home may have. There is no
spirit of recklessness; there is no failure to comprehend the slight
protection a husband and father can give, though he be skillful; but there
is a sublime confidence in the future. Though familiar with suffering, if
not personally, then sympathetically, with full knowledge of what sickness
and death bring to other unprotected homes, such men and women, and there
are thousands, live from youth to and through age cheerfully, happily,
without any financial safeguard except against Potter's Field. This weekly
insurance is kept up; the family live cheerfully, gayly, sometimes to the
end.
[Illustration: A MEETING OF NEIGHBORS.]
One result of doling out small sums to young wage-earners, whether thrift
or necessity is responsible, is disastrous, especially disastrous for young
girls. It has seemed to the writer that if mothers and fathers could be
brought to a realizing sense of its dangers, they would endure hunger
rather than have their daughters exposed to it. After all, it could be
averted by making a division of the money spent for dress. Girls are often
dressed out of all proportion to the sums they earn, if a fair division of
their wages were made, if the dignity of the daughters was protected by any
degree of independence financially. Of course this disproportionate use of
money is due to false standards that will only be regulated when the people
on salaries learn to universally live true to the law of proportion in
their expenditures.
It seems to be a fixed idea that a girl is dependent on invitations from
young men for her social pleasures. If she is not invited, it is not only
her misfortune, but her fault; she should be more attractive. On the other
hand, the young man is scarcely any better off than the young girl
financially, yet he expects, and his world expects, that he shall bear, not
only his own social expenses, but those of at least one girl. His impulse
is to be chivalrous, for chivalry is not regulated by income nor deadened
by pennilessness.
It is oppressive at times to see how the lack of money prevents the natural
association of young men and women; how often the young men are forced to
give up the society of girls for this reason. Girls often unconsciously
force invitations. As one goes down the scale, the girls invite themselves,
where the young men have to bear the expenses. So small a matter as carfare
will make a girl thrust herself on a young man's care. The girl will not
resent indifference, even discourtesy and neglect, if only her aim is
accomplished. The young men suffer the reflex of this attitude of mind, and
their estimate of women is regulated by these misconceptions, and even
their manner as husbands is regulated by this conception of the relations
of the sexes, and wife and daughters suffer in consequence.
The higher up one goes in the social scale, the less evident is this
aggressiveness on the part of girls, and the more natural relation of man
as the suitor is apparent. As girls are brought more familiarly under the
guidance of women willing to discuss the financial relations that should be
maintained between the unmarried of both sexes, the more careful girls
become in permitting the expending of money by men for their social
pleasures; especially so where the limitation of a man's resources is
understood, or even suspected.
How to make mothers put their daughters in an independent position where
their pleasures are concerned is a very important and at the same time a
very difficult question. When it is a question, as it often is, of the very
necessities of life for a family and the allowing of money for the pleasure
of a fun-loving daughter, necessities bear down the scale, even of justice,
and dignity ceases to have value. For it must be remembered that the girl's
wages, used for her exclusively, would often allow the exercise of
independence in her social affiliations. This it is that makes Settlements
so important in our social life. Here boys and girls do meet on a platform
of independence, chaperoned naturally by those who know intimately the home
surroundings, the social standards, the limitations of life in the regions,
and all that creates environment, that most positive factor in the making
of character. The social attitude of the young people who grow up in
affiliation with the Settlements is found to differ greatly from that of
young people untrammeled by oversight or influence that develops dignity.
The influence of working-girls' clubs is positive in its effect on the
majority of the members. The girls are taught in the clubs directly and
indirectly. It is not only in the teaching of the home arts, but through
lectures, talks, books and contact with women of education. The members
often astonish those who know them best by their responses to their
opportunities. This mental development makes them critical. The men they
meet rarely have had their opportunities, and they suffer by comparison.
The young women often find they have larger interests and sympathies; far
clearer ideas of the responsibilities of life; are better equipped than the
men they meet. Every girls' club shows members who thus develop. Often they
will not marry. They are the support of one or both parents, now too old to
work; they help married sisters and brothers; they are the prop and stay of
all the halt and lame of their families; wiser and better guides for
growing nephews and nieces than their own mothers and fathers. Frequently
they are the most important helpers in club life, exerting a positive,
upbuilding influence. Yet one always grows sad when thinking of them. Not
thriftlessness, but unselfishness, may leave them penniless in old age.
There is no place for them. Rarely is there a corner to which they are
welcome in the tenement house; often even where there is love and gratitude
there may not be space. Floor space often regulates the expression of love,
where the heart may have unlimited space.
[Illustration: THE READING ROOM AT THE SETTLEMENT.]
The saddest figure in tenement-house life is the unmarried woman who can no
longer work and is dependent. In her effort to serve her people she may
have played the critic, and that is remembered when her service is
forgotten. It is this type of girl who by instinct refuses to accept
attentions that mean the spending of money by men who cannot afford it.
Their wages would, if used for themselves, have given social opportunities
that did not involve obligations, but family demands seemed to make such
use impossible. Sometimes the fun-loving sister will secure both shares.
One is taken to a home of her own; the other left to carry the family
burden, and no one questions why. If it is unanswered, it is attributed to
the lack of attraction in the unmarried sister.
There are homes in the tenements where the wages of the earners make a
family income, in which all share equally, independent of the amount
contributed. There is a bank account. It may be in the joint name of father
and mother, but it is far more commonly the unquestioned property of the
mother. The children look upon this as the protection of the parents from
dependence in old age, should it not be called upon by illness or
misfortune. Such families represent the highest moral development in
tenement-house life. The children have been trained to appreciate
educational opportunities, and school is through childhood an important
factor in life. When the wage-earning period comes, night-school advantages
are appreciated and used. When the work is chosen, some thought is given to
the promise of future wage-earning powers by the acquiring of skill in that
employment. The maximum wages possible at the present time is not the
controlling element in the decision. The future is not sacrificed to the
present. Such a home is kept, no matter how small, in a condition that
makes social life in it possible.
Hallways, street corners, store steps are not the only places for the
development of the social instincts of the members of such families. After
marriage the family is united, and home, though it be in the top of a
tenement, is the Mecca for children and grandchildren.
At the other end of the social scale in this world of workers is the
happy-go-lucky family. Here the system of financial management has its
faults, but much is found that is better than wisdom in money matters.
Spending extravagantly when there is money, going without cheerfully when
there is none. Why, the going without is scarcely treated even with the
respect of making it a subject of conversation. The habit of sharing when
any member has anything to share becomes a fixed habit, and "mine" and
"thine" are not in the family vocabulary. The result is a close and
inter-dependent family relation, of which the mother is the center. Often
you will find that this mother has never had any clothes that would do to
wear on the street, except to early Mass, if she is a Romanist, or that she
rarely goes to church, if a Protestant, because her clothes are not what
she calls "fit." Her life is the gospel of unselfishness, and she reaps the
reward of love. One may fret at the waste, resent the short-sightedness,
which means ignorance and shiftlessness; but there is so much pleasure in
these families, so much that means happiness in them, that one even learns
to forget the frets. They never grow beyond childhood in worldly wisdom,
and childhood is always attractive. It is so rich in promise. Happiness is
the cement of human life. Poverty does not change its power of holding the
members together through weal or woe. There is a common inheritance of
memories that never lose their power of cohesion where love and friendship
reign in families.
The people who do not know the lives of the working people can have no idea
of the extent to which the working men trust their wives. The majority of
working-men's wives are financially in a far more independent position than
the wives even of capitalists, where the wives are without an independent
income. Not only is the money given to the wives, but their use of the
money is unquestioned. There is a constant revelation of the unselfishness
of these men. Children will be overdressed, while the father will not even
be comfortable; but there is no complaint, for the pride of the father is
gratified. He, with the mother, has one standard--clothes. There are men
who say frankly that they would waste the money if it were in their care;
that their wives secure far better results than they could; that the
practice of having only carfare, at the most lunch money, reduces greatly
the much abused social habit of "treating." The married man who can
"treat," it is generally conceded, is not fair to his family; he keeps his
wages at their expense.
Sometimes the observer marvels at the infinite patience of many men. Their
wives drift. Neither money nor time is used for their families. A week's
loss of work, and there is debt; a day's sickness, and to its suffering is
added the knowledge that there is no money in reserve to meet this
emergency, even though the wages insure it. While knowing well the cause,
one resents the unjust conditions that control many marriages among the
young people of the wage-earning class. The young women rarely have the
knowledge that will enable them to do their share in establishing the home.
The young man contracting a marriage without the prospect of supporting a
home is condemned and his bride pitied; but there is little criticism if
she spends years--years that mean discomfort and waste--in learning to do
her part, if she ever learns.
[Illustration: AFTER SCHOOL AT THE COLLEGE SETTLEMENT.]
The mental attitude of the wage-earners toward their income is confusing
and yet interesting. In reply to any question of wages, the maximum sum is
always given. The question of idle time does not enter into computations of
the year's possible income and necessary outlays. This holds good before as
well as after marriage. Work may last for only forty weeks of the year, but
the other twelve, even among intelligent wage-earners, sometimes are not
counted in their relation to income. This perhaps explains much that is
counted as thriftlessness. It is, in fact, a failure to apply arithmetic to
daily life.
After all is said, no one who is familiar with the income of the
wage-earning class can fail to see that the results obtained prove
conclusively that the use of money in the well-regulated home is a fine
art; that many working-men's wives could give post-graduate courses in the
use of money to women who consider they have the right to teach them. Even
waste and misuse are regulated by education and experience where there is
even a modicum of intelligence. The second conclusion is that thrift under
certain conditions is a vice that causes distinct deterioration of
character. It should be combated as vigorously as thriftlessness. It can
only be done by raising the standards of living; by creating other
standards of value than money.
But everywhere among the wage-earning people the independence of the wife
in money matters is apparent.
There are men who are niggardly and who hand out small sums daily, and
never recognize that the wife has a right to anything beyond food and
shelter, who grudgingly buy clothes when they must. These men are despised,
spoken of with contempt as not being good fathers or husbands, and their
wives are openly pitied. But the mass of working men place their wives in a
perfectly independent position by making them the absolute disbursers of
their incomes. The small shopkeepers, to all intents and purposes, treat
their wives as partners. The wives work with them, sharing their knowledge,
their responsibilities, and appear as joint owner in the bank account. The
wife usually is the safe until the money goes to the bank account.
When a wife is a good financial manager, she is the head of the house,
whose reign is never questioned. "Her children rise up and call her
blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her," though the Book of
Proverbs may be unknown. This financial independence of the wives of
working men develops the spirit of independence and aggressiveness that so
often disturbs and upsets the plans of the woman who would do them good,
and is the cause of the charge of ingratitude that is often made against
the women of the tenement-house regions. It is scarcely natural to develop
gratitude for efforts made in the wrong direction. Poverty has its degrees,
as has wealth. There are families living in tenements whose conditions
represent wealth when contrasted with that of their neighbors. One fact
remains. Both women do not need the same opportunities, the same help. The
student of the management of wages in a tenement-house home rapidly
acquires a spirit of humility. While everywhere there is waste, there are
times when money seems to buy double the amount that the student thought
possible. With the wage-earners' families, as with all others, the income
buys that which is most desired by those spending it. Choice is the master
of decision, even in necessities. What is needed in the wage-earner's
family is that education, that opportunity for development that will make a
choice of the highest things, those that will mean a body and mind so
nourished and cared for that moral resistance is the available capital of
every member of the family in time of need.