White Slaves; or, the Oppression of the Worthy Poor Part 2

For every mother whose heart was broken by having her children wrenched from her arms in the African slave-market, there is a white mother, whose very soul is crushed at the sight of her hungry, ragged, little ones. For every black babe torn from its mother's breast by the iniquitous system of negro slavery, the slums of our great cities have a white child, whose future is equally dark and hopeless.

My critic's first question is, "How do you justify the term 'white slave' when applied to the persons whose condition you describe?" My answer is very simple. If a widow with little children to care for, who cannot go out to do other kinds of work, and is compelled to work eighteen hours a day for fifty cents, and dares not give this up for fear of starvation to her children, is not a slave, then will somebody tell me what element is lacking to make slavery?

[Ill.u.s.tration: A TENEMENT-HOUSE COURT.]

The second question is as follows: "'Climb three flights to an attic suite of two rooms, and there one would find a mother and five children,' doubtless in very bad condition; the mother trying to support them; the tenement doubtless very bad. Suppose we condemn the tenement,--pull it down,--then these people will have no roof over their heads. Is _no_ roof better than _some_ kind of a roof? Suppose we refuse to trust her to make pants--is _no_ work better than _some_ work?"

To the first part of this question, relating to the roof of this bad tenement house, I answer frankly: Yes, no roof is better. This poor woman, working at starvation-wages, is furnis.h.i.+ng from twelve to twenty per cent interest on the money invested in this miserable old rookery, whose heartless landlord, like the unjust judge of the Gospels, fears not G.o.d and regards not man. If we condemn this disease-breeding death-trap, it will not be a question of this woman having "no roof"

over her head, but she may have a decent roof, with healthful, sanitary regulations, at a less rent than she now pays, and still pay an honest interest on the investment to the landlord. As to the second part of the question, "Is no work better than some work?" that is not a fair putting of the question. Our modern Christian civilization does not dare to put it that way. It is not a question of no work, or some work.

We must furnish this woman some work, at such, just and rightful wages as shall give her and her children bread to eat and raiment to put on, and a decent, though it be humble, roof over their heads.

We pa.s.s to our critic's third question: "The mother earns her living, or a part of it, by making 'pants.' Pants made in this way are sold at a very low price at retail, after being subjected to the cost of distribution in the customary way. There is great compet.i.tion in this business. That compet.i.tion leads every employer to pay the highest wages that can be recovered from the sale of the pants, also allowing the sweater's charge. If the cost of making is advanced on this cla.s.s of pants, they cannot be sold at all; then there would be no sweater, and the woman would get no work. Is _no_ work better than _some_ work?"

The trouble with a great deal of this is, that it is incorrect both in its premise and in its reasoning. It is indeed true that there is great compet.i.tion in the clothing business, but it is not true that the result of this compet.i.tion leads every employer to pay the highest wages that can be recovered from the sale of the pants. It is also a remarkable statement to make, that if the cost is advanced, then there will be no more pants made. Can my critic really believe that the whole of mankind would suddenly go "pantless" if the price for making them were raised to a point where the sewing-woman could make a decent living? It is also a curious statement to make that "If there were no sweater, the woman would get no work." The sweater is a comparatively recent inst.i.tution, and I devoutly believe an inst.i.tution of the devil.

Before the sweater came to be a factor in the situation, the woman had work, and better pay than she now receives. The incoming of the sweater has not resulted in more work, but in less wages.

If my critic will take the trouble to examine the testimony given before the committee appointed by the English House of Lords, which may be found in the Public Library, he will see that it is the universal testimony of hundreds of witnesses that the sweater is an unnecessary factor in the manufacturing trades, and that in every department of the labor world where the sweating system has been introduced, the wages of the laborer have been reduced from forty to seventy per cent.

The fourth question is similar to the third: "The sweater deals as a middleman with the manufacturer and the worker. If he did not deal with this kind of work, it would cost the manufacturer more to reach the worker than it does now. No sweater would be employed if he did not earn what he makes. Then the manufacturer, or clothier, could pay less for making the pants, because he now pays all the trade will bear. If it cost him more to reach the worker, he must pay less. Suppose we abolish the sweater, or middleman, then he would not distribute the work, and there would be _no_ work. Is that better than _some_ work?"

I have already answered this question in part. It is not correct that it would cost the manufacturer more to reach the worker without the sweater than with him. It is also ridiculous to suppose that if the sweater were abolished there would be no work. The demand for clothing would be just the same without the sweater as with him. Besides that, everything that takes the employer away from the people who do his work, and removes him from contact with them, is a bad thing, and always bodes ill to any harmonious relation between capital and labor.

I am satisfied that there are proprietors in Boston firms, who, if they could go around with me, and see, as I have seen, the poverty and suffering of the sweaters' slaves who are making up their goods, would revolt against the whole system. It is only the sweater who comes in contact with these people, and the sweater is, as a rule, greedy and avaricious, and hardened against all humane feeling.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SUNDAY ON NORTH STREET.]

We pa.s.s to the fifth question: "Suppose this woman had not come here with her children, and had stayed, perhaps, in Italy or in Russia, instead of coming here. Is _some_ work _here_ better than _no_ work in _Italy_?" Very likely it is true that the woman is as well off here as she would be in Italy. But is _Italy_ to be the standard of our American civilization? I stood on a bridge over the Tiber, fronting the famous castle of St. Angelo in Rome, on a hot Sunday morning in July, and watched a company of people on a barge who were driving piles in the river. There were about eighty men and women, the s.e.xes about equally divided, pulling and tugging away, in the hot sun, at ropes and pulleys, in order to lift the heavy iron hammer and drop it on the head of the piling. In Boston there would have been a little donkey engine, and one or two men to look after it all the crew that would have been needed. Shall we go back to Italy for a model? Furthermore, this Italian woman is setting up a standard of life for all laboring women.

It is not enough to say she is as well off here as in Italy. We cannot afford to permit the establis.h.i.+ng of little Italian centres throughout the Republic, with which every American laborer in the land must enter into compet.i.tion. No matter where people came from, nor what they have suffered in their native land, if we permit them to come to us, we are compelled, in sheer self-defence, to see that they are treated fairly and justly, and receive a sufficient compensation for their toil to support them in cleanliness, intelligence, and morality.

Question six raises a different problem: "If the mother cannot support the children,--being now in this country, without having been sent back,--she is ent.i.tled to go with her children to the almshouse, where suitable shelter, clean rooms, and good food will be provided. Is it better for her to _try to support her children_, under existing conditions, than to go to the almshouse?" It is, of course, better for the woman to try to support her children. The almshouse is for the sick and helplessly infirm; Such may go there in all honor, without disgrace. I doubt not there are men in the almshouse who have done more service to humanity than many others who die amid luxury and wealth.

But nothing can be more vicious than to speak of people who are able and willing to work as candidates for the almshouse, because the cruel oppression in their wages makes it impossible for them to support themselves. It is not charity these people need or want; it is justice.

True, Christ said, "The poor ye have always with you," and it is probable that we shall always need to support by charity the crippled, the insane, and the unfortunate, but it is a certain indication of rottenness in any civilization that makes charity necessary for a man or woman who is able and willing to work.

The seventh question continues this same thought with variations: "There is an ample supply of money available for purposes of true charity. Does not true charity consist in refusing to give alms to those who can, or may, support themselves? Is it better to give alms to these people, in their attic, or to give alms to them under the conditions of the almshouse? What course would be most sure to pauperize them utterly?" For once, my critic and myself are in agreement. I believe it is better for one to partly support himself than not to do anything towards it. Nothing is more demoralizing to any one than to become accustomed to receive charity. But, after all, you may pauperize people almost as rapidly in the attic as in the almshouse. It is against the whole system that I make war. I do not admit, for a moment, that it is necessary for the sewing-woman to receive such wages as to compel her starvation, unless alms be given to her in her attic.

In the discourse which is thus criticised. I showed plainly that the ap.r.o.ns for which the seamstress received, net, one cent for making, returned a profit of fifteen cents, on an investment of ten cents by her employer. Now, I do not admit that the rigors of compet.i.tion are so great that it compels this manufacturer to make one hundred and fifty per cent profit while this woman toils sixteen hours a day to make forty-five cents.

I showed that the women who make s.h.i.+rts made only fifty cents a day, and yet the proprietor made on every s.h.i.+rt twenty-two cents profit on an investment of twenty-eight cents. I do not admit that compet.i.tion is so stern that it is necessary for this s.h.i.+rt manufacturer to make seventy-eight per cent profit while the woman who works for him must beg a.s.sistance of the Provident a.s.sociation, or see her children cry for bread.

Or, take the case of the poor girl, whose mother finishes pants for the postal uniforms at nine and one-half cents a pair, slaving eighteen hours for fifty-seven cents; and she, the daughter, toils all day long, in the midst of the physical and moral stench of a Jewish sweater's shop, for sixteen and two-thirds cents. But she is better off than the orphan girl that works beside her, whose condition some poet has described:--

"Left there, n.o.body's daughter, Child of disgrace and shame, n.o.body ever taught her A mother's sweet saving name.

n.o.body ever caring Whether she stood or fell, And men (are they men?) ensnaring With the arts and the gold of h.e.l.l!

St.i.tching with ceaseless labor To earn her pitiful bread; Begging a crust of a neighbor, And getting a curse instead!

All through the long, hot summer, All through the cold, dark time, With fingers that numb and number Grow, white as the frost's white rime.

n.o.body ever conceiving The throb of that warm, young life, n.o.body ever believing The strain of that terrible strife!

n.o.body kind words pouring In that orphan heart's sad ear; But all of us all ignoring, What lies at our door so near!"

There is nothing wholesome in the question whether it is better to pauperize people a little in the attic, or to pauperize them altogether in the almshouse. We ought not to pauperize them at all. A n.o.ble Christian woman, who has a young men's Bible cla.s.s in the North End, and who by her womanly tact and Christian sympathy has gained the confidence of some of the most hopeless cases in that section, told me that one of these boys said to her, "When the Back Bay folks know that we are made of flesh and blood, they won't pauperize us any longer."

[Ill.u.s.tration: CLARK'S MISSION.]

The eighth question returns in some of its aspects to the first: "The use of the term 'slave' implies a slave-owner and a slave-driver. In this series of the manufacturer, the sweater or middleman, and the working-woman with her children, which is the slave-owner, and which is the slave-driver? Under what authority does the slave-master force this woman to render her labor for all that it is worth?" Answering the last part of the question first, I have already shown that the woman does not get all that her work is worth. The manufacturer, who makes from seventy-eight to a hundred and fifty per cent profit, gets a far larger proportion of the profits than rightly belongs to him.

Under the sweating system, the sweater is, most emphatically, both the slave-master and slave-driver; and no Georgia overseer was ever more cruel than some of these sweater taskmasters in Boston to-day.

Even at the wretched wages they pay, they will not give any of their workers all the work they can do; they dole out the work to them, trying to make them think it is very scarce. If they ask for higher pay, they are met at once with a threat of discharge. Do you ask why they do not hunt for something better? What can a poor, half-broken-down mother, with three little babies, do hunting work? Who will pay the rent, furnish them food, and care for the children while she makes her search? There are thousands of laboring people, both men and women, in all our great cities, who are in the same condition that a majority of the Israelites were when Moses came to them, and told the marvellous story of his talk with Jehovah, and painted before their dim eyes the picture of the Canaan, and recounted to their dull ears the promise of their deliverance from bondage. Pathetic, indeed, is the record, "They hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage." It is idle to talk, as so many newspapers as well as private individuals do, as though domestic service were the cure-all for these half-starving, under-paid women. A great majority of the women who are slaves to these sweaters, have families of little children depending on them, that are as dear to their hearts as are the children of more fortunate mothers to them. Dr. Barnardo, of London, who has had a most extensive experience among the poor, tells of a poor woman, with a husband lying disabled in the hospital, earning her living by charing and odd jobs, while she herself was receiving out-door hospital relief for physical debility. Driven at last to accept a.s.sistance from the relieving officer, she hastened home, placed the bread and meat on a table, and fell dead of exhaustion. Dr.

Barnardo was sent for, and beside the dead body of the mother he was surprised, as well he might be, to find five well-fed, chubby children.

The poor, slum mother had literally starved herself to death that her children might live! Truly, as Coleridge says, "A mother is the holiest thing alive;" and G.o.d never intended that the almshouse or the orphan asylum should be the only refuge held open for a mother who is able and willing to work to support her children.

In the ninth question our critic says: "If her work is worth more than she gets, can she not get it? A little inquiry into the condition of the clothing trade and some examination of the facts might disclose to you that the poor sewing-woman is poor because she sews poorly, and that there is always a scarcity of skilful and intelligent sewing-women, at full wages." The more thorough my examination into the facts of the case, the more I am convinced that the sweating system is demoralizing the entire clothing trade, as it will every trade it touches. Whether the woman sews poorly or not, she does not, in any cla.s.s she may be placed, receive the wages to which she is ent.i.tled.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NORTH END JUNK SHOP.]

The conclusion of my critic's letter is, I think, as remarkable as anything in it. He says: "My final question is, how do you propose to help those who are incapable of helping themselves, without pauperizing them yet more than they are pauperized under their present conditions?

What will you do when you have destroyed the house and done away with the sweater?" To this part of the concluding question I simply say, I will be a Christian, and pay honest wages for honest work. But the critic continues: "Are you justified, as a Christian minister, in creating prejudice and arousing malignant pa.s.sion by the use of the term 'slave?' Can you defend or justify this term under the conditions as they are stated in the printed report of your sermon? I venture to put these questions to you because I think that the dangerous cla.s.s in this community is to be found among persons who, without intelligence, create animosity and, by their method of preaching, tend to r.e.t.a.r.d rather than to promote the progress of the poor and ignorant in this country." My answer to all that is, that, as a Christian minister, I am a follower of Him, who, standing in the midst of the self-satisfied and wealthy oppressors of His times, exclaimed, "Woe unto you, Pharisees!

for ye t.i.the mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pa.s.s over judgment and the love of G.o.d." And who, standing in the audience of all the people, said unto His disciples, "Beware of the Scribes which devour widows' houses, and for a show make long prayers: the same shall receive greater d.a.m.nation;" who, standing in the presence of the lawyers, cried aloud, "Woe unto you, also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers." I am a follower of Him who came "not to send peace on the earth, but a sword." All an infernal system of oppression, like the sweating system, asks, is to be let alone. To uncover its atrocities is like turning over a huge stone in the meadow in springtime, that has been a hiding-place for bugs and worms that nest away in the dark. As soon as the hot, searching sunlight finds them, they will wriggle and squirm in agony until they can crawl under cover again. So I do not wonder that, when the hideous cruelty of the tenement-house sweat-shop is brought to light, the sweater and all his friends wriggle and squirm in an agony of fright and shame. Neither am I alarmed that this critic, as a type of conservatism, regards me as a member of the most dangerous cla.s.s in the community. It was ever thus.

The old antislavery agitators were considered the most dangerous men in the republic, and I remember that a very distinguished minister once bitterly regretted the agitation on the evils of slavery, because he feared it would destroy the prospect for a revival of religion in the city where he lived.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOME OF THE MATHERS.]

If to be a Christian minister is to stand as a policeman to hold back the righteous indignation of the robbed and degraded laborer, or preach patience and contentment to empty stomachs,--empty that the sweater may grow rich and fat on the toil of orphans and widows,--then I spurn the t.i.tle as beneath the dignity of my manhood; but if, as I take it, to be a Christian minister is to be like my Master, the brother of all men, rich or poor, standing forever as the unflinching enemy of oppression and injustice wherever found, as the friend and advocate of the defenceless and the weak, then I am proud of the t.i.tle, and thank G.o.d for its unspeakable privilege.

IV.

THE PLAGUE OF THE SWEAT-SHOP.

"Can the heart be deformed, and contract incurable ugliness and infirmity under the pressure of disproportionate misfortune, like the spine beneath too low a vault?"

--VICTOR HUGO: _Les Miserables_.

The Klamath Lake Indians in Oregon have a strange and weird fas.h.i.+on of mourning their dead. They dig a hole in the ground, and roof it over with willows, which they cover with dirt, forming a sort of underground cabin. In case of death in the family, the relatives go into this dug-out, which is called a "sweat-lodge," and heated rocks are brought in and heaped in the centre of the lodge, and water sprinkled over them, so as to fill the room with steam. In the midst of this steam-heated, poisonous air the family hover around their heap of rocks, and sweat for days at a time, in memory of their departed friends.

When the mourning days are over, they heap up into a cairn beside the sweat-lodge the stones that have been used, as a monument to their dead.

But that, after all, is only a brief torture which is soon over, and is constantly lightened by the hope of relief. The sweat-lodge of our modern civilization is a much more serious matter. The tortured victims who are suffering there, are not mourning for their dead friends, but for the living, and in the dark night of their sorrow there is no promise of a brighter dawn.

The word "sweater" derives its origin from the Anglo-Saxon word _swat_, and means the separation or extraction of labor or toil from others, for one's own benefit. Any person who employs others to extract from them surplus labor without compensation, is a sweater. A middleman-sweater is a person who acts as a contractor of such labor for another man. The position becomes aggravated when the middleman-sweater, as is usually the case in the modern sweat-shop, employs the labor himself, at his own house, for the purpose of extracting a double quant.i.ty of labor, either by lowering wages or working longer hours.