The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1892-11-13
BANKRUPT" CLOTHING.
VISIT 10 FACTORIES ~ NEW YORK
WHERE IT rs MADE.
How Poor workmen Are Ground Down by
Hard Labor and Poverty to Get Out
Cheap Ciothes-ssaryation Wages.

Has II ever struck you that there are
more bankruptcies, failures. losses by
fire and water and forced sales at sac
race in the clothing trade right here in
New York than in any other half dozen
lines OF business you might name? Not
a day passes but one meets some staring
yellow sign announcing that clothing
house has gone bankrupt and that the
whole stock will be sold out for a song
onc-half or third or a quarter Of its
former cost.
used TO feel sorry for those poor, UNI
fortunate manufacturers. but ] don't
now. i visited last week the quarters
where bankrupt clothing" was made,
and somehow / lost faith in the glib
clothing dealers vcracity. There are sac
r.lce and sorrow and bitter disaDpont-
mcut enough in the clothing trade. but
10 isn't the Broadway assignee" or the
bourgeois mother picking from his shelves
the $lG and 500 childrcns suits that
f.l Them Up I'm the dark. foul rookeries
which line Hester and Essex and Suffolk
streets and other tenement thoroughfares
foil tne Wretched creatures who make
,heqD clothing possible and their suf-
f.-.rrs ar. the ones translated into the
HACK letter appeals and ruin prices Of
tI. huge yellow sign-boards.
N.f always do we know who our real
lar.f4et.rs aye, and doubtless few mem
hons OF .he great middle class in New
Work hay. ever stopped 10 think what
r.ifrirlf and early morning toll what
boarding OF scanty wages TO make ends
meet what lunches OF black bread over
c.wfrr machines. what stretches OF con-
fnamaut FOR siytecn and eighteen hours
h foul air amidst nasty surroundings,
I.e rlt good clothing on their backs with
plentiful margins Of spending money left
lr other expenditures. Forty thousand
n.r women and children over on the east
eide make the wearing apparel Of all
luf the sweller classes OF New York.
People ask. what becomes Of the seventy
three thousand and odd Russians who
land ou our shores In a single year-the
record for 1912 one could answer that
the true dumping-grOund Of the Russian
Immigrant is the crowded district east
Of the Bowery where q third Of a mil
lion human beings swarm I'm a square
rIe. ana the making Of cloaEs and
clothes constantly goes on And should
y.l make a tour Of that region I am sure
yol viii convince yourself that thousands
rron thousands Of Slavic Jews have but
exchanged the White Cars tyranny for
economic scrvitude in this land Of politi-
cal freedom.
Americans are anxious to know how
these isolated masses live Glinpses Of
lrtt are shed now and again upon the
Jewish quarters when an organized revolt
in the shape Of a strike against the
cothiers' methods spreads on the east
side, or some newspaper starts n crusade
in behalf Of the sweaters victims. 1t
as only by personally mixing with the
toiers OF Jewry and through the patient
collection Of details regarding their hab-
ifs and manner Of life that one gains
any clear idea Of the industrial ma
chiuery OF the east side.
one has not long to be on such an IN
vestigation before he discovers that the
Jewish race is not the only one ground
20 powder I'm the mill of the clothing
industry. The Italian "padrone" imports
his countrymen like cattle across the sea
20 set them 10 work on whining machines
as well as the hand processes Of cloth
ing manufacture at wages, If such a
thing be possible, less than even the
shameful pittance doled out TO the RUS
sian immigrant. Whom the "padrone"
has not the Hebrew contractor sezes
by subletting the finishing" OF smaller
garments 10 Gwellers in Italian tenements.
adding further tone and contrast 10 an
already sQualid condition Of misery And
now the iDlndTNan mas Deen drawn IN.
You will find little sweaters shop whore
le slaves and spins up among the lofts
OF Doycrs street. an entering wedge for
a score Of others to tame the elusive
spirit of the almond-eyed Oriental into
the unprotesting submissiveness Of the
Hebrew.
"Slnce the passage Of the Anti-Sweator
law" said my guide himself a Russian
cleakmakor and labor leader as We
started ont one morning 20 explore Jew
town; "since the passage Of the Anti
Sweater law the large contractors nave
been driven out Of the tenements. and
those cloakmakers who work I'm factories
are tolcrably we'll off as to hours. SANTA
tion etc. though ;he pay is miserable.
But y0ull find scores and hundreds OF
the smaller sweat shops existing all over
the east side I'm open defiance Of law.
The operators often work from I'm the
morning until @ or 10 at night. There is
no air or stoppage for meals, and little
girls. not yet in their teens. take a hand
az the benches with the older ones. These
shops are i'm ont OF the way places rear
tcnemerts or lofts on the top floor Of
some sis story building and they manage
TO evade The inspectors. There nearly
an the garments requiring finishing are
sent 10y contractors directly 10 the houses
of families where husband, wife and
children toll cec sclessly under worse con-
d,ions if anything than the sweaters"