The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1908-03-14
FATHER VAUGHAN
Realistically Describes Horrors of the
ENGLISH SWeatshops

Father Bernard Vaughan, S. j.. the
famous Tnglish preacher and mission
airy, expressed himself very strongly
! TO recent interviewer on the sweat
shop evil as it exists in England.
Sweating is more easily understood
than defined. A parliamentary COM
mittee describes the system as: First
unduly low rates of wages; second, eX-
cessive hours of work: third, unsan-
itary condition of the work places. Be
lieve me, when l tell you that the vast
majority of the community have nc
idea at all of the sweating practices
that obtain in their midst
THE sweating question has not been
exaggerated. because the Ubiquitous
thing cannot be exaggerated. Let me
illustrate what l mean by giving you
a e<instance-a typical one.
take it from Birmingham. which
proudly holds up it's head to the en-
pire is the ideal of everything munich
pay. Few persons realize that in the
metropolis of the Midlands there are
only fifty button factories, and. if
mistake not, twelve other factories for
hooks and eyes. These buttons and
hooks and eyes, when made. are usu-
ally mounted on cards, ready for the
inspection of shop keepers customers.
some 10000 OF the poorest of our poor
brothers and sisters are engaged the
liveong day in novels called homes,
sewing, among other things, these
hooks and eyes upon show cards; still
less 10 they realize that 2SS hooks and
2SS eyes have to be linked together and
stitched to a card for the magnificent
remuneration of four farthings-one
penny
Let me emphasize the case in hand
little more. In a squalid court l
found woman. with her four children
sitting on the floor of fireless room
working in silence. The ages of the
children ranged from eight down to
two and half years old. All the
little brood-God bless them:-were
linking the hooks and eyes. with which
the floor was Uttered. preparing them
for mothers carding needle. From
a. m. to 10 p. m. or it may be to mid
night, with necessary interruptions
only, the family sat working. incud-
ing even the husband. who was out of
employment. What, you ask me, were
the earnings of this Industrious family?
Five shillings ($1.25) q week, Out of
this sum half had to so to the rack
renter; so that fir fire and light for
food and for clothes there remained
the Otnef nau.
"Oh, God! that rent should be so
dear. and flesh and blood so cheap,
Multiply the single example [ have
given from Birmingham by some hun
dreds of thousands. and then you will
begin to appreciate the meaning of
that text of Scripture. Blessed is the
man who UNDERSTANDABLE concerning the
needy and the poor Our dear and
blessed Savior lived and moved in their
midst.
ITO understand, to reverence, and
to love the poor, you must go. like
Him. into their midst-not to patron
ize, but to sympathize and to help
them.
IF nations efficiency depends upon
the efficiency of it's industries, let me
remind you that the efficiency of its
industries depends no less upon the
of its Industrial workers To
defraud the laborer of a sustenance
wage to my thinking, is a crime of
national suicide. 1t is a crime against
the country, it is a crime against the
majesty of God Himself, who by charg-
ing man with a mission and deputing
him to work in this workaday world
Droclaims it to be the sacred duty of
the state to secure for it's industrial
citizens such a wage that upon it they
may be able to live human lives, full
filing their three-fold mission to home,
20 country, and to God their Father
Almighty If the wage-earning citizen
has duties, he has rights no less-the
'irst among them being the right in a
Christian state to live a human and
Christian existence