Progress in the household

by Lucy Maynard Salmon

The treasurers’ reports show that part of the funds at command have been derived from charity balls, calico balls, rose shows, chrysanthemum shows, flower festivals, baseball benefits, picnics, excursions, concerts, bazars, lectures, readings, Valentine’s Day cotillon suppers, concert suppers, club entertainments, carnivals, kermesses, sale of cook-books, flower-seeds, and Jenness-Miller goods, and in some instances from raffles.

This fact alone separates the exchange from other business enterprises. Having no capital to invest, it must pursue a hand-to-mouth policy, and employ means for increasing its resources which would never be considered by other business houses. In a few cases where exchanges own their buildings and sublet parts of them, or where they are able to maintain a profitable lunch department, it is possible more nearly to make both ends meet. Under other circumstances the exchange becomes poorer as its business increases, and there is a fresh demand for subscriptions and entertainments to meet current expenses. It is true that the exchange does not wish to be considered a business enterprise and be judged by ordinary business rules, but the fact that it enters the business field as a competitor with other enterprises makes it inevitable that it be judged as a business house, and not as a charitable organization. The persistence with which different exchanges iterate and reiterate the statement that their object is charity “to needy gentlewomen,” and not financial return, is evidence of a consciousness of their present ambiguous position. As long as the exchange undertakes business activities, it cannot escape judgment by business principles.

The exchange has from the first hampered itself with many hard and pernicious conditions. The requirement is universal that all consignments shall be made by women. Valuable industrial competition is thus shut out, and the exclusion of men from the exchange is as unreasonable as the exclusion of women from competition in other occupations. There are many household articles, the product of inventive and artistic talent, which are the handiwork of men and should find place in the exchange.

The second restriction found in the majority of exchanges is that no consignments shall be received except from women who state that they are dependent for entire or partial support on the sale of the articles offered. Some of the early exchanges made at first the additional requirement that the work offered should be by women who had formerly been in affluent circumstances but were rendered self-supporting by changes of circumstances. The latter requirement has now been abolished, and in a few of the more recently organized exchanges, especially in the exchange departments of the Woman’s Educational and Industrial Unions, the requirement of the necessity of self-support has been abandoned. Some exchanges also modify this condition so far as to state that all the proceeds of sales made for those not dependent on their own exertions for support must be appropriated to charitable purposes, and at least one exchange apologizes for accepting articles from young girls who had the necessaries, though not the luxuries, of life, on the ground that since these girls give the results of their work to charity, the exchange is teaching them a valuable lesson.

The principle is a pernicious one, and is never recognized in other enterprises. Just as long as society asks concerning any article “Does the maker need money?” and not “Is it the best that can be made for the price?” just so long a premium is put on mediocre work. It is a question never asked in other kinds of business; the best article is sought, regardless of personal considerations, and it is at least an open question whether in the end the interests of the individuals to be benefited by employment are not thus best served. If the same principle were applied to the legal and medical professions, society would be deprived of the services of many whose help is necessary for the preservation of its best interests. The application of the same principle elsewhere would cause every producer to withdraw from the industrial field as soon as he had gained a competence. The result would often be that as soon as an individual had reached great skill in producing an article, he would be forced to step aside and yield his place to others.

Moreover, society has a right to demand the best that every individual can give it; and just as long as the exchange persistently denies itself and its patrons the benefit of the best work wherever it is found, regardless of money considerations, just so long it will fail to secure the best economic results. It does not indeed concern itself with these results, but it cannot thereby escape them.

But aside from the injurious economic effects in thus limiting production, it places the whole idea of work on a wrong basis. It assumes that work for women is a misfortune, not the birthright inheritance of every individual, and that therefore they are to work for remuneration only when compelled by dire necessity. Moreover, every individual has the same right to work that he has to life itself, and to shut out the rich and the well-to-do from the privilege is as unfair to the individual as it is to society. Indeed, it may be assumed that the members of this class are, as a rule, better qualified for work than are other classes, since wealth has brought opportunities in the direction of education and special training, and society loses in the same proportion as it deprives itself of their services. It is true also that the higher the standard set in any department of work, the greater the improvement in the work of all workers in the same field.

But not only does the exchange deprive itself of positive good in thus refusing to accept the best wherever it is found, regardless of money considerations—it puts upon itself the positive burden of enforcing a questionable condition. “Necessity for self-support” is a relative term; and when the responsibility of the decision is put on the consigner, the danger is incurred on the one side of shutting out from the privilege of the exchange many who are unduly conscientious, and on the other side of encouraging deceit in regard to their necessities on the part of the less scrupulous. The exchange must be ever on the alert to guard against imposition and fraud; and however much it may disclaim the idea, it must to a certain extent make itself the judge of its consigners’ necessities. When this alternative is forced upon it, it must perform a task difficult in proportion to its delicacy, and one that would be resented in the business world as an unwarranted intrusion into private affairs.[19] The exchange by the use of these methods prejudices itself in a business way in the eyes of many who would be valuable consigners.