Evening capital and Maryland gazette., 1912-12-10
MANY BABY WORKERS
IN NEW YORK CITY
Little Children Who Never Play
But WOak and Are Wage Farmers
WOMAN'S LOVE OF ADORMENT
canses Heartache and Suffering Among
Poor Children Who Tie Ostrich
Feathers.
(Concluded.)
Part II

Part II
One little girl expressed great de
light at the class room, thought il
must be like Heaven. for they want
no flowers there. The children who
are old enough to go to school are saw
/ ed some of the heart-breaking EN-.
/ ployment, but from the minute they
| get hasty lunch they jump to the
! task of branching apple blossoms, we
will say, from O'Clock till midnight,
at eight cents dozen, making cheap
grade of violets at three and a hall
cents d gross, OF better grade which
takes longer at five cents a gross. One
would think it worth five cents to
count q gross of violets without max
ing them. The very best roses are
paid for at twenty-five cents q gross,
hut considering the time and care,
they do not pay the maker any better
than the grade for which eight cents
gross is considered good pay.
Five cents an hour has been eonsid-
cred fair average wage for home
worker to attain. This for an adult
worker; children do not reach So high
a mark save in exceptional cases. A
settlement worker once asked tiny
stunted maid of seven how long she
had been at violet making. She die
not even lift her eyes from tie work
when replying to the question. The
room in which this little one toiled
had FIVE other workers. In it lines
were spread from side 10 side on
which were strung vioiets and leaves.
The table was heaved high with ma
terial. A greasy paper bag contained
the noon meal; the room was the cas-
tie where all slept, worked and drag
ged out their lives. The whole family
made sixty cents day the father
made six dollars week, but 10 get
the necessary ninety-six the weak
members of the family, when they
worked on daisies, for instance, must
finish six dozen wreathes day, There
are thirty-nine daisies to a wreath.
three or four petals to daisy. This
days labor pays sixty cents
What is the remedy? To break down
the tradition of the word home as
implying a place of protection and of
love. Lovel The poor parents have
no time to love-cnly time to work
for root and enough food to keep
alive on, clothes to keep from freez-
ing. When the law comes to consider
the home, where women and children
toll for money as factory, and put
such home under the sanitary and
hours laws wieh other factories, then
relief will be in sight.
Back in the eighties a combined
effort of the labor unions and the
State Department Of New York, labor
resulted in law forbidding the MAX
ing of cigars in tenement houses.
Cigar manufacturers and owners of
the houses Immediately attacked the
new law, which was carried to the
Court of Appeals and there declared
unconstitutional A clever writer
declard the text of the decision con-
tanned more sound reasoning and less
knowledge OF the subject than any
court decision on record. Starting
with the hypothesis that the home is
a place of ease, peace, space and
opportunity the judges decided that
law denying man the right to
make cigars in his own domicile was
tyrannical and unwarranted. Dilat-
ing on the sweet theme, they assert
ed that nowhere was cigar making so
properly carried on as within the
"hallowed associations of a home.
They wiped the law from the statute
books of the State, and in so doing
prevented further legislation remov-
ing factory work from tenement
houses.
A law was later passed providing
for the licensing of tenements where
certain articles were manufactured.
This lew can do no more than estab-
lish a standard of sanitation, it can
do nothing in regulating the bulk of
the work done in the homes for the
hours of the toilers nor their age.
Last year there were over $4,000
licensed tenements in the greater
city of New York. In these houses
sometimes thirty families live and
probably every member over twelve
months old works or tries to.
Child labor is national disgrace
and only national action nationally en-
forced, can wipe it out. but it is an
individual responsibility if We wo-
men are not strong enough to boycott
goods made by tiny fingers, we can
at least to post ourselves on these
conditions under which other women
are living that by our influence direct
or indirect those who have the power
Of legislation will use it for the saw
ing of the weak and the ignorant,
otherwise their blood may be required
of rs in that great day. BY