This story has been told again and again. Yet the public has not yet
learned to relate it to any effectual remedy. Undoubtedly organization
has done a great deal for this class in other countries, notably in
England and in Germany, and in this country also, in the few cities
where it has been brought about. But meanwhile their numbers are
increasing, and it hardly seems human for us to wait while all these
young lives are being ruined in the hope that a few years hence the
department-store clerks succeeding them may be able to save themselves
through organization, when there is another remedy at hand. That
remedy is legislation to cover thoroughly hours, wages and conditions
of work. No one suggests depending exclusively on laws. One reason,
probably, why the freeing of the negro slave has been so often merely
a nominal freeing is because he was able to play so small a part
himself in the gaining of his freedom. It was a gift, truly, from the
master race. But no one, surely, would use that argument in reference
to children, and an immense proportion of the department-store
employes are but children, children between fourteen and eighteen,
and in some states much younger.
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