quired months, or even years, of patient and protracted effort. In a number of cases the organized workmen have agreed to accept a gradual reduction in the hours of labor, the working day being lessened by fifteen minutes or one-half hour each year, thus enabling the employer to adjust his business to the new conditions. Reduction of hours by means of legislation has advantages, since, if the law is enforced, it applies equally to all the employers in the state, although competition between the various states renders this advantage less, on the whole, since the industry usually extends over state lines and the laws of the various states differ.

The great disadvantage of legislation limiting hours, however, apart from the difficulty of obtaining it, has been the danger of its being declared unconstitutional. Laws limiting the hours of labor of children have usually been held valid, owing to the fact that minors are not in possession of full legal rights, and, according to the law, are not capable of making binding contracts. Until recently there was no question raised as to the complete constitutionality of laws limiting the hours of labor of women, and where a reduction in hours was obtained for the female workers, it became practically operative to the advantage of the men working with the women in the same factories. The Supreme Court of the State of Illinois has held that, as a woman is a citizen and a person, she comes under the constitutional provision that "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law," and a limitation of her hours of labor is held to be a deprivation of her liberty, discrimination against her as compared with men, and, therefore, unconstitutional. This is the only instance on record in which a court has rendered a decision of this character.

By reason, however, of the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the case of Holden vs. Hardy, the question of the right of the state under its police power to limit the hours of labor of all the workers, men, women, and children, in a special industry, is definitely settled to the advantage of the workman. Laws have been passed in various states regulating the hours of labor of railroad and street railway employees, of bakers, bar

bers, and other persons, and these laws have been upheld on the ground of the police power of the state. The Supreme Court, in its decision, takes the high position that the state is interested in the individual health, safety, and welfare of the workmen and can protect them by means of the police power, even in apparent violation of the freedom of contract. The decision. of the Court is a strong endorsement of the position maintained for many years by trade unionists, and I have therefore quoted a portion of it, italicizing certain words: "The legislature has also recognized the fact, which the experience of legislatures in many States has corroborated, that the proprietors of these establishments and their operatives do not stand upon an equality, and that their interests are, to a certain extent, conflicting. The former naturally desire to obtain as much labor as possible from their employees, while the latter are often induced, by the fear of discharge, to conform to regulations which their judgment, fairly exercised, would pronounce to be detrimental to their health or strength. In other words the proprietors lay down the rules and the laborers are practically constrained to obey them. In such cases self-interest is often an unsafe guide, and the legislature may properly impose its authority. It may not be improper to suggest in this connection that although the prosecution in this case was against the employer of labor, who apparently, under the statute, is the only one liable, his defense is not that his right to contract has been infringed upon, but that the act works a peculiar hardship to his employees, whose right to labor as long as they please is alleged to be thereby violated. The argument would certainly come with better grace and cogency from the latter class. But the fact that both parties are of full age and competent. to contract does not necessarily deprive the state of the power to interfere where the parties do not stand upon an equality, or where the public health demands that one party to the contract shall be protected against himself. The state still retains an interest in his welfare, however reckless he may be. The whole is no greater than the sum of all the parts, and when the individual health, safety, and welfare are sacrificed or neglected the State must suffer."

CHAPTER XVI

THE WORK OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN

Women in Industry. From Home to Factory. The Protection of Women by Trade Unions. The Wages of Women. Life on Five Dollars a Week. Number of Women Unionists Small, but Increasing. The Teachers and the Trade Union Movement. Equal Pay for Equal Work. The Exploitation of Children. Its Wastefulness. Its Immorality. Child Labor and Vagrancy. The Unions Struggle against Unrestricted Child Labor. Wages of Children Deducted from the Wages of their Parents. In School until Sixteen.

I1

F trade unionism had rendered no other service to humanity, it would have justified its existence by its efforts in behalf of working women and children. Unfortunately, society does not seem to feel itself capable of conducting its industries without the aid of its weaker members. With each advance in production, with each increase in wealth and the capacity of producing wealth, women and children, in ever larger numbers, are drafted into service. In this development, the woman, like the child, has been torn from her home and has been put into factories, subject to the dictation of an employer or task-master. The integrity of the home, in which the woman formerly played her part and performed her quota of work, has been shattered by the invasion of the machine and the factory system. Through the cheapened production which has resulted from the organization of industry on a large scale, woman has become incapable of performing at home the work to which she was once accustomed, and has been compelled to seek her means of subsistence in competition with men. To a certain extent woman is now simply doing by machine in the factory what she formerly did by hand at home, but the conditions of her work and life are different. Carding, spinning, and weaving have long since ceased to be profitable as home occupations, and laundry work, dairy work, the

canning of fruit, and the like, are rapidly passing from the household and being elevated into special industries.

While it is probable that in the household of former days the circumstances under which the work of women and children was carried on were by no means idyllic, the movement from home to factory was accompanied by an aggravation and intensifying of these evils. This development has been caused not by the greed or ill-will of men, but by conditions which could not have been avoided and by a force which was irresistible. It is, however, useless to deplore the past, or seek to reconstruct conditions of a by-gone age.

It is to the credit of trade unionism that it has to some extent alleviated the conditions of women in factories. Not only in England, but in the United States, not only in the past, but in the present, have women been doomed to suffer, and by reason of their very weakness have been forced to engage in arduous toil for excessively long hours. The rate of remuneration for women has always been low. In almost all countries they have received from one-third to one-half less than men, by reason, it is said, of their lesser strength, their greater liability to sickness, the reduced scope of their employment, and the fact that to a certain extent, husbands, fathers, or brothers contribute to their support. As a result of these disabilities, women have suffered in more ways than in submitting to lowered wages. Their weakness has been an excuse, not for reduced but for extended hours of work, and the wages of women solely dependent upon themselves are no better or higher than those of women receiving support from relatives.

The chief effort of trade unions in ameliorating the hardship of women's work has been in the direction of excluding them from certain kinds of employment, in improving the sanitary conditions of their work, and in reducing the length of their working day. At one time, women were employed in mines, but through the efforts of trade unions this inhumanity was done away with. Women workers have also been excluded from some trades which impair their health or injuriously affect their morals.