THE consumer is he who uses wealth. Each of us, therefore, is a consumer. The wealth which we use is of two classes. The first includes natural products; the second, those commodities which have been made from natural products through human agency. To the first class belongs the wild berry which one picks for his own use, and for which he is beholden to no one. To the second belongs the cultivated berry, which is served to one at his own table without labor or forethought on his part. The second berry may be considered to be the first one plus the thought and ingenuity and manual labor that were expended in cultivating, transporting, and serving it. Of the first kind of wealth, the average consumer uses ever less, of the second ever more, and thus his dependence upon his fellows increases.

A person uses wealth for the purpose of satisfying his desires. But other people as well as he have desires, which must be satisfied, if at all, by natural wealth or by natural wealth adapted to human use by human agency. Of unsatisfied desires the world is full. Some, to be sure, are unworthy, but after we have stricken these out, the number is still appalling. We want food, and good food. Some of us go hungry, and some get sick because we are forced to eat bad food. We want safe water, and thousands of us die every year because we cannot get it. We want parks or large open spaces, with good roads and paths and plenty of comfortable seats, with green grass, flowers, trees, playgrounds, gymnasiums, and lunch rooms. We want beautiful factories and public buildings, good schools, and libraries. We want beautiful houses, furniture, clothes. Of these good things some of us have all, more of us have only part, and many of us have none.

When we try to explain the fact that so many legitimate desires are unfulfilled, the first reason that occurs to us is the fact that wealth is not fairly distributed. This no one can gainsay. No one pretends that incomes are proportioned to desert, to need, or even to men’s capacity for using them for the public good. This, however, is a fact over which the average person has little control. The most he can do is to give moral support to the specialist who is trying to think out a fairer means of distribution.

There is, however, another reason for want, the responsibility for which comes nearer home. This is the tremendous waste involved in our present method of making and distributing commodities. As a people we seem to have little idea of measuring our resources, our natural wealth, and the productive power that lies in our hands and brains up against our needs, and of using them wisely and economically for the general good. Although we understand the relation between good food and physical efficiency, we spend time and energy in coloring, adulterating, and otherwise sophisticating wholesome, natural food materials. We make numberless articles of the same general character and of approximately the same merit or demerit, and then we spend enough energy exploiting them to feed all the hungry in the land. We know the relation of clothing to health and to the development of taste, and yet we multiply many fold the amount of labor necessary to clothe ourselves by making textile fabrics which fade, shrink, and wear out prematurely. We need strong, skillful, intelligent workers in every line of activity, and we know that these can be produced only by careful training and education; and yet, in some states, West Virginia, for example, we send little boys as young as twelve into the mines to work all day underground, and we allow girls of the same age to work in ill-ventilated shops, leaving them oftentimes to find their way home after nightfall through the worst districts of our great cities.

But some one says: “I am not responsible. I am the buyer and user, not the maker nor the seller. I determine neither what shall be made nor the conditions under which it shall be made.” To which the answer comes in no uncertain accents from two sources: from the shopkeeper, on the one hand, who says in the words so familiar to us all, “There is no demand for it, so I do not keep it in stock”; and from the social economist, on the other, who says, “The producing man is essentially the servant of the consuming man, and the final direction of industry lies with the consumers.”

If the consumers of wealth, by their demands, determine what shall be made and under what conditions it shall be made and sold, what shall we say of the housewife and her responsibility? She holds a unique position among consumers. She buys not only that which she herself uses, but much of that which the adult members of her family, and all of that which her young children consume. Thus she assumes vicariously their responsibility and holds their consciences. This is one of the great social burdens which a woman takes upon herself when she makes a home.

To understand the problem of the home-maker, in her capacity as consumer and buyer, we must remember that there are “two distinct responsibilities. One is the responsibility for the conditions under which things are made, the other is the responsibility for their being made at all.” The first is for waste of life and productive power through child labor, underpay, and unsanitary places for work. This can be met only by organized methods. The second, the responsibility for the fact that one article is made instead of another which would have satisfied a larger number of real wants, each home-maker must meet individually by careful and conscientious regulation of her own expenditures.

That some women have accepted the first form of responsibility, the existence and growth of the National Consumers’ League, with its various state and local branches, testify. The object of this league is to investigate, as the individual can not, the conditions under which articles are made. Wishing to do thoroughly what it undertakes, it is at present confining its attention to one branch of industry, and that a branch in which the waste of human life is conspicuous—“the manufacture of women’s and children’s stitched white cotton underwear.” This industry lends itself readily to sweatshop methods, with all the attendant danger to the consumer from contagious diseases, to the worker from the lowering of wages and of the standard of living.

The way in which the league works may be briefly described. Upon request of a manufacturer it investigates his shop. If it finds that the state factory law is obeyed, that all goods are made on the premises, that overtime is not worked, that no children under sixteen are employed, and that the surroundings of the workers are clean and healthful, it grants the use of its label. This label can, if the manufacturer so desires, be stamped on all goods that leave his factory.

The investigations of the league naturally lead to activities of other kinds. It is often found that the only objection to granting the use of the label is the fact that children under sixteen are employed. If this is in accordance with the state factory law, the next thing to do is to get the law changed. This is usually the task which the state leagues take upon themselves. The work of these state leagues has recently been summarized by the national league and published in the form of a handbook, which may be obtained from the headquarters in New York City.

After the label has been granted, there must be a market for the goods. The creation of a demand for label goods is one of the duties of the local branches that are springing up in many cities and towns. Besides this, these branches prepare, in some cities, for the convenience of purchasers, “white lists” of shops which reach certain standards with reference to wages and to treatment of their employees. They urge the granting of half holidays during the summer months, and seek to save clerks and delivery men from the horrors of the Christmas trade by inducing people to do their shopping early in the season and to refuse to receive any goods delivered late at night.

The members of the league recognize the fact that their power to protect themselves and to clear their consciences with reference to that which they use lies in their ability to organize. They recognize also that below them is a class of buyers too weak and too ignorant to band together for the protection either of themselves or of those who make and sell the grade of goods which they use. A large part of its work, therefore, is educational, and aims to bring the public up to a point where it will demand protection for all consumers and all workers. To this end it distributes annually large quantities of valuable literature.

The league has been obliged lately to turn much of its attention to the establishment of the constitutionality of many of the laws passed for the protection of women and children. That great victory by which the Oregon law limiting the hours of women’s labor was declared constitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States was won chiefly through its efforts. Encouraged by this decision, it is renewing its efforts in other states.

But in connection with the distribution of household commodities, as well as in connection with their production, there are shameful wastes. In order to advertise their wares, some manufacturers disfigure towns and routes of travel with hideous billboards, and injure or destroy natural beauties. I stood on the platform of the station at Harper’s Ferry, one beautiful September day, and looked across the river to a magnificent bluff crowned with autumn foliage. There on the rocky face of the bluff had been painted an enormous round advertisement, with white letters nine feet high on a background of black. It read, “Use Blank’s Talcum Powder.” Blank’s talcum had up to that time been a household commodity with me. Since then, of course, I have used other brands. But of what use in combating an evil of this sort is my individual protest except as a source of satisfaction to myself, a revenge for the disfigurement of a favorite view? I am much more effective as a member of the American Civic Association, which is making organized warfare against the advertising evil, than I am as a private protester and complainer, even if I take no further part in its work than to contribute my yearly dues. In some such organized movement against the evils connected with distribution housekeepers must join, if they are to meet their full responsibility.

The home-maker, in her capacity as buyer for a family, is largely responsible for that which is made as well as for the conditions under which it is made and the methods employed in its distribution. Here she must act single-handed, and decide for herself what it is worth while to buy. In one section of his “Studies in Economics,” William Smart draws a lesson from the record of his personal expenses. The items of the account he has grouped under various heads—food, dress, shelter, etc. With reference to the various heads, he says that if he spends more for food than he needs for health he gives himself a form of pleasure which he cannot share with others, and which is of the most fleeting character. If, on the other hand, he spends more for dress than he actually needs for comfort, he stands a chance of pleasing the eyes of others as well as his own, and besides, an article of dress discarded before it is worn out may keep some one else warm for a long time. Thus extravagance in dress is likely to give pleasure to more people and for a longer time than extravagance in food. The third head is “shelter.” If he puts more into a house than he needs, he may be building not only for the present, but for future generations. Here he stops, leaving us to go on in imagination through the other heads, “books,” “travel,” etc. By this simple illustration he shows to us poor laymen what he means by the rather appalling title of his article, “The Socializing of Consumption.” For what is society but other people, and what is it to socialize consumption but to spend one’s income for the greatest good of the greatest number? The choice between various forms of expenditure comes when we spend more than is absolutely necessary. Then we have a chance to choose between that, which we, by consuming, will destroy (ice cream, let us say) and that which we can consume and yet pass on to others (a book or periodical, which we can read and lend to the neighbors). And what we demand and use will determine the form which wealth will take in the future.

But no one is going to be able to compare what he needs to spend for a given item and what he really does spend unless he keeps a strict account. For this reason we find specialists in home economics urging women to keep accounts, and to keep them in such form that they can easily be tabulated so as to show what per cent of the income goes for food, what for rent, etc. At a home economics exhibit which was held in connection with a meeting of the Association of Collegiate Alumnæ there was a household cabinet arranged for keeping records according to the card system. This was filled with cards in actual use by a woman interested in home economics.

No consideration of the duties of woman as a consumer would be in any degree complete without mention of her obligation to train her children to the proper use of that wealth which they have in common with others. The wealth which we hold in common—public school buildings, parks, playgrounds, museums, art galleries, streets, and highways—is rapidly increasing. Children must be trained to think of this wealth as theirs, and of the obligation to protect it and to use it well as theirs. They are too likely to think of all the obligations connected with it as belonging to a far-off, impersonal government. They must be made to see that the man who follows them about in the park and picks up their peanut shells and crackerjack boxes might be making or tending a swing for the delight of scores of children, or a flower bed for the delight of hundreds. They must be made to see that when they pick out beautiful, sweet-smelling places for picnics, and leave them strewn with papers, tin cans, and watermelon rinds, they are not only misusing their own property, but are interfering with the rights of others who have title to it also.

There is a way of using wealth which impoverishes the world. There is another way which enriches it. It is this second way which the conscientious home-maker is ever seeking to find and to show to her child.

WE have considered the effect of social, industrial, and political changes upon woman, upon man, upon the household employee, upon the health and beauty of the home, and upon the relations between the producer and consumer of wealth. It remains to ask how they are affecting the home itself, considered as an institution. Are they tending to cripple and destroy it, or are they merely tending to modify its external form and the “minutia of its daily usages”? Or is there perhaps a third and a better possibility that for the very reason that they are changing its form they are increasing its possibilities for social usefulness and for the enrichment of individual lives?

These questions can be answered only in the light of a clear distinction between the spirit of home and the form of home, between the purpose that lies back of its various activities and the material means which it employs for the accomplishment of that purpose. To spirit, the one essential is love. The love that leads to the founding of most homes has its origin in and springs from sex attraction, but crowns that purely self-regarding instinct with an unselfish desire for the welfare and happiness of its object. The impulse may, however, come from the love of parents who seek satisfactory means of preparing the child for independent life, or from the love of comrades who seek mutual helpfulness in close association, or from a love of broader application which seeks to provide a meeting place for those of like interests and aspirations. Something there must be of other-regarding affection, or the spirit is wanting.

Of this unselfish affection home is the expression, and all those material things which we are in the habit of associating with the home are the tools of the expression. Roofs and walls, furniture and dishes, may or may not be part of home. They are such only when they represent some one’s affectionate desire to secure for another the good things of life. Since home is an expression of affection, and not a means of making one’s self comfortable and happy, it follows that it approaches the ideal in proportion as love is strong and is successfully expressed. When one loves another very much, he desires that that other person may attain to completeness of life, and seeks to assist him to make full use of all the means at hand and to overcome, as far as possible, all those obstacles which are due to his natural endowment, or to his environment, and which lie between him and success. Men especially seem to forget that by means of their homes they can do more than protect their wives and shield them from hardship; that they can give them positive assistance in making the most of themselves and of their powers. This is what the intimate association that the home offers is for. If the home does not offer the opportunity for mutual understanding, it is a failure; but if it does not add mutual helpfulness, in the broadest sense, to mutual understanding, it is a worse failure; and it is frequently upon the external form of the home that its possibilities for such helpfulness depend.

Since the chief factor in determining the form of home is the need of the opportunity for close and intimate and helpful association, we may disregard the popular fear that the home will finally take upon itself the characteristics of a public institution, and will cease to offer facilities for private family life. Human intelligence, which suits means to ends, and which is ever coming to the aid of human affection, will prevent that. So long as affection lasts it will seek satisfactory expression in home life, and so long as intelligence endures it will stand in the way of the extension of the borders of the home beyond the possibilities of the mutual helpfulness to its members.

If home is to be a perfect expression of affection, it must not only provide the opportunity for close association, but it must also from time to time adjust itself and its activities to the opportunities which society offers to men and to women in fields unconnected with the household. If the home-making of either man or woman is to be satisfactory, it must not interfere unnecessarily or arbitrarily with the outside work that is offered to the other partner in home-making enterprise. This rule affects man’s home-making at present more than it does woman’s, for her opportunities are multiplying more rapidly than his, and they must be taken into account by him. At present, woman’s life differs from man’s not so much in the variety of occupations that are open to her as in the extent to which the home interferes with these occupations. Part of this interference is, of course, inevitable, being connected with the bearing and rearing of children; but part is avoidable, being connected with details of housekeeping which might be entrusted to specialists. If all women except professional housekeepers were relieved of the tasks of cooking and cleaning, or of the superintendence of such work, the external form of the average home would be somewhat radically changed. Much less of its space would be given to kitchen and laundry, and it would be planned to accommodate fewer industries. In this form, however, it might offer even more facilities for family life than it does now, and even larger opportunities for close association and mutual helpfulness. It might, too, offer to man a better chance than he has at present to express his love for his wife by helping her to take advantage of the opportunities offered to her outside of the home, and to add the pleasures of the cultivation and use of special talents to the joys of home and of family life.

But we have said that the home must at any given time provide those material and creature comforts which the individual cannot secure through other channels. Because of their recognition and acceptance of this fact, women are doing and will probably continue for a long time to do work of which they might be relieved. It is common to think of this work as necessary because of the mechanical difficulties lying in the way of public housekeeping for the benefit of private home-making. As a matter of fact, most of the difficulties of this kind have been removed. Food can be prepared satisfactorily in much larger quantities than it is in private houses. This is proved by the quality of the food that is served in first-class hotels, restaurants, and clubs. There is a greater cleanliness than that of private homes. This is proved by the fact that surgeons insist upon performing operations in hospitals, where the cleaning is done by specialists under expert direction. A few problems, those involved in the satisfactory transportation of cooked food, for example, remain to be solved, but these seem small when considered in connection with the inventive skill shown in other industrial enterprises. The real difficulty in the way is, of course, social rather than mechanical. There seems no doubt that by general agreement among the housekeepers of a given community to avail themselves more largely than at present of the results of modern industrial development, radical changes could be made in the form of the home and in its activities without decreasing the comfort and enjoyment of home life.

Perhaps the only real danger to the home lies in the fact that women, who are its natural protectors, are not free to control the industrial changes which affect it, and that these changes are being determined too largely by commercial interests. Experience has shown that women have had only a passive part in the removal of industries from the home, and that business enterprises have had a very active part. It has shown, also, that these changes have not been followed as speedily as they should have been by legislation necessary for the control of the industries under their new conditions. How slowly, for example, the Pure Food Law followed the factory method of preparing foods! Women must be freer to work in the interest of the home and of the children. They must be free from unnecessary labor and care within the home, and able to work for it in public; they must be free economically, and able to control their own incomes and to make experiments for themselves in new methods of housekeeping; they must be free politically, and able to control, by means of the ballot, public methods of preparing and transporting food, of caring for streets, of educating children, and of doing other work which affects the welfare of the home.

Present conditions in the home seem to demand that women must have greater and not less freedom in its service, greater and not less power for use in its protection; and so long as love and intelligence last, they may be expected to use added freedom and added power for the benefit of family life. They may be expected to do more and not less work for the home by adding to their work for it in private a public work demanded by its changed position.