“It is very pleasant. Most of the work at the laundry is done by
machinery and the machinery does five times as much work as the force we
have there could do by hand. All the hard work is done by machinery.
Then I have only to work seven hours a day, too.”
“How did you get so well settled?”
“The next day after the examination I was told to go to the office of
the Domestic department on Commonwealth Avenue. I went. The gentleman in
charge told me that when an active member paid a membership fee of
$100.00 the company gave a labor check to her in return representing
$100.00 worth of goods. He gave me the amount in such check and then
directed a gentleman to take me and my children to number 800 Pine
Street, where we should live. He hailed a passing motor car and we got
on that and rode to this house, my children with me. The gentleman did
not pay my fare, but I paid it.
“I was surprised that it only amounted to what would be two cents of my
hundred dollars. I was quite surprised also to find that we were to have
such a nice house. But there was no furniture in it then. I left my
children with our neighbor, and went up to the department house and
ordered these carpets, furniture and other things. They let me have them
on time, with the understanding that they were to keep the title until
they were paid for. I got a few groceries from the store and some meat
and brought them home myself. The furniture came about 2 o’clock that
afternoon and before supper time we were almost settled. A bell rang out
there in the dining room and I found a telephone there. I answered it
and found that the foreman of the company which I was told to enter had
some directions. He said I was to go over to the ward office of the
Department of Education, about two blocks from here, and report with my
children at 9 o’clock next morning and then to report to him at 9:30
o’clock for duty. So I did, and all my little ones were taken and sent
to school.”
“Are you then comfortable?”
“I am very, very happy. I never dreamed that such good would come to me
after my husband died. But God has directed me here and I am very, very
happy.”
The conversation continued a few minutes longer. All her little
children, with bright and shining faces, came in to see me, and I was
overflowing with sympathetic enthusiasm myself before I was able to tear
myself away. And I thought to myself as I returned to my home that the
joy our system brought to these comparatively humble people was the best
indication that we were now, in truth, upon the threshold of a higher
civilization; a civilization that uses all power, both mechanical and
human, to lift up all humanity; a civilization which does not content
itself by simply emblazoning the golden rule upon painted banners and
church walls, but makes it the measure of every public act toward all
men, women and children alike.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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