The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1911-10-03

NASS iioI duis projected Nv
existing laws? And the answer
is quite sure to be: Because the I'M
was not strong enough to cone
with a Undertaking employer. Where
there are no unions. vigilant and Sys-
tematic defense of the workers is veil
nigh at an end.
Poverty is the weakness. the undo
ing Of the poor, eNer the one ample
explanation for their defenselessneSS.
How numerous are the poor, how thcr
deprlvations at times unman them,
now u~nrequited their labors, how he
rolc their struggles can be told by the
labor representatives. speaking for
own caliings at a convention
Begin with the bakers. Why are bak-
ers in New York forever striking? A
decade ago, twenty years ago. a quar-
ter of a century ago New York
striking bakers put up their plea to
the State lawgivers. INVOKED public
opinion in their favor. called upon or
ganized labor for help, some Mo
members even committed acts Of vio-
lenCe that they might be Jailed as
martyrs in the hope Of making known
the necessity of improving conditions
in the baking industry. Yet today in
the New York cellar bakeries still
tolls poverty in mortal pain. 1t took
thirty years of agitation to obtain a
= ~ boA
cry sanitation, passed a ear or SO
ago. How long are these laws to be
enforced? ii employing bakers car
rled the bake-shOp ten-hour law UP
to the United States Supreme Court
to have it declared unconstitutional,
n succeeded. During the last year
New York journeymen bak ers in large
We're striking against work
ing unlimited hours and against com
pulsory boarding in the shop-in the
dark oVer-heated and i~naGeQuately
ventilated underground bake-roOm in
which they worked. Withal. their
ages were anon the lowest. The
bakers unions are difficult to main
tain: the better conditions gained
through successful strikes alternate
with the worse conditions thereafter
gradually enforced by employers.
Why this state of things in the bak-
ing trade? Poverty. of course. The
poverty of the penniless. hungry i'm
migrant Of today competing with the
but slightly less pitiable poverty Of
the tOiisOlne immigrant of yesterday.
engaged in the task Of SiSyphus-his
mere elementary needs forming both
the hill to be overcome and the stone
that ne fails to get to the top.
The reservoir Of labor on which
the bakery employers make con-
slant drafts is the mass of unem-
plOyed in New York, continually fed
by the stream Of immigrants arriving
from europe. AS with the baking, SO
with the clothing industry. For years
in every strike lost by h garment
work ers or lockout won by their en-
~p1Oyers, the determining factor has
been the shiploads Of people arriving
at the landing place at the Battery,
with less per head in their pockets
than two weeks purchase on life. Six
years ago, consequently, the executive
board Of the garment workers union.
themselves nearly all foreign born,
passed reSolutiOnS calling for restrict
ed immigration.
If an examination be made of one
occupation after another in New York
it will be found that in all those
which. like baking and garment max
ing, may be followed in this country
by persons not speaking English, the
immediate cause Of dire poverty is IN
employment. This simply mean that
the arriving immigrants are not need
ed in the labor market, except to be
used by employers in enforced com
petition with the W~age-earners aiready
here.
But. il will be asked, is really the
enCompassing direct cause Of depen-
dent poverty today in America unem-
~plOyInent? Recent repOrtS are: The
cases of 1000 families applying TO the
Charity Organization Society for aid
being duly recorded with reference to
the sources of deprivation. ten specific
causes We're set down as those to
which disability to make a living were
attributable. In more than 50 per
cent. a factcr was unemployment.
though. naturally. associated with 9TH
er factors-chronic. physical. widow
hood. etc. Intemperance was a con-
comitant in less than L per cent. Of
all these cases. In 4.325 families 3D-
plying 10 the United Hebrew Charities
for aid. there were 1,34S cases of IN
employment on part Of the bread
winners. OF 6o.S51 ~unoccupied mem
hers of labor unions in the State Of
New York at the end Of March. 1910,
42,010 were out because OF lack Of
employment. The State Commission
on unemployment reports THAT the
records Of charitable organizations
show that a large proportion OF cases