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Updated: June 16, 2025
We regret sweat-shops, even while we patronize the stores that support them, and we bemoan child-labor, although I suppose the simplest thing in the world would be to find out where the cotton goes that is worked by babies, and refuse to buy those brands of cotton, and make our merchants tell us where they DO get their supply!
Perhaps, toiling over a machine in one of the sweat-shops of the towering buildings a true poet may be coining his dreams and aspirations and heartaches into plaintive song; another, like the Sidney Rosenfeld of a score of years ago, who, over his work in the Ghetto of the lower East Side, asked and answered: "Why do I laugh? Why do I weep? I do not know; it is too deep."
Denton, but raving lunacy! No man in his sober senses would entertain such a plan for the space of a second! Why, your orders about those sweat-shops were simply ridiculous! Are we to pay more for our goods than they are really worth, and then make a charity organization of ourselves and give them to our customers?" Mr. Denton smiled sadly. He was not at all surprised.
"Take the things away," he said shortly, "and, see here, Smith, don't order any more goods from any of those 'sweat-shops! I won't have another dollar's worth of them in the building!" The buyer looked amazed, while Mr. Day turned almost purple. "We make an average of three hundred per cent on every garment, and we have contracts with some 'sweat-shops' or other for a dozen grades of clothing!"
They are not instructed in the more skilled work, and, to use the words of one of the witnesses, "are too crushed to resist." They are compelled to work from eighteen to twenty hours a day. Wages in these sweat-shops are from ten to fifteen shillings a week.
"Of course, dear girl," I said, at last, "you understand that I had no idea who owned these buildings." "Oh, don't say that!" exclaimed Sylvia. "I am the one who should have known!" Then for a long time I sat still and let her suffer. "Tenement sweat-shops! Little children in factories!" I heard her whisper. At last I put my hand on hers. "I tried to put it off for a while," I said.
In the South yonder, the Eagle has penned over a million children in his factories, where day by day he drains the youth and health and very life out of their tired bodies; in sweat-shops, men and women are toiling for the Eagle, giving their lives for the pittance that he grudges them; in countless mines and mills, the Eagle is trading human lives for coal and flour; in Wall Street yonder, the Eagle is juggling as he will with life's necessities thieving from the farmer, thieving from the consumer, thieving from the poor fools who try to play the Eagle's game, and driving them at will to despair and ruin and death: look whither you may, men die that the Eagle may grow fat.
It was done by decree, and the United States was prepared with its army to enforce its decrees. In the same day all women factory workers were dismissed to their homes, and all the sweat-shops were closed. "But we cannot make profits!" wailed the petty capitalists. "Fools!" was the retort of Goliah. "As if the meaning of life were profits! Give up your businesses and your profit-mongering."
In Berlin, you may see women staggering along with huge loads on their backs; in Munich, women are street-cleaners and hod-carriers; on the island of Capri, the trunk of the tourist is lifted by two men onto the shoulder of a woman, who carries it up the steep road to the village. In this country many women are forced to do hard bodily labour ten hours a day in sweat-shops.
Compared with overworked, nerve-strained, anxious-faced girls in the sweat-shops, and indeed in most shops and factories, these trim, tidy-looking, cheerful and contented women seemed to me the very noblesse of the industrial world.
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