Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/312

 298 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

The two women who were my companions were stolid German Jews with expressionless faces. They were both married and had several children at home. During the lunch hour of the second day I asked them if they were very tired, and they both agreed that they would rather die than go on much longer at that work ; their backs ached incessantly from constant running of the machines. I asked why they did not try factory life. One said that the near-by factories could not take non-union people, and she could not join a union for two reasons : first, her husband would not allow her, because he had been nearly killed in a strike riot once when he was a "scab" worker; and, second, she did not know the trade well enough. The other woman said that one had no independence in a factory, which, being interpreted, really meant that she did not care to be a very little cog in a very big wheel. She thought she was the wheel in Herr G.'s establish- ment; and I learned later that her thoughts were quite correct, for the rest were afraid of her, and when she told the presser to take his unsightly form into the next room and out of the pres- ence of the "new lady," he sheepishly slunk away. This was at lunch time, when we were trying to eat the scraps the manager's wife had brought us. I could not bring myself to the point of eating. My honest conviction is that I would have elected star- vation first, but fortunately I was not called upon to make the choice. My appetite was gone. The food may have been whole- some enough, but, to put it mildly, it was not attractive.

At the close of my second day I was told that the woman for whom I was substituting would return on the morrow, and so my services would not be required. This news came as a relief, for my whole soul hated the big machine I had to work all day. I felt as if I were in bondage and shuddered at the thought of the treadmill existence.

I learned but little from the workers. The men were non- committal, even suspicious of the stranger. The women were weary and unresponsive, and we were together only two days. But I saw much. I saw a group of human beings working under conditions not fit for human beings ; I saw boys' pants made in filth too odious to describe; and I saw the mere pittance handed