Woman Triumphant: The story of her struggles for freedom, education and political rights. / Dedicated to all noble-minded women by an appreciative member of the other sex.

Constantly struggling with want and poverty and seeing health menaced by the machines, the working classes of England were filled with bitterness, when they found that their complaints brought no relief, while the law-makers, sitting in Parliament, favored any demands of the employers and of the big interests. To forget for a few hours their hopeless existence, large numbers of men and women resorted to liquor, hereby hastening their final collapse and ruin.

Such was the life led by English laborers during the greater part of the Nineteenth Century. Feeble attempts to improve these deplorable conditions were made through a series of “Factory Acts,” the immediate cause for which was the fearful spread of epidemic diseases which wrought dreadful havoc among the laborers, especially among the women and children. If we glance over these factory acts, as they are sketched in the Encyclopædia Britannica, we find that even under these acts children below the age of nine were permitted in silk factories, and that they were required to work twelve hours a day, exclusive of an hour and a half for meal times. An act of 1833 provided that young persons from thirteen to eighteen and women were restricted to 68 hours a week. Ten years later a mining act was passed which prohibited underground work for children under ten and for women. In 1867 the Workshop Regulation Act fixed the working day for children from 6 a. m. to 8 p. m. = 14 hours, and for young persons and women from 5 a. m. to 9 p. m. = 16 hours! After having made such sad disclosures, the Encyclopædia Britannica dared to say: “By these various enactments the state has emphatically taken under its protection the whole class of children and young persons employed in manufacturing industries. It has done this in the name of the moral and physical health of the community.”

The despicable methods employed by the British mine and factory owners in their dealings with the working classes spread to the Continent as well as to America. In France, Germany and Austria they led to those desperate struggles between capital and labor, out of which was born that most remarkable movement of the 19th Century called “Socialism.”

In the United States soon enough attempts were made to imitate the detestable methods of the British mine and factory owners. But as the character of the population was quite different, the abuse of the working men and women never became so appalling as in Great Britain.

The first industry to be established in factories was the weaving of cotton in the New England States, where a number of rapid streams, among them the Merrimac, the Connecticut and the Housatonic, furnished excellent water-power. And as during the pioneer and colonial times the housewives and daughters had spun and woven all the cloth and linen for family use, there was an ample number of expert workers at hand. After the first weaving machines were brought over from Europe, in 1814, Dover, Lowell, Waltham, Great Falls and Newmarket became the principal centers of the cotton industry.

Here the daughters of the farmers and settlers did the work that formerly their mothers had done at home. Only they did it faster, by tending the machines all day long. At first the girls did not know that the employers might try to make the people in the factories work longer hours without any rest and adequate pay. Soon enough they found this out. But as the girls had inherited the independent spirit of their fathers and grandfathers, trouble began to brew. In December, 1828, four hundred girls in Dover, New Hampshire, formed a procession and marched out of the factory, in order to show their indignation at the growing oppression by their employers. They clad their complaints in verses, one of which ran:

Unorganized as they were at that time, they did not succeed in gaining all they desired. But five years later they walked out again, eight hundred strong, adopting resolutions stating that they had not been treated as “daughters of freemen” by their employers and the unfriendly newspapers. At the same time in Lowell, Mass., at a signal given by a Dover girl, two thousand girls, who had formed a “Factory Girls’ Association,” joined in a sympathy strike, marched around town and issued the following proclamation:

“Union Is Power.”

“Our present object is to have union and exertion, and we remain in possession of our own unquestionable rights. We circulate this paper, wishing to obtain the names of all who imbibe the spirit of our patriotic ancestors, who preferred privation to bondage and parted with all that renders life desirable—and even life itself—to produce independence for their children. The oppressing hand of avarice would enslave us, and to gain their object they very gravely tell us of the pressure of the times; this we are already sensible of and deplore it. If any are in want of assistance, the ladies will be compassionate and assist them, but we prefer to have the disposing of our charities in our own hands, and, as we are free, we would remain in possession of what kind Providence has bestowed upon us, and remain daughters of freemen still.

“All who patronize this effort we wish to have discontinue their labor until terms of reconciliation are made.

“Resolved. That we will not go back into the mills to work unless our wages are continued to us as they have been.

“Resolved, That none of us will go back unless they receive us all as one.

“Resolved, That if any have not money enough to carry them home they shall be supplied.

In 1843 the girls in the cotton mills of Pittsburg, Pa., whose working hours had been from five o’clock in the morning till a quarter of seven in the evening, rebelled also, when their employers attempted to increase the time one hour each day without extra pay. Two years later they co-operated with the factory girls of New England, concurring in the proposal to “declare their independence of the oppressive manufacturing power” unless the work day was limited to ten hours.

The policy of these fighters for better conditions is outlined in the constitution of the “Lowell Female Labor Reform Association,” which had been organized in 1845. Article IX says:

“The members of this association disapprove of all hostile measures, strikes and turn-outs until all pacific measures prove abortive, and then that it is the imperious duty of everyone to assert and maintain that independence which our brave ancestors bequeathed to us and sealed with their blood.”

The spirit of these working women is likewise shown in the preamble adopted at the annual meeting of the association in January, 1846. It reads:

“It now only remains for us to throw off the shackles which are binding us in ignorance and servitude and which prevent us from rising to that scale of being for which God designed us. With the present system of labor it is impossible. There must be reasonable hours for manual labor and a just portion of time allowed for the cultivation of the mental and moral faculties, and no other way can the great work be accomplished. It is evident that with the present system of labor the minds of the mass must remain uncultivated, their morals unimproved. Shall we, operatives of America, the land where democracy claims to be the principle by which we live and by which we are governed, see the evil daily increasing which separates more widely and more effectually the favored few and the unfortunate many without one exertion to stay the progress? God forbid! Let the daughters of New England kindle the spark of Philanthropy in every heart till its brightness shall fill the whole earth.”

Not satisfied with securing thousands of signatures of factory operatives, who petitioned the legislature for a ten-hour day, prominent members of the union went before the Massachusetts legislative committee early in 1845 and testified as to the conditions in textile mills. This was the first American governmental investigation of labor conditions, and it was due almost solely to the petitions of the working women. About the same time the union appointed a committee to investigate and expose false statements published in newspapers concerning the factory operatives. Nor was this all. In their work of publicity they did not hesitate to call public men to account for assailing or ignoring their movement.

The chairman of the legislative committee, before whom the working girls had testified, was the representative from the Lowell district, and should, therefore, have shown special interest in the complaints of the girls. Instead, he had treated them in a high-handed manner, withholding at the same time from the Legislature some of the most important facts presented by the Lowell girls. The latter expressed their just indignation in the following resolution, which was circulated before the elections of that year:

“Resolved, That the Female Labor Reform Labor Association deeply deplore the lack of independence, honesty and humanity in the committee to whom were referred sundry petitions relative to the hours of labor, especially in the chairman of that committee; and as he is merely a corporation machine, or tool, we will use our best endeavors and influence to keep him in the “City of Spindles,” where he belongs, and not trouble Boston folks with him.”

That the “endeavors” of the girls met with full success is evident from a second resolution published after election day:

“Resolved, That the members of this association tender their grateful acknowledgments to the voters of Lowell for consigning William Schouler to the obscurity he so justly deserves for treating so ungentlemanly the defense made by the delegates of this association before the special committee of the legislature, to whom was referred petitions for the reduction of the hours of labor, of which he was chairman.”

The result of all this agitation against long hours of work was that in 1847, 1848, and 1851 the first ten-hour laws were passed in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The success, won by the textile workers, inspired women workers in the tailoring and sewing trade, in the manufacture of shoes, cigars, and other necessities to similar efforts. In the tailoring and sewing trade wages were extremely low, as sweat-shop conditions existed from the beginning, and the trade was overcrowded.

In 1845 New York City alone had over 10,000 sewing women, the majority of whom worked from twelve to sixteen hours a day to earn only from two to three dollars a week!

As similar conditions prevailed in other occupations, the number of poorly paid women wage-earners in New York City in 1865 was between 50,000 to 70,000, of whom 20,000 were in a constant fight with starvation, and of whom 7,000 lived in cellars. Their situation grew from bad to worse, as at the same time that they were falling into a state of physical and mental deterioration, the improvements in many machines made greater and greater demands on the capability of those who were operating them.

Thus the situation became such as was sketched by W. I. Thomas in an article written some fifteen years ago for the “American Magazine,” in which he said:

“The machine is a wonderful expression of man’s ingenuity, of his effort to create an artificial workman, to whom no wages have to be paid, but it falls just short of human intelligence. It has no discriminative judgment, no control of the work as a whole. It can only finish the work handed out to it, but it does this with superhuman energy. The manufacturer has, then, to purchase enough intelligence to supplement the machine, and he secures as low a grade of this as the nature of the machine will permit. The child, the woman and the immigrant are frequently adequate to furnish that oversight and judgment necessary to supplement the activity of the machine, and the more ignorant and necessitous the human being the more the profit to the industry. But now comes the ironical and pitiful part. The machine which was invented to save human energy, and which is so great a boon when the individual controls it, is a terrible thing when it controls the individual. Power-driven, it has almost no limit to its speed, and no limit whatever to its endurance, and it has no nerves. When, therefore, under the pressure of business competition the machine is speeded up and the girl operating it is speeded up to its pace, we have finally a situation in which the machine destroys the worker.”

The rapidly increasing misery among such exhausted women workers aroused public attention and led to the formation of a number of woman’s organizations with the purpose to investigate abuses among such women workers, to teach them the value of trade unions, to agitate equal pay for equal work, to shorten the number of working hours, and to abolish child labor and prison work. The first national women’s trade union, formed in the United States, was that of the “Daughters of St. Crispin.” It held its first convention on July 28, 1869, at Lynn, Massachusetts. The delegates represented not only the local lodges of that state, but also lodges of Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and California.

With the organization of the “Knights of Labor” in 1869, and the “American Federation of Labor” the position of woman in the American labor movement became more firmly established, as both federations made it one of their principal objects “to secure for both sexes equal pay for equal work.” They also appointed special committees to investigate the conditions of working women, and to organize them for concerted action.

Other potent factors arising in this line were the “National Consumers’ League” and the “Women’s Trade Union League.” The founding of the first federation was due to efforts to better the conditions of women in department stores. In 1890 a group of saleswomen of New York City pointed to the fact that girls in fashionable department stores were receiving wages too low to allow them a decent living. They also complained that these girls were forced to stand from ten to fourteen hours a day, and that sanitary conditions in the cloak and lunch rooms were such as to endanger health and life. While the plan of these saleswomen, to unite all women clerks of the city into a labor union, failed, their complaints, however, attracted the attention of a number of influential ladies interested in philanthropic efforts. They investigated the charges against the department stores, and what they discovered made them resolve that conditions demanded radical changes. In May, 1890, they called a mass meeting of prominent women and proposed a constructive plan for raising the standard in shop conditions, not by blacklisting any firm guilty of bad conduct, but by white-listing those firms which treated their employees humanely. “We can make and publish,” so the presiding lady said, “a list of all the shops where employees receive fair treatment, and we can agree to patronize only those shops. By acting openly, and publishing our White List we shall be able to create an immense public opinion in favor of just employers.” In other words, it was by the spirit of praise rather than condemnation that these ladies sought to stimulate stores to raise their standards.

Adopting the name “Consumers’ League of New York,” the society organized on January 1, 1891, and published its first White List. It was a disappointingly small one, as it contained the names of only eight firms. Still more disappointing was the indifference of the many hundred other firms toward this reform movement. But soon enough these firms found that the League had also introduced into the New York Assembly a bill which became known as the “Mercantile Employers Bill.” It aimed to regulate the employment of women and children in all mercantile establishments, and to place all retail stores, from the smallest to the largest, under the inspection of the State Factory Department.

Of course the merchants took prompt steps to defeat this obnoxious bill, and they were most complacent when their representatives in the Assembly succeeded in strangling it. But the bill appeared again and again, finally resulting in the appointment of a State Commission for the investigation of the conditions. As Reta Childe Dorr in her book “What Eight Million Women Want” graphically relates, “The findings of this Commission were sensational enough. Merchants reluctantly testified to employing grown women at a salary of thirty-three cents a day. They confessed to employing little girls of eleven and twelve years, in defiance of the child-labor law. They declared that pasteboard and wooden stock boxes were good enough seats for saleswomen; that they should not expect to sit down in business hours, anyhow. They defended, on what they called economic grounds, their long hours and uncompensated overtime. They defended their system of fines, which sometimes took away from a girl almost the entire amount of her weekly salary. They threatened, if a ten-hour law for women under twenty-one years old were passed, to employ older women. Thus thousands of young and helpless girls would be thrown out of employment, and forced to appeal to charity.”

The Senate heard the report of the Commission, and in spite of the merchants’ protests, the women’s bill was passed without a dissenting vote. Its most important provision was the ten-hour limit which it placed on the work of women under twenty-one. The bill also provided seats for saleswomen, and specified the number of seats, one to every three clerks. It forbade the employment of children, except those holding working-certificates from the authorities.

But soon it was found that the smart representatives of the merchants had succeeded in attaching to the bill a so-called “joker,” by which the inspection of the stores was entrusted to the local boards of health. As the officials of these boards, supposedly experts, proved, in fact, ignorant of industrial conditions and their relation to health and sanitation, the true objects of the bill could not be enforced. So the Consumers’ League was compelled to wage another tedious war, until it finally succeeded in convincing the Legislature that the inspection of all department and retail stores should be turned over to the State Factory Department. When this was done, there were reported in the first three months of the enforcement of the Mercantile Law over 1200 violations in Greater New York. At the same time 923 under-age children were taken out of their positions as cash girls, stock girls, and wrappers, and sent back to school.

It was natural that the good results and the purely benevolent motives of the Consumers’ League attracted wide attention. Similar Associations were formed in many other cities and states. The movement spread so rapidly, that in 1899 it was possible to organize “The National Consumers’ League,” with branches in twenty-two states.

Encouraged by such success, the league now began to study the working conditions of girls employed in restaurants. It was found that in many cases these conditions were even worse than in the department stores. Girls of twenty years were found working as cooks from 6:30 in the morning to 11:30 at night, with no time off on Sundays or holidays! This meant 119 hours a week, more than twice the time the law permits for factory employees. Other girls, employed as waitresses, were serving every day from 7:30 a. m. to 10:30 p. m., or 105 hours each week! In going back and forth, they walked several miles a day, carrying heavy trays at the same time. In rush hours they worked at a constant nervous tension, for speed is one of their requirements. And they must not only remember a dizzying list of orders, but must fill them quickly and keep their temper under the exactions of the most rasping customer.

Based on such findings, the Consumers’ League of New York caused the framing of a bill by which the hours of women in restaurants were limited to 54 hours weekly, which gave the girls one day of rest in seven, and prohibited their working between 10 p. m. and 6 a. m. In October, 1917, this bill became a law. In a number of other states minimum wage laws have also been secured.

The Consumers’ League of Philadelphia took pains to investigate conditions in the silk mills of Pennsylvania. It was found that besides overwork and underpay there were often other evils, due to an erring as well as inhuman policy on the part of the employers. Like the owners of the department stores many of these men were possessed by the idea that the right to sit down would encourage slow work and laziness. Accordingly the girls in these mills were forced to stand from early morning till late at night, day after day, and month after month.

The secretary of the Consumers’ League, who, under an assumed name, worked for some time in various mills, in order to study conditions, wrote:

“The harmful effect of continuous standing, upon young and growing girls, is too well established a fact to require any elaboration. In addition to the permanent ill effects, much immediate and unnecessary suffering, especially in hot weather, is inflicted by the prohibition of sitting. I could always detect the existence of this rule by a glance at the stocking-feet of the workers, and at the rows of discarded shoes beneath the frames. For after a few hours the strain upon the swollen feet becomes intolerable, and one girl after another discards her shoes.”—

Another harsh and very common practice of employers is to cover the lower sashes of the windows with paint, and to fasten them so that they cannot be raised in hot weather. This is done “so that the girls don’t waste time looking out.”

The cruelty of these unnecessary rules is often aggravated by a most amazing lack of the common decencies and necessities of cleanliness.

One of the most difficult tasks of the Consumers’ League was to overcome the absolute unwillingness of storekeepers to compensate their saleswomen for overtime. If it would be possible to compute the amount of such unpaid labor performed after the regular hours in many stores as well as in the bookkeeping and auditing departments, especially during the Christmas season, the sum would be startling indeed. A circular issued by the Women’s Trade Union League of Chicago some years ago stated that the 3000 clerks in only one department store of that city had been required to work during the holiday season overtime to the total amount of 96,000 hours, without receiving any compensation. At the rate of only ten cents an hour these clerks suffered a loss of $9,600, at the rate of 25 cents an hour a loss of $24,000.

The first “Women’s Trade Union League” was organized in 1875 by Mrs. Emma Paterson, the wife of an English trade unionist. While travelling in America, she had observed that women workers of various trades had formed unions, among which the “Umbrella Makers’ Union,” the “Women’s Typographical Union” and the “Women’s Protective Union” were the most prominent. Convinced that the utility of such combinations could be still more increased, Mrs. Paterson, after her return to England, organized a federation of such women’s unions, the “British Women’s Trade Union League,” which later on became the model for a similar organization in America. It was founded on November 14th, 1903, for the one main purpose to organize all women workers into trade unions, in order to protect them from exploitation, to help them raise their wages, shorten their hours, and improve sanitary conditions of the work shops. Becoming affiliated with the “American Federation of Labor,” the league gained a splendid victory during the years 1909 to 1911, when a series of huge strikes in the sewing trades spread over the East and the Middle West. Also an agreement was arrived at, that the principle of preference to unionists, first enforced in Australia, should be acknowledged. Under this plan manufacturers, when hiring help, must give to union workers of the necessary qualifications and degree of skill precedence over non-union workers.

At all times ready to express the sentiments and voice the aspirations of those who toil, the “Women s Trade Union League” represents to-day over 100,000 working women. While it has had a wonderful effect in improving standards of wages, hours and sanitary conditions in what was originally an underpaid and unhealthy industry, it also has become the pioneer in another direction, that of education in the labor movement. At the initiative of a group of girls an educational movement was started which has extended into organizations including some half a million workers, men as well as women. In public schools of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and other cities educators of national reputation are co-operating with teachers and delegates from labor unions in giving lecture courses for adults on such subjects as social interpretation of literature, evolution of the labor movement, problems of reconstruction, social problems, trade unionism and co-operation, etc. At the same time a movement for co-operative housing has been developing. “The New York Ladies’ Waist and Dressmaker’s Union” for instance has bought in 1919 at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars a magnificent summer home for the exclusive use of its members. This “Unity House” at Forest Park, Pennsylvania, has accommodations for 500 guests. Situated at a beautiful lake, surrounded by shady forests and green lawns, provided with tennis courts, a library and reading rooms, it is an ideal recreation ground of first order. The money for this estate was brought up by the 30,000 members of the union, each contributing one day’s wages.

In New York City also a co-operative “Unity House” has been established with quarters for fifty girls. A great extension of this movement in the city is planned. The Philadelphia group of the same union is following these examples and has acquired a fine estate worth $40,000.

At present the various woman’s organizations of the United States as well as of other countries aim at the following issues:

1.

To limit the working day for women to eight hours.

2.

To demand for women equal pay with men for equal work.

3.

To establish for all the various occupations minimum wage scales, sufficient to grant all women workers an adequate living.

4.

To secure safe and sanitary working conditions, and clinics for the treatment of diseases resulting from certain industrial occupations.

5.

To secure industrial insurance laws.

6.

To secure for all women full citizenship with the right to vote in all municipal and national elections.

As woman’s future position will depend on the realization of these demands, their discussion is of utmost importance.

THE MOVEMENT FOR AN EIGHT-HOUR DAY.

As has been shown in a former chapter, innumerable valuable lives of workmen, women and, in former years, children have been sacrificed through the unreasonable exploitation by employers, who in their greed for profits had lost all consideration for the welfare of their fellow-men. Hundreds of thousands of laborers have been slowly worked to death as no sufficient amount of time for recuperation was granted them.

The only possible excuse for such incredible waste of human lives is that neither the employers nor the law-makers of those bygone days realized that the physical and mental abilities of the large laboring classes belong to the resources of a nation just as truly as do the water-power, the soil, the mineral deposits, the forests, and other natural means. Moreover, nobody was aware of the fact that it is one of the supreme duties of a wise government to guard these resources, so fundamentally necessary to the prosperity of a nation, from unscrupulous exploitation and possible destruction.

The danger of the reckless exploitation of laborers, especially of women workers, has increased considerably with the improvement of many machines, the greater speed and output of which demand far greater attention and strain than before on the part of the men or women operating them.

This is what Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War, said in 1917 at the annual meeting of the National Consumers’ League:

“Machinery has given us one great delusion. People have imagined that when a machine was operated by a steam engine or by an electric motor, the steam engine or the electric motor actually did all the work, and the people who were attending it while it operated were more or less negligible. As a consequence, we indulged in the very unfortunate and often fatal belief that unlimited hours of labor were possible because it was the machines which were doing the work. We overlooked the fact, which we have lately begun to appreciate, that the person who tends the power-driven machine is far more susceptible to exhaustion, is far more open to fatigue and to the poisons that affect the system and that come from over-exertion than ever before.”

Mrs. Florence Kelley, the able General Secretary of the National Consumers’ League, who studied woman’s occupation in the sewing trade, states that of late years the speed of the sewing machines has been increased so that girls using these improved machines are now responsible for twenty times as many stitches as twenty years ago, and that many girls and women, not capable of the sustained speed involved in this improvement, are no longer eligible for this occupation. Those who continue in the trade are required to feed twice as many garments to the machine as were required five years ago. The strain upon their eyes is, however, far more than twice what it was before the improvement. In the case of machines carrying multiple needles this is obvious; but it is true of the single needle machines as well.

When a girl cannot keep the pace she is thrown out. A comment frequently made by the girls about such an unfortunate comrade is: “She got too slow. She couldn’t keep up with her machine any longer.” It amounts to this, that the girl can earn a living wage, if she is unusually gifted, until she is worn out.

The nerve strain caused by innumerable rapid-working machines of the present day has become obvious in many cases. As the compressed air-hammer has shattered the nerves of many robust men, so the latest machines used in the sewing and other trades have impaired the health of many women. “Such nerve strain,” says Rheta Childe Dorr, “cannot be regulated. It is a Gordian knot that cannot be untied. The only thing to do is to cut it. The only solution of it is a shortened work-day. This is true for men as well as for women, but, in all probability, not to the same degree. Nerve strain affects men, certainly, and it demands, even in their case, a progressively shortened work-day as an alternative to a progressively shortened work-life. But with women the case becomes infinitely more urgent, infinitely more tragic, in exact proportion as woman’s nervous system is more unstable than man’s and more easily shaken from its equilibrium.”

The advantages of an eight-hour day with rest at night for women and children have been summed up as follows:

1.—Where the working day is short, the workers are less predisposed to diseases arising from fatigue. They are correspondingly less in danger of being out of work, for sickness is in turn one of the great causes of unemployment.

2.—Accidents have diminished conspicuously wherever working hours have been reduced.

3.—The workers have better opportunity for continuing their education out of working hours. Where they do this intelligently they become more valuable and are correspondingly less likely to become victims of unemployment.

4.—A short working day established by law tends automatically to regularize work. The interest of the employer is to have all hands continuously active, and no one sitting idly waiting for needles, or thread, or materials, or for machines to be repaired. Every effort is bent towards having work ready for every hour of every working day in the year. In unregulated industry, on the contrary, there are cruel alternations of idleness and overwork.

5.—For married women wage-earners it is especially necessary to have the working day short and work regular. For when they leave their workplace it is to cook, sew, and clean at home, sometimes even to care for the sick.—

In the movement for an eight-hour day for the women workers its advocates have already succeeded in Australia, Great Britain, Germany, Denmark, Porto Rico, and Mexico. The eight-hour day has also been secured for all employees of the U. S. Government and for the women and workmen of a large number of the states.

EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK.

That women are entitled to equal pay with men for equal work, was recognized by the ancient Babylonians five or six thousand years ago. The justice of this demand is so self-evident, that it would hardly seem to need any discussion. Notwithstanding all labor organizations have been compelled to place it on their program, as many factory owners employed the cheaper woman- and child-labor only in order to underbid and reduce the wages of the male laborers. As female laborers have been much more poorly organized than men, they have been less capable of maintaining their claims.

The first equal opportunity and equal pay laws were passed in the State of Washington. In 1890 a section was added to her Labor Laws reading as follows: “Hereafter in this state every avenue of employment shall be open to women; and any business, vocation, profession, and calling followed and pursued by men may be followed and pursued by women, and no person shall be disqualified from engaging in or pursuing any business, vocation, profession, calling or employment on account of sex.”

Section 5 of Industrial Welfare Commission of the State of Washington, Order of September 10, 1918, is the first general equal pay law: “That women doing equal work with men in any occupation, trade, or industry in this state shall receive the same compensation therefor as men during work of the same character and of like quantity and quality, the determination of what constitutes equal work to rest with the Industrial Welfare Commission.”

THE MEANING OF THE MINIMUM WAGE.

The interests of every community demand that all workers, male as well as female, shall receive a fair living wage, to save them from pernicious effects upon their health and morals. The dangers to the health of women have been found to be twofold: lack of adequate nourishment and lack of medical care in sickness. Careful investigations as well as statistics have proven that with insufficient wages food is necessarily cut down below the requirements of subsistence, and health inevitably suffers. In order to meet unavoidable expenses for lodging and clothing, workingwomen reduce their diet to the lowest possible point.

On the moral side, authorities agree in the opinion that, while underpayment and the consequent struggle to live may not be the primary cause for entering upon an immoral life, it is inevitably a highly important factor. When wages are too low to supply nourishment and other human needs, temptation is more readily yielded to.

The discovery that inadequate wages menace the morals of women and through them the interests and the good name of the community in which they work, has had much to do with the adoption of minimum-wage laws in America as well as in other parts of the world.

In the United States the first minimum-wage orders were those of the Oregon Industrial Commission, which fixed $8.64 as the legal weekly minimum for manufacturing establishments, and $9.25 for mercantile establishments, in the City of Portland. These rates were based upon the testimony of workers and employers gathered by the Oregon Consumers’ League. The testimony had shown that the prevailing wage for beginners in department stores was $3.00 a week; that nearly half of these girls and women employed were receiving less than $9.00, and that female clerks never received above $10.00 a week, no matter how long the term of their service.

After learning from the employers what wages were actually paid, the Oregon investigators sought to determine the amount necessary to protect the health and morals of the women workers through an examination of market prices and a careful study of the actual expenditures of the workers. One hundred and sixteen department-store workers furnished the information for the following table of averages:

These figures show that a majority of these women actually received less than it cost them to live.

Investigations carried on in order to find how these women met the difference, disclosed that many of them, whether living at home or boarding, did extra chores in the morning before going to work and after work-hours in the evening. Others went into debt. And still others became “charity girls”—that is, they kept company with “gentlemen friends,” who came up for the balance, sometimes under promise of marriage when these “friends” should feel able to set up a household. That such promises are not always kept and that the girls quite often sink to lower levels, are facts well known.

The first law embodying the principle of the minimum wage was enacted in New Zealand 25 years ago. From there it spread gradually to the other Australian States. In 1896 Victoria, the largest industrial State of Australia, passed the first act providing for special boards to fix minimum wages in different trades. Beginning with a few sweat-shop industries, the movement has grown by successive special acts, until, in 1916, there were about 150 trades or occupations in which minimum wages were set by special wage boards.

The same general plan was followed by Great Britain in the trade boards act of 1909. This bill, introduced in Parliament by delegates of the English Anti-sweating League and of the National Consumers’ League in January, 1909, was passed and signed in time to take effect at New Years, 1910.

In the United States, up to the end of 1918, minimum-wage laws had been enacted in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and in the District of Columbia, guaranteeing a living wage to women workers, especially in unorganized trades.

EFFORTS TO SECURE SAFE AND SANITARY WORKING CONDITIONS AND CLINICS FOR THE TREATMENT OF DISEASES RESULTING FROM INDUSTRIAL OCCUPATIONS.

When in the industries human power began to be supplanted by steam-driven machines, when competition grew fierce and fiercer, it was found that with the ever increasing speed of the whirling wheels the dangers that threatened the workmen increased enormously. The use of almost every machine has brought with it some peculiar peril, this one crushing a finger or cutting a limb of the person in charge; that one tearing out an arm or killing the operator if for a fraction of a second his thoughts strayed from his work, or if he became drowsy after long hours of work.

It was also found that many persons, engaged in certain occupations, became afflicted by peculiar diseases, unknown before and strictly confined to the persons doing that special work.

According to conservative estimates, of the 38,000,000 wage earners of the United States, in every year 30,000 to 33,000 are killed by industrial accidents. In addition, there are approximately 2,000,000 non-fatal accidents.

Imagine a plain strewn with 35,000 corpses and two million men and women crying out under the pain of severe lacerations, burns, cuts, bruises, dislocations and fractures! Imagine the horrible sight of so many human beings with limbs torn into shreds, with faces having empty eye-holes, with breasts heaving from the effect of poisonous gases! If such numbers of men and women were killed and wounded in one day at one place, the whole world would be terrified, and register the day as the most dreadful in history. But as these losses extend over a whole year and a large territory, our nation takes only slight notice of them, hardly thinking of the fact, that these immense losses and sufferings are terrible realities, which affect the economic wealth of our nation as a whole in a very serious way.

These conditions are the more deplorable as the majority of such accidents could be avoided by intelligent and rational methods, as is done in other civilized countries, where the possibilities for successful prevention of accidents have been clearly demonstrated.

Granting that many of such industrial accidents are the result of ignorance, reckless indifference or carelessness, the fact remains that much that could be done in our country for the protection of working people is neglected.

When in Europe with the increase of industries the number of accidents and “professional diseases” swelled in proportion, some philanthropists and economists, interested in the welfare of their fellow-citizens and convinced that every life saved is a national asset, became alarmed and searched for means to prevent such calamities. When in 1855 the first World’s Exposition was held at Paris, it had a special department in which were exhibited inventions for the safety of working people. Later on a permanent “Musée social” was established.

Since then similar institutions have been opened in Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Amsterdam, Brussels, Zurich, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Budapest, Milan, Moscow, and several other places. These museums contain the latest and most select inventions for the restriction of accidents and in the interest of industrial hygiene. And as all exhibits are arranged in separate groups according to the various professions, every manufacturer and every working man and woman can inform himself without loss of time about all new inventions relating to his special trade.

Perhaps the most comprehensive and most scientific of these museums is that of Charlottenburg, a suburb of Berlin. Its wonderfully interesting character is evident from the moment one enters the magnificent building, which occupies a whole city block. There are long rows of figures equipped with the various types of masks and helmets used by miners, divers, fire-fighters, and laborers, working in rooms filled with poisonous gases, dust, or irrespirable smoke. There are all the implements and attachments for the protection of persons working on men-killing machines.

There are casts in plaster and reproductions in wax illustrating all the dreadful skin diseases and deformities of the limbs, by which the laborers engaged in certain industries become afflicted. Other exhibits illustrate what measures should be taken for the improvement of the conditions of the working classes; how to furnish the best nourishment at the lowest cost; how to settle laborers in pleasant colonies, and how to treat those, who have become sick or afflicted with industrial diseases.

Among the most important exhibits are the statistics of three institutions provided for all persons employed in workshops and factories.

Germany was first among the nations to recognize the need of reforms in the social conditions of the working classes. Before 1870 wages had been low, and many of the evils that developed in other industrial countries had spread to Germany. Believing that the working classes have a right to be considered by the State the Government in 1881 initiated the era of “State social politics,” which brought about an enormous change in the condition of the working classes. Besides many reforms in regard to the length of the working hours and to women’s and children’s labor, this State socialism provided for three important institutions: first, a compulsory insurance against sickness; second, a compulsory insurance against accidents; third, a compulsory insurance against invalidity and old age.

To the funds of the first class all laborers earning less than 2000 marks a year must pay two-thirds, and the employer one-third of the weekly premiums. In case of sickness, the insured person receives half the amount for twenty-six weeks. Doctors, hospitals and medicines are free. In 1913 14,555,609 laborers, men and women, were protected in this way. Many poor mothers were supported for several weeks before and after confinement. To prevent sickness, especially tuberculosis, the institution supported numbers of sanitariums and recreation homes, where thousands of people, who would otherwise have perished, regained their health.

The insurance fees against accidents had to be paid entirely by the employer. In case of an accident, it was not the employer in whose factory it had happened who was held responsible, but the whole group of employers in the same branch of industry. Every group was compelled to establish an insurance company. In 1913 there were 25,800,000 men and women thus protected. An injured laborer received, during the time of his disability, two-thirds of his wages, also free medical treatment. In case of his death the family received at once fifteen per cent. of his annual wages and an annual support of sixty per cent. As the employers naturally wish to keep the amount of expenses as low as possible, this kind of compulsory insurance greatly stimulated the invention and institution of measures by which accidents may be prevented.

The premiums for the insurance against invalidity and old age were paid half by the employees and half by the employer. Support was given to invalids without regard to age, and to persons above seventy years. To every lawful pension the Government contributed 50 marks. In 1914 16,551,500 people were protected by this insurance. In the one year of 1913, the amount distributed among needy people by these three branches of insurance was 775,000,000 marks. The miners of Germany were protected by similar institutions. The splendid results of such compulsory insurance induced the Government to prepare a special insurance for widows and orphans. It may be mentioned that the management of these insurance companies was entirely in the hands of the working classes and the employers.

All in all, the “Permanent Expositions for the Welfare of the Working Classes,” as they exist in Berlin and in other European capitals, demonstrate what intelligent nations can do for the protection and the welfare of their laborers. How many millions of useful lives have been saved by the inventions brought here to the knowledge of the public, and what vast amounts of suffering, sorrow and tears have been averted, we can only guess.

In view of these facts it must be stated that our United States, which of all countries is the greatest in industry and suffers most heavily through industrial accidents and diseases, is among the most backward in regard to social legislation as well as in the effort to interest employers and employees in these welfare institutions which are of such vital value for both parties.

Yes, there was in 1910 a “Museum of Safety” established in New York, but so far it has remained the only one in the entire western hemisphere. And, as it is housed in the lower floors of an insignificant building in 24th Street, it has failed to attract the attention and the support of the masses.

In my opinion, every state should have a permanent museum which brings to public knowledge all inventions relating to the special industries and trades followed by its population. The agricultural states may confine themselves to exhibits by which accidents connected with the pursuit of agriculture can be prevented. The mining states may give preference to everything that increases safety in the mines. The states bordering our oceans and great lakes should collect all devices that make navigation safer; our industrial states must direct their efforts to collect such inventions as may restrict accidents in workshops and factories. If this should be done, and if our governments, legislators and factory inspectors would demand the installation of such inventions, the terrific number of victims that perish every year upon our industrial battlefields would most assuredly be greatly diminished. It is to these aims that our statesmen as well as our male and female workers should direct their utmost endeavors.