COMMERCIALISM. 309 



price that enabled them to earn $1.25 a week 

 each. It was an inside room, up next to a hot 

 tin roof. The furniture consisted of three chairs, 

 a sewing machine, a table, a cot, and an oil stove. |^ t i 

 In this little room they cooked, labored and 

 existed. Day and night three worked while- one 

 slept,, each taking her turn of 12 hours in work- 

 ing buttonholes and finishing, 6 hours at the 

 machine, and 6 on the cot to rest, with barely 

 time enough off to prepare and despatch the 

 scanty meal. 



A young woman in Chicago who worked on 

 mole skin pantaloons said that with full work she 

 could earn $2 a week, out of which she had to 

 expend 3/c for thread and candle. On an aver- 

 age, on account of shortness of work, she could A struggle for 

 not make more than 75c a week. She lived this Existence* 

 way for three years before she fell. Women 

 who have such courage of conviction as to be true 

 to their conscience under conditions like these are 

 worthy of an eternity amid the company of 

 angels. Is it any wonder that thousands despair 

 and sell themselves in order to live? 



When we remember that in the United States 

 alone there are over 200,000 girls employed in the 

 shops, factories and department stores, it is easy 

 to see why so many are driven to a life of shame. 

 When we realize that hundreds of these girls bear as Wives and 

 illegitimate children who are the product of star- Mothers, 

 vation and vice and that thousands who have 

 been totally disqualified for the duties of wife 

 and mother marry men as wretched and degraded 

 as themselves, we can readily understand how 

 commercialism is directly causing tens of thou- 

 sands to be unfortunately born. 



