Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/643

 SOME PHASES OF SWEATING SYSTEM IN CHICAGO 629

week, while the husband of one deserted woman had earned $18 per week. Women were in need of assistance a few more times than men. The aid asked varied from letters of recommendation to food and clothing or work and money. Sickness or desertion or lack of work were the chief causes of need. It is almost appalling to see how many times desertion appeared as the cause of need (fifteen times out of the seventy cases). It seems as if something must be seriously wrong somewhere.

The conclusion to be drawn from this study of charity records seems to be that sweat-shop workers very seldom ask any aid, and when they do, it is often work which they desire. One is compelled to feel a great deal of respect for them. One sorrow- ful case was recorded a man twenty-nine years old, so far gone with consumption as to be wholly unfit for work, with a wife and child dependent upon him, and his parents living with him. The record says: "The wretchedness of this man is pitiable, his wish to work sad in the extreme."

Statements of Mr. Minnick and Mr. Weller, superintendents of the stock yards and west side districts, respectively, of the Associated Charities, from which most sweat-shop cases would be expected, go to corroborate this view. It is not well, Mr. Minnick says, for charity to interpose in the sweating trade, because it pushes wages down just so much farther. If they can keep along themselves, it is vastly better.

The facts gleaned from the United Hebrew Charities, however, would seem to indicate that the garment trades predominate among the Jews, that the Jews are more in need of assistance than other nationalities, or, possibly, that they are more ready to ask assistance and get it if they can. Then, too, it is true that the wealthy Jews take care of their own poor very well. One of the trustees of the organization says that most of those who need assistance because of sickness or of insufficiency of earnings are at work in the garment or shoe trades. Assistance was given in 1897 and 1898 as follows : x

1 See Report of United Hebrew Charities for 1897-8, p. 27.