Part 7 (1/2)

”But that is not the fault of the employers,” said one of the workers.

”You must be reasonable for them. You cannot ask them for work they are not able to obtain to give you.” Her remark is quoted both from its wisdom and for another purpose. She was the girl who will always be disabled by the attack of her employer's thug. Her quiet and instinctive mention of the need of justice in considering conditions for employers had for the listener who heard her a most significant, unconscious generosity and n.o.bility.

Looking back upon the s.h.i.+rt-waist strike nearly a year afterward, its profoundest common value would appear to an unprejudiced onlooker to be its spirit. Something larger than a cla.s.s spirit, something fairer than a mob spirit, something which may perhaps be called a ma.s.s spirit, manifested itself in the s.h.i.+rt-waist makers' effort for better terms of life.

”The most remarkable feature of the strike,” says a writer in the _Call_,[18] ”is the absence of leaders. All the girls seem to be imbued with a spirit of activity that by far surpa.s.ses all former industrial uprisings. One like all are ready to take the chairmans.h.i.+p, secretarys.h.i.+p, do picket duty, be arrested, and go to prison.”

There has never before been a strike quite like the s.h.i.+rt-waist makers'

strike. Perhaps there never will be another quite like it again. When every fair criticism of its conduct has been faced, and its errors have all been admitted, the fact remains that the New York strike said, ”All for one and one for all,” with a magnetic candor new and stirring in the voice of the greatest and the richest city of our country--perhaps new in the voice of the world. Wonderful it is to know that in that world to-day, unseen, unheard, are forces like those of that ghetto girl who, in the meanest quarter of New York, on stinted food, in scanty clothes, drained with faint health and overwork, could yet walk through her life, giving away half of her wage by day to some one else, enjoying the theatre at night, and, in the poorest circ.u.mstances, pouring her slight strength out richly like a song for pleasure and devotion. Wonderful it is to know that when Natalya Urusova was in darkness, hunger, fright, and cold on Blackwell's Island, she still could be responsibly concerned for the fortunes of a stranger and had something she could offer to her n.o.bly. Wonderful to know that, after her very bones had been broken by the violence of a thug of an employer, one of these girls could still speak for perfect fairness for him with an instinct for justice truly large and thrilling. Such women as that enn.o.ble life and give to the world a richer and altered conception of justice--a justice of imagination and the heart, concerned not at all with vengeance, but simply with the beauty of the perfect truth for the fortunes of all mortal creatures.

Besides the value to the workers of the spirit of the s.h.i.+rt-waist strike, they gained another advantage. This was of graver moment even than an advance in wages and of deeper consequences for their future. They gained shorter hours.

What, then, are the trade fortunes of some of those thousands of other women, other machine operatives whose hours and wages are now as the s.h.i.+rt-waist makers' were before the s.h.i.+rt-waist strike? What do some of these other women factory workers, unorganized and entirely dependent upon legislation for conserving their strength by shorter working hours, give in their industry? What do they get from it? For an answer to these questions, we turn to some of the white goods sewers, belt makers, and st.i.tchers on children's dresses, for the annals of their income and outlay in their work away from home in New York.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 12: _Union Label Bulletin_, Vol. 2, No. I, p. 1.]

[Footnote 13: This expense would at this date probably be heavier, as the working girls at one of the St. George's Working Girls' Clubs estimated early this summer that shoes of a quality purchasable two years ago at $2 would now cost $2.50.]

[Footnote 14: Constance Leupp, in the _Survey_.]

[Footnote 15: The circular of advice issued a little later by the Union reads as follows:--

RULES FOR PICKETS

Don't walk in groups of more than two or three.

Don't stand in front of the shop; walk up and down the block.

Don't stop the person you wish to talk to; walk along side of him.

Don't get excited and shout when you are talking.

Don't put your hand on the person you are speaking to. Don't touch his sleeve or b.u.t.ton. This may be construed as a ”technical a.s.sault.”

Don't call any one ”scab” or use abusive language of any kind.

Plead, persuade, appeal, but do not threaten.

If a policeman arrest you and you are sure that you have committed no offense, take down his number and give it to your Union officers.]

[Footnote 16: In the factories where the Russian and Italian girls worked side by side, their feeling for each other seems generally to have been friendly. After the beginning of the strike an attempt was made to antagonize them against each other by religious and nationalistic appeals. It met with little success. Italian headquarters for Italian workers wis.h.i.+ng organizations were soon established. Little by little the Italian garment workers are entering the Union.]

[Footnote 17: Extract from the court stenographer's minutes of the proceedings in the Per trial.]

[Footnote 18: Therese Malkiel, December 22.]

CHAPTER III

THE INCOME AND OUTLAY OF SOME NEW YORK FACTORY WORKERS

[Unskilled and Seasonal Factory Work]