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The new Feudalism involves not only the moderating of the present rates of pay for men workers, but an increase in the quantity of defenceless labor—the labor of women and children. Census Bulletin No. 150 gives the increase in the number of men working in manufacturing pursuits at 23.9 per cent; of women, at 28.4 per cent; of children, at 39.5 per cent. The wages of women have slightly increased; that is, the increase in total wages is 30.8 per cent against an increase in numbers of wage-earners of 28.4 per cent. The figures are better for the children; their wages are stated to have increased 54.4 per cent. There are ample reasons why this should be so. Popular agitation in behalf of the little ones may be guessed to have had some effect in the betterment of their pay; and a still greater effect has been wrought by their vastly increasing productivity. The perfecting of the instruments of production has been carried to such a degree that many a machine may be operated by a nursling; and it is well-nigh inevitable that some part of this increased productivity should be compensated for by increased pay of the operatives.
The number of women in factory work in the United States is 1,031,747, nearly one-fifth of the total. There are 230,199 in New York, 143,109 in Massachusetts, 126,093 in Pennsylvania, 58,978 in Illinois, 53,711 in Ohio. Eighteen of the nineteen factory States show an increase, Maine being the exception; and in thirteen of these States the percentage of gain is considerably in excess of that of men workers. Washington leads with a gain of 151.8 per cent; Michigan and Illinois show gains of 79 per cent each; Vermont, of 63.1; Indiana, 56.4; California, 46.8; Pennsylvania, 44.9; New Jersey, 39.3. In States outside the factory list still greater increases are shown. The figures for South Carolina are 158.3 percent; for North Carolina, 151.2; West Virginia, 130.2; Alabama, 109.1; Georgia, 82.2.
In specific industries the gains are sometimes enormous. There are no women reported for coke-making, and the number employed in making agricultural implements has declined 25.7 per cent. Car-building, too, shows a decline. But in refining petroleum the 60 women wage-earners represent a gain of 3200 per cent, and in bicycle and tricycle making the 517 women represent a gain of 3346.7 per cent. An increase of 2600 per cent is shown for distilled liquors, although men workers decreased 23.8 per cent. A decrease of men workers and an increase of women workers are also shown for clay products, flouring and grist-mill products, chewing and smoking tobacco and snuff, starch, cheese, butter, and condensed milk, watches, and watch-cases. The percentage of increase is in excess of that of men workers in oleomargarine, pocket-books, trunks and valises, tanned, curried, and finished leather, and needles and pins. There are six and one-half times as many women as men in collar and cuff making, and more than twice as many in the leather glove and mitten industry; in the latter, moreover, the percentage of increase for women is double that for men. There are 37,762 women making cigars and cigarettes, a gain of 56 per cent, against a gain of but 4.6 per cent for men. Malt liquors show an increase of 101.6 per cent of women workers against an increase of 30.2 per cent of men workers. Women have also increased in number in the cotton goods, flax, hemp, and jute, rubber boot and shoe, glass-making, slaughtering, and meat-packing, and boot and shoe industries, and in newspaper publishing.