The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-11-24
This l. the letter sent out:

I This is the letter sent out:
 Will you join in movement on .
 national scale to modify the hardships
 incident to holiday shopping7
 | Observation might show many of us that Christmas is time of hardship | for those who have to do with supply. ing the needs of Christmas shoppers. Authentic records from the lives of
 clerirs. delivery boys and drivers of wagons show that, while we are keep ing the Christmas festival, while we are feeding. the lame and halt, the blind and friendless, we are lightly reducing to illness and exhaustion the young and strong and faithful who serve 1s, seen and unseen. Every year the celebration of Christi mas grows more elaborate. More presents are bought: the crowds are greater: the decorations are more chants are correspondingly more com pfex; the supply has to be increased the pressure at every point intensifies. On the enc hand. public opinion dts approves long hours and late work. particularly for young women. girls and children. On the other hand,
 merely through thoughtiesness, many shoppers defer their purchases until the last possible moment at the cost
 of unnecessary strain upon saiespeople and delivery forces. By joint effort of editors and ner-
 chants. the idea can be brought home
 to millions of customers that they can
 benefit themselves and every one con-
 cerned if they will do their Christmas
 shopping period and reduce the dis
 advantages which, in other seasons, | ~tk Al A-
 Sincerely yours,
 Jacob A. Riis. Mark Twain. Richard
 Watson Glider. Editor The Century;
 Edward Box, Editor The Ladies' Home
 Journal: Leigh Reilly, Editor The Chi-
 cago Evening. Post: Lyman Abbott,
 Editor The outlook; Adolph s. ochs.
 Publisher New York Times, s. W.
 Woodward of Woodward & Lothrop.
 Washington. D. C.; Nathan Straus of
 R. H. Macy & O., New York: Edward
 Filens of William Filene's Sons Com
 pany. Boston; Florence Kelley. secre- tary National Consumers League; Ed
 ward T. Devine. Editor.
 Mrs. Florence Kelley. Secretary of
 the National Consumer League. which has . membership of women in every
 city fin the country pledged to work for the safeguarding of women and children in industry, says of early Christmas shopping:
 Never before in any month of Mo- vember has so large a number of mer- chants notified their customers that the Christmas goods are at hand ready mailed to their members appeals to shop early in the season, early in the
 week and early in the day. Tn some I.cities, postalcards carry a printed per-
 sonal appeal. In others. cards in the street cars and store windows bear the legend.
 "Everywhere, however. the most ef- fective pressure upon the thoughtless public comes from the merchants and the press through daily advertising and friendly editorials. "It is an astonishing number of pso- pie who profit by this vast concerted
 effort to abolish the Christmas cruel- ties. The shoppers themselves find now in the stores good air and good will awaiting them. which. fsinister thought;) win grow less every day as Christmas approaches. The clerks are still unwearied by the jostling crowds, and can extend courtesy which will grow day by day, more diffcuit If not more scant These, however. are mere iy the visible part of the army of work CTS concerned. Unseen and alas! un- remembered are the shipping and pack ing and wrapping forces. the delivery men, the boys and, remotest Of all from the gay holiday throngs of mid December are the candy makers. toy makers, box makers, the innumerable workshop and factory employees whcse 'oyertime' work follows the belated orders and careless delays of the shop ping multitude.
 'The. favorite Christmas gift of all classes and ages appears to be candy. From the babe with It's sugar angel, and the betrothed with costly bon hons in lavish measure, tS'<the Querulous aged lady for whom soft Inarshmal- low alone remains manageable, candy appears year after year the symbol or good cheer. Long since the manufact- urer began to prepare and store away those small {. hard. highly colored, un- wholesome objects associated In the painds of modern children with Sunday School Christmas trees and Christmas stockings. Packed in pails and buck cts this strange material has been ship. ped by hundreds of tons to towns and villages scattered from Maine to Texas and California. Age cannot wither 1t nor custom stale, so the candy manu- facturers prepare 1t through the sum mer and early fall.
 Not so the costly perishabie bon bons of older purchasers. These must be fresh, and the careless world. late In giving its orders, thinks little of the pressure upon the factory and store, upon maker and seller. Factory hand and 'saleslady' suffer alike when laws are broken and overtime work Is ex- acted. More in this industry than any other is use made of exemptions, when ever they exist from our all-too-scapt restrictions upon work at night for women and children.
 since the last holiday season the need for voluntary effort to discourage alavap4l, hour ahouu{nw has wraativ in . creased. For the highest court in the State of New York has pronounced un- constitutional the statute which for