The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-11-15
SWEAT SHOPS In SLUMS
TESTIMONY OF THE UNIVERSITY
SETTLEMENT HEAD WORKER.
Many Toilers i'm the Tenements of
New York Work Twenty Hours
Day in Unsanitary Apartments.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 1.-THE Industrial
Commission to-day examined Thomas T.
Rixey, labor commissioner of Missouri, anu
Mr.. James p Reynolds, of New York. Mr..
Rixey's testimony included a detailed &C
count of the ST. Louis street-car strike.
which he said, never had been declared
off, Mr.. Rixey advocated compulsory
arbitration law. He said the arbitration
law of Missouri had proved so inadequate
that he had not invoked it in the st. Louis
strike He did not believe that troops
would have been sufficient to compel order
during the strike Mr. Rixey asserted that
the people were no more lawless than those
of other States, and said that as rule IL
was not necessary to shoot them down in
order to compel them TO obey the law.
James r. Reynolds, head worker of the
University Settlement of New York, test-
fed as to the redemption in the slums of
New York city, to which purpose the So
ciety is devoted. The societys building in
Eldridge street. Mr.. Reynolds said. is now
largely surrounded by Russian and Polish
Jews and by Roumanians, but he thought
these were gradually being crowded out by
Italians, as the Germans were earlier by
the Jews and the Irish by the Germans.
He said that the children of the quarter
manifest a disposition to become ashamed
of their parents, and not all of them were
disposed to adopt trades of their fathers.
Mr.. Reynolds also contributed consider
able information concerning the sweatshops
of the East Side. He said that garment
making is pursued largely in that section
in private apartments, and that it had de-
generated in recent years. He attributed
several recent failures of large establish
ments to the sweatshop competition. He
had investigated one instance of rs work
men, four of whom were working regularly
twenty hours per day, six of them twelve
hours, and others less time, ranging down
to ten hours per day. In cases OF long
continued daily service the wages were not
increased commensurately with the time
put in by the workers In many cases the
workrooms are used as sleeping apart
ments. and a large percentage of the quar-
| tiers are in an unsanitary condition. The
| witness said that the force OF inspectors
under the State law was inadequate, and
| that there had been complaint against the
| too strict enforcement of the law, because
of the danger of compelling the removal of
workers to other States. Mr.. Reynolds said
that. there was much typhus and also
much tuberculosis in the sweatshopS. Car
| ments were often upon the dirty floors, and
when Governor Roosevelt, who investigated
| the question. visited the quarter he found
| the goods stored in back room occupied
by man in the last stages of tuberculosis.
| The witness expressed the opinion that
\ four-fifths of the garment work in New
York is done in the sweatshops. An es-
tablishment on Fifth avenue was as apt
| to employ these agencies as places else
where, and the style of garment was no
| guarantee against the place of manufac-
ture.