The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-05-03
SURVEY BARES
SLAVE RULE IN
SWEATSHOPS
Long Hours and Starvation
Pay Are Revealed in
Pennsylvania.
ST a WEEK FOR GIRLS
Domestic Help Situation Is
Appalling: Children Are
Ground Down.

BIZ Scripps-Howard Newspaper AUiance
PITTSBURGH, May Am alarm
ing revival of sweat-shop wages and
child labor, with some children
working for as little as cents a
day, and some working as long as
fifty-four hours a week, has been
disclosed by the Pittsburgh Press in
statewide survey of official re-
ports
The Pennsylvania state labor and
industry department revealed figures
showing that the average weekly
wage in the states industrials is
$1464-second lowest of the indus
trial states.
Nor is this situation confined to
factories and stores. Families in
Pittsburgh we're found to be work.
ing their domestic help at pay OF
81 week.
Long Hours; 81 a Week
Young girlS-daughters of unem-
ployed parents, and many of them
from the industrial sections around
Pittsburgh-do general hoasework,
care for children and work hours
ranging from 10 to 16 a day for 81,
or slightly more a week-many of
them sleeping on make-shift beds,
without decent privacy or sanitary
facilities.
The sweating" evil, largely for
gotten during the boom days of 1923
and 1929, is spreading along the
worst lines revealed in the famous
labor compaigns of twenty years
ago, the newspapers said.
State and federal labor authorities
handicapped by the heedlessness of
legislative bodies, have joined labor
declarations, unions. welfare groups
and humanitarians in a drastic
campaign against the sweat shop.
Mrs. Cornelia Bryce Pinchot, wife
of the Governor, shocked by meager
reports of sweat shops abuse. has
just completed the first stages of a
secret investigation of her own.
Frightful Story Barred
She has interviewed dozens Of
girls, nearly every one less than 10,
and uncovered a frightful story of
long hours, ill-treatment and slave
wages.
In one ease uncovered by women
investigators, a child labored three
weeks and drew blank pay check,
due to ruthless docking.
Meanwhile, the state legislature,
dominated by manufacturing inter-
ests, has clapped the lid on remedial
legislation.
A minimum wage bill, most pro-
gressive of pending social legislation,
is blocked in a senate committee.
A child labor bill similarly is
stymied.
Angered at the legislatures mac
ton, the Pennsylvania Federation of
Labor and a united army of liberal,
social and welfare factions are pre-
pairing to force remedial measures.
Strlke StIrS Agitation
The recent strike of girl workers
in Uniontown shirt factory against
wages ranging from Is cents to 81
day stirred up public interest in
unreasonably low wages. Thousands
of children in the mems clothing
trade, were found to get less than
So a week
In Pennsylvania, women and girls
may be worked ten hours a day.
flfty-four hours a week. State au-
thorities have uncovered wholesale
instances of violation even of this
comparatively loose law.
Charlotte Carr. deputy secretary
of labor and industry, checked the
pay roll of shirt manufacturer
and found earnings of ST and SO ex-
ceptional, many at SIS and some as
low as S1.65. She was Mortified. But
a closer inspection disclosed that
these wages were not for one week
Of toll, but two weeks
The department has uncovered in
7SoAANOo VI WI hGlSs pau ID
cents for 100 pieces of underwear
and penalized 81 for a days abb
sence.
Child Workers Strike
There are girls paid only nickel
for making complete blouse. A
skilled milliner was found coming
home at the end Of a week with SO
cents in her pocket.
Unable to survive on the unrea-
sonable wages earned by their chill
dren and mothers, thousands Of
families in the sweat shop districts
continue on public relief lists.
In Allentown, where child work.
ers in shirt mills went on strike in
protest against wages of Is cents
to 81 a week, their families were
threatened with withdrawal of help
by relief authorities.
Parents, panic stricken by the
| threat, forced their underfed boys
and girls to return to work
Since 1926. the employment of