Look about you; the products of labor are on every hand; you could not maintain for a moment a well-ordered life without them; every object in your room has in it, for discerning eyes, the mark of ingenious tools and the pressure of labor’s hands. But is it not the cruelest injustice for the wealthy, whose lives are surrounded and embellished by labor’s work, to have a superabundance of the money which represents the aggregate of labor in any country, while the laborer himself is kept so steadily at work that he has no time to acquire the education and refinements of life that would make him and his family agreeable companions to the rich and cultured?...
I believe that competition is doomed. The trust, whose single object is to abolish competition, has proved that we are better without it, than with it, and the moment corporations control the supply of any product, they combine. What the Socialist desires is that the corporation of humanity should control all production. Beloved comrades, this is the frictionless way; it is the higher way; it eliminates the motives for a selfish life; it enacts into our every-day living the ethics of Christ’s gospel. Nothing else will do it; nothing else can bring the glad day of universal brotherhood.
Working Girls Must Cooperate
By Pauline M. Newman
(Organizer of working women. Former organizer for the International Garment Workers’ Union. In “Life and Labor.”)
All those who work are aware of the fact that conditions today—insofar as the working girl is concerned—are not what they should be....
Now, what is wrong? To begin with, the work day is too long, the wages are too low. Good sanitary conditions are a rarity. Laws to protect the lives of women and children workers are scarce—in reality.... There are enough laws on the statute books, but very few are enforced. Labor laws intended to protect women are constantly being violated. Why? Simply because the women have, thus far, failed to cooperate with one another in order to enforce them.
Nearly eight million working women are subjected to the conditions described above. According to investigators—the writer of these lines having been one of these—the average wage of these women does not exceed seven dollars a week. A wage proven insufficient to live on. Such wages shape the lives of the women, and those dependent upon them. What kind of a life, then, can they lead? A life which is a mere existence, that is all. Because they are compelled to do so, they substitute cheap amusement for something more refined. They live on a five-cent breakfast, ten-cent lunch, and a twenty-cent dinner; live in a dingy room without air and without comfort; wear clothes of cheap material, trying hard to imitate those who are more fortunate than they. Their whole life is cheap from beginning to end. Deprived of sunshine and fresh air, no time for recreation, no time for rest, they have only time for work.
Organized Woman Labor
By Mrs. George Bass