The student of social problems who faces the misery of the lowest order of worker, and the sharp privation endured by many even of the better cla.s.s, is apt, in the first fever of amazement and indignation, to feel that some instant force must be brought to bear, and justice secured, though the heavens fall. It is this sense of the struggle of humanity out of which have been born Utopias of every order, from the "Republic"
of Plato to the dream in "Looking Backward." Not one of these can be spared; and that they exist and find a following larger and larger, is the surest evidence of the soul at the bottom of each. But for those who take the question as a whole, who see how slow has been the process of evolution, and how impossible it is to hasten one step of the unfolding that humankind is still to know, it is the ethical side that comes uppermost, and that first demands consideration.
Taking the ma.s.s of the lowest order of workers at all points, the first aim of any effort intended for their benefit is to disentangle the individual from the ma.s.s. It is not charity that is to do this. "Homes"
of every variety open their doors; but in all of them still lurks the suspicion of charity; and even when this has no active formulation in the worker"s mind, there is still the underlying sense of the essential injustice of withholding with one hand just pay, and with the other proffering a subst.i.tute, in a charity which is to reflect credit on the giver and demand grat.i.tude from the receiver. Here and there this is recognized, and within a short time has been emphasized by a woman whose name is a.s.sociated with the work of organized charities throughout the country,--Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell. It is doubtful if there is any woman in the country better fitted, by long experience and almost matchless common-sense, to speak authoritatively. She writes:--
"So far from a.s.suming that the well-to-do portion of society have discharged all their obligations to men and G.o.d by supporting charitable inst.i.tutions, I regard just this expenditure as one of the prime causes of the suffering and crime that exist in our midst.... I am inclined, in general, to look upon what is called charity as the insult added to the injury done to the ma.s.s of the people, by insufficient payment for work."
Just pay, then, heads the list of remedies. The difficulty of fixing this is necessarily enormous, nor can it come at once; since education for not only the employer but the public as a whole is demanded. To bring this about is a slow process. It is a transition period in which we live. Material conditions born of phenomenal material progress have deadened the sense as to what const.i.tutes real progress; and the working-woman of to-day contends not only with visible but invisible obstacles, the nature of which we are but just beginning to discern.
Twenty years ago M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu wrote of women wage-earners:--
"From the economic point of view, woman, who has next to no material force, and whose arms are advantageously replaced by the least machine, can have useful place and obtain a fair remuneration only by the development of the best qualities of her intelligence.
It is the inexorable law of our civilization,--the principle and formula even of social progress,--that mechanical engines are to perform every operation of human labor which does not proceed directly from the mind. The hand of man is each day deprived of a portion of its original task; but this general gain is a loss for the particular, and for the cla.s.ses whose only instrument of labor is a pair of feeble arms."
Take the fact here stated, and add to it all that is implied in modern compet.i.tive conditions, and we see the true nature of the task that awaits us. To do away with this compet.i.tion would not accomplish the end desired. To guide it and bring it into intelligent lines is part of the general education. Profit-sharing is an indispensable portion of the justice to be done; and this, too, implies education for both sides, and would go far toward lessening burdens. We cannot abolish the factory, but hours can be shortened; the labor of married women with young children forbidden, as well as that of children below a fixed age.
Industrial education will prevent the possibility of another generation owning so many incompetent and untrained workers, and technical schools in general are already raising the standard and helping to secure the same end.
Our present methods mean waste in every direction, and trusts and syndicates have already demonstrated how much may be saved to the producer if intelligent combination can be brought about. Compet.i.tion can never wholly be set aside, since within reasonable limits it is the spur of invention and a part of evolution itself. But if wise co-operation be once adopted, the enormous friction and waste of present methods ceases,--the waste of human life as well as of material.
One cheering token of progress is the increased discussion as to methods of training and the necessity of organization among women themselves.
Ten years ago only a voice here and there suggested the need of either.
In 1885, at the meeting of the British a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science, Miss Sarah Harland, lecturer on Mathematics at Newnham College, insisted that educated gentlewomen must have larger opportunity for paying work. The three qualifications in all work she stated to be: (1) Organization on a large scale; (2) Permanency; (3) Giving returns that will enable the salaries paid to compete with those of teachers.
She regarded dressmaking as the trade which could most readily organize and meet the other conditions specified, and millinery as the trade which would come next. Until such organization and its results have gradually altered present conditions, it will be true for all workers, on both sides of the sea, that not health alone but life itself are continuously endangered by the facts hedging about all labor. Dr.
Stevens, the head of St. Luke"s Insane Asylum in London, in a paper read before the Social Science a.s.sociation, said:--
"It may be stated with great confidence that a prolific cause for the rapid and extensive increase of insanity in this country is to be found in the unceasing toil and anxiety to which the working-cla.s.ses are subjected, this cause developing the disease in the existing generation, or, what is quite as frequently the case, transmitting to the offspring idiocy, insanity, or some imperfectly developed sensorium or nervous system. The agitated, overworked, and hara.s.sed parent is not in a condition to transmit a healthy brain to his child."[49]
Accepted as true in 1857, the words are not less so to-day, when cheap labor swarms, and the unemployed number their millions.
How best to combine and to what ends, is the lesson taught in every form of the new movement for organization among women. To learn how to work together and what power lies in combination, has been the lesson of all clubs. Among men it has counted as one of the chief educating forces, but for women every circ.u.mstance has fostered the distrust of each other which belongs to all undeveloped natures. For the lowest order of worker even, the "Working-Woman"s Journal," published in London and the organ of the Working-Woman"s Protective Union, has for the last year recorded, from month to month, the gradual progress of the idea of combination, and the new hope it has brought to all who have gone into trades unions.
With us there has been equal need and equal ignorance of all that such combinations have to give. They mean arbitration rather than strikes, and the compelling of ignorant and unjust employers to consider the situation from other points of view than their own. They compel also the same att.i.tude from men in the same trades, who often are as strong opponents of a better chance for their a.s.sociates among women workers in the same branches, as the most prejudiced employer.
Six points are urged by the Working-Woman"s Society of New York, all in the lines indicated here. Its purposes and aims, as given in the prospectus, are as follows:--
1. To encourage women in the various trades to protect their mutual interests by organization.
2. To use all possible means to enforce the existing laws relating to the protection of women and children in factories and shops, investigating all reported violations of such laws; also to promote, by all suitable means, further legislation in this direction.
3. To work for the abolition of tenement-house manufacture, especially in the cigar and clothing trades.
4. To investigate all reported cases of cruel treatment on the part of employers and their managers to their women and children employees, in withholding money due, in imposing fines, or in docking wages without sufficient reason.
5. To found a labor bureau for the purpose of facilitating the exchanging of labor between city and country, thus relieving the over-crowded occupations now filled by women.
6. To publish a journal in the interests of working-women.
7. To secure equal pay for both s.e.xes for equal work.
These points are the same as those made by the few clubs which have taken up the question of woman"s work and wages; but thus far only this society has formulated them definitely. Working-girls" clubs, friendly societies, and guilds are giving to the worker new thoughts and new purposes. The Convention of Working-Girls" Clubs held in New York in April, 1890, showed the wide-reaching influence they had attained, and the new ideals opening before the worker. It showed also with equal force the roused sense of responsibility toward them, and the eager interest and desire for their betterment in all ways. Where they themselves touched upon their needs, there were direct statements in the same line as many already quoted, which called for better pay, better conditions, shorter hours, and fewer fines.
Following the points given above came another presentation, the result of still further and long-continued investigation; and as the methods of the search and its results are practicable for all towns and cities where women are at work, the statement prepared for the Society is given in full:--
"We would call your attention to the condition of the women and children in the large retail houses in this city,--conditions which tend to injure both physically and morally, not only these women and children, but working-women in general. The general idea is that saleswomen are employed from eight A.M. to six P.M., but they are really engaged in the majority of stores for such a time as the firm requires them; which means in the Grand Street stores, until ten, eleven, and twelve o"clock on Sat.u.r.day night _all the year round_, the Sat.u.r.day half-holiday not being observed in summer; and in the majority of houses that stock must be arranged after six P.M., the time varying, according to season, from fifteen minutes to five hours, _and this without supper or extra pay_; thus compelling women and children to go long distances late at night, and rendering them liable to insult and immoral influences.
"Excessive fines are imposed in many stores,--fines varying from ten to thirty cents for ten minutes" tardiness in the morning or lunch hour, and for all mistakes. Cases are known of girls who have been fined a full week"s pay at the end of the week. In one store the fines amounted to $3,000 in a year, and the sum was divided between the superintendent and timekeeper; and the superintendent was heard to charge the timekeeper with not being strict enough in his duties.
"Bad sanitary conditions, bad ventilation and toilet arrangements are common, and the sanitary laws are not observed. Children under age are employed at work far beyond their strength, often far into the night. The average wages do not exceed $4.50; and in one of our largest stores the average wage is $2.40, in another $2.90. The tendency in all stores is to secure the cheapest help; for this reason school-girls just graduated are much sought for, as they, having homes, can afford to work for less. But a large proportion of the saleswomen either pay board or help support a family; and how can this be done on $4.50 per week? The cheapest board in dark stuffy attics or tenement houses is $3.00, fuel and washing extra; and no woman can pay doctor"s bills and maintain a respectable appearance on what remains. How then does she live? There are two ways of answering: The story of a woman who worked in one of our large houses is one way. This woman earned $3.00 per week; she paid $1.50 for her room; her breakfast consisted of a cup of coffee; she had no lunch; she had but one meal a day. Many saleswomen must be in this condition. The other answer is that given by more than one employer, who when saleswomen complain of the low wages offered, reply: "Oh, well, get yourself a gentleman friend; _most of our girls have them_." Not long since a member of our society received a letter from a salesman in a certain house which read thus: "In the name of G.o.d cannot something be done for the saleswomen? I am a salesman in----, and I have walked in disguise at night upon certain streets to be accosted by girls in my own department,--girls whose salaries are so low it was impossible to live upon them." A painter told us that in working in the houses of ill-repute in the vicinity of Twenty-third Street, he was astonished at the number of women whom he recognized as saleswomen in different stores who frequented these houses. But what are they to do? They are women without trade or profession, thrown upon their own resources, obliged to make a good appearance, and unable to do so and yet have sufficient food. We must all concede that virtue and honor in woman are natural, and very few women resort to such ways unless forced to do so; certainly not, when they yet have sufficient pride to wish to maintain the appearance of respectability. If men"s wages fall below a certain limit, they become tramps, thieves, and robbers; but woman"s wages _have no limit_, since she can always work for less than she can subsist upon, the _paths of shame being open to her_. And the beggarly pittance for which one cla.s.s of women work becomes the standard of wages for all women, and throws them out upon the world, there to find a sure market. But we do not wish to insinuate, in stating these facts, that the majority of saleswomen resort to evil ways; on the contrary, they are the exception who do so. We know the majority of women prefer to suffer, and do suffer, rather than do so. But can we allow a few to fall? We of the Working-Women"s Society believe that we are so far our sisters" keepers that we are responsible for their position.
"We believe that the payment and condition of those who work (through their employers) for us is our affair, and we have no right to remain in an ignorance that involves or may involve their misery. We believe we have no right, having obtained such knowledge, to refrain from seeking to remedy it, and urging all to a.s.sist us to do so.
"In this belief we call your attention to the proposed "Consumers"
League," the members of which shall pledge themselves to deal at those stores where just conditions exist.
"We have gotten together a number of facts which we shall be glad to present to you with our estimate of a fair house, or one which under existing conditions is eligible to admission to a white list."
Preceding this appeal and the public meetings which ensued, came, in 1890, the formation of the Consumers" League, Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell its President. Quiet and inconspicuous as its work has been, the best retail mercantile houses in New York have accepted its prospectus as just, and stand now upon the "White List," which numbers all merchants who seek to deal justly and fairly with their employees. "What const.i.tutes a Fair House" expresses all the needs and formulates the most vital demands of the working-woman; and the results already accomplished speak for themselves. As a guide to other workers, it is given here in full:--
STANDARD OF A FAIR HOUSE.
+Wages.+
A fair house is one in which equal pay is given for work of equal value, irrespective of s.e.x. In the departments where women only are employed, in which the minimum wages are six dollars per week for experienced adult workers, and fall in few instances below eight dollars.
In which wages are paid by the week.
In which fines, if imposed, are paid into a fund for the benefit of the employees.
In which the minimum wages of cash-girls are two dollars per week, with the same conditions regarding weekly payments and fines.
+Hours.+
A fair house is one in which the hours from eight A.M. to six P.M.
(with three quarters of an hour for lunch) const.i.tute the working-day, and a general half-holiday is given on one day of each week during at least two summer months.
In which a vacation of not less than one week is given with pay during the summer season.
In which all over-time is compensated for.
+Physical Conditions.+
A fair house is one in which work, lunch, and retiring rooms are apart from each other, and conform in all respects to the present sanitary laws.
In which the present law regarding the providing of seats for saleswomen is observed, and the use of seats permitted.
+Other Conditions.+