The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1912-01-03
New York City Faces Clean Linen
Famine and Family Washing
Has to be Done at
Home.
STRIKE OF EMPLOYEES
Thousands Of Workers In the Laun.
dries Have Quit and the Big
strike Grows Ia Pro-
portion.

NEW YORK, Jan. 3.--New YORK
City today is facing a clean linen
famine. Already 25.o00 laundry
workers have gone out on strike,
10000 more will go out before night
and by tomorrow night, it is more than
probable 100000 workers will have
obeyed the general strike order, clos
ing down 500 steam laundries and
$4,000 hand laundries in Greater New
York alone. That the strike, If pro-
longed. will shortly involve upstate
and New Jersey cities was the declar-
alton today OF VIM. Armour, in charge
of the strike.
Steamships. railroad companies, no.
tells and restaurants today began com.
planning over their failure to secure
quick return for their soiled linens.
Several hundred thousand household
ers were notified today that no prom
ises OF speedy work could be made.
The strikers declared they were
confident Of winning shortly. Strike
breakers. the.s say. cannot take their
places. because the claims against the
laundries for linens torn and burned
by inexperienced hands would cause
too great financial loss
"The Hell.r
Il have never read Upton Sinclair {.
book, The Jungle II he had worked
In New York laundries, he would have
called them The He'll"
Margaret Hinchay has worked for
more than twenty years in the hand
and steam laundries OF New York,
and she knows the conditions. Abos.
the ordinary intelligence, observant,
this woman who had risen to the po-
stion of a forewoman, walked out
with $4,000 other Laundry worker.
and became the Joan of Arc" of the
laundry strike.
4 hate to see this strike come.
she said, for know what suffering
It is going to bring to thousands OF
poor girls whose wages have been Sc
meagre they could not even make
both ends meet
But it had to come, and we are
willing to suffer because we know VT
are right; We are going to improve
conditions for ourselves and for the
thousands OF poor girls who will come
after u.s.
People who take their clothes tc
iaundries never get any closer TO US
inan the tiled-walled, scrupulously
clean offices-they never hear Of the
hells back there in which we work
we get to work at in the morning
and have to work until o'clock a
night; We get only half an hour fol
lunch When there is overtime worl
70 be done. we are forced to stay a:
long as we are told; we get nothing
extra for this work
The state factory inspectors re
Gently made the laundries put il
cnairs-but today you'll find thes'
ehairs stacked UP in corners. Why
y would be worth a girls job to 81
In one.
We work in superheated room
nted with steam. The air is fille'
Win millions of minute particles 0
iih' torn from the things we are laun
aering tuberculosis is the commones
disease among the girls.
! Know of no laundry in New Yorl
winch has decent dressing room
Most OF the rooms for women are S
* 'osed that men look into them. i
many laundries men and women use
JOIN. dressing room Is 1t any wonde
some girls are driven to immortality
our wash rooms and toilets. in nearl
every New York laundry. are also e,
posed to the gaze Of the men workers
Most OF the laundries are flre traps
uou only knows how many poor girl
Slli die II they ever catch fire.
Scanty Wages.
seyenty.fve percent of the laundr
workers In New York are women. Th