The Pale Operator gives a hint of the ravages of tuberculosis in the garment trade:
THE PALE OPERATOR
I see there a pale operator all absorbed in his work. Ever since I remember him, he has been sewing and using up his strength.
Months fly, and years pass away, and the pale faced one still bends over his work and struggles with the unfeeling machine.
I stand and look at his face; his face is besmutted and covered with sweat. I feel that it is not bodily strength that works in him but the incitement of the spirit.
And the tears fall in succession from day break until fall of night and water the clothes and enter into the seams.
Pray how long will the weak one drive the bloody wheel? Who can tell his end? Who knows the terrible secret?
Hard, very hard to answer that! But one thing is certain: when the work will have killed him another will be sitting in his place and sewing.
A desire for life—if it is a feast, he would sit at it; if it is a dream he would have it a beautiful one—a love of the outdoor country life which he knew as a boy and which he believed all should enjoy, mingled with a sense of impotence and despair, varying with outbursts of wailing and outbursts of hate, these things characterize the poetry of Morris Rosenfeld. For all his power to vizualize and voice the world about him, he is never constructive, never militant, and seldom even virile.[[6]] In few poems does he express any hope for the future. In a mood of despair he writes the beautiful workshop poem: