Chapter XII: Preface (5)

Besides this public care, private charitable agencies began to establish orphan asylums, and homes for friendless children. These institutions often developed from small beginnings into large establishments, and began to draw on the public funds for at least a part of the maintenance of their inmates, and sometimes for their entire support. It was argued that if the State did not pay for the support of the children in the orphan asylum it would have to take care of them elsewhere.

=No Definite Authority=: For many years the authority between State and local governing boards has been divided. As a consequence, inspection of children’s institutions has amounted to very little, or has been, at least, ineffectual.

This inadequate inspection, in addition to divided authority, encouraged neglect and abuse. The report of conditions in private institutions in New York City, made in 1916 as the result of an official investigation, showed that dirt, insufficient food, vermin, disease, and lack of common sanitary precautions were common. Education was so much below the standard of the public school, with little or no vocational training, that children were discharged with no preparation for earning a living. There was not only an utter absence of home atmosphere, but methods and restrictions were used like a prison or reformatory. So little care was given when the children left the institution, that they often went out entirely friendless, with no one to call upon for council or advice, and utterly unprepared for independent life.

These conditions were allowed to exist, partly because of the divided authority and responsibility, largely because those in authority were not deeply interested. As the report said, “the committing authorities have not looked upon the problem as of sufficient moment to make it any part of their business to formulate and promulgate any competent standard to govern the service maintained in children’s institutions.”

New York City has tried the experiment of “boarding out” all dependent children between two and seven years of age, taking care to place Catholic children in Catholic homes, Jewish children in Jewish homes, and so forth. In some respects, this is a better method than committing children to institutions, but it is only successful if the child is carefully placed, and its welfare watched by appointed visitors.

In New York State, 1900-1913, the average infant mortality-rate of children under two years of age was 86.4 per 1,000, while the death-rate in eleven large infant asylums was 422.5 per 1,000. That is, under the care of the mother, even including the ignorant mother, only one-fifth as many babies died as when the children were cared for by the State.

Experience shows that children are not only safer and healthier with their own mothers than in institutions, but that they have a better chance with foster mothers than in asylums. In 1914, the New York City Health Department, as an experiment, placed seventy-five infants to board with foster mothers, with the result that the infant death-rate dropped forty-eight per cent.

=Boards of Child Welfare=: In 1915, the Legislature authorized the appointment of boards of child welfare in each county. These boards were to investigate needy cases and had the power to grant an allowance to a destitute mother for the care of her children.[6] This work is dependent on the appropriations granted by the county. County authorities are slow to act in matters that require appropriations. At the end of the first year, fifty-seven counties had organized boards, but only thirty-four had made appropriations; 6,014 children had been kept from asylums and 1,969 homes had been saved from being broken up. In New York City, the number of children in institutions has decreased 3,000 since the Child Welfare Board began its work. In 1917 New York City appropriated $1,250,000 for widowed mothers. The _average monthly allowance_, the first year of the Welfare Board’s work, for each child under sixteen, was _$7.99_, which is _$3 less_ than it would have cost to keep the child in an institution.

It is now admitted that everything possible should be done to prevent a home from being broken up by poverty; that if the mother is living, and is a fit person to bring up her children, it should be made possible for her to keep them. That the mother is usually a fit person to bring up her child, is proved by the experience of the Board of Child Welfare of New York City, which examined four thousand cases of mothers who applied for pensions, and found only in fourteen cases that the mother was not to be so trusted.

In many of the Western States the widowed mothers’ compensation, or pension laws, have been extended to cover children of delinquent, injured, or crippled fathers, and sometimes even of fathers imprisoned in penal institutions.

Some States also have other provisions which reduce the number of dependent children. In Washington a man who deserts his family is put to work and his wages are paid to his wife and children. This seems more sensible than the law which imprisons the man, and lets the State support him, while his wife has to support herself and children. In Kansas, the wages of a prisoner are given to his family. In California and Illinois, the father must help support the illegitimate child.

The care of dependent children is work for which women are especially fitted by both training and inclination. In Colorado, the State Home for Dependent Children must have two women on its board of five members. In the State Industrial Home for Girls, three of the five members of the board must be women.

=The Problem of the Delinquent Child= is one that needs the greatest care and expert attention. If the dependent child is an appealing figure, the delinquent child is an indictment of a community. He is usually the product of neglect, of overcrowding, of bad living conditions, and of defects in the educational system.

To treat the child offender as if he were grown up and responsible, and to punish him in the same way as an adult, is to make a criminal of him. The manner in which his first offense against the law is handled, often determines the future of such a child.

=Children’s Courts=: It used to be common for children of all ages to be detained with older, hardened criminals indiscriminately, exposed to contamination and disease, and to try them in an open court-room with all other cases. The modern policy is to try all cases against children, with the exception of murder, in special courts.

The entire policy of a children’s court is based on prevention instead of punishment, to make friends with a delinquent child, to show him the danger ahead of him, to watch over him like an older, wiser friend, and to help him to keep straight. The terror and disgrace of an open court-room are replaced by a quiet, friendly talk in the judge’s room.

A large number of all children who are arrested are ungovernable or disorderly, children who have run away from home, or who are associating with dissolute or vicious persons. Another large class comes into the courts because of improper guardianship; neglected children, or those exposed to physical or moral danger. These cases are not classed technically as delinquents, but are tried by what are known as special proceedings.

The total number of children arraigned in the children’s courts of New York City in 1916 for delinquency was: boys, 5,929; girls, 150; in special proceedings, boys, 3,893; girls, 2,972, a total of 12,944. The largest percentage of cases for any offense for boys was petty larceny, and for girls was sex offenses and incorrigibility.

In 1916 the Police Department of New York City made in its report an analysis of juvenile arrests, showing the nature of the offense, the age, sex, nativity, occupation, and employment of the child. The largest number of arrests were for offenses against property. Practically half of all the delinquents were native-born children of foreign-born parents.

The attitude of the police force of New York City during the last few years has been helpful in handling the problem of juvenile delinquency. The police are now instructed to try to prevent small infringements of the law by children, and many trivial offenses are adjusted out of court.

A considerable proportion of the children who come repeatedly into the children’s courts are feeble-minded. During 1917, the children’s court of New York City, for the first time, had a clinic attached to the court, where children suspected of being mentally deficient could be examined. There is still, however, no place where they can be committed temporarily for observation, and there is great need of a graded institution that will provide for the treatment and care of the different classes of mentally deficient children.

The system of probation for child offenders is of the greatest possible assistance in reclaiming the child; it also decreases the number of children who are committed to institutions, thus saving the State money. To make probation effective, children must be visited frequently in their homes, and be kept on probation long enough to make probable a complete reformation. Women, and not men, should be appointed as probation officers for delinquent girls, but, as the appointments are often political, men are given the preference, and are even put in charge of girls.

The present Children’s Court in Greater New York dates from 1915, and under the presiding justice of the court has been brought to a high state of intelligent and sympathetic handling. The city of Buffalo also makes special provision for delinquent children. In most of the cities of the State, the judges of the court of special sessions set certain days for children’s cases.

Among the improvements needed in the New York State law is a provision to give the children’s court jurisdiction over children of sixteen and seventeen years of age. This is especially needed in cases of wayward girls. In Colorado the juvenile court handles cases of offenders under eighteen. Also, it is a criminal offense in Colorado to contribute to the delinquency of a child, and the children’s court has jurisdiction over adults contributing to such delinquency. This is a provision needed in the New York State law. Colorado also has a law prohibiting the publication of the name or picture of a girl under eighteen in a case of delinquency. This is important, as procurers and other men who have been the cause of a girl’s delinquency often go free, because the girl and her family wish to avoid publicity.

The children’s courts in New York State should also have the power to appoint legal guardians for children in case of need.

To be a judge of a juvenile court requires exceptional qualifications: quick sympathy, and intelligent understanding of the many causes which contribute to child delinquency.

A large part of the problem comes back to the environment of the child, to crowded living conditions, deficient education, lack of vocational training, and absence of opportunities for recreation. The pitiful striving of children for pleasure and play, and the inadequate provisions of our cities to meet this need, are often responsible for the first delinquent step. Many improvements in this direction, as well as improvements in the law, are needed to bring the protection that New York State gives its children up to the level of the best found in other States.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] Unfortunately, the law expressly excludes in its provisions for relief families with alien fathers.

XIX

CHILD WAGE-EARNERS

=Children are the most important assets of a nation.=

While every one, individually, would admit this statement, it is not easy to persuade the government that the protection and development of child life cannot be left safely to private initiative, any more than can animal or plant life; that, in addition to the protection of the individual family, children need the fostering care of the organized government. For many years, the government, both State and National, has dealt generously with the agricultural interests of the country. When disease has broken out among either animals or plants, it has had its experts ready to send out at a moment’s notice to any part of the country. It has spent vast sums of money to investigate and eradicate boll-weevil in cotton, and hoof-and-mouth disease among cattle, and to develop a better strain in many animals and plants, but it is only very recently that it has been willing to investigate the needs of the children of the nation.

The appropriations of the Federal government for animal life, in 1915, were over $5,000,000; for child life, $164,000. In 1917, an additional appropriation of $150,000 was made for the enforcement of the Federal Child Labor Law.

=Federal Child Labor Law=: For fourteen years, the National Child Labor Committee has tried to get laws passed which would limit the hours of work for children, the kind of work they might do, and the age at which they might be put to work. Discouraged by the State by State method, the committee inaugurated a campaign for a Federal child labor law, and after three years of effort succeeded in getting it passed.

Men have an eight-hour day in many States. Women have an eight-hour day in a few States. Until the Federal bill was passed, children of tender years in a number of States could be employed almost unlimited hours and all night.

At the time the bill was passed three States permitted children under fourteen to work ten and eleven hours a day, and two States permitted them to work at night. Nineteen mining States permitted children under sixteen to work in mines.

Nine States permitted children under sixteen to do night work. In three Southern States, one-fifth of all the cotton-mill workers, in 1913, were children less than sixteen years of age.

The Federal Child Labor Bill, which went into effect September 1, 1917, was declared unconstitutional by a United States District Court in North Carolina, and is now before the Supreme Court of the United States. This law prohibits the interstate commerce of articles which children have helped to make. It does not control the labor of children in local occupations. Street trades, messenger service, agricultural work, and housework are not touched by it. This law is a great step in advance for the protection of children, but there are still 1,859,000 children, from ten to sixteen years old, at work in the United States whom the Federal law does not touch.

=New York State Laws=: For many years New York State has been building up a code of protection for the children of the State. Children under sixteen years of age are not permitted to work unless they have a special permit, and they must have completed the sixth grade in school. A physical examination of the child is required to see that he is able to stand the strain of the industry in which he is about to engage, and proof of age is required. To sell newspapers, boys from twelve to fourteen must have a permit and a badge. Boys of fourteen and fifteen are required to have badges if they have a prescribed route for the delivery of newspapers, but not if they are selling for themselves. Children under sixteen are not allowed to work more than eight hours a day. To enforce these laws adequately, many inspectors are needed and unceasing vigilance on the part of the public. While the provisions of the law concerning newsboys are very clear, and are generally obeyed in New York City, they are seldom enforced elsewhere in the State.

To allow children to enter the industrial world at an early age, without preparation, and with no guidance as to the sort of work for which they are best fitted, is unfair to them. The boy or girl who gets a job at fourteen, without any vocational training, is apt to remain an unskilled worker all his or her life. The range of occupations open to such children is small. The largest number of boys who go to work at an early age become delivery boys, errand or wagon boys, or newsboys. There is little chance among these employments for real training or for any future advancement.

A careful study, by the National Child Labor Committee, of certain cases brought into the Children’s Court, has established the fact that a large proportion of the boys and girls who come into the court come from the ranks of child workers. This investigation has also proved the need of adequate vocational guidance. The present school course gives little help in this direction to children who are leaving school at fourteen or fifteen, and parents are often as ignorant of industrial conditions as the children. After a few years in an occupation that offers no opportunity for development, the boy or girl who went to work so young is often left stranded, not only untrained, but demoralized.

There is need also of making parents understand that better opportunities are open to children who have had education beyond the elementary grades.

=Street Trades= of all kinds are regarded by social experts as unsafe for children. Some authorities recommend the absolute prohibition of all street trading for boys under seventeen. These trades, including selling newspapers, appeal to boys because they like the excitement of street life, and the spending-money which they give them.

A judge of the Detroit Juvenile Court says, “At least fifty per cent. of the boys brought into the juvenile court are newsboys.” An old newsboy, when asked what night work on the streets had done for him, said: “When I was a kid, it wasn’t like it is now. They didn’t have no midnight edition—I always had to be home by eight o’clock. When I got to selling at night I started in high school, but when it came time for the first examination, I said, ‘Oh, I’ll just quit. I’d rather be out on the streets, anyway.’” In Baltimore it is estimated that 45 per cent. of all the children in the near-by reform school have been street workers.

Investigations have proved the theory is false that a child is usually put to work “to support a widowed mother.” More often the child in a street trade is found to come from a home where there is no need of his work, and in these trades the earnings of children are very small. In a recent investigation, in Seattle, the earnings of newsboys were found in 46 per cent. of the cases of the elementary school paper-sellers to be less than $5 a month.

The night messenger service is known to be a demoralizing occupation, unfit for any small boy, and in New York it is prohibited to all boys under twenty-one. The same protection of the law is now needed for girls.

Many parents do not realize the serious results of letting their children go to work too young, or the bad effects of over-work on them. The tendency of over-fatigue is to break down the moral resistance. The release from supervision which is brought about by their wage-earning, and the danger of their having money of their own to spend, added to the interruption of their education, cannot help but have a demoralizing effect on them.

=Rural Child Workers= are quite as common as city workers, but they are not so often wage-earners. Their labor is usually taken by parents as a matter of course, and they are not paid. Farming and housework are two occupations which engage many children, and there is almost a complete absence of laws regulating them.

A distinction should be made between the farmer lad who does “chores” night and morning, and the boy who is kept out of school most of the year to be a farm-hand; and between the girl who helps her mother out of school hours, and the girl who is kept at work in a canning-factory, and goes from one to another as fruits and vegetables ripen; but neither the chores nor the housework should be allowed to interfere with the regularity of school attendance. The boy who is kept at farm labor, without education, and the girl who is kept at work in the canning industry at the expense of her schooling, are as much in the ranks of child laborers as the cotton-mill workers, and they suffer in the same way from lack of training for a useful future.

Experiments have been made in combining the work that the boy does night and morning on the farm, with the school work. Under proper guidance, the chores that the boy has to do at home can be made a means of education. For example: a pupil who assists at home in the milking might be required to keep a daily record of each cow, with the fluctuations in the yield of milk, due to weather and food. This combining of the necessary home work with the instruction of the school has been made a success in some of the Western States, where county superintendents supervise the home-school work and make it of the greatest possible educational value.

Rural school terms are usually shorter than city terms, and irregular attendance is more frequent. Only 68 per cent. of the pupils enrolled in rural schools attend daily, while in cities the percentage is 80. The absences of girls are caused largely by housework.

The results of child labor in the country are seen in the high percentage of rejections from military service on account of physical defects in men from rural districts, and the larger percentage of illiteracy in country communities compared with that in cities. Better and more adequate education for the thousands of children on the farms of the State is one of our immediate needs.

It is the right of every child to be given enough education to give him a good start in life. The child-labor problem is largely a school problem. Keep the children in school, and there will be no child labor.

=War and Children=: The war has brought a new demand for the labor of children, and new evidence of the serious consequences of using this labor. In England and France, juvenile delinquency due to the breaking down of educational facilities, and the exploitation of children in shops and factories, has increased to a point where both nations are aroused by a new national danger. To meet the sudden great need for munitions, and the speeding up of all industry, children of all ages, and women of all classes, went into the factories. In England, it is estimated that 200,000 children from eleven to thirteen years of age left school to go to work. Abnormally high wages were paid them. With fathers at the front and mothers away from home in munition factories, these children roamed the streets after their work was done, with pockets filled with money to spend, and no one to exercise a restraining hand.

Streets are unlighted, the police force has been decreased, churches, schools, and settlement work are interrupted. Is it any wonder that since the war began juvenile delinquency has increased 46 per cent. in Edinburgh, 56 per cent. in Manchester, and thefts 50 per cent.?

The same demand for child labor has begun to be manifest in this country. The United States is being called on to feed the world, and to make supplies of all kinds for our allies, besides the tremendous need of supplies for our own armies. Millions of men are being drawn from the ranks of producers, and have become consumers. The world is consuming and destroying on a scale never known before in history. The demand for more and more labor is becoming ever more insistent.

In spite of the warnings which have come to us from England and France, of the necessity of guarding against the exploitation of our children during the war, New York State was one of the first to try to break down the restrictions built up during many years of the past with such infinite labor.

The Brown bills, which passed the Legislature last winter, were a frank attempt to utilize the labor of children. They made it possible, at the discretion of the State Labor Commission, to abrogate every law that has been passed in New York State to safeguard its children. One bill would have made it possible to utilize the labor of children unlimited hours, seven days in the week, including night labor. This was vetoed by the Governor. The other, which makes possible the suspension of the compulsory education law, in order that children may work on the farms, has become a law. Other attempts will undoubtedly be made to exploit children.

It will require unceasing vigilance on the part of the people of the State to see that measures detrimental to children shall not be successful. Attempts are being made to remove the limit of hours, and to abolish the requirement that children between fourteen and sixteen shall have working papers. Such measures mean that the physical examination now required would not be made, and that the necessity of furnishing proof of the age of the applicant would be eliminated. The first would permit weak, sickly children to go to work in the factories, and the second would encourage the employment of children under fourteen.

The need for increased labor is a real one, and as long as the war lasts it will continue to grow. But the nation that exploits its children while at war is bleeding at both ends. It is the province of women to watch over and guard all children. Now that they have the vote, the responsibility has been put directly on them, and they have the power to meet it.

Because of the tremendous cost of war in human life itself, it becomes doubly important to safeguard human life at its source, and that is our job.

NOTE.—The material used in this chapter is largely taken from
publications of the National Child Labor Committee.

XX

PUBLIC CHARITIES

The public institutions of the State are grouped under three heads: the State Commission in Lunacy, the Prison Commission, and the State Board of Charities.

=The State Board of Charities=, which has general supervision of the charitable institutions of the State, consists of twelve members, of whom nine must be appointed as commissioners from the nine judicial districts of the State, and three from New York City. The law prescribes otherwise no qualifications for membership on this board. (A recent innovation has been made in the appointment of a woman on the board.) The commissioners serve without salary, but each one is paid his expenses and $10 for each day’s attendance at meetings, not to exceed $500 a year.

=Partly State, Partly Private=: Some charitable institutions in the State are wholly controlled by the State or one of its subdivisions; others are controlled by private corporations, but are maintained either wholly, or in part, by State funds. There are over six hundred and forty charitable institutions which receive money from the State. There are still other institutions which are entirely supported by private funds. The State Board of Charities has not the authority at present to inspect organized charities which do not receive public money, so there are many institutions which are without the protection of State inspection, and the total amount of dependency in the State is not known officially.

=Duties of the Board=: Besides its duties of inspection and general supervision of charitable institutions, the board has the control of the incorporation of charitable institutions, and must approve of an application for a certificate of incorporation before it can be granted. It also issues licenses for medical dispensaries, and makes rules and regulations under which they must work.

=The Powers of the Board Are Limited=, as the carrying out of its recommendations often depends on action by the State Legislature, and especially on the amount of the appropriations granted for the work. The powers originally given the board have also been greatly impaired by the action of the Legislature from time to time in creating other agencies, which have resulted in a duplication of work and an overlapping of authority. There is much complaint of institutions being overrun by official visitors, and inspectors with conflicting authority, who are said to interfere with the work of the institutions without accomplishing adequate results.

The powers of the board have been especially curtailed since the office of _Fiscal Supervisor of State Charities_ was created in 1902. When decisions are to be made concerning appropriations for State charities, in making up the legislative budget, the Fiscal Supervisor is consulted to the exclusion of the State Board. In reality the Fiscal Supervisor has far greater powers than the State Board of Charities, as no appropriations can be made unless approved by him. His effort is to keep down appropriations wherever possible, and he does not come in direct personal touch with the needs of the work.

The power to fix salaries and establish positions has been given to the _Salary Classification Commission_, and to locate new buildings to the _Commission on Sites, Grounds, and Buildings_.

The general dissatisfaction with the confused and conflicting authority, which had come with different legislative enactments, led to the appointment in 1916, of a commissioner to investigate State charities and to report to the Governor, with recommendations of changes he deemed advisable.

Among the changes recommended were:

(1) That instead of an unpaid board of twelve members, appointed from the judicial districts, there should be a board of nine, of whom one should be a woman; three members should be paid and should give all their time to the work, one of the three to be president of the board, one the chairman of a bureau for mental deficiency, and the third, chairman of a bureau for dependent children; the six unpaid members were to be specialists in the special classes of work which is supervised by the board.

The present State Board of Charities objects to this change on the ground that a board so organized would become political. They also feel that the appointments should continue to be made from the judicial districts, in order that every part of the State should have a resident member of the State Board.

The report further recommended: (2) Prompt provision for defective delinquents; (3) a careful revision of the State charities and poor law; (4) that power should be given the State Board to inspect private charitable institutions; (5) the creation of a new bureau for dependent children; (6) the abolition of the office of Fiscal Supervisor of Charities, in order that recommendations for appropriations should come directly from the State Board of Charities; (7) the abolition of other conflicting authorities, and restoring the authority of the State Board.

None of these recommendations have been acted upon as yet.

The State institutions that are under the State are the following: State Agricultural and Industrial School, Industry; Syracuse State Institution for Feeble-minded Children, Syracuse; New York State School for the Blind, Batavia; Thomas Indian School, Iroquois; State Custodial Asylum for Feeble-minded Women, Newark; New York State Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Home, Bath; New York State Training School for Girls, Hudson; Western House of Refuge for Women, Albion; New York State Reformatory for Women, Bedford Hills; Rome Custodial State Asylum, Rome; Craig Colony for Epileptics, Sonyea; New York State Woman’s Relief Corps Home, Oxford; New York State Hospital for the Care of Crippled and Deformed Children, West Haverstraw; New York State Hospital for the Treatment of Incipient Pulmonary Tuberculosis, Raybrook; New York State Training School for Boys, established by law in 1904, not yet ready to receive inmates; Letchworth Village for Feeble-minded, Rockland County; and authorized in 1911-12, but not yet open: The State Industrial Farm Colony, Green Haven; and the State Reformatory for Misdemeanants.

Private institutions supported mainly by State appropriations are: New York Institution for the Instruction of Deaf and Dumb; New York Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents in the City of New York; New York Institute for the Education of the Blind; Institutions for Deaf Mutes in New York City, Buffalo, Westchester, Rome, Rochester; Malone and Albany Home Schools for the Oral Instruction of the Deaf.

=County and City Institutions=: County and city almshouses are under the supervision of the State Board of Charities, and also the recently established county sanatoria for tuberculosis, of which there are about thirty. The small number of patients in these county hospitals for tuberculosis makes it impossible for some of them to give as expert and efficient care as a larger and better equipped hospital might offer.[7]

=The Department of State and Alien Poor=, of the State Board of Charities, has the supervision of the State poor, and of alien and Indian dependents. It also has the power to transfer aliens, or non-residents, who have become public charges, to their home county or State, or, in co-operation with the United States Immigration authorities, to return them to their home countries. This department has saved the State large sums of money.

In 1916, 810 persons were returned to their homes in other States or countries, by this department, of whom 250 were alien poor.

=Local Boards of Managers=: Each State charitable and reformatory institution is administered and controlled by a board of local managers, appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate. These boards usually consist of seven persons who serve without pay, for their expenses only. There are some women on these local boards, but not nearly as many as there might be, considering the number of institutions which have women in their charge.

The superintendents of State institutions are all carefully selected from the civil service lists.

The employees of these institutions form a difficult problem. The old conception of an attendant for a public institution was exceedingly low; the standard is still far from good. The salaries paid are insufficient to attract intelligent service.

=The Department of Inspection=: There are over six hundred institutions in the State which come under the Department of Inspection. To handle them there are eight inspectors, and one superintendent of inspection.

=Almshouses= are inspected and graded in three classes. Of the counties that were reported in 1917 as first class in both administration and plant are: Allegany, Chautauqua, Genesee, Jefferson, Lewis, Monroe, Niagara, Saratoga, Schenectady, and Wayne counties. Those second class in both administration and plant were: Dutchess, Herkimer, Madison, Rockland, Schoharie, and Ulster counties. The only one third class in both plant and administration was in Sullivan County.

=Provision for the Feeble-minded= is the greatest present need of the charities of the State. Mental defectives are at large all over the State, and they are found in all institutions. They are a source of trouble in the public schools, and are a constant danger to the State.

It is estimated that there are not less than 30,000 of these unfortunates. The State institutions have room for about 5,700, but they are actually caring for 6,700. For years efforts have been made to get the Legislature to make adequate provision for their segregation. The report of one institution for feeble-minded women says, “nine of the women admitted were married and had given birth to thirty-seven children; twenty-six of those admitted had borne forty-three illegitimate children; making a total of eighty children born to those unfortunate women.”

Letchworth Village, in Rockland County, a plot of 2,000 acres, was planned to provide for 2,500 to 3,000 feeble-minded. It was established in 1907, and in 1916 still had a capacity of only 330.

The failure of the State to complete a project it had undertaken is shown also in the New York State Training School for Boys at Yorktown Heights. This was planned to be a reformatory of the modern cottage type to take the place of the very old one on Randall’s Island, and was greatly needed for delinquent boys. After twelve years of delay, and after $800,000 had been appropriated by the State and most of it expended, this project has been abandoned. The reason given for the final decision to abandon the site, was the possible contamination of the Croton water supply by the institution. With modern methods of sewage disposal it seems as if it would have been possible to guard against this danger. It would have been easier to insure proper treatment of the sewage from such an institution than from the towns and villages which exist in the Croton watershed. The State Board of Charities recommends now an appropriation of $150,000 for a new site and plans.

=Recommendations of the State Board=: Intelligent handling of the problem of dependency must deal with causes. Probably the major part could be done away with if the State would adopt adequate preventive measures. The board recommends as an aid to this end: (1) Industrial insurance; (2) better housing, including the destruction of the worst congested areas in cities, and the prevention of further congestion; (3) vocational training for children; (4) improved labor laws, restricting the hours of labor, and compensation for accidents to employees; (5) adequate pensions to widowed mothers.

They also recommend: That further provision be made for tuberculosis, which the records of the State Health Department show is increasing; that the office of County Superintendent of the Poor should be appointive and be included in the Civil Service. The frequent changing of poor-law officials, and their lack of knowledge of the subject, are drawbacks in the discharge of their duties.

=The State Commission in Lunacy= has charge of the hospitals for the insane. All the insane come under the direct charge of the State. This is a salaried commission consisting of three members. There are local boards of managers for these insane asylums as for the other charitable institutions, and a majority of the members of these local boards are required to visit the hospitals at least once a month for inspection.[8]

=The State Prison Commission=, like the State Board of Charities, is an unpaid board, but the Superintendent of Prisons is a State official with a salary.

There has been for years a provision of the State law which gives one scale of salaries for men employed in these institutions and a lower one for women.

Pay of Stenographers (male) $70-80 a month
” ” (female) 50-68 ”
Chief Supervisors (male) 55-68 ”
” ” (female) 50-62 ”

Since women have been given the vote, it is probable that this law will be changed and equal pay given for equal work.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] It is hoped that when the Boards of Managers for these county tuberculosis hospitals are appointed, local women will be placed on them.

[8] The number of insane in the State is increasing far more rapidly than the provision which is being made for them. The last report of the State Hospital Commission shows that in hospitals for the insane, planned to accommodate 27,890 patients, there were in June, 1916, 33,873 patients, an overcrowding of 21.5 per cent. The State Hospital Commission urgently requests a bond issue to provide immediately for the construction of new buildings.

XXI

THE PROTECTION OF WORKING-WOMEN

The war has brought a revolution in woman’s work.

Because of the increased demand for labor, trades and all kinds of employment that have been considered exclusively the province of men, have been opened to women. The universal verdict is that they have everywhere made good. Work that demands the greatest exactness and care, specialized technical operations that have been supposed to require a man’s brain, have been done by them quite as well as by men. But their employment in many of the new industries has brought new industrial problems, and they have gone into many new occupations which are not included in the protection extended by existing labor laws.

Even before the war New York State was the greatest industrial State in the Union. More women were at work here than in any other State, and more women were at work in New York City than in any entire State except Pennsylvania.

There were 248 separate manufacturing industries in this State, and women worked in all trades in which over 1,000 workers were employed, except in the manufacture of bricks, tiles, fertilizers, and ice.

They were doing everything, from making cores in foundries, sausages in packing-houses, pickles and candies, to working in human hair, chemicals, and rags.

Women have always done their share of the world’s work, but in the past their labor was in the home. During the early years of our nation there were very few women who did not work or supervise work, but they did this in their homes for their homes, and they were not paid in money.

When the cotton-gin was invented and the use of steam was discovered, it was the dream of the inventors that their machines should be really labor-saving, and that people would have leisure for the development of the wider and deeper things of life. This became true for some people, and to-day there are many women of comparative leisure who can do as they please with their time. But on the other hand, undreamed-of evils and dangers have come to women who toil, and necessity compels women by the millions to seek work in the industrial world. In spite of the fact that the wages of women have been appallingly low, the woman who must earn money in order to live has had to find work outside of her own home.

=Number of Women Wage-earners=: In 1910, according to the census, there were in New York State 3,291,714 women over fifteen years of age; only 1,793,558 were married, and 1,498,156 were unmarried or widowed; 983,686 of these had to work in order to live, or to support some members of their families. This number did not include the great mass of women who work in their homes.

=Clothing Manufacturers=: Before the United States entered the war, 184,691 women were working in New York State making every conceivable garment for people to wear. The work is subdivided so that one worker does one thing all day long. There are sixty-five operations in the making of trousers. Twenty to sixty different operations take place in the making of men’s shirts. Women tuck or hem materials for women’s wear hour by hour, driven by the juggernaut electric machine which knows no fatigue and needs no rest.

=Laundries=: Ten thousand women worked in laundries in this State, where the washing and ironing are done usually by machines. They stand and push down a treadle of the ironing-machine with their feet, making as many as sixty-three to eighty-one foot pressures a minute. In this action a bad twist of the body is necessary, which may result in permanent injury. Clouds of steam rise from the mangles, and when no exhaust hoods are used, the room is filled with steam. Tuberculosis is a common disease among laundry workers. Unprotected machinery is a constant danger.

=Restaurant Workers=: There were fifteen thousand restaurant workers, waitresses, cooks, kitchen girls, and pantry hands. Until 1917, they were without any protection by law. They worked any number of hours, and seven days a week. They now come under the fifty-four-hour law, in first and second class cities, but the law is difficult to enforce. They often walk five miles a day carrying heavy trays; and varicose veins, flat feet, and pelvic disorders are common.

=Textile Operators=: In New York State 35,168 women worked in textile-mills making silks, woolens, cottons, carpets, knit underwear, etc. The din of machinery is deafening in many of these factories, and often the machinery is so closely placed that there is difficulty in passing without danger of skirts catching.

The whole development of machinery in industry has been worked out for the purpose of extending trade and output, without consideration of the human factor involved. Machines have been watched so they did not wear out or break, and they have been carefully repaired. Girls and women, the human factor, have been discarded if they wore out; they are of less worth to the employer and can be easily replaced without cost to him. But the cost to the State has been heavy in the toll of hospitals, insane asylums, and homes for destitutes and delinquents.

There is hardly a trade which has not some elements of danger or unhealthfulness in it. Women working in meat-packing plants in sausage-making rooms stand all day at their work on water- and slime-soaked floors. Women work in industries where industrial poisons are used or where they are generated in the process of manufacturing. The pressure of piece-work, the monotony of one single operation, are nerve-racking and nerve-exhausting.

The health of women who spend hours a day in factories depends largely upon factory laws and sanitary codes. Light, air, sanitation, overcrowding in factories, mills, and shops, all vitally affect the health of the workers. No one can measure the cost of industry in the life of women. The strength and vitality taken from them will show in the lowered vitality of their children. A low birth-rate, a high death-rate, and an impaired second generation are the inevitable results. Infant mortality where the mothers work in factories is notoriously high.[9]

=War and Woman’s Work=: With the insistent demand for increased production occasioned by the war, women have been brought into many new positions formerly held only by men. They have gone into the steel-mills; they are employed in large numbers in the munition-factories; they are working on the railroads, in railroad yards, and inspecting tracks, as well as in the ticket-offices and baggage-rooms. The Pennsylvania Railroad has 2,300 women employed as car-cleaners, track-walkers, upholsterers, locomotive despatchers, and machine-hands. Some are operating trains. They are engaged as conductors on street-cars and subways, and as elevator operators.

These new industries are not included in the provisions for women of the State labor laws.

New York State has a nine-hour day for women working in factories and mercantile occupations, and night work is prohibited in these industries; but this protection does not extend into other occupations.

An eight-hour working-day has been given to men in many States and in many occupations, but in only a few of the Western States has it been given to women. After three or four years in most industries, young women begin to wear out, the speeding up and the strain put on their youth begin to tell, their capacity lessens, and their output diminishes. Although the effect of long hours and monotonous occupation is harder on them than it is on men, the protection of the law has been extended to them to a far less extent. In these new industries there is none. Women may work in them twelve hours a day and all night. The demand of some of the street railways is for a twelve-hour night for women conductors (with two hours off for supper). Elevator operators work twelve hours a day, in day and night shifts, and girls employed all night are subject to insult if not actual danger.

Since boys have been difficult to get, girls, including some under sixteen, have been delivering letters and packages in messenger service. The State law prohibits boys under twenty-one being employed as messengers at night, because of the dangers of contamination from the night life of a city. Under present conditions a girl employed as messenger has no protection, and may even be sent to houses of doubtful character.

The new industries for women also include manual work that has heretofore been considered too heavy for them. The high wages paid them, while lower than would have to be paid now to men for the same work, are still high enough to attract women from other occupations where wages have not had the same advance.

While there is an increasing demand that women shall be paid the same wages as a man would be paid for exactly the same work, the idea still prevails that it is only fair to pay men more than women because they have families to support, while women support only themselves. =This is not true.= On the backs of many women rests the sole support of aged parents, or of younger brothers and sisters. A large proportion of them give up all their earnings to the family needs.

It is no longer a question of the ability of women to do many kinds of work formerly held to be the exclusive province of men; but of the effect of her so doing on the future health and welfare of the race.

Women, like men, must work in order to live, but society and the State owe it to themselves, as a vital matter of self-protection, to safeguard that work, so that future generations shall not suffer from its effects.

The whir of machinery, the noise, the constant standing or the close bending over work, the meager wages, have been the conditions woman has had to meet for years in her struggle for a livelihood; to them are now added the dangers and excessive hours of these new occupations, with their further call on her strength and endurance.

These new industries for women should be included in the laws regulating the hours and condition of women’s work. Public messenger service is too dangerous for young girls to be employed in it.

If the eight-hour working-day is right for men, it is even more needed by women. Laws regulating factory conditions are of little value unless there is sufficient inspection to enforce them, and the number of inspectors employed is always inadequate. Women inspectors are needed for factories in which women are employed; but there are only four women factory inspectors in the entire State.

Several years ago the New York State Factory Investigating Commission made an exhaustive investigation of women’s wages, and found that women and girls were so underpaid as to endanger their health and productiveness. Since then the cost of living has advanced prodigiously, with no corresponding increase in wages, especially among young unorganized women.

A minimum wage bill, similar to the one in force in Oregon, which has been declared constitutional by the United States Supreme Court, is now before the Legislature, drawn on the recommendation of the State Factory Investigating Commission.

If the war continues, the demand, not for more protection, but for the suspension of existing labor laws, will become more insistent. The needs of the country for increased production will be irresistible and will not be satisfied for many years.

The test which the government should insist shall be applied to every occupation in which women engage is this: What effect will it have on the one business in life which is especially theirs, the production and conservation of human life? How can it be safeguarded so it shall not exact too great a toll from their health and vitality?

Every consideration that individuals and the State can give must be engaged in the study of this question. With the vote in her hands, the woman in industry will be able to protect herself better than before, but the responsibility for her welfare rests not on herself alone, but on other women, especially on those who are free from the grinding struggle themselves, and can do as they choose with their time. It is part of their responsibility to see that the most conscientious and careful consideration be given to this question.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Thanks are due Miss Mary Dreier, a member of the recent New York State Factory Investigating Commission, for this picture of the work which women are doing.

XXII

AMERICANIZATION

The United States is still a medley of foreign nationalities, representing all the races of the world, with their social characteristics, customs, prejudices, and even language unchanged. No one need be disconcerted by this fact, for the people who came over in the _Mayflower_ were foreign-born, the founders of the city of New York were of foreign birth, and so were the first families of Virginia.

In New York State only 35 per cent. of the population is of native birth and descent. Almost one-third is foreign-born; one-third of the children born here have one or both parents of foreign birth. Even with all the resources at our command it would have been a giant task to have assimilated such huge numbers of such divergent races.

The United States was established as a nation where justice, freedom, and opportunity were to be assured to all the people. For over a century it has been a refuge for men and women of foreign lands, who have been oppressed and have longed for freedom, and who have sought wider opportunity for themselves and their children.

Native-born Americans have accepted their privileges as a matter of course, and without feeling the obligations they imply. They have demanded justice and opportunity for themselves, but they have not felt the responsibility of seeing that it was extended in equal measure to those who come to our shores. They have not realized that it is the obligation of every one enjoying the privileges and benefits of a democracy to see that these are shared and safeguarded by all the people.