It is claimed that the factory is not a “philanthropic institution,” and that corporations are not responsible for the well-being of those they employ. But until Boards of Health and Factory Inspectors can succeed in reforming the abuses which exist among the mill-people, who but the corporation ought to be held responsible for the unwholesome surroundings and the hard life which is undermining the vitality and poisoning the blood of so large a portion of our working-people?
“Labor is worship,” says the poet. Labor is education, is the teaching of the wise political economist. If factory-labor is not a means of education to the operative of to-day, it is because the employer does not do his duty. It is because he treats his work-people like machines, and forgets that they are struggling, hoping, despairing human beings. It is because, as he becomes rich, he cares less and less for the well-being of his poor, and, beyond paying them their weekly wages, has no thought of their wants or their needs.
The manufacturing corporation, except in comparatively few instances, no longer represents a protecting care, a parental influence, over its operatives. It is too often a soulless organization; and its members forget that they are morally responsible for the souls and bodies, as well as for the wages, of those whose labor is the source of their wealth. Is it not time that more of these Christian men and women, who gather their riches from the factories of the country, should begin to reflect that they do not discharge their whole duty to their employees when they see that the monthly wages are paid; that they are also responsible for the unlovely surroundings, for the barren and hopeless lives, and for the moral and physical deterioration of them and their children?
The cotton-factory gave the first impetus towards uplifting the social status of the working-men and the working-women of New England, if not of the whole country. It should not be a cause of its decadence, as it certainly is in danger of becoming unless corporations can be induced to seriously consider whether it is better to degrade those who work for them to a level with the same class in foreign countries, or, to mix a little conscience with their capital, and so try to bring back, into the life of the factory-operative of to-day, this “lost Eden” which I have tried to describe.
Transcriber’s Note
Illustrations have been moved to be near the text they illustrate.
Variant spelling, and inconsistent hyphenation have been retained.
The one apparently mispelt word that has been changed is on [page 12], where “imigrants” has been changed to “immigrants”.
Quotation marks are not used consistently, they have mainly been left as printed, with the exception of:
[Page 73] - the closing quotation mark has been removed from the end of the paragraph before the signature of the discharge letter;
[Page 106] - a closing quotation mark has been added after “Lowell, Nov. 25, 1843”;
[Page 129] - the closing quotation mark has been removed from the very end of the letter;
[Page 193] - an opening quotation mark has been added at the start of Miss Averill’s letter;
Punctuation in the Table of Contents has been made consistent.