The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1909-08-17

automobiles, vas grotesque- enough to
arouse strange feelings among these
callers. Some youngsters in the rear
Of the group looking at him laughed
aloud. Others Of us shivered at the
spectacle and We're seized with a
strange horror. In both cases there
was shock. From youth came derision
that any human being would daily
stand that gross insult and inhuman-
ity from the civilization about him.
Why not revolt against it some how?
From us in the labor movement quite
apart from our sensations of mingled
sympathy was evoked the query:
What practical help can and ought
the rest Of us give this man and his
fellows today?"
Hollands statesmen are discussing
the suppression Of the industries car
ried on in the workers miserable
homes. Law is to do it somehow.
The active spirits among the working
people and those prominent in the
management of the Exposition are
studying what can be done to miti-
gate the sac condition of the under
paid, Overworked, underfed workers.
The Holland Trade Unions are organ
izing those worker whose Occupa-
tons and numbers offer a field for
union action. The unions have al
ready done much in the cities of Hol-
and to raise wages-a subject TO
which l shall refer in another letter.
But. after all, there is one fact which
must be recognized if any plan for the
uplifting of men-the individual must
rise to the level OF the agency that
would reach him or her. Women col
lectively up to the present time have
not genrally proved themselves to be
the best trade ~uniOniStS, because as
individuals they have not aspired by
their own joint action to attain it. I
have seen in the United States and I
know it to be equally true in other
contrieS that women have made the
most heroic, self-sacrificing contests
in industry and for improvement as
we'll as for unionism and for princi-
pie. My comment is however of the
general characteristic of women
course. The trade u%niOnist
must, if not precede at least arrive
at the same time as trade
Sc with other social Institutions
intended to help the poorest of the
poor After all they must be helped
to help themselves.
"A few days ago I was shown an
in an improved dwelling
for the working classes. Every set
OF rooms, I was told, had it's bath
room. Most interesting. The apart
ments in question nae 3 rooms for
the family consisting of a husband.
wife and 5 children. There was a
with 5 beds side by side in
the family slept: a living-room.
badly furnished: a kitchen. we'll
planned. At one side a small com
partment was the bathroom. I looked
in on it. Was it to be the old story
of the bath-tub filled with coal stored
the kitchen fire? The room" was
3 feet by 5 with a small window at one
end. No tub, but the walls and floor
were Of concrete, with a drain pipe
at one end in the floor. A
single shower faucet was
Very good, indeed. in theory. this bath
room. The faucet could only give
water and that was not always
conducive to create the habit of bath
Contents of the room, a large
bird cage. hanging up; several bas-
kets of wood and some vegetables.
boxes. pieces of crockery
ware, kitchen utensils. etc. That bath
room could be used. that is a fact, if
one worked a quarter of an hour at
to take in and take out the non
bathroom articles. How often were
he ideas Of the man who plans the
-oOm and minds to make a bathroom
that of the NAM who plans
the boon and that Of the man. wo-
or child to take the bath. The
desire to give a man a bath may not
be met by a want to take a bath,
There is no end to the difficulties Of
social problems. But because all peo-
pie who ought to be civilized do not
at once accept the customs of civiliza-
ton is no reason why those customs
ought not to be insisted upon. The
and the action of uplifting
mankind depends upon the fact that
in general people have that in them
which in time will bring them UP to
the level of the best. The poorest
and the m ost iowly Of Europe's inmi-
grants to our country have risen with
their larger opportunities in America.
Time. circumstance and opportunity
after all go to make UP the forces
Of mans material. moral and social