Workmen's advocate., 1890-05-24
NEW ENGLAND SLAVES.
Hell's Mills In the Pawtuxet Valley, k, l. Child Labor. Starvation Wages, Truck Stores, Filthy Buildings and General Inu I.lI IDn

Stores, Filthy Buildings and General
 Degradation.
 Our attention is called to an article which appeared recently in the Provi, dence EUening Telegram on the condi- tOn of labor in the Pawtuxet Valley | mills. We reprint the following extracts for the special benefit of such economic | diettanti as Carroll D. Wright, Edward | Atkinson, Francis Walker, etc., who contend that everywhere in general, and | in their own New England in particular, the condition of labor is improving. The lot of the wage-workers in many of the cotton mills of the Pawtuxet Val ley is not an enviable one. It seems to be the policy of the manufacturers in this section of the State, to employ as many illiterate persons who do not speak English as possible. This is done because they work cheap, and, as manufaCtu- Ter expressed It, they are "very tract able and docle.' In many instances the wages paid are so low that 1t IS impos- sble for families to exist on what Is paid to the head of the family, and in conse- quence children of tender age are forced into the factories.
 In some of the larger mills the average of wages per operative is not more than $2l monthly, which is very small, even though large number of children are employed.
 The average wages paid in one or two mills in the valley is $7.50 weekly, but in a majority of the mills it will not reach S5 Not satisfied with paying starvation wages, some of the mills keep fifteen days wages back, so that a poor family going to work in these concerns is obliged to work six weeks before its members are entitled to draw pay. Coupled to this is the
 COMPANY STORE SYSTEM,
 which places the wage worker almost in the same condition as a slave.
 It is a well known fact that there are people employed in this valley who never handle dollar of their hard earned wages from year to year.
 They are in the power of these stores because of indebtedness, and must so continue for years to come unless there IS a change in the payment system. In some of the villages the mills have no cooperative stores but have system that is equally obnoxious A firm hires a store from the company and agrees to pay certain yearly rent for the same, provided the firm gets certain per centage of the operatives trade. While the operative is not really obliged to trade at these stores, as is the cass at the company stores, he is invited by some person in authority about the mills to trade in the leased stores, and the invitation, coming from the source it does, is considered by the poor opera tive, particularly should he happen to be of class not much disposed to assert an independence of spirit in such mat ters, request that must be obeyed. As soon as the patronage of the poor operative is secured, a watch is kept on every cent of wages earned. and be there sickness or misfortune the Shylock must have his pound of flesh, and the store bill is paid from the wages due at the company's office.
 In some of the villages q path well worn runs from the store to the office, where information is constantly sought and given regarding the wages due from day to day, and there can be no goods drawn unless the money to pay is already earned. Instances are known when bread was asked for at one of these stores with which to make break fast by families working in the mills, and the bread was refused on the ground that there was not money enough at the office to pay for it, and the people were obliged to go to work on empty stomachs.
 The company store system is blot or the civilization of Rhode Island. In thit whole valley, with some twenty ol more mills, but one finn pays other thar monthly.
 CHILD LABOR.
 The large number of small childrel employed in these mills calls for some change in the law governing the employ ment of children. There are many frou eight to fourteen years in the Pawtuxe valley that grow up in utter ignorance without any knowledge of the institu tions of the State or of its laws, igno rant of the duties of citizens, a reproacl to humanity, and a menace to our insti tutions. In many cases the trustees O , the schools are clerks in the company offices or foremen in the works, or de pendent In some way upon the manufac ) turer, and it is not to their interest t, , look too closely after the school chil , dren. The same might be said of tn , truant officers In one town 1t is openl, charged that the truant officers ar under the control of some of the manu lecturers who are in the town council