Part 2

In New York a new law has been enacted which is of national as well as state importance. This measure was unanimously recommended by the New York State Factory Investigating Commission after careful investigation. It prohibits the employment of women at night in manufacture, between 10 P. M. and 6 A. M. It brings the Empire State with its 300,000 women employed in manufacture up to the level of the fourteen civilized nations of Europe which have by international treaty abolished the night work of women in factories.

Hitherto only three states, Massachusetts, Indiana and Nebraska, have enacted in their statutes the principle of assuring to working women a fixed period of rest at night—a principle adopted by England as long ago as 1847 in the first factory legislation.

In this country, usage has so blunted our perception of the effects of work carried on to midnight or all night, that the establishment of a legal closing hour is one of the last steps taken even by progressive states. Yet in Massachusetts 10 P. M. has been the legal closing hour in factories for almost twenty-five years, and the great textile trade has flourished with an even earlier closing hour for women, set by law at 6 P. M. since 1907.

In recommending the enactment of the nightwork bill, the Factory Investigating Commission carefully considered the adverse opinion of the New York Court of Appeals, which five years ago, in the Williams case, declared unconstitutional a similar law prohibiting the night work of women. The commission concluded that two new circumstances justified the enactment of a new law and the reargument of the principle at stake before the highest court of New York—the only court of last resort which has rendered a decision on this subject.

These two circumstances are, first, the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States upholding the Oregon ten-hour law for women, handed down since the decision in the Williams case was rendered; and second, the existence of many “facts of common knowledge” regarding the physical, moral and economic effects of night work, facts which were not brought to the attention of the New York Court of Appeals when it decided that Katie Mead was not likely to be injured by working at 10.20 P. M. in a given occupation.

When the new case comes up for argument it is reasonable to hope that the New York court will follow the lead of the Supreme Court of the United States in taking “judicial cognizance” of those ascertained facts which go far beyond the single case at bar, and present to the court the world’s experience as to legislation of this character.

CALIFORNIA WOMEN AND THE VICE SITUATION

A red light injunction and abatement bill, not essentially different from the law now in effect in Iowa and Nebraska, passed both houses of the California Legislature with good majorities and was signed by Governor Hiram W. Johnson on April 7. The law declares houses of prostitution and assignation to be nuisances and holds responsible both the proprietor of the house and the owner of the building. It enables any citizen, whether personally damaged or not, to bring action; and it levies a fine against the property itself and forbids its use at any future time for such purpose.[2]

The bill has had a somewhat dramatic history. In 1911 it was introduced at the request of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union by Assemblyman Wyllie, but though favorably reported from the Public Morals Committee it was killed by re-reference to the Judiciary Committee too late to be returned to the floor.

The tremendous general awakening since then on the subject of the social evil and the exposure in San Francisco of the enormous sums reaped by organized vice under the Schmitz-Ruef regime, led to the formation of a society of social hygiene. The efforts of the United States Department of Justice to suppress the traffic in girls led to the establishment of an anti-slavery society; and the State Board of Health, under the leadership of Dr. William F. Snow, made venereal, like other contagious diseases, reportable, though only by case numbers.

Attention has been gradually focussed upon the question of the desirability of segregation of vice or “red light” districts which exist in nearly all the cities of California except Los Angeles, and in most of the larger towns. San Francisco is the only city to make an attempt at systematic regulation and medical examination and this city has been the object of repeated criticism on the part of those who do not believe in the European system of regimentation. It has also done its part in preparing the public mind for a more intelligent discussion of such measures as the injunction and abatement bill, the requirement of a health certificate for marriage, and the several bills limiting the liquor traffic which were offered in the present Legislature.

The bill as passed was sponsored by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and endorsed by the State Federation of Women’s Clubs and the California Civic League, thus rallying to its support the many thousands of women who were given the vote by last year’s suffrage amendment. It is a significant fact that the measure, though approved by many men, was formally endorsed only by ministerial bodies. The large property interests involved and the subterranean coercion of liquor and certain real estate interests, made it impossible to obtain the formal support of commercial organizations.

The campaign on behalf of the measure was, therefore, necessarily a woman’s movement. The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union which, as Franklin Hichborn has pointed out, has “the largest single block of votes in the state,” educated their own membership and their men folk. The California Civic League—chiefly composed of those who had been active in the suffrage campaign and whose motto is “study and service”—undertook the systematic work of educating the public on the general subject of the social evil. For four successive months it published syllabi to be studied by its three thousand members in thirty centers. Beginning in January, the union carried on a publicity campaign in the newspapers and during the last two months kept several women speakers in the field talking on the “red light” bill before church congregations, mass meetings, conferences and clubs.

The California Legislature met for the first time under the new law of a divided session, bills being received in January, a recess taken in February, and measures then being discussed and voted upon. During the recess most of the legislators were invited to speak at mass meetings in their own district and to put themselves on record on this particular bill. It soon became known that the delegations from San Francisco and from Alameda County were, with the exception of a very few men, against the bill, while the members of the delegation from southern California were almost unanimously for it.

A picturesque episode of the campaign lay in the selection of Edwin D. Grant of San Francisco to introduce the bill in the senate, for Senator Grant is the successor of a well-known politician, Eddie Wolf, who had misrepresented San Francisco for sixteen years in the Legislature. The replacing of Wolf by Grant was one of the first political results of woman suffrage in the city. Although young and relatively inexperienced, Mr. Grant stood the ridicule of the reactionary press that constantly heckled him as “the boy reformer” and, with the support of older men on the floor, got his bill through without any weakening amendments.

DEBATE BEFORE THE LEGISLATURE

The debates in both houses over this bill brought clearly into view the high political and social ideals of the younger and more recently elected members of the Legislature; and it proved that the women of California, though wholly inexperienced in politics, knew what they wanted and would stand solidly for it. They won, not by lobbying, but by systematic education of the constituencies of the legislators. It is reported that one legislator asked a doubtful colleague if he intended to vote for the bill and the other replied: “Don’t I have to go home?” The floor leader of the senate complained publicly of the “threats” of his constituents who had urged him to vote for the bill and said that they would remember their enemies as well as their friends. Assemblyman Nelson, chairman of the Assembly Public Morals Committee, said that he received 1,800 letters on this subject during the recess.

Although the debate in the assembly was sickening at times, in its revelation of the attitude of certain men toward the whole matter of vice, the measure passed by a vote of 62 to 17. In the senate a strong effort was made by Senator Beban of San Francisco to sidetrack it by substituting an investigation into the relation of women’s wages and vice. But the senate refused to postpone the injunction bill until this special committee should report, and in spite of a five-hour debate, chiefly carried on by those who were trying to explain plausibly why they were going to vote against it, the measure passed by a vote of 29 to 11. Thus, out of a legislature of 120 members, only 28 voted against the bill and of these a majority were from San Francisco and from Alameda County.

After the bill had passed, a final dramatic touch was given by the demand of certain so-called “real estate” interests in San Francisco for a hearing before the governor. The governor announced a public hearing to which came about forty persons, both men and women, representing all the more important protective, civic and moral associations of northern California. The opponents, who perhaps had hoped to get a private hearing, did not appear; whereupon the governor signed the bill.

Meanwhile, even before the bill was signed, money had been raised and tentative plans made for taking care of the women and girls who should be thrown out of the segregated districts. These plans are now being extended to cover the whole state. It is expected that the companion measure, a state training home for girls which carries an appropriation of $200,000, will also pass and this will ultimately provide for minors and those who go through the probation courts. As fast as the injunction measure is enforced the women’s organizations intend to offer a home, medical attendance and employment, if possible, to all refugees who will accept them.

CALIFORNIA WOMEN RECALL A JUDGE

The first recall of a judge under California’s new law took place on April 22 and was accomplished by the women voters of San Francisco. When a police magistrate, C. L. Weller, reduced the bail set by another police judge in the case of a prisoner accused of attacking a young girl, and the prisoner at once fled when released on bail, the women of the city secured 10,000 names to petition for recall. In the recall election Judge Weller was opposed by Wiley F. Crist, who is said to be an enthusiastic young lawyer of strong reform tendencies. Mr. Crist won by a margin of only a few hundred votes in a total of 61,000.

ORGANIZING TO FIGHT CANCER

For some time medical associations have put on record their conviction of the need of systematic work for the prevention of cancer, by the appointment, at congresses and conventions, of committees charged to work upon this subject. These many local efforts came to a head on April 22, when at a meeting in New York under the chairmanship of Dr. Clement Cleveland, the first steps were taken toward the formation of National Anti-Cancer Association.

The need and practicability of work for cancer prevention was pointed out by Dr. LeRoy Broun, chairman of a committee of the American Gynecological Society. Dr. Broun also gave practical suggestions for work among work women, who are the most frequent victims of cancer.

The work of the new association will be along the lines followed by the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, whose methods were described at this meeting by its secretary, Livingston Farrand. This will include magazine articles—the _Delineator_ has indeed already gone into this field—leaflets, instruction by nurses, and lectures before womens clubs and other associations.

A committee of organization, consisting of Leroy Broun, James Speyer, V. Everit Macy, George C. Clark and Frederick L. Hoffman was appointed to report to the Congress of Physicians to be held at Washington next month.

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FINGER PRINTS

PROBLEMS[3]

HELEN R. GUTMANN

A method of teaching arithmetic was in vogue some years ago by which the answer to each problem was printed in the back of the book. Sometimes a problem was stated wrongly or the answer given was incorrect. Of course, that complicated matters. I believe they teach arithmetic differently now.

Mildred worked unceasingly at her problem. She worked at it quite cheerfully as she set out briskly in the morning for her two mile walk from her home to the shop where she was employed as a cash girl. She worked at it wearily as she crept home on tired swollen feet, when every automobile as it whizzed past her seemed to scream “cash!” with its shrill siren.

The problem dealt with figures so small it would seem a child in the third grade could solve it. Mildred knew it to be so difficult that no professor of mathematics could have brought her nearer the answer.

This was the problem, though Mildred did not state it in quite the same way. Let _x_ equal $3.50, her earnings. From _x_, plus the very small and uncertain earnings of her mother, take food for five plus rent and leave enough for a neat black dress. She had multiplied the earnings by many weeks but she had to multiply the food and rent by an equal number and the answer never came right.

Sometimes, just to keep up her spirits, she would pretend she had solved it—then what a pleasant array of problems presented themselves! The black dress meant a clerk’s position and added salary. With that as a beginning one might figure up to a buyer’s position. Somewhere between lay the possibilities of some problems like this:

Let _x_ equal Mildred’s salary: _x_ minus rent, minus food, minus clothes equals _y_, which is enough left over to permit the tired mother to hire a woman for the washing.

One must be half starved and insufficiently clad to realize the magnitude of that problem, rightly solved. The storms of early spring in New York solve many problems by eliminating the mathematician. In Mildred’s case they only postponed the solving.

Shoes have no hopes nor dreams, nor even problems, to keep them from wearing out in miles of daily walking over cobblestones, and miles of walking back and forth in the store. Mildred’s shoes developed gaps and fissures, and were useless to keep out the wet. Rent was due. There was no money to be spared even for carfare. So huge a sum as new shoes meant was impossible.

Mildred developed pneumonia.

There are people in every city who put aside their own problems to help solve those of others. To one in Mildred’s straits these became, no longer dreaded agents of charity, to be avoided, but friends. It was due to one of these friends that Mildred recovered. But with convalescence returned her problem, its weary repetition standing between her and health.

It was then the kindly agent went to her former employer. His sympathy was sincere. There were tears in his eyes when the story was finished.

“That must never happen again,” he declared. “Tell her to come to me if she is ever in trouble again. She shall have shoes, or whatever she needs for comfort.”

Charity, however, was not what Mildred required, but adequate pay for service. That could not be granted. It would establish that terrifying thing, a precedent!

Elsewhere the agent met with better success, Mildred has employment again and better pay: And with _x_ as a known and more satisfactory basis, she forms her problems now.

But her old arithmetic remains the lesson book of how many other girls?

EDITORIAL GRIST

HOLDING FAST TO THE TWELVE-HOUR DAY

JOHN A. FITCH

The United States Steel Corporation, in the annual meeting of its stockholders, held in Hoboken, N. J., April 21, took a step which may tend to cause a reaction among that part of the public which had come to believe, on account of the frequent pronouncements by the corporation of its kindly intent toward its employes, that it would take any reasonable and logical step that it might to improve labor conditions.

To make this clear it is not necessary to go back to the addresses in this vein that have been delivered from time to time by executive officers of the corporation before the American Iron and Steel Institute and elsewhere. It is sufficient to refer to the committee of stockholders, appointed by Judge Gary in the fall of 1911, who made a report on labor conditions to the stockholders meeting of 1912. Their report declared that 25¾ per cent of the employes of the corporation were working twelve hours a day. This figure included all employes in mines and quarries, as well as in mills and furnaces. The committee made it clear that “this schedule of work was found in the largest proportion in its departments which are more or less continuous, such as rolling mills, open hearths, and blast furnaces, where the percentage of work for the twelve hours varies from 50 to 60.”

Speaking of the effects of the twelve-hour day, the committee said:

“We are of the opinion that a twelve-hour day of labor, followed continuously by any group of men for any considerable number of years means a decreasing of the efficiency and lessening of the vigor and virility of such men.

“The question should be considered from a social as well as a physical point of view. When it is remembered that the twelve hours a day to the man in the mills means approximately thirteen hours away from his home and family—not for one day, but for all working days—it leaves but scant time for self improvement, for companionship with his family, for recreation and leisure. It is important that any industry be considered in its relation to the home life of those engaged in it, as to whether it tends to weaken or strengthen the normalness and stability of family life. By a reasonable conserving of the strength of the working population of today may we be best assured of a healthy, intelligent, productive citizenship in the future....

“That steps should be taken now that shall have for their purpose and end a reasonable and just arrangement to all concerned, of the problems involved in this question—_that of reducing the long hours of labor_—we would respectfully recommend to the intelligent and thoughtful consideration of the proper officers of the Corporation.”

As a result of this recommendation, the finance committee of the Corporation appointed a subcommittee of its members, “to consider what, if any, arrangement with a view to reducing the twelve-hour day, in so far as it now exists among the employes of the subsidiary companies, is reasonable, just and practicable.” Their findings are published in the annual report of the corporation for the year 1912, which has recently been issued. The committee calls attention to the fact that the stockholders’ committee found that “only about 25 per cent of the total number of employes” were working twelve hours a day. This, in spite of the fact that the committee distinctly reported that 50 to 60 per cent of actual steel workers were twelve-hour men. But as to relieving the situation, the report reads “it is believed that unless competing iron and steel manufacturers will also enforce a less than twelve-hour day, the effort to reduce the twelve hours per day at all our works will result in losing a large number of our employes, many of them preferring to take positions requiring more hours of work per day.”

The report then points out that a considerable number of men during the past year have left the employ of the Steel Corporation because they have enforced the six day week, and have gone to the employ of other companies where they could work seven days, and expresses the fear that the same thing would happen if an eight-hour day were adopted by the corporation.

Of course, nothing is said in this report, nor was anything said at the stockholders’ meeting of April 21, as to the real reason why workers leave their positions when hours of labor are shortened. The inference to be drawn from the report is that steel workers are so consumed with a passion for work that they do not desire to leave it, even for one day in seven.

The facts are that the cost of this reform was borne by the men. The Steel Corporation did not pay its men their old earnings for their new six day stint. It would be interesting to know the actual wages received by the larger proportion of those who left the employ of the Corporation in order that they might work seven days a week for other companies. We should then be able to draw our own conclusions as to whether it was a passion for work or a desire to support their families in decency and comfort that led them to look elsewhere for work when their earnings were reduced by one-seventh.

But the Steel Corporation found itself, according to its own testimony, in a quandary. A committee of its own stockholders had recommended an abolition of the twelve-hour day. The finance committee had considered the matter carefully and reported back that because its competitors had not changed from the twelve-hour day, they could not. It was a practical difficulty and they intimated that they were unable to solve it. It was to cut this Gordian knot that Charles M. Cabot, the Boston stockholder who was responsible for the investigation conducted last year by the stockholders’ committee headed by Stuyvesant Fish, went to the meeting on April 21 with this resolution:

“Voted, that in view of the Finance Committee’s report that the change from the twelve to the eight-hour day in continuous twenty-four hour processes in our mills and plants is impracticable unless similar action is taken by our competitors; and, further, in view of the fruitful results which followed the appointment by the American Iron and Steel Institute at the instigation of officers of our Corporation of a committee on seven-day labor, which action has led to the very general establishment of the six day week in the steel industry of the United States; that the stockholders request the directors to enlist the co-operation of the steel manufacturers of the United States in establishing the eight-hour day in continuous twenty-four hour processes.”

The purpose of this resolution was to provide the quickest, most efficient manner of solving the dilemma in which the Corporation found itself, and to provide a way whereby there could be restored to the workers such a working schedule, as would not sap their vitality or prevent them from having what the stockholders’ committee thought was necessary time for relaxation and for association with their families. That this resolution was tabled with the consent of the officials of the Corporation, will undoubtedly be interpreted by many as an indication that the Corporation was not sincere in its plea that its hands were tied in trying to meet the demand of the Fish committee for a reduction in hours.