Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/787

 WORK AND PROBLEMS OF CONSUMERS' LEAGUE 773

"We wish to help you to a higher standard of business, but in order to do that we must know how you are conducting your business. It rests with you whether you shall receive the aid of a body of intelligent consumers." In his pamphlet on the Con- sumers' League John Graham Brooks quotes one great merchant as saying: "We of course dislike the interference. I did not at first believe in it, but it has unquestionably corrected real abuses which the employers would not have corrected themselves, or would have corrected much more slowly."

While the investigation is going on, the spirit of the organiza- tion, its object and purpose, may be conveyed to people in cities or towns in lectures and meetings held for that purpose. These, supplemented by the distribution of pamphlets and articles with explanations of the methods of the league, would bring many people into the position of seeing the duty of a consumer more clearly and more sharply than they ever did before. With the lectures and the issues of various articles of one kind or another, pledges may be made among the friends and the members of the league and a nucleus started for the purpose of creating a body of some numbers. A thorough consideration of the various points raised under this division of the local problem and the careful working out of them must lead ultimately to valuable results.

But there are a number of economic problems connected with the establishment of the local organizations. The first is the question of employment. What are the conditions ? What is the law ? Is the competition among the merchants sharp and close ? Are the more powerful and wealthy merchants inclined to employ labor long hours and pay low wages ? Or is there a spirit of doing the thing that a competitor does ? Much influence may be brought to bear upon the employment of workers by enforcing the laws already existent in a state. Most of the states have on the statute books laws in the follow- ing form : First, that women and children may be employed in factories for a day of not longer than ten hours, but that no child under fourteen may be so employed under a penalty of from $10 to $100 fine. In the mercantile establishment the same rule applies, so that all workers throughout a state can be