The Social Emergency Part 3

For those dependent upon employment offices, the seeking of a job may involve moral danger. The practice of private employment bureaus in sending unsuspecting girls to immoral places under the pretext of finding legitimate employment is common. The director of the Munic.i.p.al Employment Bureau in Portland says that, the managers of houses are sometimes so bold as to telephone to the bureau for girls, telling for what purpose the girls are wanted.[28] One of the private bureaus was detected several times cooperating in such practices. The menace of such places can scarcely be overestimated.

We may now conclude our review of the economic phases of social hygiene.

Economic conditions to-day are under indictment as endangering the health and morals of working-girls and women. Moral delinquency may arise through temptations met and hards.h.i.+ps endured at the place of work; through scanty wages, inadequate for daily necessities; through lack of sympathetic consideration on the part of employers; through the stupidity of the community in adhering to worn-out educational methods that do not train wage-earners for earning a livelihood; through lack of protective legislation in regard to hours and conditions of labor. As a matter of fact, each of these conditions has been found to be an accompaniment of vice; and taken all together they const.i.tute an environment that makes clean living difficult. Against the dark background of modern industry should be portrayed the luxurious conditions that are apparently enjoyed by those who have taken "the easiest way." In ancient society the status of the prost.i.tute was that of slave: to-day it is that of an industrial citizen.[29] If the program of social hygiene comprehended only talking about s.e.x to working-girls--to laundry-girls, for example, who, after a day's work of ten hours at the machines, go at night to their boarding-houses where they wash dishes to eke out a living,--then this program would not be unlike the advice of a physician who tells a poor man with tuberculosis that he must go to the country for a year and live on cream and eggs.

Even in the case of wage-earning girls who adopt loose ways to satisfy extravagant desires, their tastes are established by women of the wealthy and middle cla.s.ses. The leisure of these women is due to their wage-earning sisters, who in factories and mills make the cloth, prepare food-stuffs, and do all sorts of tasks that formerly kept women of the upper cla.s.ses at home. Through the instinct of imitation, combined with the American feeling of democracy, the habits of the well-to-do determine the ambition of many a working-girl.

Other factors are industrial arrangements which segregate men in construction and lumber camps for a part of the year, and then, without providing for their further employment, turn them loose into cities where only saloons welcome them and cash their checks, and where disease-infected lodging-houses are their only places of abode.

Furthermore, standing armies take thousands of able-bodied men out of normal industrial relations.h.i.+ps, and keep them in camps that become the congregating places of prost.i.tutes.

The most hopeful phase of the whole problem that it lies within the power of the State to transform the industrial environment through progressive legislation. The law cannot form character, but it can protect that which has been developed through voluntary effort. Vice is partly a by-product of industrial chaos which can be eradicated by industrial organization.

When working-people can establish themselves more generally in homes of their own,--"every man under his vine, and under his fig tree," as it were,--then they will be able to give more time to their children, and will perhaps cooperate better in the program for s.e.x instruction.

Economic improvements should include a minimum wage for women, and one for men based upon the needs of a family; the eight-hour day; insurance against sickness, old age, and accidents; relief of unemployment; one day's rest in seven for all continuous industries; industrial education compulsory for all children; abolition of child labor; and amelioration of conditions under which women work.

When wage standards are raised, there arises the problem concerning those who cannot earn a living wage. "Who will pay poor, ignorant Mary Konovsky more than $6.90 a week?" is a question asked by a manufacturer during a minimum-wage discussion in New York State. The reply is, If Mary is really not worth more, she must be sent by the State to an industrial school until she can earn her living; and if she should be proved to be mentally deficient (as about 50 per cent of prost.i.tutes are said to be), then she must be placed in an inst.i.tution where she can be humanely and permanently cared for. The impossible alternatives are that she should be denied a living wage when she can earn it, or that she should be allowed to drift, in danger of becoming the prey of vicious men.

Meanwhile, before the machinery of a full legislative program can be set to work, the field is open for voluntary philanthropic endeavor. Welfare work in stores and factories that is done by some one who acts, not as a detective with condescending side interests in welfare, but whole-heartedly and sympathetically can avail much. Real social work in business establishments should be profitable to employers as well as to employees. The aim of all public and private effort should be to make industry not the occasion of stumbling, but what it should be, the universal means of progress.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] _Statistical Abstract of U.S._, p. 163. (1911.)

[3] _Woman and Child Wage-Earners in U.S._, vol. IX, p. 20; "History of Women in Industry."

[4] _A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil_, chap. I.

[5] _A Trade School for Girls_, U.S. Bureau of Education, Bulletin no. 17, pp. 52 _ff._(1913.)

[6] Portland, Oregon, Vice Commission, _Report_, p. 188. (1913.)

[7] _Social Basis of Religion._

[8] Social Survey Committee of Consumers' League of Oregon, _Report_, pp.

21, 22.

[9] _Ibid._, p. 24.

[10] Ma.s.sachusetts Commission on Minimum Wage Boards, _Report_, pp. 51, 114, 157.

[11] _Ibid._, p. 191.

[12] _Report_ of Ma.s.sachusetts Commission, as above cited, p. 188.

[13] _Ibid._, p. 114.

[14] _Woman and Child Wage-Earners_, vol. V. The cities included were Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis, and St.

Louis.

[15] By "adrift" is meant the condition of a self-supporting woman who is alone or of a widow with children to support.

[16] _Report_ of Ma.s.sachusetts Commission, p. 213.

[17] _Ibid._, p. 222.

[18] _Report_ of Portland Vice Commission, p. 165.

[19] _Morning Oregonian_, July 24, 1913.

[20] Referred to on p. 211 of the _Report_ of the Ma.s.sachusetts Commission on Minimum Wage Boards.

[21] _Woman and Child Wage-Earners_, vol. XV, pp. 81, _ff._; "Relation of Occupation and Criminality of Women."

[22] _Report_ of Portland Vice Commission, p. 176.

[23] _Report_ of Portland Vice Commission, p. 176.

[24] Scott Nearing, _Wages in the United States_, pp. 208, _ff._

[25] _American Labor Legislation Review_, vol. III, no. 1, p. 88.

[26] _Social Diseases_, vol. III, no. 3, p. 9.

[27] See Portland Vice Commission _Report_, p. 193; also _Woman and Child Wage-Earners_, vol. XV.

[28] Portland Vice Commission _Report_, p. 192.

[29] E.R. Seligman, _The Social Evil_, Introduction.

CHAPTER VI

RECREATIONAL PHASES

_By Lebert Howard Weir_

This chapter is in no sense an attempt to discuss pathologic s.e.x problems, but rather to show the necessity of providing facilities for normal, wholesome living for all the people during their leisure time. This will solve many of the vexing s.e.x problems.

At the outset, it is important to contrast the 27,000,000 hours a year, during which the school has charge of all the children, with the 135,000,000 hours at the children's free disposal. Yet we are inclined to charge the schools with the responsibilities of many failures in the physical and moral make-up of growing boys and girls. The greater part of the education of the boys and girls is received outside of school through the various activities which fill up these 135,000,000 hours a year.

Society has, therefore, a great responsibility in directing the activities of the free time of young people.

People employed in the home, store, factory, shop, or office, in a year of 365 days spend about 2880 hours of this time in sleep. Taking the average working-day as nine hours and the number of working-days in the year as 300, excluding Sundays and holidays, each person is employed in needful occupations 2700 hours during the year. Out of the working-days, a total of 2100 hours are at each person's disposal to use as he sees fit.

Of the remaining 60 days, 15 hours of each day are for free use,--or a total of nearly 35 per cent of the entire year. What are the children, young people, and adults doing with this time?

One answer is found in the records of the juvenile court, in rescue homes, in reformatories, in the police and criminal courts, in jails and penitentiaries, in hospitals for the treatment of venereal diseases, the insane and feeble-minded; another in the fallen women (and men, too), of whom so much has been said of late; another in the crowded saloons and busy restaurants in the heart of the city, with their music, bright lights, food, liquor, and overdressed, painted women with their consorts; still another in the billiard-rooms and the moving-picture theaters.

The extent to which people of all ages and races resort to the moving-picture show is known by few people. In Portland, Oregon, a weekly attendance of 5000 is reported for a house with a seating capacity of 175; a weekly attendance of 3500 for a house seating 75; a weekly attendance of 25,000 for a house seating 500. Another with a seating capacity of 567 reports a weekly attendance of 22,000. The attendance of all the moving-picture houses in any city is a startling revelation of the use of the time of the people.