YANKEE INDUSTRIALISM.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1004, 3 October 1912, Page 4

YANKEE INDUSTRIALISM.

DOLLARS AND CENTS AND

HUMAN LIVES

A picture of “life that is a cruel struggle for bare existence” is presented in Commissioner Neill’s report upon the Lawrence strike, which was submitted to thi Senate a few weeks ago, observes the New York Sun. And the Socialist New York Call describes the account given of conditions in the New England mill city as “a sordid tale, told in dollars and cents, human lives, merciless exploitation, and hunger.” The full-time earnings of more than 7000 woollen-mill employees were found by the Commissioner of Labour to be less than seven dollars a week. In order to obtain the bare necessities of life the normal families of five had to supply two wage-earners. Massachusets law forbids the employment of children under 14, hence many mothers of young children must arrange for the care of their little ones in the country or with neighbouring families while they work. It is no wonder, declares the Tribune, ‘‘that a slight cut in the wages of people living like these, just out of the reach of starvation, caused a bitter and angry contest. Such industrial conditions are the danger spots of to-day,” and “when anything happens to make the struggle for existence harder among such workers, revolutionary agitators like the Industrial Workers of the World receive a ready hearing.” The report on the Lawrence strike made by the Bureau of Labour was ordered by a resolution offered by the Senator Pqintdexer. It is spoken of in the press as thorough-going, and so voluminous that the Senate ordered only copies enough to be printed lor the Senate documentroom. Brief summaries and excerpts, however, appear in the daily papers. Three-fourths of the 85,892 inhabitants of Lawrence, we learn, are directly dependent upon the mills there. The conditions under which these 60,000 earn a livelihood are thus set iorth in paragraphs of the report which we find quoted in the New York World : “The actual economic condition of the families of the workers of the textile mills of Lawrence cannot be easily pictured by a mere statement of individual earnings. But it is obvious from the figures that the full earnings of a large number of adult employees are entirely inadequate to maintain a family. Thus, the full-time earnings of 7275 employees (about onethird of the 21,922 operatives covered in this investigation) are less than seven dollars a week. Of these 7275 who earn less than seven dollars a week, 5 2 94 were over 18 years ol age, and 36 per cent, oi these were males.

“The average wage for the entire 21,922, or one-third of the total number of people in Lawrence 14 years of age or over, was sixteen cents an hour. Approximately one fourth— 23-3 per cent—earned less than 12 cents an hour, and about one-fifth —20.4 per cent. —earned 20 cents an hour or over.

“The normal family of five, unless the father is employed in one of the comparatively few betterpaying occupations, is compelled by necessity to supply two wage; earners in order to obtain the necessities of life. If the father has not at least one child old enough to work, it becomes necessary for the wife to enter the mill to supplement the earnings of the husband in order to maintain the family. “Where, as is often the case, the lather and mother and three or more children are at work and contribute theii earnings to a common fund, the family can live in comfort and lay aside weekly savings. But the condition of the head of the family -in one of the poorer paid occupations, with children so young as to necessitate the mother remaining at home to care for them, is one ot extreme hardship. “Necessity forces a large number of wives with small children to enter the mills. In some ot these instances the children are taken to the country on Sunday afternoons and left there until the following Saturday afternoon, when they are brought home to stay during the holiday. The usual practice, however, is to take the children to some neighbouring family before work starts in the morning and leave them for the day. For this care ;rom one dollar to two dollars a week is paid. “Among the IS2 households where inquiries were made, the husband was the sole wage-earner in twenty instances. The lowest earnings for these twenty instances was 5 dollars xo cents per full week, and the family consisted of a husband, a wile, and three children. The largest family among these twenty consisted of a husband, wife, and five children, the husband earning n dollars 9 cents per full week. The Senate’s “sudden fit of penny-pinching economy” is attributed by the New York Call to a desire “to hide that record of shame in the document-room.” But the Call has learned enough from the report to strengthen its belief that Lawrence is—

“An industrial blot on the map, a pestiferous industrial city, a place where human beings are crushed and starved to produce vast wealth for the mill-owners, a city of hunger and destitution, of child labour, of woman labour, a city where mothers must desert their newly-bcru babies to go into the mills, in order to help the ‘head of the family,’ the father, earn enough to support the family.”