The girl's fight for a living; how to protect working women from dangers due to low wages

Front matter

HOW

FROM ©ANGERS T6 LOW WA^

^\w&JMaaaL

Preface

Chapter

I— "The Bitterest Battle of AIT II — What is a Living Wage? .

Ill — The Minimum Wage Campa IV — Low Wages and Immorality V — The Illinois Investigation VI — Data Given by Employers VII— The Testimony in Detail .

VIII — More Important Evidence IX — The Inquiry Widens . .

X — Investigation in Peoria XI — Many Governors Co-operate XII — Conditions in Washington XIII — Many Girls Resent Charges XIV — Opinions of the Press .

XV— What Girls and Women Say XVI— Two Views of the Problem gn

. 7

Page . 11

. 19

. 27

. 45

. 51

. 65

. 72

195-200

PREFACE

In this wonderful period of the world's progress the welfare of working women has taken its place among the problems that urgently demand solution.

The most recent development is the formation of public opinion on the subject of a " living wage" for girls and women who are compelled to earn a livelihood. Throughout the United States public attention has been focused on this subject by the work of a Commission of the State Senate of Illinois, appointed to investigate the so-called " white slave traffic" in the state and "to devise a comprehensive plan for the complete suppression of such traffic. "

Very early in their investigations the members of the Commission sought testimony from employers and employed on the question whether or not there is any connection between the low wages paid to women in many industrial and commercial establishments and the immorality and commercialized vice admitted to be sadly prevalent in our cities and towns.

The views of witnesses examined by the Illinois Commission differ widely on this question and a similar divergence of opinion is found among public men, employers, and leaders in women's work throughout the United States, while public opinion in general appears to support the contention that at least a partial solution of the problem will be found in the establishment by law of a " minimum wage " for women workers.

PREFACE

The purpose of this book, therefore, is to present, as impartially as possible, the results of the investigations already made, by the Illinois senators and many others, in order that a clear view may be had of the justice of the demand for a living wage as a means of suppressing immorality and vice in our larger centers of population.

The public interest in the question is intense. All classes of the community are concerned. Not only the workers whose pay envelopes will be affected by remedial legislation; the employers who will have to pay the increased wages or change their systems of help; the relatives dependent in whole or in part on the wages of women, and the parents whose girls are now or may be engaged in industrial effort, — not only these, but all classes of every community are interested in this grave economic problem as far as it concerns the comfort, the happiness, and the morality of the working women of America.

There is no desire to strive after the sensational in this volume. The evidence given before the Illinois Commission is sensational enough, in all conscience, and is presented here without exaggeration or coloring. The testimony, so far as it is used, is given fairly and impartially, as reported through mediums that would be naturally inclined perhaps to favor the views of the employer — the advertiser. But to the great credit of the newspapers be it said that whatever their editorial views may be, they have not failed, as a rule, to report the evidence in a spirit of fairness and the same spirit will be observed in these pages.

The effort has been made to give employer and employed alike a square deal, leaving the public to make the final

PREFACE

decision whether the demand for a minimum wage for women^is justified by the facts.

In the evidence given by employers many intimate details of business are brought out, while the testimony of employed girls and other women not so fortunate casts a bright light on many dark spots in our social organization. The result is a mass of information that will tend to clarify the public view and aid in the wise expression of the public will through state or national legislation.

T. H. R.

Chicago, April 10, 1913.

Chapter I "THE BITTEREST BATTLE OF ALL"

What connection, if any, is there between the low wages admittedly paid to thousands of young girls and women in our varied industries and the frightful wave of immorality and vice that, with equal candor, is generally admitted to be flooding our centers of population?

This question has been carefully considered from many standpoints of late and the answers are widely divergent, but through them all there seems to run a current of conviction that present conditions cry aloud for some amendment.

From the President of the United States to the little cash girl in the department store and her anxious mother at home, the question is agitating all our people. It will not down until it is settled — and settled aright, in the interest of our common humanity.

The Bureau of Labor at Washington has wrestled with the problem and in a report declares that as a direct and immediate cause of girls going wrong low wages are "almost a negligible factor," though indirectly their influence is "marked and disastrous. "

Many great employers of labor, too, can see little or no direct connection between low wages and immorality, asserting that the prime causes of vice are lack of moral stamina, improper environment in the home, and the influence of evil associates.

On the other hand, a noted woman investigator of social and business conditions emphatically says : " In my judgment the close connection between low wages and vice is unquestionable, and as wages stand now in the stores, in the shops, and in the factories, a heavy percentage of them are much too low for public safety. "

"Neither lack of living wages alone nor of moral training only is entirely responsible for the wrecks upon the stream of life," says another investigator, "but both together go far to determine the fate of the many unfortunates.' '

"The Bitterest Battle"

"No girl, be she rich or poor, is perfectly safe from the innumerable temptations that beset her on every hand in a great city," he continued. "But the poor girl working for a pittance has the bitterest battle of all. To her the terrible temptations are doubly trying.

"Anyone who declares this is not a question of wages cannot be correctly informed or does not dare to tell the truth, but anybody who says it is simply a question of wages is equally in error. This is both a question of morals and of money and of much more. The lack of moral and religious training of our boys and girls has much to do with it."

What Some Women Say

Now read one of the many letters from women of the underworld, received by the Illinois Vice Commission. The writer said:

To the Commission: — Girls don't go wrong because they are hungry or because they need clothes. They go wrong because they are tempted by lies and overpowered by the evil in men.

"THE BITTEREST BATTLE OF ALL 1 13

They listen to the fair and pretty things that men tell them, and they fall because they think they can trust themselves and trust the tempters. The employer — I was a good girl and I worked in a store.

I didn't get much money, but that did not matter. I lived on $8 a week and would be living like that now, but I met men. They seemed to consider me their prey and all the time it was fight — fight. They wanted to be nice to me, they said, and take me to the theaters and treat me fair — and give me a chance to enjoy life.

I didn't know men were bad, all bad — where a girl is concerned. I thought only women were bad. I thought all a girl had to do to remain good was to be truthful with herself. God pity women who think that and who keep their trust in men until it is too late.

Every day it was someone else — always smiling at me, always trying to give me a "fair chance" to be happy. In the street they followed me. These I could avoid — but the "friends" who hung around!

That is the big, big secret of the thing that makes a good girl bad. If they had let me be — if they had only let me be — only let me live as I wanted to, I would not have to slink into the room when your Commission was trying to solve things and wouldn't have had to sit in a corner with a veil down, afraid to look good women in the face.

Another cry from the underworld, signed "L. M.," echoed the words of the first letter. It was more bitter, though, and it read in part:

You're looking for the things that made such women as I. Low wages! Dance halls! Hunger! Cold! They all helped a bit, but they did not turn the trick themselves.

I don't know any girls who sold themselves for money to buy bread or clothes, but I do know lots of us who hit the road for hell because a lot of blackguards kept hounding us with their rotten "attentions. " God help the men and not us. We're all right when we start — all we need is to be left alone. There are hundreds and hundreds of kids and sports who hang around State street and wait like wolves for the tired girls to leave the stores.

Why don't you make the men be good? All the wages in the world won't help us. Make the men good and the girls will be good. Now they haven't got a chance and they never will as long as the law smiles at one and spits at another.

Moral Reform Needed

Regarding the need of reform a Chicago pastor said in his Easter sermon:

"Vice and crime and immorality — in high places and low, in public and private life — are assuming alarming proportions. The cry goes up, 'What shall I do to stop it?' Put a few more policemen walking beats, put more laws on the statute books, build a few more prisons, and then you imagine you will turn this generation towards high righteous living. This is like curing a disease by rubbing a little liniment on the outside."

When Opinions Differ

Here then we have examples of widely different opinions and before any correct solution of the problem can be arrived at the public must decide which is right and which is wrong.

Can a girl working for $5 or $6, with necessary expenses amounting to $8 a week, make both ends meet without resorting to evil courses?

That is part of the question that needs a satisfactory answer, but it is only a part. Should a girl be compelled to work for a mere living wage — the pittance that will furnish only necessary food, shelter and clothing — or

"THE BITTEREST BATTLE OF ALL" 15

should she be enabled to enjoy also some little comforts and to lay aside something for the future out of her wage? This also calls for an answer and will be considered later on.

Worse Than Black Slavery

"Before the civil war," said Lieutenant Governor Barratt O'Hara, chairman of the Illinois Vice Commission, "this country had black slavery. In return for his unremitting industry the black slave received his living. If it is true that the women of today are working eight and ten hours a day and practically surrendering their liberty as well as their industry through long hours, as testified before the Commission in many instances, then they are receiving less than a living. In such cases only one term can be applied, whether their condition be moral or immoral, and that is white slave and that presents to the nation a bigger question, if anything, than that of the black slave.

"This condition has been growing in the realization of the people for years, and the solution can be obtained only through the co-operation of the employers and the employed. The Commission's only endeavor is to open the eyes of both classes to the menace, and to prepare the public for a solution which will be a solution. We are trying to work for the employer as well as for the employees.

"We have been told of girls who work ten hours daily and receive $2 to $2.50 a week. We doubt if this condition is at all general, but in due course of time we shall reach these persons and get their story as well as that of their employers. The Commission will not stop until it has reached every avenue of trade in which girls are employed.

"The Commission believes that the problem it is attempting to solve concerns every state in the Union and requires the co-operation of them all."

Stunned by the Testimony

Early in March, 1913, Mr. O'Hara wired from Chicago to the New York Herald as follows:

To the Editor of the Herald: Our investigation into the causes and effect of white slavery in this state has shown conclusively that thousands of good girls are going wrong every year merely because they can not live upon the wages paid them by employers.

The conditions revealed to our commission have been only half told in the press reports. Senator Edmond Beall, a veteran of the civil war and a man of wide experience with the world, broke down completely and wept during the examination of the victims of low wages at our executive session.

Senator Beall is a retired manufacturer, worth a great many thousands of dollars. He told me that he intended to spend every cent of his fortune and every hour of his time to save American womanhood from the piteous menaces that our investigation has shown constantly surround her.

"White slavery presents a hundred times greater national crisis than did black slavery," the venerable senator declared to me, "and I say that as one who fought four years in the battles of the civil war. "

Senators Tossey and Woodard of the Commission have declared themselves in like manner. We have investigated this matter sanely and conservatively. We have tried to let the sunlight in on a condition and to spare individuals. We have accorded to all witnesses exact

THOMAS H. RUSSELL, A. M., LL. D.

General Secretary, Clean Language League of America,

Who originated the crusade against suggestive songs,

one of the contributing causes of immorality

investigated by the Illinois Senatorial

Commission.

HON. NIELS JUUL

State Senator of Illinois, a prominent Chicago lawyer and member of the Illinois Vice Commission

"THE BITTEREST BATTLE OF ALL" 17

justice and full courtesy. And at the end of our labors so far we are appalled, stunned, horrified.

American womanhood is in grave peril solely and only because American manhood profits from the helplessness of womanhood to enrich itself. There is no other conclusion to be derived. It is a national shame, but it must be faced now and boldly.

The Illinois Commission began its labors with no idea to do other than investigate the question of white slavery as the term is applied to the buying and selling of women. We were forced soon, however, to realize that low wages were the real fundamental cause of white slavery, and that to study the effect and ignore the cause would be to give to our investigation the appearance and reality of a farce. We refused to be parties to a farce.

Governors Pledge Their Aid

Thirty-two governors of states have pledged their aid in remedying conditions if it be shown that there is a direct connection between low wages and immorality. President Wilson will lend his co-operation and state legislation will be supported and made more effective by national laws for the better protection of women and girls should the need arise.

In the discussion of this subject there is nd intention or desire to cast undue aspersion upon the general morality and purity of women workers. All such intention has been expressly disavowed by the leaders in the present nation-wide agitation. In the matter of virtue and moral sense our womanhood compares more than favorably with that of any other civilized country. The nation is proud of its working women, proud of their character, of their efficiency and of their achievements. The leaders of the movement for a minimum wage desire simply to make their path in life easier and smoother, to remove conditions that lessen the power to withstand temptation and that make the life of some working girls "the bitterest battle of all."

Chapter II WHAT IS A LIVING WAGE?

The exact amount that may be called a " living wage" for women undoubtedly varies according to locality, while other considerations must also be taken into account. But before fixing any definite amount as a standard for any locality the question, "What is a living wage?" must be answered from another standpoint.

Is it to be an amount that shall provide only the bare necessaries of life or shall it include some provision for comforts, recreation, and the future? On this point opinions differ as widely as they do on the connection between low wages and vice.

Some Chicago employers, questioned as to what, in their judgment, is the smallest sum on which a self-supporting girl can live in that city, mentioned $8 as their idea of the minimum. Others said $7.50 and in Washington and elsewhere the testimony has been that girls can live there for less than in Chicago.

In a report made public March 12, 1913, the social service committee of the Milwaukee Federation of Charities declared that a working woman needs $8.90 a week to support herself in the Cream City — and the committee urged young women who expect to support themselves to keep away from the city unless they have an assured income of at least $9 a week, domestic servants excepted

2D THE GIRL'S FIGHT FOR A LIVING

Consider $8 a Living Wage

The first apparent result of the white slavery senatorial investigation in Illinois was an increase in the wages of 800 of the women and girls employed by the International Harvester Company to a minimum of $8, while the company planned also to raise the salaries of 700 other female employees.

"We found by investigation that the women and girls who already were getting $8 would expect to be paid more than green hands, who formerly were getting $6 and who will now get a minimum wage of $8," said Mr. Clarence S. Funk, general manager of the company. "This will result in a horizontal graduated increase which will affect practically every woman and girl in our employ. Instead of merely raising the wages of 800 it means that 1,500 will be benefited by the new rule.

"It will cost the International Harvester company about $75,000 annually to put through this scheme. At present the lowest priced girls in our employ get $6. Even the most ignorant and unskilled of the foreign girls are never paid less than that.

"We consider $8 a living wage for a girl, whether living at home or not; it makes no difference. Our welfare workers have been studying this question for several months and decided that $8 was about right. Of course if Illinois should pass a minimum wage law making $12 the legal wage we would at once give the girls another raise."

Another official of the Harvester Company said: "Our investigation of women's wages was undertaken

WHAT IS A LIVING WAGE? 21

last July. When the report came in from our investigator we determined to establish this wage. The $8 basis was recommended by the investigator and was also derived from government reports. After hearing all the evidence we did not deem it fair to pay our girls less than $8 a week, in view of the increased cost of living. Our investigator made some study of the living conditions — how deeply I cannot say.

"This move is in no way linked with the vice investigation movement. No question of morality entered into our action at any time. Our desire was to establish a minimum that would be fair and reasonable. The girls affected are mostly of foreign birth. They are not required to dress up for their employment. Many of those to whom we will pay $8 could not earn a dollar downtown. Of course, this makes the eight-dollar minimum proportionately higher for them."

Here we see that the question of dress enters into the problem. Girls employed in factories, as a rule, are not required to dress for their work as expensively as those engaged in clerical duties or in selling goods. The amount estimated as necessary for dress might therefore be less in the case of the factory girl, and a living wage for her might be fixed at a lower figure than for the girl whose expense for clothes and laundry work is necessarily greater. And this is only one of the factors to be taken into consideration in establishing an equitable living wage for all, unless the various employments are differentiated as to wages — which, for purposes of legislation, would no doubt cause endless confusion and dissatisfaction.

The Living Wage Principle

The principle of a living wage has always been more or less firmly fixed in the consciousness of trades unionists. "It is a vital principle, ,, says Webb in his " Industrial Democracy/ ' "that a man by his labor should five, and notwithstanding all the teachings of political economists and all the doctrines taught by way of supply and demand, a greater doctrine overrides all these, the doctrine of humanity. "

In the United States the idea of a living wage is expressed by organized labor in the "Union scale," or the rate of wages that the Union demands for its members in any given industry. This is the minimum that the organized workers regard as required for right living. Not the minimum on which life can be supported, but the lowest rate for which a man ought to work. In the eyes of union labor, therefore, a "living wage" is in reality a "right living wage" — sufficient to afford the worker not merely a livelihood, but a decent livelihood.

The same view is taken by those who advocate for women in the state of Illinois, not the minimum wage of $8 on which life may be supported, but a minimum wage of, say, $12, on which a woman worker may live decently and in some degree of comfort.

The idea of establishing a living wage by law is not by any means new or untried. In Australia legal boards have been created with authority to establish a minimum wage, for the express purpose of preventing the remuneration of any class of workers from being reduced below the cost of living. And in New Zealand, a court of arbitration is empowered to fix a minimum wage that will apply, not

WHAT IS A LIVING WAGE? 23

only to the parties interested in any particular dispute, but to all who are "connected with or engaged in the industry to which the award applies within the industrial district to which the award relates."

The Claim to a Living Wage

"The claim to a living wage is a right/ ' says Professor John A. Ryan of St. Paul Seminary, in an able work on the ethical and economic aspects of the subject. "It is an individual, natural and absolute right." And natural rights are the moral means or opportunities by which the individual attains the end appointed to him or her by nature. Hence, conditions of labor that make the life of a working girl "the bitterest battle of all" may easily be regarded as an infringement upon her natural rights. Especially would this seem to be the case when the amelioration of such conditions would not interfere with the reasonable profits of the employer, as was testified by several employers before the Senatorial Commission in Chicago.

The right to a living wage is said, ethically, to be valid against "the members of the community in which the laborer lives." This refers not merely to the employers, but probably to other persons as well, or to the community in its civil capacity, that is, the State. And every economic and ethical argument that may be advanced in favor of a living wage for the male laborer applies equally, no doubt, to the self-supporting female worker.

"Hence women who are forced to provide their own sustenance," says Professor Ryan, "have a right to what is a living wage for them. Since they have no other way of living but by their labor, the compensation therefor should be sufficient to enable them to live decently.

And children of either sex who have reached the age at which they can, without detriment to themselves or society, become wage earners, but who cannot perform the work of adults, have a right to a wage sufficient to afford them a decent livelihood. They are entitled to this because their wages, generally speaking, constitute their sole source of maintenance."

This doctrine of wages is said by Professor Richard T. Ely, the noted economist of the University of Wisconsin, to be "a clear-cut, well-defined theory, resting upon broad Christian, religious and ethical foundations."

A Decent Livelihood

Mr. C. S. Devas, in his "Political Economy," summarizes the minimum livelihood that should be guaranteed to all workers thus: 1, the means of physical existence; 2, practical possibility of marriage; 3, a separate home; 4, insurance against sickness, old age and industrial accidents; 5, some access to the treasures of literature, art and culture.

" The American standard of living/' says John Mitchell, "should mean to the unskilled worker, carpets, pictures, books, and furniture with which to make the home bright, comfortable and attractive; an ample supply of clothing suitable for winter and summer, and above all a sufficient quantity of good, wholesome, nourishing food at all times of the year."

Apply this standard to the case of a self-supporting, growing girl of 17, working for $5 a week, living in a

WHAT IS A LIVING WAGE? 25

barren hall bedroom and subsisting on ten-cent lunches — and note how far she comes from realizing it.

President Gompers of the American Federation of Labor describes a living wage as "a wage which, when expended in the most economical manner, shall be sufficient to maintain one in a manner consistent with whatever the contemporary local civilization recognizes as indispensable to physical and mental health, or as required by the rational self-respect of human beings."

In the views of these two great and respected labor leaders there is a strong note of conviction that the hire of the laborer should afford him (or her) some of the comforts of life as well as the bare necessaries, and that the laborer is worthy of his hire.

The material requisites of decent living for a working woman may be summed up as a reasonable amount of food, clothing and shelter. Then there should be added a reasonable means of provision against sickness, accidents and the exigencies of the future, and the means of enjoying a moderate amount of amusement and recreation, literature, social intercourse and religious association.

Food, clothing, shelter, insurance and mental and moral culture — these are essential conditions of a decent livelihood. Any wage that falls short of securing them for the working girl will therefore be deemed to fall short of being a "living wage."

[N. B. — The estimates of various persons as to the actual amount required to support a working girl in different cities of the Union will be found in the testimony before the Illinois Commission, reported in subsequent chapters.]

Obligation of the Employer

In the judgment of many students of political economy and ethics, the obligation to pay a living wage falls upon the employer "as a reasonable consequence of his position in the economic organism. From this responsibility he cannot free himself by appealing to the labor contract or to the productivity of labor; for the former is consistent with extortion, while the latter is usually unknowable, and is always inferior to needs as a canon of distribution.' '

Inability to perform the obligation suspends it (as no one is morally bound to do the impossible), but inability must not be so interpreted as to favor the superfluous needs of the employer at the expense of the essential needs of the worker. The employer's right to obtain interest on the capital invested in his business, though real, is subordinate to the worker's right to a living wage. [Ryan, "A Living Wage," p. 261.]

Under this Christian view of the ethics of employment, the employer is obliged to pay a living wage before he obtains interest on his invested capital, while a corporation is under obligation to pay a living wage at the expense of dividends.

Chapter III

As a protector of natural rights, the State, it is claimed, ought to compel employers to pay a living wage. This is the view taken by many eminent economists, including that great authority, Professor W. S. Jevons, in "The State in Its Relation to Labor.' ' And though it is disputed by others of perhaps equal authority, the fact remains that the state does in many instances regulate the amount of wages paid to labor.

As we have already seen, the principle of a living wage by legal enactment has already been tested in the Minimum Wage Boards and the Wage Arbitration Courts of Australia and New Zealand, respectively. The results are said to be a complete justification of the wisdom of such laws. Of the New Zealand law an impartial observer, Dr. Victor S. Clark, says in a bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor, "The act is a success beyond the expectation of many of its early supporters."