Workers in the Northern Textile Cities. In the Northern textile cities we find a different situation, for most of the workers live in tenements. The stores, shops, and theaters are built and operated with the demands of the workers, rather than their needs in view. In one of these textile cities the average wage is $11.25 a week. Consider the case of just one family living in this city under these conditions. The family lives in a tenement with barely room enough for the father, mother, two daughters, and a son. The mother is devoted to the home; the father is a loom-fixer in the mill and a member of the union. All attend the Congregational church on Sundays. This man has been able to send his children through grammar school. His wages are above the average for the kind of work he is doing. The two girls started work just as soon as they finished school. The son also went to work, but he was so tired of the town where he had always lived that he went to New York and secured a position there. Everything went well for many years, and the prospects, while not bright for the future, were not especially dark. Then trouble came. First, the father was sick, and his illness dragged on through the whole winter, but by spring he was able to go back to work. It was the beginning of the slack season, however, when he applied for his old position. He went to work, but the wages were not as good as they had been when he left. The daughters found that in order to have any society they had to spend more money for clothes. “You can’t expect us to dress in a dowdy fashion, for if we do we never will have any friends,” was their assertion. Ten dollars was the wage of one of the girls and eight dollars the wage of the other girl. This amount did not go very far toward supporting them and buying the necessary clothes, and gave but little chance for a good time. Nothing was left to help the family fund. Before the winter was over a strike was called and the father lost his position. The family now became dependent upon the funds of the union to which the father belonged and the small amount the girls could squeeze out of their wages.
The winter passed as do all other mundane things and the strike came to an end. Those who were members of the union were not allowed to come back. The managers of the mill proclaimed that they had won a great victory for democracy and that the mill should be operated strictly as an “open shop.” The father found that “open shop” meant a closed shop to him until he tore up his union card and promised not to join any other labor organization. This he did in order to go back to work. He was forced to it, but he never quite gained the confidence of the foreman, for he was a marked man. Added to the hard struggle for existence with its attendant worries there is an increasing feeling of bitterness in the heart of this man, because he knows that he is being discriminated against for his former membership in the trade union. The family lives on, as thousands of others in the neighborhood are doing, but there is hostility toward the factory and all it represents. Not all the workers in the mill have this experience. Some have managed to save, and by good fortune have been able to save enough so that they are fairly comfortable and independent, owning their homes and living in comparative ease, although very simply. We must not think for a moment that there is only one side to this life and that always a disheartening one. The challenging thing, however, is that the men and women who are actually operating the machines are nearly all living harassed lives, with a heavy burden of trouble and worry, and are not finding the pleasure that should come from work well done.
The Machine and Human Happiness. The machine has been hailed as a savior from trouble and want. It promised happiness and well-being to all mankind. This promise has not been fulfilled, for instead of the prophecy of the future being one of cheer growing out of the development of the machine, it is rather one of warning. The machine has subordinated the man; thrust him aside and denied him a fair share of the things he has helped to create. As one of our keen-minded writers has said, “The machine has developed a new kind of slave and doomed him to produce through long and weary hours a senseless glut of things; and then forced him to suffer for lack of the very things he has produced.”
The Church and the Factory. What about the church in the midst of the factory city? The minister is no longer the most important personage in town. The business man dominates the life of the community. The mill has pushed itself into the place of influence once held by the church. In one of the New England cities a factory has been built around three sides of one of the oldest established churches. The church still remains, embraced by this factory. It is a fit parable of the present situation in the mill town. The church has a place but industry holds the outstanding position.
One of the most interesting pieces of work undertaken in recent years was that of a pastor in one of the mill villages in Georgia. He built the church; put in club rooms and provided features that would appeal to the people. At first the cotton-mill owners were favorably disposed toward the undertaking. They supplied a portion of the money toward erecting the building, and made a regular contribution for the support of the enterprise. The rector of the church soon found that the young people did not attend the social functions as much as he had hoped that they would, and they were conspicuous by their absence from the Sunday services. Upon inquiry, in addition to the usual reasons given by people for not attending church, he found that it was principally the economic factor that was at work against the church. Low wages and long hours left the people without energy enough to take part in anything that had to do with their culture or spiritual welfare. The sad thing about it was that the minister soon found to his deep sorrow that even his questioning of the people was resented by the authorities, who began to refer to him as a trouble-maker and a busybody, and eventually he was forced to resign his church and leave the community.
How is the church going to meet this situation? The church must continue its helpful agencies, open its club rooms, offer opportunity for play, for service, and for worship. But it must do more than that, for it must be the champion of the people, help them to secure a fair degree of leisure, and then direct them in a wise spending of their leisure hours. Unless the church can do this, it can never be the instrument for leading men and women in these communities to accept Jesus as a personal Savior from sin.
CHAPTER IV
The World of the Garment Makers
Fifth Avenue in New York is one of the world’s great thoroughfares. Years ago it was devoted exclusively to residential purposes. The wealthy people built their homes along the lower end of the street. As the city grew, these people followed the avenue north until at the present time the finest homes in the city are located in the neighborhood of Central Park in the upper reaches of the street. Between Fourteenth Street and Washington Square there are now a number of business houses, two fine old churches, and a portion of the city that still retains the residential quality of dignity and worth. From Fourteenth Street to Fiftieth Street the avenue is given over almost exclusively to business. From Thirtieth Street to Fifty-seventh Street are found the finest shops and stores in New York City. Below Thirtieth Street this stately avenue, and the numbered cross streets for many blocks running east and west have been invaded by great skyscrapers known as loft buildings in which is being carried on the greatest garment-making industry in the world.