Consumers and Wage-Earners: The Ethics of Buying CheapRoss, J. Elliot (John Elliot)
Philosophy
Consumers and Wage-Earners: The Ethics of Buying Cheap
Ross, J. Elliot (John Elliot)
Consumers -- United States; Wages; Wages -- United States
These are some of the indirect, though important, moral results of
economic conditions. Oftentimes the direct influences of a person's
occupation also make for evil. The messenger boy, for instance, on the
streets at all hours and in all sections, can hardly fail to see and
hear much that no parent would want a child of fourteen, sixteen, or
eighteen to know. Indeed, a great part of his employment at night comes
from those indulging in debauchery, and it is his most profitable source
of tips.[89]
From the nature of the case, women are probably more exposed in their
work than men. Such occupations as will occur to every one, are manicure
parlors where girls are peculiarly exposed to danger and insults. But
most important, because employing the largest numbers, are the
department stores. It has been charged over and over again, that many
employers knowingly pay wages that are insufficient to support a girl in
the expectation that she will be subsidized by some "gentleman friend."
How far this is true is hard to say; and it is just as difficult to
determine how many department-store employees are really immoral. The
report of the United States Bureau of Labor on "Wage-Earning Women and
Children" combats the idea that immorality among them is widespread.
Nevertheless, there is a strong opinion that store girls are not all
they should be, and many careful observers have enumerated quite a
startling array of individual instances where a girl's fall can be
largely traced to her employment as a sales-woman.
An investigator for the Chicago Vice Commission, for instance, gives in
the report of that body quite a number of cases which are said to be
typical. "Violet works in a department store, salary $5.00 per week. Was
seduced and left home. Baby died and she solicits on the side to support
herself.... Mag 18 years old. Works in department store. Salary $5.50
per week. Tells parents she receives more. Helps support parents and
'solicits' at dances for spending money. Father is sickly.... Marcella
(X913), alias Tantine (X904). Came to (X905) about three years ago, and
started to work in the (X916) department store. One of the managers
insisted on taking her out, which she finally had to do 'to hold her
job,' as she asserts" (pp. 187, 195).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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