The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-05-09

It Is unlikely that any woman who
heard her impressive talk before the
Topeka federation of clubs al its Junt
meeting last year has forgotten Mrs
Florence Kelly, Of the National Con-
Eumers' league and One-time factory IN
EpectCr of Illinois, and her story OF the
sweat shops of the great manufacturing
centcrs. The current number of the
Outlook contains an article on the same
subject the story Of the experiences OF
the writer in making the rounds Of the
tenements with a factory inspector.
Recent humane laws have done much
to improve conditions for the WORKER
within the factory walls. The righteous
manufacturers" as Mrs Kelly deslg-
mated the employers who pay fair wages
for a reasonable working day and pro-
vide a healthfuI. cOmforta bic, sanitary
place for their employees TO work, are
increasing The National Consumers
league is doing what it can TO make
virtue profitable by urging people to
pledge themselves to use only the prod
ucts of manufactures so conducted ana
which bear the National Consumer s.
league label. The efforts Of philanthropy
have been SO successful that most of
the great factories are now model
factories and the horrors of the sweat
shop system are now confined to the
tenements where piece work is done.
--ccordir- to the laws OF the state Of
New 4cr-- when a man or woman
wishes to take piece work from fac
tory. he must make application to the
factory inspection department, which
gives his name and address. the num-
Der OF persons who viii work under the
license. the number in the family ana
the nationality of the applicant. A
deputy inspector visits the address given
and If he finds the conditions satisfac-
tory grants the license which the holder
IS obliged to show at the factories from
which he takes ma ter-al for home MAX
Inc.
Now this law would seem to provide
Tor the making of clothing under Sani-
tary conditions but like other laws it is
more notable for its evasion than for its
enforcement The Outlook writer who
visited the tenements found families of
Is in three dark. ill-smelling filthy
rooms with from three to half a dozen
sewing machines running all the time
and the corners of the rooms piled high
with the products of the wretched in
mates labor. The workers and their
children slept, cooked and ate in the
rooms where they made the clothing
destined to be worn by clean. fastidious
people. Children from to Is. toe
young to be admitted to the factories
were at work on the garments. In one
tenement an Italian woman was found
working without license. She de-
clared that she had one and slipped out
to a neighbours where she borrowed a
card to show the Inspector. It was
learned that four women in the tene-
ment were using one card They wept
and begged that their work should nOg
be taken from them.
The Outlook writer urges the danger
of the spread of disease and infection
from garments made under these con-
ditions as the NOSE serious aspect OF
this terrible system and this was a
point made much of by Mrs. Kelly in
her talk in Topeka last summer. Nc
doubt this is done on account of a
belief in the Inherent selfshness of peo-
pie who might remain Indifferent to the
woes of the wretched victims of this
system but who can be aroused to ac-
ton when their own personal safety is
proven to be concerned. But when you
think Of the miserable women of the
tenements begging on their knees for
the right to work for themselves and
their children can you waste much pity
on the people who buy the clothes on
which these unfOrtunates wear out their
lives2 Is the real horror of such a situ-
alton in the thought of the microbes
which might enter comfortable or lux
urious homes in the factory made
clothing which the member of such
household wear2 No doubt the Nation
al Consumers league and the other
philanthropical societies which make c
speciality of reform i'm this direction fine
this a telling argument and are glad K
make use Of it but to what selfshness
what cruelty, what hardness it testifie.