Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/307

 THE SWEAT-SHOP IN SUMMER 293

proportion of the people who buy ready-made clothing read state reports; and so they go blindly on, encouraging the per- petuation of a system wretched in the extreme a system which, in spite of the law, utilizes the service of children and invalids.

My insight into the neckwear industry led me to explore unofficially another phase of sweating, known as the "knee pants," or, more correctly, the garment-workers' trade. One who lives for a time on the lower East Side of New York is bound to be impressed by the continual morning and evening procession of people bearing on their heads and shoulders great bundles of these unfinished garments. I used to wonder if the making of knee "pants" was the staple industry of the country. I suppose the small boy's ability to transform whole cloth into rags in the twinkling of an eye is at the root of this great industry, with its concomitant hardships; but as, in the old tales, the blacksmith's horse went unshod, so the children of the people who wear their lives out making "pants" rarely had more than an apology for such a garment to cover their nakedness.

At last I determined to see for myself just the conditions under which these garments were made, and so learn by expe- rience how lucrative it proved. I went some blocks away from my abiding place to a region where I was not known, to seek work as a sweater. Many weary blocks I walked in the scorch- ing sun, and many weary stairs I climbed in what proved to be a fruitless effort to find employment. No one wanted me, because the season was dull and there was not enough work to warrant the hiring of a "green" hand. In piece-work the race certainly is to the swift and skilled. Thus I was obliged to retire from the field to swell the ranks of the unemployed. But my plan to work as a sweater was not abandoned, only postponed.

My next attempt to get employment was in Chicago, several years later, where my efforts were crowned with success, and this in the hard heat of the city summer.

One day I went down to the region where many sweat-shops flourish. The street I selected first was near the river narrow, dirty, ill-smelling, with treacherous board walks at the sides, and walled in by rickety houses, reeking with stale smells ; and