3. Work at night is not required, and the working day does not exceed ten hours.
4. No goods are given out to be made away from the factory.
Similar to the Consumers' League label are the labels of various trade unions. These latter, indeed, were in the field many years before the Consumers' League was even organized. They are based upon exactly the same principle. When a factory maintains the conditions demanded by the union, it is allowed to use the label on its goods. Anyone, therefore, who buys union-made goods at a store where the employees are protected by the retail-clerks union can be sure that those engaged in both the production and distribution of these articles have obtained their just rights so far as this is possible.
By having firms on the white list handle labeled goods and, recently, by establishing a store of its own in New York, a market is created for them among the members of the League. The practicalness underlying the whole management of the League is very clearly shown here both in the dove-tailing of its activities in manufacture and distribution and in the appeal made to the self-interest of purchasers to buy white goods, wrappers, etc., made in clean factories rather than germ-carrying sweatshops goods. It has been the aim of the League all along to make it to the Consumer's personal advantage to buy labeled goods at white-list stores. The idea is to give him a better article and better service for the same money, the increased cost to the manufacturer and retailer to come out of the increased sales.
In 1898 the various local Leagues that had sprung up in different sections were united into one national organization and the activities became even more important. The sweatshop, child-labor, excessive hours for women, were attacked with considerable effect. In many States the public conscience was sufficiently aroused by reform agencies with which the League zealously co-operated to pass stringent laws, and the League's representatives, either as private individuals or as honorary inspectors of the State tried to see that they were carried out. If New York to-day has the strictest child-labor law in the United States, a good share of the honor is due to the untiring labors of an enlightened Consumers' League.
Here one concrete instance of these activities must suffice. England had as early as 1844 enacted laws protecting women, but, owing to the Constitution of the United States various State Supreme Courts had held that any restriction of the right of free contract of adult women was unconstitutional. Therefore when the State of Oregon proceeded against a laundryman for violation of a State Law by working women longer than allowed by that Law, the laundryman promptly appealed from the State Court to the United States Supreme Court. The local Consumers' League thereupon notified the National League, with headquarters in New York City, that information concerning the effect of work upon women was necessary to win the case before the highest tribunal of the United States. Expert counsel was obtained, and Miss Josephine Goldmark, of the League, was detailed to collect the information. She employed ten readers, some of them medical students, and special privileges were granted her at Columbia University Library, the Astor Library of New York City, and the Library of Congress in Washington. The result was a sweeping verdict sustaining the State.
There are two great classes of the poor—those who for some reason or other do not work, and those who, while working, do not receive enough to support themselves and their families. To the former the Church has been a staunch friend. It is one of her glories that her enemies accuse her of fostering pauperism by too lavish charity. Her hospitals and orphanages, her homes for the fallen and aged, her refuges for the sick of soul and body are dotted over the whole land, and are administered with a devotion and self-sacrificing heroism compelling the admiration of all. As John Boyle O'Reilly said, hers is not
"Organized charity scrimped and iced
In the name of a cautious, statistical Christ."