Domestic service

by Lucy Maynard Salmon

A third suggestion in harmony with the two preceding is to receive the employee into the family of the employer, giving her all of the family privileges, including a seat at the table. This plan finds many advocates among intelligent, conscientious employers who are earnestly trying to find a way out of present troubles. But there are several objections to it. One is the fact that such a policy is a distinct deviation from all economic tendencies of the century. A hundred years ago under the domestic system of manufactures the masterworkman received his apprentices into his family, and no other arrangement seemed possible. The factory system has revolutionized this manner of life, and a return to it in manufacturing industries would be as impossible as a restoration of the feudal system itself. The attempt to return to what was once a common custom in many parts of the North is an attempt to restore the patriarchal relationship between employer and employee in a generation which looks with disfavor on paternalism in other forms of labor. Another objection to the plan is its inherent impossibility. John Stuart Mill could conceive of another world where two and two do not make four, but it must in this world be at present an impossibility to conceive of a family in which the idea of unity is not an essential feature. The very foundation of a family is its integrity. Four plus one half can never equal five, and no one can ever be more than a fraction in any family into which he has not been born, married, or legally adopted. The family circle cannot be squared, and if it could be, the curve of beauty would be lost. Moreover, even if the plan could be carried out, it would not meet the needs of the majority of employees or of those who would become such if the conditions of service were more favorable. What domestics as a class desire is the opportunity of living their own lives in their own way. This is what other occupations offer to a greater degree than does domestic service, and it is one reason for the preference for them. The desire is not always on the part of the employees for the same friends, the same amusements, the same privileges, the same opportunities, the same interests, as those of their employers, but it is to have such friends, such amusements, such privileges, such opportunities, such interests, as they personally crave. Even what would be in themselves the greatest advantages often cease to be such when the element of personal choice in regard to them is removed. Still another objection is the failure of the plan to subserve the best interests of the employer, even granting that it is best for the employee. It grows out of the nature of the family, as previously suggested. Comparatively few persons are willing, except as a business necessity, to open their homes even temporarily to those compelled to board. The privacy of home life is destroyed to even a greater extent by the attempt to make household employees permanently a part of it, not because those admitted within the family circle are of this particular class, but because they are not of the family. Marriage has been called a process of naturalization—a difficult one when all the conditions are most favorable. The process is infinitely more difficult when an extraneous element is introduced into a family, not as a result of mutual choice, but of a business agreement.

A fourth proposition for lessening the difficulties in domestic service is to increase the number of employees by bringing to the North negroes from the South. So seriously has this plan been contemplated that companies have in some places already been formed, and through them colored servants have been sent to different parts of the Eastern states. But this plan assumes that no perplexities exist where colored servants are found, and also that there are no difficulties which a greater supply of domestic employees will not remove. That the former assumption cannot rightly be made is evident from many facts. The anomalous condition is found in at least one Southern city of an organization to assist Northern housekeepers to secure colored servants, and of another to aid Southern housekeepers in obtaining white employees from the North.[282] The examination of a large number of advertisements for “help wanted” shows apparently a preference in many parts of the South for white servants,[283] while the testimony of many employers seems to show that service is at present in a transitional state—the older generation is disappearing, while in the younger generation the same tendencies are found as in other classes of employees.[284] The second assumption, that the question is settled wherever the supply is greater than the demand, also seems unwarranted in the judgment of many.[285] These facts are in no sense to be regarded as an exhaustive presentation of the condition of domestic service at the South; they only indicate that in the opinion of many intelligent employers “the question of negro help is as broad as the negro question itself.” If it has proved such to those who know the negro best, there is little hope that Northern employers would gain more than new and perplexing complications by introducing as domestic servants large numbers of negroes from the South.[286]

Another suggestion of the same character is the importation of Chinese servants. While much has been said of the superiority of the Chinese as household employees,[287] and not a few housekeepers would be glad to see the restriction act repealed,[288] difficulties other than the present legislative and political ones stand in the way of adopting this policy. The Chinese, as well as the negroes, occupy in this country a social position inferior to that of Americans or Europeans. Gresham’s law may perhaps be applied to domestic service and the principle stated that superior and inferior labor cannot exist side by side—the inferior must drive out the superior. Unless employees of the lower social grade can be imported in such numbers as to meet every call for domestic servants, there must exist, as now, the discrepancy between supply and demand. The old struggle between free labor and slave labor must be repeated in miniature wherever the social chasm exists between two classes of laborers. The introduction to any considerable extent of Chinese servants would drive out European labor as that has in a measure driven out native born American service.

As a means of promoting a better adjustment of the business relations between employer and employee, it is sometimes proposed that licenses should be granted domestic employees by municipal corporations. This plan, however, would be a violation of the principles underlying the granting of such licenses. A municipal body is not justified in granting a license to any employment or industry unless such occupation is objectionable in itself as entailing expense, or danger of expense on the part of the taxpayers, as the sale of intoxicating liquors; or unless it involves special use by non-taxpayers of city improvements made at the expense of the taxpayers, as in the case of cabmen; or unless it brings into competition with tax-paying industries trades which contribute nothing to the general treasury, as is true of travelling peddlers; or unless it brings special danger, as of fire in the case of theatrical companies. The license is a tax imposed in return for special risks incurred or privileges granted. Domestic service comes under none of these principles, and to place it under the care of municipal authorities as is not done with other occupations of its class would be to degrade it in an unjustifiable way. The license, when granted in accordance with a principle, is not more objectionable than an ordinary tax; if granted without principle, it becomes an obnoxious and tyrannical measure.

The system of German service books has been widely advocated as an efficient means of securing reliable testimony as to the character and capabilities of employees, thus removing one of the most serious of present difficulties. But even in Germany, where obedience is man’s first law, as order is heaven’s first law in other parts of the world, it is impossible to obtain service books that do not need to be supplemented by personal inquiries. The service book is of value in weeding out the most inefficient employees, but it can do little more. As in any other form of recommendation, the employer wishes to say the best possible thing for a servant that he may not injure his prospects of obtaining another place. Moreover, the law compels every employer to believe an employee innocent until he is proved guilty. The employer must state that the servant is honest unless he has proof positive to the contrary. He is not permitted to say that he is suspicious, or even to leave out the word “honest.” The policy is a necessary protection to the weaker class, but it must vitiate somewhat the absolute reliability of the testimonials given. The German service book has a place where all occupations are permeated by government control, but it cannot be introduced into America. We must work out our own system of improvement in household service as we have worked out our own political system.

Other measures have been suggested that call for only a passing notice. It is often proposed to call together a convention of housekeepers to discuss the subject. But the mass must be disintegrated before anything can be accomplished, and moreover the difficulty of calling together such a convention and of securing through it any permanent results is the same as is found in political circles in attempting to organize a citizens’ party.

Other housekeepers seriously advocate abolishing the public schools above the primary grade on the ground that girls are educated above their station, and they follow the plan of one who says, “I do not engage women who have been beyond the third reader and the multiplication table.” The quality of service obtained by such a policy is indicated by the remark of the father of a remarkably stupid girl, “She ain’t good for much; I guess she’ll have to live out.” No statement can be more fallacious than that girls are educated above their station. There can be no so-called “station” in a democratic country. We have given the reins to our democratic views politically, and we must abide by the industrial and social results.

Still other housekeepers advocate the introduction of housework into all the public schools, and thus securing well-informed “help.” But both this proposition and its converse overlook the fact that it is the function of the public school to educate, not to supply information on technical subjects.

In one large city a “Servant Reform Association” has been organized, with an office on a prominent street-corner, and its name conspicuously posted over the door and painted on all the window shades. Its clientele is very large and embraces some of the best-known residents of the city. Among other measures of reforming servants it plans for the establishment of schools to be equipped with every household appliance, and “to have for instructors women who are thoroughly schooled in the various branches of household duties and domestic economy,” but it does not state where such instructors are to be obtained. Nothing shows so clearly how the times are out of joint as does the name of such an association.