I received a letter from a gentleman in Conway, N. H., this week, who writes, not knowing that I was intending to discuss this question: "After you have given the sweating-system one round, can you not take up the question of the girls working in the big stores? I have just heard a well-authenticated account of a man high in authority in one of the largest stores, suggesting the way to ruin to a young girl from the country, who said, when she learned what her wages were to be, that they would not be sufficient to give her a bare support. This not only shows the attitude of these wealthy merchants to the souls of their working-girls, but it shows that they are conscious of their attitude, and have deliberately chosen to take it." I am told, upon undoubtedly credible testimony, that another young woman who came to Boston from the country, and sought work in several stores, was so outraged at the vile suggestions which were made to her about means of adding to her salary, that she went back to the house of her friend,—a lady of as high standing as any in the city,—and cried and sobbed all night long. She said she would beg or starve before she would submit herself to such outrage again.
It is impossible to turn these incidents aside as exaggerations. They are horrible, I know; but the most horrible thing about them is, that they are true. You will say perhaps, as some have said during the past few weeks of my exposure of the sweat-shops, "What good will it all do, this harrowing of people's minds with these cruel stories?"
I do not know how much good will be done. I only know that I could not retain my self-respect and keep silent.
Nothing is more foolish than for us to keep still, hoping that in some way these wrongs will remedy themselves. Shall we look to the sweater, the chattel-mortgage shark, the lecherous merchant, to reform themselves? They do not care how long, nor at what a pittance, men and women work, or to what fearful extremities they are driven. Reforms will never come from the gold-box of Mammon. We must cry aloud and spare not until these devilish cruelties and unblushing crimes are impossible in our fair city.
The words of the Christ, as interpreted by James Russell Lowell, are ringing in my ears:—
"With gates of silver and bars of gold,
Ye have fenced my sheep from their father's fold.
I have heard the dropping of their tears
In heaven these eighteen hundred years."
Then if we reply with the selfish assurance of some of these pharisaical political economists who are criticising me to-day:—
"O Lord and Master, not ours the guilt,
We build but as our fathers built;
Behold Thine images, how they stand,
Sovereign and sole, through all the land."
How his answer will put us to shame and confusion:—
"Then Christ sought out an artisan,
A low-browed, stunted, haggard man,
And a motherless girl, whose fingers thin,
Pushed from her faintly want and sin.