Ernestine is an eighteen-year-old Canadian girl, very pretty and neatly dressed. Her parents both died several months ago and left her utterly alone, without living relatives. She worked as a stock girl at $4.50 a week for two months, was laid off, and went to a summer hotel as waitress for $3 a week, room and board. She worked there for two months, or until the season was over, and then came to another store for $5 a week. She pays $1.50 for her room, including light and heat, has no carfare, does her laundering, except for shirt waists which cost her $.30 during the summer. She goes without breakfast or eats only a banana, gets her lunch for ten or fifteen cents, and her dinners for twenty or twenty-five cents. She has never paid more than twenty-five cents for a meal since she started to work. She is just a child, and is quite bewildered over the problem of facing life on $5 a week, and is terribly afraid of debt. She is intelligent and clever.[12]
Jennie is a frail little body, about 40 years old. After working 16 years in a Boston department store her wage was $5 a week.... For eleven years Jennie's little $5 a week had been the sole support of herself and her aged mother.... When her astonished employer learned that she had worked 16 years in his store and attained a wage of only $5 a week, he raised it $1. So the wage is supplemented by the girls (in the store) underpaid themselves, but comprehending the woman's need.... Thus seventeen years of faithful service to one master has won for Jennie this position of semi-dependence upon charity, increasing anxiety over an unprovided-for future, and declining health as a result of her pitiless struggle to stretch a miserable $5 over the cost of support of herself and mother.[13]
The most comprehensive report has been made by the Federal Government, and includes a survey of conditions among women in stores and factories in seven cities[14]. According to this report the average earnings of the women in retail stores of these cities is $6.88 in the case of those who live at home, and $7.89 in the case of those who are "adrift."[15] Among the factory women of these cities the average wage of those who live at home is $6.40, and of those who are "adrift," $6.78. The Boston investigation shows that from 11,000 to 12,000 women and girls were living in lodging- or boarding-houses at an average cost of $5.18 a week for prime necessities, leaving only $2.24 for clothing and all other expenses. The following comment is made on this government report by the Massachusetts Minimum Wage Commission:—
Although more than half the adrift women (in Boston) live in lodging- or boarding-houses,—numbering be it remembered between 11,000 and 12,000 girls and women,—two thirds of them lack the use of a sitting-room and must entertain men as well as women in their bedrooms. Not a few indications were seen in the course of the investigation of the demoralizing results of this practice. Many of the young women in lodgings were young and were friendless and were earning very low pay. Eighteen per cent of those who were reported without the use of a sitting-room were under twenty-five. The housing or food, or both, were reported as bad for a number of these perilously defenceless young women.[16]
Consideration of wages and standards of living leads to the question, What is a living wage? Studies in different parts of the country agree that it is about $10 a week. An estimate made by social workers for the Massachusetts Minimum Wage Commission places the minimum at $10.60 for girls who are adrift, and $8.37 to $8.71 for girls and women living at home. This estimate, however, made no allowance for unemployment, sickness, accident, or old age.[17] The Portland Vice Commission and the Consumers' League of Oregon have adopted a $10 minimum.[18] The first conference called by the Oregon Industrial Welfare Commission adopted $9.25 a week, or $40 per month, as "the sum required to maintain in frugal but decent conditions of living a self-supporting woman employed in mercantile establishments in Portland."[19] To this, however, representatives of the employees on the conference made objection, stating that a straight $10 a minimum was the only safe one.
If the minimum is rightly placed at $10, and if the investigations are true in showing that the majority of self-supporting women the country over are receiving less than this amount, we may now come to a more detailed discussion as to the relation between underpayment and vice. It is just here that it is easy to jump at conclusions. Most people approach social questions not with a scientific mind, but with preconceptions which mar their judgment. For example, the socialist exaggerates the effect of bad wage conditions, and the Woman's Auxiliary Department of the police exaggerate the influence of home conditions. Again, personal testimony is unreliable, because, on the one hand, victims of the social evil are liable to blame external conditions; and, on the other hand, well-fed, well-housed investigators often underestimate the bad moral effect of poor nourishment and fatigue.
Of this much we may be certain: low wages poor living, which involves poor housing, poor food, no savings, and either no recreation or dependence on others for it. In the federal report on living conditions of women in stores and factories, it is estimated that in the seven cities where the investigation took place approximately 65,000 women are adrift.[20] Since the majority of these are receiving less than the minimum cost of a decent living, they are "perilously defenseless young women."
Another federal report,[21] bearing directly on the relation between conditions of work and vice, concludes that whereas few girls "go wrong" on account of poverty, the misstep once taken, poverty and want are powerful deterrents to reform. A fourfold classification is made of immoral women, as follows: (1) Unmarried mothers; (2) girls who leave and regain the path of virtue, having their fling for the sake of good times; (3) occasional prostitutes, who enter the career as a business for a while; (4) professional prostitutes. Mention should be here made of this report, because its total effect is to minimize economic causes of prostitution, placing the responsibility elsewhere than on industrial conditions. It is to be noted, however, that it does emphasize the indirect effects of poverty, and does speak of the moral danger lurking in certain occupations, and of the bad effects of the lack of industrial education.
More definite responsibility for vice is ascribed to low wages in the reports of vice commissions. The Chicago Report says that of one group of 119 immoral women, 18 came from department stores, and 38 said that they had taken up the career for the need of money. The Portland Report presents 22 women as "Cases in which Low Wage and Vice are closely associated."[22] The Report continues:—
In presenting the foregoing table and statements from girls, this commission does not take the position that the low wages of self-supporting girls is the sole contributing cause of their delinquency, realizing that there are thousands of girls who would endure the utmost hardships before yielding themselves to those who are ready to seduce them. The evidence as to the effect of wage conditions is taken from the girls themselves, who, perhaps lacking adequate moral training, have, in the extremities of their position, allowed themselves to be driven "the easiest way."[23]