FOOTNOTES:

Age at deathPer cent. of deaths due to consumptionamong:Occupations exposedto organic dustMales in registrationarea, 1900-190615-24 years40.127.825-34 years49.031.335-44 years35.323.645-54 years21.615.055-64 years11.08.165 and over4.52.7

It will be seen from this table, that deaths from consumption in these trades exposed to organic dust were more than half again as much as might reasonably have been expected. And it must be remembered that statistics indicate, "that general organic dust is less serious in its fatal effects than mineral or metallic dust,and as a result the proportionate mortality from consumption and other respiratory diseases in this group is more favorable than in the groups of occupations with exposure to mineral and metallic dusts" (l. c., p. 627).

More evident dangers of occupation, because more directly traceable to their causes, are industrial accidents. Manufacturers and employers sometimes wantonly, sometimes through ignorance, neglect the precautions and appliances necessary properly to safeguard their workmen. The introduction of complicated machinery, the use of high-power explosives, the strenuous conduct of production, without corresponding efforts to offset the natural tendencies of these conditions and tools, has made peace more horrible and dangerous than war.

Of all such sources of accident, mines are probably the most prolific. "The percentage of miners killed in this country is greater than in any other, being from two to four times as large as in any European country."[78]"Every year of the past decade," 1890-1900, "has seen from 500 to 700 Pennsylvania miners killedand from 1200 to 1650 injured. By comparing these figures with the total number employed, it will be found that on the average about one man in every 400 employed in the mines is killed yearly and about one out of every 150 injured."[79]

In 37 New England cotton mills in 1907, 1428 employees were injured.[80]The Bethlehem Steel Works alone had a record of 927 accidents in 1909.[81]In New York State, during a year of industrial depression, 1907, there were 14,545 accidents recorded,[82]and we know that they are more numerous in prosperous years.

Time and again we find in the succinct official reports such terse statements as: "While working on top of boiler was overcome by gas: dead when found," "struck by pieces thrown from bursting emery wheel, died from injuries ten days later," "heavy piece of machinery was being moved by crane which broke, allowing machinery to fall against tank, which in turn fell against deceased, crushing his legs and injuringhim internally: death occurred one hour later," "caught in belt and whirled around shafting; death occurred before machinery could be stopped," "struck in face by broken belt; eyeball broken: death ensued two days later at hospital from effects of anæsthetic," "broken elevator shaft caused elevator to fall with operator; skull fractured and ear lacerated: death ensued later at hospital" (l. c., pt. I, pp. 109-113).

Such are the official reports. They give no idea of the suffering of the families, the struggles of widows and orphans when the head of the family has been struck down; they do not show the carelessness or greed that subjects men to the danger of working with worn-out cranes, or defective emery wheels, or weak belting; but they do show, in connection with the other data quoted, in a cold official way, that hundreds of thousands of men and women in this country are working for excessive hours, amid unsanitary surroundings, and without proper protection from the dangers of their work: judging by the standard which for the time being has been accepted as just.

Such conditions are hard enough for grown men and women to face, they are harder stillfor children. And by taking children away from school and putting them at work, frequently beyond their capacity, they are handicapped mentally and physically for making enough later on to support a family. The percentage of children so injured cannot be definitely arrived at, but they are employed in considerable numbers in a large variety of occupations. Sweatshops, glass factories, the making of neckties, cigars, paper and wooden boxes, picture frames, furniture, and shoes are a few of the widely different trades that take their quota. In the Southern cotton mills, twelve appears to be the age at which children are ordinarily expected to begin work; but some of the mills employ children under that age, now and then, in fact, as young as nine, eight, and even six years.[83]

"Probably the most serious and far-reaching effect of child-labor is the prevention of normal development, physical and mental. Besides being deprived of the schooling they would otherwise get, children are injured by confinement and sometimes worn out by work. In other cases the work is demoralizing because it doesnot call out the best faculties of the children, or leaves them altogether idle for a part of the year.

"It has been found that children are much more liable to accidents in factories than adults. Thus a recent report of the Minnesota Bureau of Labor shows that boys under sixteen have twice as great probability of accident as adults, while girls under sixteen have thirty-three [sic] times as great a probability of being hurt as women over sixteen.... It has also been found that overstrain of the muscular or nervous system is much more serious in children than in adults, and that children are also more susceptible to the poisons and injurious dusts arising in certain processes than grown persons."[84]

FOOTNOTES:[63]U. S. Bureau of Labor, "Men's Ready-Made Clothing," p. 297.[64]U. S. Bureau of Labor, "Glass Industry," p. 607.[65]U. S. Bureau of Labor, "Wage-Earning Women in Stores and Factories," p. 134.[66]Cf. Report of Commissioner of Labor of New York for 1908 Vol. I, pp. 76-93.[67]U. S. Bureau of Labor, "Glass Industry," p. 500.[68]U. S. Commissioner of Labor, "Strike at Bethlehem Steel Works," p. 10, 1910.[69]U. S. Bur. Lab., "Glass Industry," p. 118.[70]U. S. Bur. Lab., "Women Wage-Earners in Stores and Factories," p. 127.[71]U. S. Bur. Lab., "Glass Industry," p. 48.[72]U. S. Bur. Lab., Bulletin No. 68, Jan., 1910: "Phosphorus Poisoning in the Match Industry."[73]U. S. Bur. Lab., "Glass Industry," pp. 485-486.[74]U. S. Indus. Comm., Vol. XIX, p. 901f.[75]Rep. N. Y. State Bur. Lab., 1906, pp. CVII-CXXXV.[76]U. S. Bur. Lab., "Glass Industry," p. 240.[77]Bull. U. S. Bur. Lab., May, 1909, p. 626.[78]"Monthly Catalogue U. S. Public Documents," Nov., 1909, p. 184.[79]U. S. Indus. Com., Vol. XIX, p. 906.[80]U. S. Bur. Lab., "Cotton Textile Industry," p. 383.[81]U. S. Commissioner of Labor, "Report on Strike at Bethlehem Steel Works," p. 121.[82]Report of Commissioner of Labor of N. Y., 1908, pt. I, p. 62.[83]L. c., pp. 45, 65, 83, 85, 86: U. S. Bur. Lab., "Cotton Textile Industry."[84]U. S. Industrial Commission, Vol. XIX, p. 917f; cf. also U. S. Bur. Lab., "Cotton Textile Industry," p. 385f.

[63]U. S. Bureau of Labor, "Men's Ready-Made Clothing," p. 297.

[64]U. S. Bureau of Labor, "Glass Industry," p. 607.

[65]U. S. Bureau of Labor, "Wage-Earning Women in Stores and Factories," p. 134.

[66]Cf. Report of Commissioner of Labor of New York for 1908 Vol. I, pp. 76-93.

[67]U. S. Bureau of Labor, "Glass Industry," p. 500.

[68]U. S. Commissioner of Labor, "Strike at Bethlehem Steel Works," p. 10, 1910.

[69]U. S. Bur. Lab., "Glass Industry," p. 118.

[70]U. S. Bur. Lab., "Women Wage-Earners in Stores and Factories," p. 127.

[71]U. S. Bur. Lab., "Glass Industry," p. 48.

[72]U. S. Bur. Lab., Bulletin No. 68, Jan., 1910: "Phosphorus Poisoning in the Match Industry."

[73]U. S. Bur. Lab., "Glass Industry," pp. 485-486.

[74]U. S. Indus. Comm., Vol. XIX, p. 901f.

[75]Rep. N. Y. State Bur. Lab., 1906, pp. CVII-CXXXV.

[76]U. S. Bur. Lab., "Glass Industry," p. 240.

[77]Bull. U. S. Bur. Lab., May, 1909, p. 626.

[78]"Monthly Catalogue U. S. Public Documents," Nov., 1909, p. 184.

[79]U. S. Indus. Com., Vol. XIX, p. 906.

[80]U. S. Bur. Lab., "Cotton Textile Industry," p. 383.

[81]U. S. Commissioner of Labor, "Report on Strike at Bethlehem Steel Works," p. 121.

[82]Report of Commissioner of Labor of N. Y., 1908, pt. I, p. 62.

[83]L. c., pp. 45, 65, 83, 85, 86: U. S. Bur. Lab., "Cotton Textile Industry."

[84]U. S. Industrial Commission, Vol. XIX, p. 917f; cf. also U. S. Bur. Lab., "Cotton Textile Industry," p. 385f.

Industrial conditions, as at present constituted, not only injure the health of the body; they also endanger the soul. The Chicago Vice Commission has thus summarized these influences: "Among the economic conditions contributory to the social evil are low wages, unsanitary conditions, demoralizing relationships in stores, shops, domestic service, restaurants and hotels: the street vending of children in selling papers and gums, collecting coupons and refuse; the messenger service of boys, especially in the vicinity of disorderly houses, vicious saloons, dance halls and other demoralizing resorts; employment agencies which send servants to immoral places; the rest rooms or waiting places where applicants for work resort; too long hours and the high pressure of work; the overcrowding of houses upon lots, and of persons in single rooms" (Report, 1911: p. 230).

When inability to secure decent lodging forces men and women to occupy the samesleeping rooms, there must be an inevitable lowering of moral standards. One case is recorded in "Packingtown," where eight persons—men and women—were sleeping in a room approximately ten by fifteen feet.[85]When a woman pays less than $1.50 a week for board and lodging, as many are forced to do (see page 71f) she can have no privacy. "If there are men lodgers in the house, the entrance to their room is sometimes through the girl's room, or vice versa. In one house visited, the women received the agent about nineP.M.in the room of a man lodger who had already gone to bed. This seemed to be the only available sitting room and disconcerted no one save the agent" (l. c., p. 62).

The girl who lives away from home in a cheap boarding house is no myth. In Pittsburgh, "in the garment trades she numbers 38% of the total force; in the wholesale millinery trade 10%; in the mercantile houses 20%. On the lowest estimate, there are 2300 of her kind in Pittsburgh."[86]

It is not only low wages, as leading to a lack of decent housing, that has a bad moral effect. All are born with a natural craving for happiness, and long hours of work under a nervous strain intensify this desire. Economic conditions have kept most of those in the grip of such a situation from developing the higher side of their nature until they can find pleasure and recreation in a symphony concert or an epic poem. The jaded nerves need a stronger stimulus to cause pleasure. "The desire for ecstasy," says Algar Thorold, a keen psychological observer, "is at the very root and heart of our nature. This craving, when bound down by the animal instincts, meets us on every side in those hateful contortions of the social organism called the dram-shop and the brothel."[87]

As a consequence of this insatiable longing for pleasure and the inability to pay for it, thousands of young women in our big cities patronize public dance halls and other questionable places of amusement. The code of their social set has come to sanction accepting tickets for such places, refreshments, etc., from men met haphazard at these resorts.[88]

Dance halls are such a serious menace to public morals that legislation has become necessary. Elizabeth, Paterson, Newark and Hoboken, New Jersey, Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Louisville, Minneapolis, Seattle, San Francisco, Kansas City, and Cleveland are all agitating the question of their regulation (Survey, June 3, 1911, p. 345). A. B. Williams, general secretary of the Humane Society of this last city, is quoted as declaring that "one out of every ten children in Cleveland is born out of wedlock. In nine out of every ten cases that we handle, the mothers tell us, 'I met him at a public dance'" (l. c., p. 346).

In Chicago alone there are about 306 licensed dance halls and nearly 100 unlicensed. Among these, "one condition is general: most of the dance halls exist for the sale of liquor, not for the purpose of dancing, which is only of secondary importance. A saloon opened into each of 190 halls, and liquor was sold in 240 out of 328. In the others—except in rare instances—return checks were given to facilitate the use of neighboring saloons. At the halls where liquor was sold practically all the boys showed signs of intoxication by one o'clock" (l. c., p. 385: Louise de Koven Bowen).

And just as women who have toiled hard all day long, crave some strong excitement such as can only be afforded by the dance hall or a similar place, so men in the same circumstances naturally turn to the saloon. It is in the cheerfully lighted, comfortably heated gin-shop, in the temporary stimulus of liquor, that insufficient food, unhealthful surroundings at home and at work, a cold, uninviting house are forgotten. It is often said that workmen would have enough to live on comfortably if they did not squander their wages in drink, and that to raise their pay would only be to increase the profits of saloon-keepers. In some cases this may be true. But in the vast majority, it is probable that to increase their power of getting the comforts at home that they find in the saloon would be to lessen the drink evil, rather than increase it. The marvel is not that laborers who come home day after day from hard, long toil to poor food, cold rooms, a generally comfortless home should seek out the gin-palace, but that they drink as little as they do.

These are some of the indirect, though important, moral results of economic conditions. Oftentimes the direct influences of a person's occupation also make for evil. The messengerboy, for instance, on the streets at all hours and in all sections, can hardly fail to see and hear much that no parent would want a child of fourteen, sixteen, or eighteen to know. Indeed, a great part of his employment at night comes from those indulging in debauchery, and it is his most profitable source of tips.[89]

From the nature of the case, women are probably more exposed in their work than men. Such occupations as will occur to every one, are manicure parlors where girls are peculiarly exposed to danger and insults. But most important, because employing the largest numbers, are the department stores. It has been charged over and over again, that many employers knowingly pay wages that are insufficient to support a girl in the expectation that she will be subsidized by some "gentleman friend."

How far this is true is hard to say; and it is just as difficult to determine how many department-store employees are really immoral. The report of the United States Bureau of Labor on "Wage-Earning Women and Children"combats the idea that immorality among them is widespread. Nevertheless, there is a strong opinion that store girls are not all they should be, and many careful observers have enumerated quite a startling array of individual instances where a girl's fall can be largely traced to her employment as a sales-woman.

An investigator for the Chicago Vice Commission, for instance, gives in the report of that body quite a number of cases which are said to be typical. "Violet works in a department store, salary $5.00 per week. Was seduced and left home. Baby died and she solicits on the side to support herself.... Mag 18 years old. Works in department store. Salary $5.50 per week. Tells parents she receives more. Helps support parents and 'solicits' at dances for spending money. Father is sickly.... Marcella (X913), alias Tantine (X904). Came to (X905) about three years ago, and started to work in the (X916) department store. One of the managers insisted on taking her out, which she finally had to do 'to hold her job,' as she asserts" (pp. 187, 195).

Miss Elizabeth Butler, investigating for the PittsburghSurvey, reports the same thing in that city. "Vera ——" she says, "is twentyyears old. Four years ago she was employed as a salesgirl at $3.50 a week. After a year she left for another store where she was employed as a cashier at a salary of $10.00 a week, for making concessions to her employer. After two years she left the store for a house of prostitution.... Jennie —— came to Pittsburgh from Akron, Ohio. She had no friends in the city and was obliged to be self-supporting. She obtained a position at $6.00 a week as a sales-woman. After five months in the store she consented to be kept in an apartment in the East End. She still keeps her position in the store.... A girl whose father was killed by an electric crane was the only one of the family old enough to work. Forced by financial needs to accept a wage fixed by custom at a point below her own cost of subsistence, much more below the cost of helping to maintain a family of dependents, she drifted into occasional prostitution."[90]

These are only particular instances, it is true, and one must not generalize too widely. But there is undoubtedly considerable foundation for the charge so often made and so firmly fixed in the public mind. And if many of thegirls exposed to such dangers have hitherto remained pure, we must thank the sterling characters inherited from those raised under different conditions, not conclude that the system needs no improvement.

All these and certain less tangible economic influences making for evil have been well summarized by the Minneapolis Vice Commission. It points out that the advent of great numbers of young girls into industry has produced conditions that lead to the blasting of thousands of lives yearly. "The chance for the making of promiscuous male acquaintances, the close association of the sexes in employment, the necessary contact with the general public, the new and distorted view of life which such an environment compels, taken with the low wage scale prevailing in so many callings and affecting so many individuals, combine to create a situation that must inevitably weaken the moral stamina and lead to the undoing of many. The fault is plainly not so much in the individual; it is rather the results of the industrial system. The remedy lies in large part in the reforming of the system" (Report, 1911, p. 126).

Some of the remedies suggested by this commission are higher wages, better sanitary conditions, and "the education of public opinion in this field to the point where it will demand a living wage and proper working conditions and social conditions for those who serve them in industry."[91]

Nor is this commission alone in attributing a great moral influence to economic conditions and in looking to the public for a large part of the remedy. In fact, it was simply following in the steps of the New York and Chicago Vice Commissions.[92]And all merely voiced a widespread conviction among social workers and the public generally.

"Are flesh and blood so cheap," asks the Chicago Commission, "mental qualifications so common, and honesty of so little value, that the manager of one of our big department stores feels justified in paying a high school girl, who has served nearly one year as an inspector of sales, the beggarly wage of $4.00 per week? What is the natural result of such an industrial condition? Dishonesty and immorality, not from choice, but necessity—in order tolive.We can forgive the human frailty that yields to temptation under such conditions—but we cannot forgive the soulless corporation, which arrests and prosecutes this girl—a first offender—when she takes some little articles for personal adornment.... Prostitution demandsyouthfor its perpetration. On the public rests the mighty responsibility of seeing to it that the demand is not supplied through the breaking down of the early education of the young girl or her exploitation in the business world" (Report, pp. 43-44).

This insistence upon thepublicas being really responsible for these economic and moral conditions is significant. For the Consumers are the public. Each individual of which the public is composed is, in one aspect, a Consumer, and it is important to notice how widespread is an insistence upon his responsibility in the matter.

From this discussion it may be reasonably concluded: (1) that many persons in many industries are receiving less than a living wage, in the present acceptation of that term; (2) that many persons are being injured in health and limb by long hours, unsanitary workshops,and improperly guarded machinery; (3) that the conditions of work often tend to produce vice.

The treatment has been largely statistical. No matter how thorough, therefore, it is subject to the limitations of this method. Sissy Jupe long ago called statistics "stutterings," and newer editions of Gradgrind have not perfected their articulation. Statistics are necessarily quantitative. They do well enough for computing rainfall, or something of the sort, but human life with its pleasures and pains, its joys and tragedies, refuses to be labeled and ticketed. It is intangible to such gross systems of classification.

"All the world's coarse thumbAnd finger fail to plumb"

the depths of happiness and suffering in the least of human creatures.

FOOTNOTES:[85]U. S. Bur. Lab., "Women Wage-Earners in Stores and Factories," p. 119.[86]E. B. Butler, "Women and the Trades," pp. 320-1.[87]Preface to "Dialogue of St Catherine of Siena," p. 13: London, Kegan Paul, 1896.[88]U. S. Bur. Labor, "Women Wage-Earners in Stores and Factories," p. 75.[89]Cf. Report of Chicago Vice Commission, p. 242f, and unpublished reports of the National Child Labor Committee, Washington, D. C.[90]"Women and the Trades," pp. 305-306, 348.[91]Italics added. Cf. pp. 114, 115, 126.[92]Survey, Apr. 15, 1911, p. 99; May 6, 1911, p. 215.

[85]U. S. Bur. Lab., "Women Wage-Earners in Stores and Factories," p. 119.

[86]E. B. Butler, "Women and the Trades," pp. 320-1.

[87]Preface to "Dialogue of St Catherine of Siena," p. 13: London, Kegan Paul, 1896.

[88]U. S. Bur. Labor, "Women Wage-Earners in Stores and Factories," p. 75.

[89]Cf. Report of Chicago Vice Commission, p. 242f, and unpublished reports of the National Child Labor Committee, Washington, D. C.

[90]"Women and the Trades," pp. 305-306, 348.

[91]Italics added. Cf. pp. 114, 115, 126.

[92]Survey, Apr. 15, 1911, p. 99; May 6, 1911, p. 215.

The question now arises, even supposing the conditions are bad and that a duty of improving them rests upon the Consuming Class; what is the individual Consumer bound to do? Making all due allowances for the fact that we have assumed what is a just or unjust wage, and without any intention of forcing this standard upon the conscience of individuals, there will be times when a particular Consumer is convinced, e.g. that those employed at stores he patronizes are not being paid anything like what they have a right to receive. What should he do? Does any obligation devolve upon him?

In answering this question, the general principle must be kept in mind, that a Consumer is not bound to act under a disproportionately grave inconvenience. He is not bound to sacrifice considerable personal good to do a very little good to the laborers making the articles he buys; nor is he obliged to put himself to anyinconvenience if no good whatever is going to follow.

But if he can conveniently buy goods made under just conditions rather than under bad, and the price is no higher, then he is bound to do so. And if he is well off and can easily afford to pay a little more for the justly made goods, he ought to buy them, provided he can be reasonably sure that the increase in price will go to maintain good working conditions and not simply to swell the manufacturer's profits.

As Father Cuthbert, a Capuchin, says, not the employers only are responsible for the oppression of workingmen, "but all who patronize such labor contribute to the sin. The insatiable yearning to buy cheap without any thought as to how cheapness is obtained, this is the incentive which tempts men to buy cheap labor and to underpay workmen. Were people in general not willing accomplices, there would be no sweating system, no unfair competition. The sin falls not on the few [manufacturers] but on the many [patrons] who too readily condone the sin of the few for the sake of the resultant advantage to themselves. They pay half a penny less for a pound of sugar or a shilling or two less on a ton of coal: what doesthe public care that the shop assistant or the miner is unable to get a human wage?"[93]

The purely individual action of Consumers, however, can have but little effect for good. For only comparatively few have sufficiently developed social consciences to realize the desirability of such action; and even if more had, their means of discovering which goods are justly made are so limited as seriously to hamper their activity.

The remedy for this difficulty would seem to be organization among Consumers. There can be little doubt that if they united in sufficient numbers in patronizing only those shops that maintained good working conditions their action would exert considerable pressure. The labor unions have shown that the boycott is a powerful weapon. How efficient it can be, may be guessed from the sums spent by employers in opposing it. Astute business men do not tilt at windmills, and if they have fought the legality of the boycott in every tribunal in the land, including the Supreme Court, it was only because they realized the compelling power it placed in labor's hands.

But some greater animus than pure philanthropy seems necessary to make Consumers band together in this way on a large enough scale. They need the class spirit, the enthusiasm of industrial warfare afforded by the trade unions. For though an organization of Consumers has been in existence now for more than twenty years, it is forced sorrowfully to admit that the good accomplished simply through the economic pressure of its members has been but slight.

But if it had been possible so to unite Consumers in a powerful society for the collection of information and the distribution of patronage, it has been asked: Would it not have become wofully corrupt? Can we safely trust an irresponsible club with such power? And, therefore, is it wise for conscientious individuals now to join this league? For either it will remain practically powerless, or else it will become so strong as to be a menace.

The answer must be that if the Consumers' League ever does become strong enough to exercise a great influence in the industrial world, it will probably abuse and sell its power. Rich unfair firms may be able to bribe those in control to give them a recommendation they do notdeserve, and various other kinds of corruption will most likely creep in. But such an argument proves too much. If we are to give no authority where it will not be misused, we shall come to anarchy at once. For have not political parties, and states and employers and trade unions—all, at one time or another, abused power. Seldom have men enjoyed power for long without using it for selfish ends.

But we must not, therefore, destroy all authority and power. Rather we should embrace the dictum of de Maistre, that power must be balanced against power, one organization set to watch another. And if it should happen that a league of Consumers became too strong and abused its strength, it would be time enough then to set about checking it by building up power somewhere else.

So far, however, there has been no danger of such a contingency. The Consumers' League has been active, earnest, and honest—and sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. The League has embraced all work that came to hand whether strictly within the economic field first marked out for it, or extending to other preserves. Its activity in the Legislative domain has not been inconsiderable, and it is probable that the influence of Consumers will be most marked here in the future.

There is much talk now of minimum wage legislation to guarantee laborers a certain standard. If we look upon compulsory arbitration as practically the same thing, we can say that it has already been extensively tried. Canada, England, Australia, and New Zealand have shown that it is possible in some fields but the controversy always aroused by a new project has not yet subsided sufficiently to enable one to speak definitely concerning its success. The elaborate system of state insurance against sickness, accident, old age, and unemployment, now in operation in England and Germany is another governmental attempt to secure a certain standard of living for all. And the public-schools, in which rich and poor are put on a plane of equality regarding elementary education, are so familiar that we are apt to lose sight of the fact that they are really only one link in this chain of state intervention to provide the means for everybody enjoying certain advantages that have come to be looked upon as necessities in our civilization.

In our own country during 1911, there was much discussion, some action, and every prospect for still further activity along these lines. A conspicuous feature was the movement to introduce a more equitable system of compensation or insurance for industrial accidents.[94]There was a non-compulsory minimum wage law passed recently in Massachusetts, and several States prescribed the rate of pay for public work done by contract. An amendment to the Charter of San Francisco fixes the minimum of employees on street railways at $3.00 per day, with one and one-half pay for overtime. Vermont, Wisconsin and South Dakota have given wages a preference over other debts (l. c., pp. 876, 878, 881).

It would seem then that the legislative field is the one in which most success is to be expected. And since the Consumers are the beneficiaries of labor's exertion, they are especially bound to effort in this direction. Those who have influence and leisure are more bound than those who have but little power or opportunity, but all are obliged to do something.

The results of our examination of this question may be summed up in the following conclusion:

I. Assuming that employers are violatingthe rights of their laborers then there is a duty incumbent upon theConsuming Classto do what they can to secure these rights.

II. Employers are violating the rights of their employees to such an extent as to create a serious social problem.

III. The individual Consumer is bound to do what he can without serious inconvenience to remedy these conditions. He can act individually, by joining an organization, and through legislation.

Should it be asked which is the most effective way, the answer would certainly incline towards legislation. If we survey the industrial history of the last quarter century, we can see gain after gain by this method;[95]while the Consumers' League, in its strict capacity of an organization ofpurchasershas done but little. What it has accomplished has been largely through the advocacy of legislation, rather than by merely economic pressure. And so, while Consumers could doubtless effect tremendous changes if they wished, it seems impossible to get them to co-operate in sufficient numbers.

Nevertheless, the Consumers' League is founded on a great and noble principle, and for the moment I want to put aside the judicial attitude and enthusiastically chronicle what it has done, and what could be done along the same lines. The Consumers' League is unique in the field of philanthropy as affording an opportunity to everyone no matter how big or how little. For by its original principle of buying only goods made under fair conditions, it gives a chance to the unimportant individual to share in a great philanthropic movement, somewhat as a private does in an imperial army; and by its activity in the legislative field, it opens up an opportunity for those who have the time, and talent, and position necessary for effectiveness there.

And whether or not we look upon the dictates of charity and justice as clearly indicating a duty, whether or not one's "moral resonance" responds to what has been said, surely we cannot deny that here is a splendid opportunity. Here is a practical way for each and everyone to play the Good Samaritan. Not all of us can meet men along a road who have been set upon by thieves, bundle them into an automobile, and carry them to a hospital. We cannotall give thousands in charity. We cannot all engage in publicly urging reforms by legislation, nor give generously of time in philanthropic ministration to the poor. But we can see to it in the way already outlined that some at least of our expenditures go to ward off misery rather than foster it. We can see to it that we prevent misery from spreading at least in one little sphere.

[96]This is no mere theory. Reforms have actually been accomplished in some places by the Consumers' League. Realizing that to be effective they must be organized, it is the object of members of this League to act as a sort of inverted megaphone gathering up the weak whisperings of each individual purchaser and blending them with thousands of others until they all become one mighty concerted shout that must be heard.

Laborers have known the strength of combination in fighting industrial conditions for more than a generation; the aggregations of capital have been growing larger and larger; why should not the most powerful of all the elements of industrial society, the Consumer himself, learn by their experience?

Organized in 1891 in New York City, the Consumers' League now has almost a hundred branches in eighteen of the United States, in France, Switzerland, Germany, and Belgium. To Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell is due the credit of its inception. An investigation during 1889-90 into the conditions of work among sales-women and cash-children, which she directed for the Working Women's Society, forced upon her the futility of starting reform from the producing end. The competitive system of industry ties the hands of the employer, while it seems impossible successfully to organize a union among women. There was but one element of the economic world left to work with—the Consumer.

Therefore, in May, 1890, a public meeting was called in Chickering Hall, New York, to discuss the organization of this all-powerful factor of industry. It was decided to found the Consumers' League upon the following platform:

"I. That the interest of the community demands that all workers should receive, not the lowest, but fair living wages.

"II. That the responsibility for some of the worst evils from which wage-earners suffer, rests with the Consumers, who persist in buying in the cheapest markets, regardless of how cheapness is brought about.

"III. That it is therefore, the duty of Consumers to find out under what conditions the articles they purchased are produced, and to insist that these conditions shall be, at least, decent and consistent with a respectable existence on the part of the workers.

"IV. That this duty is especially incumbent upon Consumers in relation to the product of women's work since there is no limit beyond which the wages of women may be pressed down, unless artificially maintained at a living rate by combinations, either of the workers themselves or of the Consumers."[97]

The first step taken to carry out these objects was to prepare a "white list" of stores coming up to a certain standard. Since it is illegal to boycott, or to urge persons not to deal with stores placed on a "Black List," the Consumers' League accomplishes the same resultsby persuading persons to buy from firms on a white list. Once published, merchants feel the effects of such a list, and, to get the patronage of the League, volunteer all the good points about themselves, not to mention the bad ones about their competitors. The list itself thus becomes an invaluable means of getting information not otherwise obtainable.

Necessarily this list had to be somewhat elastic and considerably below the ideal. The people at the head of the Consumers' League were practical persons of wide experience and they went on the principle that half a loaf is better than none at all—that every little bit helps. After consultations with the employers and the Working Women's Society, a standard was adopted from which no retreat has been made. Whatever changes have been made, have been on the side of greater strictness. To-day it stands as follows:

A Fair House is one in which equal pay is given for work of equal value, irrespective of sex, and in which no sales-woman who is eighteen years or over—and who has had one year'sexperience as sales-woman receives less than six dollars a week.

In which wages are paid by the week.

In which the minimum wages for cash-children are three dollars and a half per week, with the same conditions regarding weekly payments.

A Fair House is one in which the number of working hours constituting a normal working day does not exceed nine. At least three-quarters of an hour is given for luncheon. A general half-holiday is given on one day of each week during at least two summer months.

A Vacation of not less than one week is given with pay during the summer season.

All overtime is compensated for.

Wages are paid, and the premises closed for the seven principal legal holidays, viz., Thanksgiving Day, Christmas and New Year's Day, Washington's Birthday, the Fourth of July, Decoration Day, and Labor Day.

A Fair House is one in which work, lunch and retiring rooms are apart from each other,and conform in all respects to the present Sanitary Laws.

In which the present law regarding the providing of seats for sales-women is observed, and the use of seats permitted.

A Fair House is one in which humane and considerate behavior towards the employees is the rule.

In which fidelity and length of service meet with the consideration which is their due.

In which no children under fourteen years of age are employed.

In which no child under the age of sixteen years works for more than nine hours a day.

In which no child works, unless an employment certificate issued by the Board of Health has been first filed with the employer, and the name, etc., of the child has been entered on a register kept by the employer.

In which the ordinances of the city and the laws of the State are obeyed in all particulars.

When it is remembered that in 1891 only eight stores in New York were eligible for the standard (then less strict), while to-day there are morethan fifty; that then overtime was never paid for, and fines often reduced the pay to almost half, while to-day fines go to a benefit fund, and overtime is paid for, or a corresponding time off is given; that then the child-labor law was openly violated, and many grown women received less than four dollars-and-a-half, sometimes less than two dollars, a week, while the standard now is six; that the chair law, providing one seat for every three girls, was disregarded, or the girls never allowed to use them, while to-day inspectors of the State Labor Bureau strictly enforce its regulations; that the year after the influence of the Consumers' League passed the Mercantile Employers' Bill providing for the essentials of the above standard, there were twelve hundred infractions reported, and nine hundred under-age children released from drudgery as shipping clerks, etc.: when this advance towards a decent standard of living, and the considerable part of the Consumers' League in bringing it about, is kept in mind, the power of the purchaser is seen to be no day-dream of an idealist, no mere pretty theory of an arm chair economist.

As one reform after another was accomplished, the League turned itself to new labors.To-day it is agitating strongly against the cruelties of such seasons as Christmas, that should mean peace and joy to all. "Glad tidings of great joy" sounds like a hollow mockery to the sales-women and children who work from eight in the morning until midnight. Therefore the League sends out thousands of post-cards, and advertises in newspapers, magazines, and street-cars, urging persons to shop early out of consideration for the employees of stores. The first large success from this movement came in 1910 when the leading department stores of Philadelphia, employing 35,000 persons, decided to close at six o'clock during the entire Christmas season. Late on the evening of December 1, the head of one of the largest retail firms in the city called up the Consumers' League to say that he had good news. "I thought that you should certainly be the first to hear that we are going to close early," he said. "I congratulate you and the women you represent on what you have enabled us to do."[98]

All this activity, however, is concerned with the retailer; in the meantime manufacture was not neglected. The League early saw the evils prevailing in many factories, and therefore decidedto carry the white-list idea under a slightly different form into this field. After a thorough investigation by its own representatives and consultation with the State factory inspectors, the League, where the situation is satisfactory, allows the use of its label guaranteeing that the goods are made under clean and healthful surroundings. The conditions under which the label is issued are:

1. The State factory law is obeyed.

2. No children under the age of sixteen are employed.

3. Work at night is not required, and the working day does not exceed ten hours.

4. No goods are given out to be made away from the factory.

Similar to the Consumers' League label are the labels of various trade unions. These latter, indeed, were in the field many years before the Consumers' League was even organized. They are based upon exactly the same principle. When a factory maintains the conditions demanded by the union, it is allowed to use the label on its goods. Anyone, therefore, who buys union-made goods at a store where the employees are protected by the retail-clerks union can be sure that those engaged in boththe production and distribution of these articles have obtained their just rights so far as this is possible.

By having firms on the white list handle labeled goods and, recently, by establishing a store of its own in New York, a market is created for them among the members of the League. The practicalness underlying the whole management of the League is very clearly shown here both in the dove-tailing of its activities in manufacture and distribution and in the appeal made to the self-interest of purchasers to buy white goods, wrappers, etc., made in clean factories rather than germ-carrying sweatshops goods. It has been the aim of the League all along to make it to the Consumer's personal advantage to buy labeled goods at white-list stores. The idea is to give him a better article and better service for the same money, the increased cost to the manufacturer and retailer to come out of the increased sales.

In 1898 the various local Leagues that had sprung up in different sections were united into one national organization and the activities became even more important. The sweatshop, child-labor, excessive hours for women, were attacked with considerable effect. In manyStates the public conscience was sufficiently aroused by reform agencies with which the League zealously co-operated to pass stringent laws, and the League's representatives, either as private individuals or as honorary inspectors of the State tried to see that they were carried out. If New York to-day has the strictest child-labor law in the United States, a good share of the honor is due to the untiring labors of an enlightened Consumers' League.

Here one concrete instance of these activities must suffice. England had as early as 1844 enacted laws protecting women, but, owing to the Constitution of the United States various State Supreme Courts had held that any restriction of the right of free contract of adult women was unconstitutional. Therefore when the State of Oregon proceeded against a laundryman for violation of a State Law by working women longer than allowed by that Law, the laundryman promptly appealed from the State Court to the United States Supreme Court. The local Consumers' League thereupon notified the National League, with headquarters in New York City, that information concerning the effect of work upon women was necessary to win the case before the highesttribunal of the United States. Expert counsel was obtained, and Miss Josephine Goldmark, of the League, was detailed to collect the information. She employed ten readers, some of them medical students, and special privileges were granted her at Columbia University Library, the Astor Library of New York City, and the Library of Congress in Washington. The result was a sweeping verdict sustaining the State.

There are two great classes of the poor—those who for some reason or other do not work, and those who, while working, do not receive enough to support themselves and their families. To the former the Church has been a staunch friend. It is one of her glories that her enemies accuse her of fostering pauperism by too lavish charity. Her hospitals and orphanages, her homes for the fallen and aged, her refuges for the sick of soul and body are dotted over the whole land, and are administered with a devotion and self-sacrificing heroism compelling the admiration of all. As John Boyle O'Reilly said, hers is not

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