The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1895-06-26
Milwaukee Bottling Works are De
clared to Be Merely Prostitu.
ton Factories.
THE CONDITION AT OSHKOSH.
Factory Inspection of the State Is
Said to Be a Howling Farce
The Number of Children EN-.
ployed Is Something
Awful.
THE TERRIBLE PICTURE PRE-
SENTED,

(From the st. Paul Dispatch Rep.)
Ethelbert Stewart, special agent of
the United States Labor Depa rtment
at Washington, spent the morning in
the Office of Labor Commissioner
Powers. Mr.. Stewart is engaged in
looking up labor strikes from 1887
down to and including the A. r. U.
strike of last summer. In looking up
these matters, he also sees good deal
Of the general condition of labor in
the states he visits and Wisconsin is
given the worst record Of any,.
"You talk about the sweat shops
and holes in the big citities of the
East, but 1 have seen places over in
villages of Wisconsin that are just as
bad in every particular. Places where
the ventilation is miserable and the
sanitary conditions Of the very worst t.
was amazed in the first place to
learn of the immense number and
variety of factories in Wisconsin.
They had every kind Of factory Of
which l know anything; and the num-
Der of children employed is something
wonderful. In the town Of Oshkosh
they had more children employed in
proportion to the population than in
any city l have visited in the East or
South, and in many factories the con-
dition is simply awful. The match
factories were the worst, and partic-
ularly those of the Diamond Match
company, which controls all the fac
tories worth mentio ming in the
country.
1.-THE children are crowded into
poorly ventilated and unsanitary
rooms, and the long and short of it is
their lives are coined into dividends
for the companies that employ them.
''Then come the cotton mills, where
they employ little children and compel
them to work eleven hours a day-a
custom which has been abolished
years ago in every other community.
The factory inspection law of that
state is bowling farce. The factory
Inspector visits factory once in two
years. He passes through the rooms,
and if he finds child who admits
that he is under IA years of age, he
orders him discharged, and it is done.
In day or two the inspector leaves
the town, and the child goes back to
work, so he loses two days in two
years because he is under the age at
which the law allows him to work in
these factories.
'"Then take some of the big furni-
ture factories like that Of the Payne
Lumber company and other concerns,
the inspector walks in through the
front office and announces himself,
and Immediately every little kid is
hidden away in the lumber piles until
the Inspector has gone, when they go
out and resume work. The alleged
attempts at enforcing the law are the
merest baby work.
"At the big bottling works in Mil
waukee, they have 900 boys and girls
ranging in age from ii to 10 years of
age employed, and that is the tough
est sight OF all, for the roughness
comes right out on the surface. The
children are employed at bottling
beer, and there is no limit to the
amount they are allowed to drink.
The language the boys and girls use
in shouting at each other, and the
familiarity between the sexes shows
that these are merely prostitution fac
tories and nothing more or less.
TO talk about virtue and purity in
such place is simply silly.
THE match factories are just as
bad, though. Of course, the employees
are not half drunk all the time, and
not so much of the rottenness appears
on the surface. They do not use the
rough language that one hears con-
stantly in the bottling works."
II aim to get both sides of story
when complaint is madc-that of
the employer as we'll as the employe-
and, besides, l make some personal
observation, and the conditions were
worse in the Wisconsin factories than
anywhere else have BEEN"
MI: Stewart will conclude his work
in Minnesota.