Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1913-01-18
Charges That Children Toll All
Day and Far Into the
Night.
Mothers Were Afraid to Leave
Babes In the Shacks
Provided.
GOVERNMENT IS INVESTIGATING

A picture of men, women and chill
dren, the latter only five and six
years old, working under filthy con-
= ditions and living in squalid canning
camps of the New Y rk Fruit and
Vegetable Canning Company, was
presented to the House Rules Com
mittee at Washington last Saturday
by Mary Boyle O'Reilly, a social
worker, and Frank c. Praete, an in
vestigator for the New York Labor
Department.
| They supported a resolution in
troduced by Representative Allen, of
Ohio, for an investigation of condi-
tions in the canning industry
throughout the country. Frank
Gorrel, Secretary of the National
Gamers Association, declared that
his organization, representing from
20 to rs per cent. of the canning out
put of the country, invited the fullest
investigation of conditions in the
industry and would lend every as
sistance possible to Congress for
making the inquiry thorough. The
committee took the resolution under
advisement.
Miss O'Reilley and Mr.. Praete,
from notes made during personal
investigation of the canning camps
in New York, gave the committee
detailed descriptions of horrible
working conditions, filthy housing
conditions and lack of sanitary
equipment. Miss O'Reilley was in
the camp a month as a woman
-taburer. She descfibed to the COM
mittee the plight of little children
sent into the camps to earn a few
cents day.
"There are children in the camps
four and five years DID," she said,
"and there are children of ten and
eleven. There is no record of child
labor, and the employers maintain
that the children go to the factories
with their parents. I know of camp
where three children, working to-
gether, earned fifty cents a day.
/ working in the stripping shed
under the New York law is not con-
sidered factory labor. Women in the
camp are paid one cent a pound for
stripping peas A strong, vigorous
woman can strip about fifty or sixty
pounds a day. A woman is paid 81
a day for husking corn, but the work
Is very heavy. l know of two little
Italian girls who are steady workers.
They are sisters, five and six years
old.
''In one cannery I visited five
Italian boys, from fifteen to seven
teen years old, worked 115 hours in
enc week. They ended the week by
working from 7 o'clock Saturday
morning until o'clock Sunday
morning, nNver leaving the factory.
One of the boys. Tommy Soccoro, re-
fused to go back to the factory
Monday morning. When his mother
called him he waved her away, say
ing: I'm going to cut il out. There
amt no use; there amt no God -
did you say he worked 115 hours
a week?" demanded one Of the com
mittee.
"Why, yes" returned Miss
O'Reilly. ct know of women who
have worked 100 hours a week and
girls of sixteen and eighteen years
who worked twenty hours a day"
THE factories and shacks occu-
pied by the workers." Miss O'Reilly
said, "are overrun with rats, bugs,
flies and every sort of vermin. The
mothers often are afraid to leave
their children in the shacks while
they are at work because of rats. u
The labor in the camps, Miss O'Reilly
said, was largely recent immi
grants, Poles and Italians"
8 Mr.. Praete presented the report OF
his Investigation of nearly fifty
canning camps in New York State
including camps at Webster, Lyons
Clyde, Marion, Rome and Other
towns throughout the fruit and truck
garden sections OF the State. His
description Of housing and factory
conditions, Of filthy shacks where
the workers lived and Of conditions
OF water and sanitation, moved Rep.
= tresentative Denver, OF Ohio, to ask
"Did you see these things your
self?"
"All OF the statements made here
are the result of my own investiga.
tions," returned Mr.. Praete. 81
could not find words to describe the
conditions truly. Some OF the places
are so filthy that no pig would have
been at home there"